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What is My Website’s Bounce Rate?

Bounce Rate
Of all the analytic metrics out there, one of the ones I get asked the most is “What is a bounce rate?”. This metric is one of the most confusing and often-times misleading numbers on your entire SEO report.Bounce Rate
 

How do you calculate bounce rate?

 
Bounce-rate is the percentage of visitors to your website who only viewed 1 page. If someone finds your website via a search engine, clicks on it, goes to the site, views your page, then goes off to another site, that is registered as a bounce.
 

Is a high bounce rate good?

 
That depends on the function of your website. If you have a news site with tons of content, blogs, articles and pages, a high bounce rate is bad. It means you are not getting your message across, or people are having trouble finding what they need at first glance. If you have a service oriented website where the main goal is to generate a phone call or send a message, a high percentage is not bad. Someone could be needing an HVAC contractor and as soon as they see the phone number, they call and schedule an appointment. In this scenario, the website did its main job, but your bounce rate is directly affected by it.
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Google Reverses Update of Longer Meta Descriptions

Google Reverses Meta Descriptions Update

Google Reverses Meta Descriptions Update

Leave it up to Google to reverse one of the biggest visible changes to search engines in many years. Back in the beginning of the year, they announced that they would begin showing around 320 characters underneath the titles when you perform a search on their website. This was a big change, as the number of websites shown above the fold and on your screen would have shrunk by 2-5 (depending on your screen size). That meant that if your website had longer description tags, it would take up more space and valuable real estate on the already crowded search engine results pages.

Reducing Meta Descriptions

In a surprising decision, Google has reduced the number of characters shown in meta descriptions on the search engine results page from ~320 back to ~160. While this does not mean the end of the world, it does mean that your descriptions will cut off, sometimes mid-sentence.

Recently, Google has used the description tags as a suggestion, instead of a definite. For instance, if someone searches for a very specific thing and the page that relates to it does not have that term in the description, Google will randomly take the liberty of replacing it with content from the page that does.

Why are metas important?

Titles and Descriptions are the first impression that searchers get when perusing the list of websites to click on for their particular search. Well-written and descriptive meta tags entice users to click on your site, so spending the time to write and rewrite them is worth it. If you have the best website in the world, but poorly written, or missing metas, your website will miss out on traffic from search engines, as you have not given searchers a reason to click on your site. Metas are one of the most important factors driving traffic to your website.

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3 SEO Benefits of Business Blogging

The business blog has become practically a must-have for any business looking to expand their online presence. Beyond the fact that it’s a popular vehicle for information among readers, blogs also add massive amounts of SEO value to your site. This means greater online visibility for your business, more qualified leads, and more sales.

So, how do blogs achieve this marketing miracle? When done right, a well-written business blog helps to optimize your site for both search engines and human readers, and brings them both to your website.

Here are the top 3 SEO benefits of blogging for your business:

1. Fresh content is search engine food.
Any website that has continuously updated content is one step ahead of the competition. Posting a new blog every other day (or more!) is a perfect way to signal to the search engines that you take an active approach with your website’s content and will rank you higher than if your content is stale and rarely updated. Posting a blog with links to other sections of your site bolsters the crawl-ability of the pages, which in turn increases the SEO benefit to your entire site.

2. It adds keyword-rich content to your site.
Writing a well thought out, blog post, with keywords that you’ve done research on, is one of the most effective SEO tactics available today. It creates a page that is dedicated specifically to that one keyword, so anytime someone searches for the keyword that you’re focusing on, you will have a greater chance of being clicked on. Searches using these keywords often take people right to a specific blog page, so include them to boost your blog’s SEO power. With the ability to devote an entire page of your website to a one keyword or phrase, you can easily tell, via your SEO Reports, the traffic that is being brought to your site.

3. It brings you backlinks.
Perhaps the greatest SEO benefit that a blog can offer your site is the links it will bring from other sites. Blogs are where people tend to engage with your company. They comment on your posts and link to them from their own blogs. They also leave their own links with their comments.

Whether it’s through social media, blog comments or links to your blog from other sites, backlinks increase your authority with search engines, making you more visible to readers and helping you spread your content throughout the Web. It is the marketing miracle achieved by an optimized, well-written and authoritative blog.

Baggies 47 can help you write your blogs and increase your presence in the search engines. Blogging is one of the most effective and economical ways to increase traffic to your site. If you want to boost the SEO power of your website, spread your company’s message and showcase your authority to potential buyers, a blog is a must-do. Contact us today and see the difference it makes!