I want results NOW! You would be amazed by how many times we hear that from clients who want us to do SEO for them. They expect to be on the first page of Google results by the end of the first day. Sorry, folks! SEO doesn’t work that way – it takes patience. I [...]]]>

I want results NOW!

You would be amazed by how many times we hear that from clients who want us to do SEO for them. They expect to be on the first page of Google results by the end of the first day. Sorry, folks! SEO doesn’t work that way – it takes patience.

I play the euphonium – if you are not familiar with it, it is a small version of the tuba except it has the range of a trombone… Ok, but what does that have to do with SEO? Well, when I first started playing the euphonium in 7th grade (many, many years ago), I could barely get the notes out. I had to be persistent in my practicing to play well. The same goes for SEO – you can’t expect to be #1 for your keywords immediately.

Some of our clients have taken a long time, even a year, to get to a good standing for their keyword phrases. I can tell you that they weren’t really pleased to be on pages 5 and 6, but we kept telling them it takes time. Now they are consistently on page 2 and even have some keyword phrases on page 1.

Depending on your industry and the competition for specific keyword phrases, you may find you appear in the first few pages pretty quickly. However, it may be different if you have a heavily competitive industry. Don’t give up!

What can I do NOW?

Analyze the competitors appearing on the first page for a specific keyword.

• How many times does the keyword appear on their site? How many times does it appear on yours? Try to utilize it on your page as many times as they do on theirs.
• What links are pointing to their site? Are these links you can get as well?

Create a press release to submit to press release sites such as PR Web.

• Are there any big events that your company has been involved in?
• Has your company been given any awards or recognition?
• Have you recently finished any projects?
• The list goes on – be creative, but include keyword phrases.

Tweak content and add pages with keyword phrases.

• Don’t stuff your site with keyword phrases! If you are adding new pages, write them to be relevant to the true audience, your visitors – not the search engines.

Record where you are now.

• Check later to see how you’ve progressed!
• I use Word documents that show the keyword phrase, the date I checked, and where each phrase was in the Google results.

Search with a computer you have not searched with before.

• Or, log out of your Google accounts and clean out your cache. If you don’t, your results could be skewed since Google looks at your cookies and activity to see what would be most relevant to you.

And most of all.… BE PATIENT! You may not witness change overnight. Sometimes it takes six months or even a year before you start seeing the results you want. My advice –  don’t give up just keep on keeping on!

There’s a disturbing trend going on in web marketing right now. And like straw that breaks camels’ backs, I’ve had enough. Metrics are awesome. I like metrics. You like metrics. Some people really like metrics. But to what extent? And perhaps more importantly, at what cost? Alarmingly (and I am not overstating my case), more [...]]]>

There’s a disturbing trend going on in web marketing right now. And like straw that breaks camels’ backs, I’ve had enough.

Metrics are awesome. I like metrics. You like metrics. Some people really like metrics. But to what extent? And perhaps more importantly, at what cost?

Alarmingly (and I am not overstating my case), more and more marketers are sacrificing user experience for the sake of niche tracking. My dear friends, this should never be! Your site’s usability should always be the foremost consideration. Always.   

For Instance

More and more, I’m seeing an issue crop up in regional businesses that are running simultaneous marketing campaigns. A marketer will have one phone number on one web page hosting a special, with another number on the contact page, and so on. Sometimes as many as five numbers on one site! Sure, this may be a great tool to see who’s responding to your ads here or there — but it’s awful for your users.

Why would you put them through this? Your marketing constantly tells your client that you’re here for them. So be there for them. Cut it out with the confusing number system. I mean, for goodness’ sake — it can’t possibly be accurate. All it takes is for one person to put that “tracking” phone number in their contacts, and then call you ten times, and Voila! Your analytics just took it on the chin.

Further, this whole micro-site trend is starting to make me gag. Look, when you’re Coca–freaking–cola, you can build a micro-site advertising a contest to become the next American Idol. Whatever. But when you’re Jim’s Plumbing — you don’t need a 1–3 pager every season advertising some new seasonal special. Put it on your site! Every time a small-medium-sized brand has tried to divide itself “to expand its reach” or “to better measure efficiency,” disaster waits around the corner.

