One Google Analytics metric that didn’t make it into our top 5 most important analytics metrics post last week was Pages per Visit. The reason it didn’t make it was because it got bumped for Time on Site, which was the subject of yesterday’s post.

But Pages per Visit can be important too. And it ties in closely with Time on Site. If someone visits more pages, they’re likelier spending more time.

If you’re interested in improving Pages per Visit specifically, there are things you can do on your site to help. Here are three of them:

1. Improve Navigation. Decide what the most important pages on your site are, those that drive the most value, and make them more prominent in your navigation. Make it obvious for first time visitors to find what they’re looking for in one or two clicks. And give them a search bar in case they can’t figure out your navigation or would rather just search for something more specific. The key to improving pages per visit is to get past page one.
    
2. Surface Relevant Pages. Making content recommendations is a great way to get people to visit another page on your site. If it’s a news or other content-driven website, recommend similar content that they might be interested in. If it’s an ecommerce site, recommend similar products. Put links at the bottom of each page to suggest where they should go next. Don’t leave it up to the user to figure it out.
    
3. Allow Them to Dig Deeper. Don’t just have one page for each topic. Create categories with overview pages that give visitors basic information and allow them to choose their own path by clicking through for more information on each subject or category. Most news sites have a homepage with top stories, then multiple category pages with other articles under each one. Ecommerce sites have different categories with individual products on unique pages under each category. It’s not about making the visitor do more, it’s about letting them customize the experience.