Archive | October, 2008

How to Reduce Bounce Rate

Posted on 17 October 2008. Tags: ,

Those who follow website analytics know how important it is to reduce bounce rate.

What is a bounce rate?

Bounce rate is the percentage of single page visits. If a visitor arrives at any page of a site and exits (either closes the browser or visits another website) without visiting any other page of the same site it’s a bounce.

For example if 65 out of a total of 200 visitors, visit only a single page of a site, the site has a bounce rate of 32.5%.

65/200 = 0.325
0.325 * 100 = 32.5%

Why reducing bounce rate is important?

It is important because:

1. The visitors will stay longer in the site, and (therefore)
2. Conversion rates will improve.

How to reduce bounce rate?

Frankly there is no hard and fast rule to reduce bounce rate. If there was, all websites would have implemented it. However, there are certain steps that can be tested to see if bounce rate reduces.

I will discuss some of them, and some you may have to find out yourself.

It is important that you know the pages that have a very high bounce rate. If you don’t know how to get it, ask your webmaster or login in your analytics account and look at the bounce rate section and arrange the pages in decreasing order of bounce rate.

If you use Google Analytics here is how to get it:

Go to Content -> Top Content. Now click on bounce rate. You should see the pages with high bounce rate on top.

If these pages are getting few pageviews don’t bother. You should be concerned with the pages that are getting good pageviews but having high bounce rates.

Scroll the list, get to the bottom and choose a few pages that are getting good pageviews and low bounce rate.

Now, compare the two section of pages i.e… pages with high bounce rates vs. pages with low bounce rates.

Do you notice anything? Can you find anything that’s not matching to the overall standard of your site? What do you think is good in low bounce rate pages and what do you think is annoying in high bounce rate pages?

Here are a few pointers:

1. Compare the overall feel of both the pages. Do you notice any difference? If yes this could be the reason that is driving visitors away.

2. Look at the navigational structure. Is there some difference in these two sections?

3. Compare the copy. Is the copy boring? Is it too big or is it too small?

4. Have a look at the headline. Are you missing something? Is it compelling? If not you may need to re-write your headline. It may be that people are reading your headline and calling it off.

5. Show the high bounce pages to your friends/colleagues. Ask them what they find annoying. Listen to them carefully. Better still write down what they say. If you think there is something common most of them are saying – implement it and see if there is a change in bounce rate.

NOTE: In fact point 5 can be done for the whole site. You may be surprised with the comments of your friends.

Basic idea is try to implement all those factors that are there in low bounce rate pages in the high bounce rate pages.

Hope you will find some help in lowering your bounce rate. If you feel I have left something please leave a comment.

Recommended Reading:
 
1. How To Decrease Bounce Rate And Increase Time On Site - Vedio
2. How to Improve Bounce Rates to Get More Action

Posted in Website Conversion Rate ImprovementComments (5)

Title Tag – What To Write and Its Importance

Posted on 13 October 2008. Tags:

Ever since webmasters learnt how Title Tag can be effective in search engine optimization, it’s a hot topic of discussion.

A lot has been written about title tags, however I will limit my article to what is a title tag, what to write in a title tag and importance of a good title tag.

What is a Title Tag?

All webpages should have a title tag. A title tag is written like this:

<title>Text of the Title</title>

Usually its in the <head> section of the page.

<head>
<title>Text of the Title</title>
</head>

Where “Text of the Title” is the Title of the page.

Where does it appear?

The text in between the <title> and </title> tag appears at the top of the browser. 

What to write in a Title Tag?

This is important. A title tag “represents” the page so it’s important what you write in the Title tag.

Think what the page is about (and NOT what the website is about).

If the site is about USA, but the page is about cost of living in New York, then the title should be

“Cost of living in New York”.

Important Notes:

  • Make sure that your Title is not misleading.
  • Make sure your Title is interesting to read.
  • Make sure your Title is not too long. Its best to limit it within 65 characters. Search engines will not read after 65 characters.
  • Try to make sure your target keyword is in the Title. NOTE: Do not insert your target keyword in the Title if the page is not about it. Doing so will not help in SEO.