Final Thought

The point is simple: Don’t become so bent on your analytics that you get hung up on yourself. It may be your business; but it’s your users’ agendas that matter … not your own.

Addendum

I guess what really frustrates me about all of this is how web marketing companies seem to be egging on these trends and others like them. WHY?! Are you really that hard up for cash? What’s your point? You know it doesn’t work. It reminds me of those cable bigwigs in the DirecTV commercials that are always like, “Hey, let’s raise our prices! Then they’ll think we’re quality!” I wonder if some web studios have similar dumbfounding meetings. Surely we, as a society, have produced better developers and marketers than this. Right?

Today is day 3 of the Search Engine Strategies Conference in cold Chicago, and it was another good day of brain-info-overload! Here is a brief synopsis of what I learned throughout the day. KEYNOTE: Given by Dan Siroker who led the analytics team for the Obama campaign. He gave a list of the lessons he [...]]]>

Today is day 3 of the Search Engine Strategies Conference in cold Chicago, and it was another good day of brain-info-overload! Here is a brief synopsis of what I learned throughout the day.

KEYNOTE: Given by Dan Siroker who led the analytics team for the Obama campaign. He gave a list of the lessons he learned throughout the campaign and how we as SEOs can use it for our sites.

1. Define quantifiable success metrics – make sure to measure what is successful and what isn’t.
2. Question assumptions – don’t assume what you think will work is what actually does.
3. Divide & conquer – segment different pieces of your site and find out which pieces work the best for conversions and use those!
4. Take advantage of circumstances
5. Turn your customers into evangelists – I thought this was one of the best points of his speech. Have gave an example of how in the Obama campaign they used videos of supporters and volunteers talking about Obama instead of having videos of Obama talking about Obama. It goes back to the whole point of how people like to see customer testimonials – use those to influence other people to purchase from you or in this case vote for you.

Dan then talked about a new type of marketing called Social Affiliate Marketing in which businesses can start supporting causes or charities and encouraging their customers to then ask their friends and families to support it as well. For instance, let’s say you bought something at a particular business’ website. After you clicked on the final button to finish the sale you would be directed to a “Thank you” page that had a listing of different charities that the business was wanting to support. It would also give a list of social media links (facebook, twitter, etc.) in which you could use to tell your friends and families to purchase from this business to support the charity as well. The company that Dan has started that is promoting this type of technology is http://www.spreadly.com/. This enables the business to get more visits as well as help the charity.

SESSION 1: Advanced B2B Marketing in which Patricia Hurst, Ryan DeShazer, Barbara Coll, and Tami Dalley all gave good information on how B2B marketing is different but somewhat similar to B2C marketing. With B2B you’ll find that you want to be at the forefront when businesses are starting to look for the services your business offers. At the beginning of the sale cycle businesses will be looking for information and normally are not ready to purchase something until 2 – 12 months down the road, so being at the forefront of their research will increase your chances of them looking to you when they are ready to purchase.

SESSION 2: Roundtable-type discussion on Facebook and what businesses can do with Facebook. A few of these tips may be obvious, but still worth mentioning.

1. Make sure the branding on Facebook matches your website. This may seem like a “no-duh” but, how many businesses are just putting up a fan page on Facebook just to have one and it doesn’t match their brand?
2. Have calls-to-action on your Facebook page. If you want them to sign up for a newsletter or download a product – put that on the Facebook page and direct them to your site. This helps you measure how the visits you are getting from Facebook are actually converting on your site.
3. If you are using different social media channels (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) make sure that you gear your messages to each group differently. The fans you have on Facebook and the people following you on Twitter are going to be different, so don’t be tempted to use programs that allow you to post the same message on all venues. Customize your message for each venue so that it appeals to the right audience.

