Recently, I had one of our clients ask how they could reduce the bounce rate on their website. This is something that I've seen more people become interested in as they start to familiarize themselves with the features of Google Analytics.

What exactly is "bounce rate"?

Bounce rate measures the percentage of people who have visited only one page on your website. While the average website has approximately a 50% bounce rate, it's fair to say that you want your website to have as low of a bounce rate as possible, because this means that more people are viewing multiple pages in one session.

What affects bounce rate?

Before taking a look at how you can improve your bounce rate, there are a few areas that you may want to consider.

• How are people getting to your website? If you find that a lot of your traffic is from social media, your average bounce rate will be higher – this is typical behavior for traffic from social media. When it comes to social media, you should typically be more concerned with the time spent on your website, not the bounce rate. Look at the bounce rate of other traffic sources (such as direct traffic or search engine traffic) when determining if you are happy with your bounce rate.
• What pages are people entering your website on? If these pages have high bounce rates, take a look at how users are directed to additional pages on your website. (Are there links within your content, or are there any calls to action?) Alternately, you may find that the content on these pages aren't related to the title of the page or the search terms that brought users to this page. It could be as simple as users being unable to find the information they are looking for easily, or users not knowing what to do next.