Web Marketing Strategies, SEO, Web 2.0, Social Media, Trends & Tips

A bounce rate refers to the rate at which people “reject” a page on which they have landed in your website.  Website analytics tools consider a visitor a bounce if they only see one page and leave your site.  Some tools use time spent on a landing page as a bounce rate criteria, e.g., 10 or 15 seconds. 

Analytics tools provide bounce rate information at several levels.  I’ll use Google Analytics (G.A.) as the reference.  G.A. provides an average bounce rate across your entire website, plus bounce rates for each page.  My favorite bounce rate metric is for keywords. 

Measuring bounce rates for keywords is a very meaningful metric because you can see how well your website visitors are  consuming your content based on keywords delivering traffic to your website.

If you are getting traffic to your website for your top 10 keywords, and one of your top 3 keywords has a high bounce rate, you need to examine the content.  It’s possible your content is not adequately feeding your website visitors what they want.  Perhaps the content doesn’t do a strong enough job of conveying the main thing about this keyword.

Sometimes, content revisions for keywords with high bounce rates can make a big difference in conversions. 
Do the math.  If your bounce rate improves by 10% the conversion rate impact can be substantial on leads or sales.

There are other factors which contribute to bounce rates, including where they came from.  Generally, we pay closest attention to the bounce rates for keywords coming from search engines.  The premise is that someone searched on a keyword phrase and landed on your website.  We like to say, “this person is looking for you.”  So, when they find you, did you do a good job of connecting with the visitor?  Of course, not all visitors will be relevant or qualified.  But, we’re talking about statistics.  So, we like to maximize the statistical probability of delivering a good match between keyword searches and landing page content.

Any search engine optimization or pay-per-click strategy requires paying very close attention to bounce rates.  Studying bounce rates as indicators of the connection between visitor’s searches and your content can play a big role in successful internet marketing practices. 

 

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Ways to create links for SEO:

• Content produces links naturally (weeds grow in dirt)
• Press releases
• Syndicated content comprised of articles with your theme-specific and keyword rich content
• Blogs - content in blogs grows rapidly and attracts links
• Special requests - outsourced link building through experts like Find and Convert

Not all links are created equal:

• Relevance of the content of the page linked from
• The PageRank of the page linked from
• Importance of anchor text linking
• Importance of quality of linking page
• Mix up sentence or description with the anchor text
• Link to home page and inside pages to diversify the mix of back links

Study link stats as well as search stats:

• Yahoo: link:www.website.com to check the links back to this website.
• Set up Google Webmaster services to track links: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/.

Quality of links is very important. Build links slowly for specific keyword phrases. Build them at a pace according to the size of your website. Ranking improvements will happen eventually but it’s not an exact science. Improvements depend on quality of links anchored from relevant keyword phrases.

Be patient, give it time (3 to 12 months). Build links for many keyword phrases (diversify).

Link building is a must in any SEO strategy.

As we work with client’s search engine optimization plans generally helping them build traffic to their website in order to produce leads, we see one very common challenge. While there are many factors which result in getting high search engine rankings, high quality and relevant links rank up there toward the top. 

In fact, in the very early days of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin had originally named their company “backrub” because its algorithm was based on detecting relevant backward links to web pages. 

So, a conversation we have with our clients every day is to keep working on “backlinks.” 

This is commonly known as link building.  I won’t go into a lot of detail about how to build links, but here is one tried-n-true technique to building backlinks - good content! 

That’s right, adding fresh, new, text based content is still the most effective way to build links!

There is a also a technique known as “link baiting.”  On the surface this sounds a little dicey.  But, it’s actually a very legitimate and proven technique.

Link baiting is simply about adding content to a web page which is so useful or interesting that others will want to link to it.  Let’s say you have a proven way to do something in your industry like fix a common software bug.  If you add a page (or blog post) with a solution to a common problem, others will find it and link to it, and they will also tell others about it.

Two way link building is passe and not recommended. 

In the end, search engines are really interested in knowing how many others like your content, which is demonstrated through a link.  Distributing press releases, syndicating content, posting on blogs and adding really useful content to your website are proven approaches to building links.  Links which come “back” to your website anchored from relevant keywords will produce high rankings in search engines and drive traffic to your website. 

And, that’s what what we all want, isn’t it - relevant traffic!

Did you see tonight’s 15 minute segment on CBS 60 Minutes on Facebook?

I was hoping to see a story about a young entrepreneur who is being compared to Bill Gates (another Harvard dropout), Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin and Larry Page.  In fact, Lesley Stahl, the 60 Minutes correspondent asked Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg about the comparison to Brin and Page, and Zuckerburg’s response was priceless.  He stared – in fact gazed at her, paused and said “is that a question?”  His smug response tells me that he considers such talk irrelevant.  

Stahl went on to describe how Facebook began from Zuckerburg’s early days at Harvard, through its evolution with his former college roommates into the social networking giant it has become in just four years. The background coverage was good.  The video of company culture was good, a typical Silicon Valley environment.  But, the segment went downhill when Stahl dragged the interview into the Beacon advertising debacle.  Ok, so it was a mistake.  Zuckerburg apologized for it.  So move on! 

Where was the talk of how the fastest growing demographic is “old people” (adults over the age of 25)?  To give Stahl some credit she did mention it.  I could have coughed and missed that though.  There was no talk of how businesses are using groups and networks to create communities and to share and exchange ideas.  There was some coverage on how application developers can upload applications, but the example showed was Scrabble, a consumer application. 