SESSION 3: Display Marketing. To be honest, I was a tad confused on some of the things that were mentioned only because I haven’t dealt with this as much as with other search type topics, but the one thing that really caught me off guard was what one of the panelists mentioned towards the end. He said that in July of 2011 the FTC is planning on making all cookies opt-in. What this means is that every type of analytical type data that we get from cookies will no longer be accessible, because those cookies that are needed for analytics are going to have to be opt-in by the user. Most users think of cookies as bad things, so they are going to opt-out for any type cookie; however, the only way marketers can know if what they are doing online is profitable is with cookies. No cookes = no data! I haven’t done a lot of research into this yet, but I plan on doing so to find out how we as marketers can avoid this from happening.

SESSION 4:  Site analysis in which the panelists took websites from those in the audience and gave them suggestions on how to improve SEO for that site. Unfortunately, http://www.worthwhile.com was not chosen as one of the ones to be analyzed, but one of the panelists did agree to look over the site and we are going to be speaking to each other sometime next week, so I’ll have to get back with you on this as well.

Overall, these last 3 days have been great! I’ve learned a lot and have really enjoyed learning from the experts of SEO. I’ll be leaving cold Chicago to come back to South Carolina – here’s praying that no snow storms come in to disrupt any flight plans. Got to make it in time for the Worthwhile Christmas party!

This is the 2nd installment of my day here in snowy, cold Chicago which I got to experience first-hand after all the sessions were over. But enough of that, let’s get into what I learned today. KEYNOTE:  Peter Morville who is the author of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web and Ambient Findability. He [...]]]>

This is the 2nd installment of my day here in snowy, cold Chicago which I got to experience first-hand after all the sessions were over. But enough of that, let’s get into what I learned today.

KEYNOTE:  Peter Morville who is the author of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web and Ambient Findability. He spoke on search and how it is a way in which we learn; however, it is becoming more and more difficult to really find what we are looking for. He does not believe that artificial intelligence is the way to solve the problem because search is a human problem and something that needs to be solved by humans. He also believes that even though we have made improvements from the past (auto-complete from Google or auto suggest from Yahoo!) we are still a long way from solving the problem and we may actually never fully solve the problem.

SESSION 1:  Information Architecture with Shari Thurow and Kimberly Krause Berg. Both spoke on the importance of information architecture within the scope of developing a website and how the SEO professional should be involved from that step to make sure that it is keyword focused – not stuffed, but focused. A lot of times we believe that information architecture is navigation, but in fact, navigation is just a part of it. Information architecture involves navigation, usability, interlinking, prioritizing, etc.

KEY TAKEAWAY –You MUST have your information architecture developed before any type of design or development process can be done on your website.

SESSION 2:  The 7 Deadly Sins of Landing Pages by Tim Ash. He started out by having us all say “Your baby is ugly!” referring to your landing pages on your website. He went through the 7 sins including “Unclear call-to-action”, “Too much text”, “Asking for too much information,” etc.

KEY TAKEWAY — The thing I learned from most though was that you have to get someone elses’ eyes to look at your landing page. Many times we have looked so much at our landing pages that we don’t see anything wrong with them, but if you get someone else to look at it (especially your users) then you’ll get a different perspective and can figure out what “sins” you are committing so you can fix them.

SESSION 3:  A q/a type session with Sage Lewis. He had a booth set up in the Expo Hall and was taking questions from a group of people on how to better optimize their sites. He would look at people’s websites and give them practical ways in which to improve their site.

KEY TAKEAWAY: Tips on how to optimize worthwhile.com

SESSION 4: Turning Simple Change into Big Profit with Matthew Bailey, Bill Hunt, and Kayden Kelly. They gave a lot of practical ways in which to change small things on your site to improve the conversion rate. A few sites they referenced for help were www.crazyegg.com and www.clicktale.com which can give you an overview of where people are clicking on your site so you can see where your visitor’s eyes are going on a particular page. The information you receive can help you figure out why people are not converting. Maybe they aren’t seeing the call-to-action button or they are clicking on an area that isn’t clickable that you should make clickable. Matthew Bailey gave some practical advice on content – make it concise, scalable, and objective. He gave an example of a company he worked with in which he did they tried to do just one of the three items and the conversion rate would increase by about 25 – 40% but when he did all three to the content it increased the conversion rate by 124%.

