Skratch SEO Vol. 8

Traffic in Detroit reminded me that getting people onto your website is only half of the battle.

I had not been to a major metro area since we moved out of Indy at the very beginning of March. We went to Detroit last week for the Rocket Mortgage Classic (our first PGA tour event!), and if you’ve been around here long enough, you already know how much I’ve talked about the tourist traffic in Traverse City… Apparently I’ve already forgotten just how different traffic feels in an actual city. There is no speed limit. There is only space. If there is room on the road in front of you, you are 100000% expected to take it immediately before another car materializes out of nowhere and takes it for you. Truly, Detroit is the Motor City in multiple ways. And somewhere between gripping the steering wheel and wondering whether turn signals had become optional, I started thinking about website traffic. Because getting people onto your website is one thing. Getting them to stay is a whole different story.

HERE’S THE THING

Clicks and website traffic get most of the attention, but bounce rate is one of the first metrics I check.

In simple terms, it shows how often people land on a page and how mant leave without meaningfully interacting with it.

For many service-based pages, anything below 40% can feel encouraging. We even have clients with certain pages around 10–12%.

Buuuuut there is no perfect number for every page. A homepage and an informational blog are doing different jobs.

The goal is to watch the pattern by looking for:

Which pages are keeping people around, and which pages are losing them?

The bounce rate may not tell you exactly what is wrong, but it can show you where to start looking.

HERE’S WHAT TO DO

Open your Google Analytics and look at the bounce rates for your most-visited pages. Compare pages that serve similar purposes.

Choose one page with a noticeably higher bounce rate and visit it like you have never seen your business before. Is the headline clear? Does it load well on mobile? Can you understand what the page is about and what to do next?

Make one thoughtful update like updating the headline, fixing a broken button, switching up the call-to-action, or just making the page easier to read/skim.

WHATEVER YOU DO, PLEASE DO NOT PANIC UPDATE YOUR SITE!

Now, I have Cilla in my ear every week chatting about our Semrush weekly report. I know how exciting it is to see your website traffic increase week after week.

But if everyone arrives and immediately takes the nearest exit, the traffic number is not telling the whole story.

Bounce rate helps you look beyond how many people reached your website and start paying attention to whether they found a reason to stay.

And again, this is not about chasing a perfect percentage. It is about simply noticing patterns and finding the pages that might need a little help (can you tell I’m a data guy, yet?!).

So your adjustment this week is simple:

🚗 Check your bounce rate via Google Analytics
🚗 Look at your most-visited pages
🚗 Choose one that stands out
🚗 Then make one thoughtful improvement

Because while Detroit taught me that traffic can move fast, your website should make the right people want to stick around once they arrive.