Of course there was coverage on its staggering market capitalization evidenced by Microsoft’s investment of 1.6 % of Facebook’s stock for $240 million.  That led to discussion about how Facebook produces revenue.  The impression I got was that Stahl was looking for ways to poke holes in the company, especially as she kept referencing his young age – the “toddler CEO” – though she credits this expression to Kara Swisher - a blogger. 

Facebook has a lot of potential to be a really useful and productive tool for both consumers and businesses.  Whether or not it excels at both remains to be seen.  The projection to reach 200 million profiles this year also remains to be seen.  If it does, I think a significant portion of that growth will come from “old people” like me. 

All I know is that I created a profile and a group in Facebook on web marketing and I have visited similar groups.  The conversations and communities are very interesting.  I don’t use Facebook to socialize on a personal level and I find there are plenty of people who (like me) will interact on my topics of interest.

In my opinion 60 Minutes missed the boat big time!  They could’ve talked about the phenomenon of social networking and the impact Zuckerburg’s Facebook is having.  They could’ve talked about how Facebook is crossing generational lines (they did mention it) and how this is the real story of Facebook.  They didn’t really give their viewers a sense of the potential of social networking both for consumers AND for businesses alike. 

Instead, they focused on the negative by devoting so much time and attention to the Beacon issue and even a lawsuit that Zuckerburg faces from some disgruntled Harvard students.

No wonder so many business people shun interviews from the network television stations. 

Form your own opinion of the 60 Minutes story of Facebook and share your comments. 

I posted these predictions for 2008 in my Web Marketing Strategies Group in Facebook. 

Predictions for 2008 on the Web.

Blogging will continue to grow, especially among small businesses.

Micro blogging will become more popular but it’s still in the early adopter stage, unless Google comes out with a “killer micro blogging” app through Jaiku.

Business podcasting will also grow but not as rapidly as blogging.

I’ll own a Google phone by the end of the year.

Social networking sites will continue to explode but ubiquity is still a few years away. Plan on maintaining more than one profile for a while.

Niche social networking sites will be the fastest growing segment.

Facebook will overtake MySpace in membership (that’s aggressive but possible).

WiFi Internet access won’t get any better in 2008.

Google will still dominate search engines.

Text marketing will grow and catch the attention of B2B marketers.

The Red Sox will win the World Series again! (this may be my safest prediction).

So, what are your predictions?  I’d like to hear from you.

 

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Blogging Basics for Business Podcast - Part 2

Why should a business blog?

Blogs have marketing value to a business through:
Credibility
Exposure
Feedback
Learn what other people are saying
People can interact with your business
Search engine optimization value

Start with a strategy!

Each blog should have a purpose.  Define your objective, your target audience.
Define your blog content strategy.
Identify who is qualified to write on selected content in your company.
It may be one or many people in your company.
Plan out a content strategy when your blog is new.
Eventually let the conversations flow.
Study other blogs that are competitive or similar.
Select a strategy with a different voice in your industry.
Be conversational.  Don’t write like a press release.
Let conversations happen.  Sometimes you need to NOT comment.  Let others comment.
Allow the community to interact with each other.
Don’t rule over your community in your blog.
 

Should you moderate your blog?

Start out moderating it then if edits are not needed let it flow unmoderated.
Have someone review the blog at least once per day.
Time and resources are needed for a business blog strategy.  That’s reality.  Get over it!

Promote your blog. 

Start with customers, suppliers, employees, partners.
Announce your blog.  Email a link to it.  Put it on your business card, in your auto signature, newsletter, etc.

Search engines and blogs.

Technorati is the Google of search engines for blogs.
Submit your blog to Technorati.  You can have Technorati “ping” your blog for updates.
Use Tags in your blog posts which will tell the search engines about the content in your blog.
Search engines like blog content because blog content gets indexed updated frequently. 
Blogs are very search engine friendly.

Blog marketing.

Some marketers effectively blog on topics that they do not rank well for.  Blog content can get ranked quickly.  So, it’s an effective way to improve your search engine optimization rankings on desired topics.

Avoid blog fade.  Do not start a blog that you can’t commit to.  Plan the work, then work the blog plan.

Blog statistics. 

Track blog stats using your blog tool, e.g., WordPress, TypePad.  You can also use Feedburner.  Watch how many subscribers you have, how active it is, etc.

Blog links. 

Blogs produce links which are very helpful for SEO.  You should link to other blogs from your blog as a service to your reader.
Use a blogroll as a list of other blogs that are meaningful to your blog readers.  When you link to other blogs you pay them a compliment. 
Often others will find your blog from your links and therefore the viral exposure is a huge benefit and others may link to your blog.
Ultimately, the link centric nature of blogs is very powerful for exposure.

Success stories.

Large company: IBM has over 10,000 internal blogs.  They form communities of people who work together.  Blogs are used productively to communicate and collaborate.  Employees even cut down on email by using blogs.

Small company: We’re currently working with a client.  We’ve identified the target market, topics, useful tips, information, how to’s, things to avoid.  Initial focus is building a Web 2.0 blog strategy.  We’ve identified about 5 people inside the company who will be blogging on these topics.  Then, the blog will be developed and launched and marketed.

Blogging for business can be very productive.  Plan the work and work the plan.