KEY TAKEAWAY: Content and call-to-actions are key to conversions.

The biggest thing I have learned through these two days has been that you have to constantly test your site. You’ll never know if what you are doing is successful unless you test. Also, both the 2nd and 4th sessions mentioned that your users should be the ones designing your site — not the big wigs or the marketing department, but your users! They are the ones using it and if you design a site that they aren’t going to like using then you aren’t going to be successful.

Tomorrow is the last day of the conference and I am betting it proves to be another good day of learning!

This is coming to you from cold, snowy Chicago at the Search Engine Strategies Conference 2009. I have to say at the beginning that the hotel this conference is at hosted is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! But not only that, the sessions today have been very insightful. KEYNOTE: This morning the keynote speaker was Jeff Jarvis who is [...]]]>

This is coming to you from cold, snowy Chicago at the Search Engine Strategies Conference 2009. I have to say at the beginning that the hotel this conference is at hosted is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!! But not only that, the sessions today have been very insightful.

KEYNOTE: This morning the keynote speaker was Jeff Jarvis who is the author of What Would Google Do? He spoke in response to Rupert Murdoch’s plan to hide his sites from Google. Murdoch claims that Google is bringing poor leads to websites, but Jarvis responds stating that “Google gives [you] 100,000 opportunities a minute to create loyal readers and generate revenue for FREE” and “it’s your fault if you don’t know what to do with them.” The remainder of the time he spoke on the changes of how news is reaching all of us and how the “Gutenberg era is over.” He gave a quote from a college student in New York that summed it up pretty well — “If the news is important, it will come to me.”

FIRST SESSION:  “Search Analytics” with speakers Jim Sterne, Matthew Bailey, and Dennis Mortensen. I learned the most from Matthew Bailey who talked about how to segment your data – if you don’t segment you aren’t going to learn the right information from your analytics data. Dennis Mortensen spoke on what a lot of people would consider a radical idea – instead of search engine optimization we should be looking at search engine de-optimization. Don’t worry about having the highest ranking for a search term, but instead de-optimize to get lower in the rankings. This will allow you to have better leads and in the end more conversions. He did make the disclaimer that this will not work for all industries or companies, but it was an idea to think about.

SECOND SESSION: YouTube & Video Optimization with Greg Jarboe. YouTube receives 10 billion video views a month which is the same amount of search queries Google receives in a month. He gave 3 basic steps to do when creating a YouTube campaign – Discover, Watch, and Share. The biggest thing is that if you create a video that people are watching it won’t be worth anything if people don’t share it! 45% of videos are discovered from a video site like YouTube but 44% of them are found on blogs that have videos embedded on them.

THIRD SESSION: Link Building Basics with Debra Mastaler. She gave a quick overview of why links are important along with some tools that can help with with building links. She mentioned having a link policy on your site – tell people they can link to your site, but give them an incentive to do so (a free t-shirt, for example) and then use a press release to announce the incentive.

FOURTH SESSION: 20 Secrets of Top-Converting Websites with Bryan Eisenberg. He was a very energetic and entertaining speaker and even though I could give you all 20 secrets I don’t want to give them all away! He spoke on how to create your landing pages so that they will cause more visitors to convert. A few secrets that spoke out to me were:

1. Reinforce the offer sitewide – from the ad, to the landing page, to the form they fill out, to the thank you page make sure the same message is shown throughout including images, colors, text, etc.
2. Make your forms engaging even up to the thank you page. He made a good suggestion – put specials on the thank you page – never thought of doing that!
3. Appeal to multiple persona’s and segments. Realize that every person that comes to your site is going to have different needs and is going to act differently, so make sure your landing pages appeal to different types. One site that does this well is http://www.mint.com.

FIFTH SESSION (and final for this long day!): Beyond Googling: 5 Years Later, it’s a Different Audience with Bill Scott, Javed Panjawani, and Anne Kennedy. Each speaker spoke on where they believe search is going.

