Bounce rate and pogo-sticking – what exactly are they? Aren’t they the same thing? Some say they are related, but how are they different? We will discuss what both are and how they affect your SEO efforts in today’s video.
Let’s start by defining both terms.
Bounce rate is the percentage of users who visit a single page on a website. A high bounce rate is not necessarily bad – while a user did not navigate further into the site, they did spend time on the page which may answered what he’s looking for.
Pogo-sticking, on the other hand, occurs when a user clicks on a search result and very quickly goes back to the search result page, and clicks on another result. Here’s the difference – this behaviour indicates an immediate dissatisfaction in the search result. Unlike bounce rate, pogo-sticking is always bad.
So perhaps you’re wondering what happens to your website if users are pogo-sticking in and out?
Pogo-sticking clearly shows that your website isn’t doing a good job of answering what users are trying to search for, or that the page has such poor navigation or readability that users just skip it. In fact, Google notices this as pogo-sticking occurs usually within five seconds of visiting the page. This will adversely affect your website’s ranking negatively.
What are some of the common causes of pogo-sticking?
There could many reasons users decide to leave during those five seconds on your page. Pinpointing an exact reason why they do can be extremely challenging. But here are some of the most common reasons why users pogo-stick:
- The site is outdated, looks fake and/or spammy.
- Content has spelling and grammatical errors or too many keywords and call-to-actions.
- Slow page loading time, overly used pop-up windows, cluttered website designs.
- The site is not mobile compatible.
The above reasons might make users more likely to use other sources such as Wikipedia to find information they’re looking for. Keeping this knowledge in mind can assist you in ‘solving the pogo-sticking problem,’ by helping people receive what they are looking for on your sight.
Wrap up:
Preventing both high bounce rates and pogo-sticking from occurring is no easy feat, but it’s of utmost importance. While there are many factors that contribute to pogo-sticking, it is crucial to target those areas that we have discussed today to prevent your website from falling down the search engine rankings.
If you don’t know how to check if your users are pogo-sticking your website, we recommend watching this video on the SEO impact of using Google Analytics or contacting an SEO Company. Let us know how you go and go to SEO Sydney for more advice!
