Bounce-rate may be something that you've heard batted about by SEO experts or web business consultants, but you may not really be sure what it means.  Bounce-rate (in the simplest terms) is a measurement defining the amount of visitors that come to your site and then leave without moving off the initial page they landed on.  It doesn't have anything to do with how long they stay on that page, just that they got to your site, and then decided to not look at any of your other pages.

There is debate about whether this effects your Search Rankings, but there does seem to be some compelling evidence that google and other search engines use bounce rates to define the quality of your site.  This is because a high bounce rate indicates that customers aren't finding useful information on your site, or are confused with how the site is set up, making it difficult to navigate.  Consumer experience is a huge component of how Google determines the way it weights its algorithms, we talked about making your site more navigable and relevant in a previous post, but an important part of reducing your bounce rate is to make sure you are using content effectively.

Its important to not only have quality, well written new content on your site, but it is essential that the content on your site is relevant to your visitors.  To do this try to develop a content plan based on what reasons consumers visit your site, and then build your content around these needs.  This will increase not only the interest each page sparks in the visitor but also will increase the value of the content you surround each page with, making it more likely for them to move from one page to the next.  Keeping this content dynamic and fresh will keep them coming back for more.  Always, always link the most relevant pages to each other, so that if you have an article on Dog Grooming, make sure that great article you wrote on The Best Food for Your Dog's Coat is linked at the bottom.  This will drive people forward, letting them enjoyably meander about your site.

Another good trick is to use clear and concise calls to action.  Encourage your visitors to check out the next page, or another relevant page, by admonishing them to do so.  Use words like, "Click here for more info" or "See related topics" to help direct your clients to other pages.

Keep an eye on bounce rates so that any changes you make to your site can be measured, evaluated and then acted upon.  You can use Google analytics to more easily keep tabs on this metric.  Remember to keep your content fresh and your site well organized you will see the results in sales and visitors staying longer and doing more things that result in revenue for your business.

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For a long time there has been a logic in the SEO community that goes something like this: If you have a top level page, which has a good search engine ranking, you should restrict the amount of outgoing internal links from that page, since the amount of link juice that each page receives is equal to the number of outgoing pages divided by initial pagerank of the top level page.  In light of this understanding of how pagerank and its transpositional characteristics work, people often spent a lot of time limiting the amount of pages that treed off of their best ranking pages.  They figured that it would help them create more powerful pages and thus raise the entire ranking of their site.  Too many outgoing pages would weaken each page and limit the effect than the content on those pages would have.

Well this logic seems to be as dead as keyword stuffing.  While one obviously doesn't want to suggest that tons of unrelated outgoing pages from good primary pages is a sound business strategy, good related content can really help increase the aggregate value of a group of pages.

Matt Cutts, Google's lead Spam Cop, talked to SEOMoz's Rand Fishkin, about a wide range of SEO related topics.  His explanation of how the pagerank juice is dispersed amongst its outgoing pages blows up conventional ideas about how the process works.  He asserts that google uses a more cyclical analysis of page's relate to each other.  Each time the google bot circles the linked pages, they go through multiple iterations of the relationship between each page spreading the pagerank out more based on the value of the page and not just the value of page it is linking from.  The more useful information you link together the better they transmit pagerank from page to page.

This is further evidence that building pages of related content, either through a series addressing a particular topic in its various permutations, or just sticking to a subject and really tackling all its various sides, will only help the total value of your site.  Creating a circle of good content will also help build goodwill amongst your users, encouraging both more time on your site as well as more chances to have your content linked to.

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Now is a particularly tenuous time for small businesses around the world.  The world's economic crisis has yielded some calamitous children, wrecking havoc on ebbs and flows of the economic base which props up our collective economy.  This has meant otherwise stable industries have felt the pinch of limited liquidity as their bottom line has shrunk.  So what does this have to do with online marketing?  Everything.

As the last year has rounded out, statistics are now out, and the evidence is clear: if you aren't spending money on your website and online marketing campaign you are letting your competitors take advantage of double digit growth opportunities found in the online sphere.  In the first quarter of 2010 the average spending by small businesses on their online visibility was $2200, up over Q4 of 2009, and 111% up over Q4 2008.  This means that if you aren't planning on spending 10k this year on buying content, optimizing your website, link building or brand placement, you are falling behind the trending of the economic sphere you need to be most competitive in right now.  With online marketing experiencing the highest growth of any other marketing spheres, small businesses should be seriously considering moving away from traditional advertising methods and into the future.

Not only are we seeing growth in online media, but we are also seeing its efficacy grow at unprecedented rates. Consumers on websites who are complying with calls to action has also grown almost 10% since 2008.  This indicates that not only are potential customers becoming more and more savvy about how to use the internet, they are also becoming more receptive to media messages presented through their computer screens.

Traditional advertising is limited by cost and penetration, yielding only a broad and expensive reach, while web marketing has endless mediation possibilities, is extremely agile and can be tweaked, squeezed or reshaped to fit the needs of your clients.  It is important to spend during a recession so make sure that you are spending your money where you can maximize your potential, and where your competitors are already developing their own inroads.

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