    • Importance of Title Tag:

    The Title Tag is very important from SEO point of view. Search for anything in your favorite search engine and you will see that most result pages will have the searched text in their Title Tags.

    What does it mean? The search engines give a lot of importance to the Title Tag while ranking web pages.

    Another importance of Title Tag is that they are displayed in the search engine results page (SERP) – the listing returned by the search engines in respond to a query.

    Common sense says a searcher is more likely to click on the title they find interesting. Unfortunately badly written titles are not clicked even if they reach the top of the search engine results.

    Title tags should be written after the content of the page is written. It’s a bad idea to write content based on Title. That way you are writing for the search engines. Write for your visitors first, and then write a compelling title that would impress the search engines and urge the searcher to click.

    If you feel I have left something please leave a comment. Also do let me know what you would like to read in this blog.

    Recommended Reading:
     
    1. All About Title Tags
    2. Title Tag Guidelines
    3. Writing Title Tag For High Search Engine Ranking

    Posted in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Comments (4)

    How Search Engines Treat Links From Directories

    Posted on 08 October 2008. Tags:

    In my post on “How to Get Great Incoming Links” one of my visitors asked me some interesting questions.

    I had written:

    Google and many other search engines have ways to catch a paid link. If search engines find a paid link, it’s not considered as a link at all. …Since search engines don’t like paid links, you run the risk of irritating them. Guess what may happen. Its always better to avoid paid links.

    To which the visitor asked me some questions (I quote):

    I do NOT buy or pay for links. However, I do submit my sites to Directories because some send a large number of visitors to my sites. The problem and questions I have are:

    (1) what happens if you are listed in a FREE Directory, which at a later date begins to charge a fee for listing and it keeps all of the previously listed free sites? and
    (2) many free directories review sites for submission and list them at no charge, but also have a paid listing option available.

    Therefore, how does Google or any search engine distinguish between those people that do not pay for links, such as me, in the two scenarios that I mentioned above?

    In the later case, you might say that the search engine would assume that featured links have been paid for–however, I have had several small directories list one or more of my sites as a featured site because the liked the sites.

    It is one thing to just not consider a listing from a directory, but it is another thing to downgrade a site for having paid listings, when in fact the site owner hasn’t paid for any directory listings.

    I think there is a lot of confusion over paid links. For the time being forget a paid link.

    Let me put it in another way:

    Whatever you do to SPAM the search engine results might get your site in trouble. Paid links is one of them. You are the one who knows better. If you have bought links just to increase the link popularity and page rank of your site, your site MAY be banned.

    However if you are getting your site listed in web directories its perfectly ok. But please stay away from questionable directories mainly link exchange directories. These directories list your site in exchange of a link from your site. Their main objective is to increase their link popularity and page rank. Once that happens they start selling links on their site without nofollow. This is clear spamming of the search engine results.

    Directories either free or paid are known by the search engines. Well, most of them. If your site is listed in any of them, you need not worry.

    However, there are a few things one should know:

    Directories are of different quality. If search engines think a directory of good quality like – Dmoz, Yahoo etc., a link from them is highly appreciated (since a human has reviewed the site.)

    Infact there are two benefits:

    a) you get visitors from these directories
    b) link popularity improves

    Unfortunately there are some free directories which lists sites of all and sundry. There is no quality check, no one sees the site – they just list your site. These are the directories that are of little help.

    However no worries – since they are still directories. Only thing, the link popularity will not improve.

    I repeat again – if you feel a link directory is offering no value to its visitors and is spamming the search engines, its better NOT to get your site listed there.

    Please understand whether paid or not – a link from a good directory is always helpful. In such a case Google is not bothered where you paid for the link or not.

    In my opinion if you get your link for free, why pay? Especially if the free link sends you traffic.

    A featured link is no problem at all. Most directories add “nofollow” to the href tag, so these links are not considered as incoming links.