• Javed Panjawani from WolframAlpha believes that computation is the new trend in search – it is more of a personal type of search and WolframAlpha just released this type of technology this last May and has been very successful with it.
• Bill Scott from EaselTV sees suggested discovery as the new trend in search making search more of relationship-based. He said that search is going to start to be more relevant and that the consumer will be the one controlling their results instead of the search engines.
• Anne Kennedy sees search being more visual and mobile. One research found that people get info from visual data 28% faster than from reading text and the iPhone browser is the 4th most used browser in the world.

I know that these are only summaries of the sessions, but if I were to type up everything I learned I would be finding a book publisher! Check back tomorrow for a rundown of the sessions I’m attending and pick up a few more tips.

There are many, many blogs, books, and other resources about Search Engine Optimization and the intricate details involved in the process. But, to be completely honest with you, SEO just requires basic common sense. For instance, if you want to rank high in search engines for a particular keyword or phrase, make sure that your: [...]]]>

There are many, many blogs, books, and other resources about Search Engine Optimization and the intricate details involved in the process. But, to be completely honest with you, SEO just requires basic common sense.

For instance, if you want to rank high in search engines for a particular keyword or phrase, make sure that your:

• content includes that keyword or phrase
• page titles include that keyword or phrase

I understand that there are more factors involved, but those are basic starters. If you want to rank for a particular keyword and phrase and your content and your page titles don’t include them, don’t expect to see your site ranking for them.

Meta description and meta keywords aren’t really used by search engines anymore. I personally believe that meta descriptions are still important only because it is what appears in the search results page underneath your site’s page title. If a particular keyword or phrase is in your meta description those words will be bolded giving you a better chance of someone clicking on the link to your site. Meta keywords on the other hand are not used by search engines at all. They used to be a huge part of SEO but many people took advantage of this and would stuff their meta keyword tag with keywords that didn’t pertain to their site at all, so search engines have taken them out of their ranking algorithms.

Links from outside websites to your site are also important. External links take time and effort on your part, but don’t give up.

SEO doesn’t happen overnight – it takes time! If you make changes to your site it may be 4–5 months before you actually see results. Patience is the keyword here.

My advice, continue to work hard on your site, the results will come.

Have you ever wondered what the search engine spiders see when they come to your site? Is your code all HTML or Flash? What if your site is a combination of both HTML and Flash? Does any of this really make a difference to a search engine spider? One tool to use is the Search [...]]]>

Have you ever wondered what the search engine spiders see when they come to your site? Is your code all HTML or Flash? What if your site is a combination of both HTML and Flash? Does any of this really make a difference to a search engine spider?

One tool to use is the Search Engine Spider Simulator found at http://www.webconfs.com. Just type your URL in the box and within a few seconds you can see what the search engine spiders see.

For example, here is an all flash site (site URL and name have been blocked to protect the innocent.

The only text on the site that was seen by the search engine spider was the name of the site. No meta description or keywords. The only link on the site seen by the search engine spider was a link to where you can download the latest version of Flash.

What about a site that is not created entirely in Flash, but has a Flash intro (again, site URL and name have been blocked to protect the innocent).

As you can see there is some text shown but only the text hidden behind the Flash intro. The first link shown is actually a link to the developer of the site — not the actual website itself. The second link goes to a 404 page. I have to give them points for having a link to their site map on their Flash intro page so at least the search engines can spider the rest of their pages. However, the site’s original home page — not the flash intro — has a lot of good content on it, but when the search engines first come to the site, they don’t see any of it! In my humble opinion, I am amazed that sites have flash intros — they don’t help with SEO and are just plain annoying.

What about Worthwhile’s website? We don’t have any flash on our site, but we do use some javascript to make our case studies rotate the way they do. How do the search engine spiders read javascript? Can they? Go here and type in http://www.worthwhile.com to get our results (I would have put an image up, but it wouldn’t have shown everything).

All the text can be seen and we have a nice long list of links that spiders can see as well.

Maybe your site isn’t entirely created in Flash, but maybe your site’s navigation is Flash — can the spiders see the links to your sub pages? What if your important information is in a Flash header? An alternative to Flash could be javascript which search engine spiders are able to read successfully.

