In the past, not too many website owners have paid much attention to their website bounce rate, which Google defines as the percentage of visitors who only briefly view one page of any site they visit and exit without checking its other pages.

However, now that Google has given this statistic more weight and credibility, website owners now have to work to improve bounce rate on their sites, or lose money in the process. An article by Travis Harper on DrivingTraffic shows us how to improve bounce rate.

To improve bounce rate, website owners have a wide range of tweaks to choose from.

You can place a contextual link to other pages within the site. An “Other Articles You May Enjoy” section at the bottom of any post also works well, as it would get more possible clicks to more internal content.

It’s also a good idea to keep the number of outbound links to a minimum, or have those outbound links automatically open in a new window.

Yet another effective technique to improve bounce rate is to engage readers in the comments section. The longer they stay commenting on any one post, the higher the probability of their clicking on other pages.

Read the full article here.