    I think people are more concerned about being banned. Rest be assured, this is the last step a search engine would take. More than paid link, if they are absolutely sure, the site owner is trying to SPAM the search engines for whatever reason – they might ban the site.

    So go ahead and get your sites listed in various directories. Just make sure you are not stepping overboard and spamming the search engines.

    Have you any more questions on link directory? Do let me know.

    Recommended Reading:

    1. How to Report Paid Links by Matt Cutts
    2. How To Use Rel Nofollow For Paid Link Advertisements
    3. Is Buying Links Stupid?
    4. Conversation With An Idiot Link Broker by Danny Sullivan

    Posted in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Comments (3)

    How To Use Rel Nofollow For Paid Link Advertisements

    Posted on 01 October 2008. Tags: ,

    In my earlier post “to buy link or not to buy links” I had mentioned that there is way to let the search engines know if a link is a paid link/advertisement and therefore should not be considered for ranking websites and for Page Rank (PR) juice flow.

    You must do some serious research before deciding to buy paid links as a method of advertising. Make sure that the site has a lot of traffic and gets visitors who are likely to be your customers. If you advertise in a non-relevant site, you will end up throwing money down the drain. You may get some visitors but they won’t become your customers.

    Buy links to advertise your site in another site only when you have done some SEO and tried pay per click methods such as Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter.

    However if you have decided to buy links to your site you must link using the nofollow attribute.

    Suppose your site is www.yoursite.com and the anchor text you want to use is “Buy SEO Tools”.

    Here is how you must write the HTML HREF (linking) Tag:

    <a href=’http://www.yoursite.com’ rel=’nofollow’>Buy SEO Tools</a>

    Note rel=’nofollow’ – this attribute of the HREF tag tells the search engines:

    “This is a link to www.yoursite.com but please DO NOT consider this link while ranking the target site in your search results or for Page Rank vote.”

    The major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Live do understand this HTML tag.

    You must be thinking – why should I use this anyway as it will block my page rank flow and affect my site’s ranking?

    The problem is if you don’t use rel=nofollow the search engines will consider this as a normal link and page rank will flow and your rankings might improve. But in the near future if they find that your site does not offer good value to its visitors and you have bought links to spam results – just to get up the ladder of the SERPs (search engine results page), they might ban your site.

    Why the search engines felt the need for rel=nofollow?

    There are many wealthy online marketers in the world. They have plenty of money to do whatever they want. Imagine if they all made rubbish sites and bought links on high PR sites just to get better rankings?

    The top results will be full of junk sites of these wealthy businessmen and soon people will lose faith in the search engine and look elsewhere. This is what the search engines don’t want. They want to show the best possible results to their searchers so that they can retain them for long.

    Another problem was that many link spammers used to write junk comments in blogs (a.k.a comment spam) and leave a link to the site they were promoting. This became a problem for the bloggers and the search engines.

    The bloggers spent most of their time in clearing comment spams instead of concentrating on improving their blogs. The search engine results were getting spammed too.

    Here is the official bog posting of Google explaining how they have decided to prevent comment spam with the help of rel=nofollow tag.

    Most of the blogging software automatically include the “nofollow” attribute in a comment. This is the reason why comment spammers have almost stopped wasting their time commenting in blogs for Page Rank.

    Unfortunately this practice is still going on, though comment spam has reduced. I feel those who still do it are the ones who do not know about the “nofollow” attribute.

    My blog also receives comment spam occasionally.

    NOTE: Some of the blog software add rel=’external nofollow’. This is same as rel=’nofollow’, except that it means the site being linked is an external site. However rel=’nofollow’ is good enough.

    What do you think? Is this a right move by the search engines?

    Recommended Reading:
     
    1. The official Google Blog on preventing comment spam
    2. WebMasterWorld discussion on rel=nofollow attribute
    3. Wikipedia explains spam in blogs
    4. What is a blog

    Posted in Search Engine Optimization (SEO)Comments (2)

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