Check out the Search Engine Spider Simulator on your own site — these spooky spiders will help improve your web presence.

How does Google Web History figure into your personal life? How does Google Web History figure into the life of your business? Read this article to find out.]]>

Last month, fellow Worthwhile Web Strategist, Chris Rackley, asked me to Google something about one of his “most popular” blog posts he had written. He was surprised he was still #1 in the rankings.

I queried. “Chris,” I said, “you aren’t even on my first two pages!” He and I both supposed I had queried incorrectly. I double-checked. In fact, my verbiage was a match with his.

Two identical searches only seconds apart from 5 feet apart yields two completely unique results listings in Google. Whaaaat?!

Google announces Personalized Searching

From what I can see from Google searching (ironically), this technology existed in Google Labs format as early as 2004-05, not actually being used until around Spring 2007. (2005/11 article)

So, What does this mean?

• If you created a Google account after Winter 2007, the default account setting is to have “Web History” turned ON. If you don’t have an account, Google doesn’t store your information, from what I can tell from the sources I consulted, other than standard information which it gathered before.
• This means your searches in Google are “personalized” to you based on previous searches and history. So, if you are a fisherman searching for a new rod-and-reel, searching “bass” will likely not pull up a list of musical instrument websites. (Sounds pretty cool upfront, right?)

Good news/Bad news:

• Good news: Fewer individual irrelevant searches.
• Bad news: Google collects sensitive personal data from you, and you didn’t even know it.
• Good news: You can turn this feature off. (Best article on this subject.)
• Bad news: SEO experts can’t unequivocally promise specific placement in Google (even though they shouldn’t have in the first place). With the number of Google users skyrocketing, this technology will alter the face of SEO work in the near future.

What’s a business-owner to do?

I initially thought this Google technology would eliminate the need for SEO services. I then realized, this actually heightens the need for SEO work. With Google personalized searches, now people who are searching for the service or product you offer will see specific results, giving you a greater chance to be among them. BUT, now the question is, how have you set yourself apart from your competitors? If their site’s SEO strategy is better than yours, you may be placed lower. Confused? Don’t worry. We can help.

You’ve been informed. Act accordingly.

When I first started learning about search engine optimization and how implementing it can help our clients reach their goals for their websites, Jill Whalen is a name I read a lot. In fact, during all my research about SEO the past year, Jill has influenced my SEO decisions the most. Jill Jill Whalen is [...]]]>

When I first started learning about search engine optimization and how implementing it can help our clients reach their goals for their websites, Jill Whalen is a name I read a lot. In fact, during all my research about SEO the past year, Jill has influenced my SEO decisions the most.

Jill

Jill Whalen is CEO of High Rankings – one of the top SEO companies in the country. She has also written a book entitled Nitty-gritty of Writing for the Search Engines – the purpose of which is “to show you how and where to place your most important keyword phrases within the visible text copy of your Web pages”.

Jill is a guest speaker at the SEO Conferences around the world (I think she just got back from the SEO Conference in London!) and has co-founded the Search Engine Marketing Network for New England (SEMNE) which meets every month in the New England area to network and discuss SEO techniques.

Jill’s Newsletter

The High Rankings Newsletter is an e-newsletter that comes out approximately every 2 weeks. Jill normally answers at least one SEO question and gives a link to an Advanced SEO Forum discussion that has shown up on the High Rankings Forum. I enjoy reading her newsletters every time they appear in my inbox! I always learn something new, and Jill’s writing style is enjoyable to read – I highly recommend you sign up to start receiving it.

Jill’s Website

The High Rankings website has a lot of great resources for those who are learning SEO. Their Frequently Asked Questions page answers questions developers like me who are new to SEO are wondering about. Another great page on the site is the SEO Articles page. It gives a list of some of the best articles that Jill and others have written in regards to SEO and SEM (search engine marketing). Then, of course, there is the High Rankings Forum which always has great discussions on SEO. Jill and others from High Rankings stay involved in the discussions and share their personal expertise.

