In Google Analytics, there is a somewhat mysterious metric called the Bounce Rate. The meaning of the bounce rate is defined by the number of people who look at one page and then "bounce away" to other sites. Wikipedia has a decent definition. As always, Avinash Kaushik has a great article on it as well. My definition is this:

Bounce rate = how much your website sucks.

Now every web sites sucks to some degree, but it is only a question of how much. No site will ever "not suck" with a 0% Bounce Rate. The goal is to "suck less."

There are several simple ways to suck less on your web site:

• Have good content on your site that people actually read
• Make sure you have links to other areas in your site
• Make sure you have a decent navigation scheme
• Make sure your site-search functionality works

With these simple rules, you should be able to see an improvement, that is your bounce rate going down. But be realistic, it will never get to 0. Use Goggle Analytics benchmark feature to see where your site should me.

Read the original blog entry...