A website's "bounce rate" is the percentage of website visitors that come to your site and then leave without clicking through to any other page.  For example, if you have 100 visitors come to your site and 60 of those people click on a link to visit another page of your site while the remaining 40 hit their Back button, your bounce rate would be at 40%.  Although it depends on your industry, generally speaking, a bounce rate of 40% or lower is considered good.  The lower the number, the better.  By recording and tracking your website's bounce rate, you measure the improvements you're making to your website. 

To measure your bounce rate, begin by looking for all of the unique visits you have had come to your home page in the last month as their first page (often labeled "Entry" page).  Then, find the number of visitors that made your home page their last page (often labeled "Exit" page).  Divide the number of Exit pages from Entry pages.  For example, on websitesforquilters.com, we had 2,400 visitors come in to our home page.  Of those, 700 made the home page their exit page.  My bounce rate would be 700 / 2400 or about 29%.  

Google Analytics, a wonderful website statistics tool, will calculate and track your website's bounce rate for you.  There is a report in the Overview report that will show your website's bounce rate.  You can graph the bounce rate over time to see if the efforts you're making to improve your home page's "stickyness" is helping or hurting.

• Lead gathering

Make it very easy for your customers to contact you. Putting a contact form right on your homepage can help show your commitment to customer service. If you publish a monthly newsletter, put a signup form, or something similar, on your homepage.

• Bullet points, blurbs, and read more links

Text on your homepage in paragraph form can become overwhelming to readers if paragraphs are too long. This is where bullet points can come in handy. If you are listing features of your service, take the items from the list and put them in bullet form. If you spend a whole paragraph explaining an integral part of your business, consider writing a short blurb about it and attach a “read more” link at the end that will take them to a longer, more detailed description of the info. Try to make it as easy for your readers as possible and give them the important information as quick and concise as possible.

• Call to action

This one is key. You want your customers to be more than just “viewers”. You want them to participate with your company in some way. Offer a free trial of your service or a free price quote. Have them sign up for your newsletter. Prompt them to read more, contact you, add something to their cart, or buy something. Make sure that you tell them exactly what they should do and how they should do it.

• Focusing on your bounce rate

Be watching how many viewers spend only a few seconds on your homepage before leaving. Is your bounce rate high? Change things up on your front page. Try implementing some items from this list.

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