Jill on Twitter

If you need more SEO fixes and are interested in following Jill on Twitter, find her here.

I have learned a lot from Jill and hope you will as well!!

If your bounce rate is high, then it's time to look closer at your home page and see what you need to change to get people more involved in your site.]]>

This is the last in a series of posts from Chris Rackley on better home page design.

It’s probably the most objective metric tool Google Analytics provides users. The bounce rate of your site is your website’s virtual thermometer. It’ll tell you how you’re doing; and the more you know about your bounce rate — the more you’ll be able to develop a strategy for your home page.

Bounce Rate 101

A bounce, in super-simple terms, is when someone enters your site on a certain page, and leaves that page without going to any other pages on your site. Generally, your home page is the page most often entered, though the same rules apply to any page that your site is entered on. A bounce rate is the percentage of visits to your site in which a bounce occurs. The more bounces you have on your site means people aren’t interested in what your site has to offer. The higher your bounce rate the more people are leaving your site without digging further into it. Bottom Line: Low Bounce Rate = Good. High Bounce Rate = Bad.

The Bounce Rate Dilemma.

So what’s a low bounce rate? People will dispute this. Some will say you should be concerned if it’s over 30%, while others say 60% is still “okay.” The truth is the average website typically has about a 40% bounce rate. In reality though, it depends on the goals you’ve set for your website. For example, if you have an e-commerce site, then a bounce rate over 15% is bad. On the other hand, if you have a small business site that serves primarily to give information about your business, anything under 50% is solid. However, as far as SEO goes, Google doesn’t care whether you have a store or not — the lower your bounce rate, the better your rankings. So you want to get it low. If your bounce rate is high, then it’s time to look closer at your home page and see what you need to change to get people more involved in your site.

The Low-Bounce Home Page

Here are some general tips to consider when rethinking your home page. Of course, each site is different and warrants custom considerations so I’ll stay as generic as possible; but these are fairly universal principles:

1. Think Landing Page. Don’t just settle for a picture, a few paragraphs and a menu. Direct your readers to where you want them to go. How do you do this? Think about where they want to go! A while back we talked about MountainCreekCabinets.com and the great way they delivered dynamic content to their home page. Not only do you get a quick summary about who they are, but also links to a randomly generated case study, their latest blog post, an article about getting started with a kitchen or bath project, and the basics of remodeling. Currently, Mountain Creek is enjoying an 18% bounce rate.

2. Be Leary of Flash Templates. I want to be careful, because there are some solid ones out there; but most sites built in flash are actually viewed to search engines as one page. This means that even if someone is exploring your site, the stats are really recording it. This hurts you in two ways: search engines will usually rate you with a ridiculously high bounce rate, and you have no way to objectively measure how people are using your site. Flash may have that “wow” factor; but use caution and careful research before going with a site that is built entirely in flash — especially a template purchased online.

3. Content > Images. I lose brownie points on this a lot when I try to explain this to a potential client; but I stand by it. Great images will help catch the eye’s attention when looking at your site, but it’s the content that will get them into it. Just having a page of big pictures doesn’t cut it. They have to have a reason to look inside. Again, think like your users! If you’re selling lawn care, does the visitor to your site want to come to your home page, see rotating pictures in the header, and sit back and watch all of the pretty lawns you’ve taken care of? Or do they want to see just a picture or two that shows you’re the real deal — and then look to see what services you offer, what your prices are, and how they can contact you. I’m going to go with the latter — and I’d bet the vast majority of people who use the web to find something they want or need will agree with me. So create great content. Write out real case studies. Combine it all with testimonials. Start a personality-driven, educational blog about your trade. And then tease this great content on your home page. Then, watch your bounce rate plummet, and your ROI soar.

So should you be rethinking your home page? Probably. We at Worthwhile began talking about our next site redesign the week after the design you see now first launched. And it wasn’t that we were unhappy with it. On the contrary — we’re thrilled. But we always want to get better. How can your home page improve? Stay away from the wrong philosophies, think of your home page as your curb appeal, and follow your bounce rate — Just a few thoughts when rethinking your home page.