The Web Smart Blog

The Web Smart Blog exists to extend the information provided in our monthly Web Smart Newsletters. Web information changes so quickly that a monthly publication can't cover enough ground. Also, additional information to past topics can't wait for future publication so we add related newsletter information here.

Thanks for the Feedback and the Links!

April 2, 2008 at 2:39 pm by Eric

Thanks to some of the folks who linked to the past two month's video newsletters on SEO. Andy Beal added the videos to his "Pilgrim's Picks" and Debra Mastaler, (the link expert) gave us a couple links from her blog.

SEO expert Aaron Wall gave some great feedback, correcting my approach to using the meta description area. He has a video on his site providing more depth on using descriptions more strategically.

Thanks everyone for your responses, links and feedback!

(Added 4/3/08) And late thanks to Bill Seaver at Micro Explosion Media for the post and links!

Tags: seo search

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Understanding Bounce Rates

February 5, 2008 at 11:00 am by Chris

Understanding bounce rate is an important aspect of analyzing your overall statistics, especially when it comes to determining the effectiveness of an individual page. The bounce rate measures the number of visitors to a website that leave before a specified amount of time has elapsed (this time period varies among analytics tools, but typically it is 30 minutes). This means that if a user accesses your site and leaves it within 30 minutes or leaves their browser idle for that time, they will be registered as a bounce. The bounce rate for an individual page of a website is determined by the number of users that access a page and leave the site without clicking to another page within the specified time period.

Avinash Kaushik, Google's Analytics Evangelist, has blogged about measuring the effectiveness of your web pages and writes:

"My own personal observation is that it is really hard to get a bounce rate under 20%, anything over 35% is cause for concern, 50% (above) is worrying. I stress that this is my personal analysis based on my experience, but hopefully it gives you a feel for what you are shooting for."

One thing to keep in mind is that your expectation for meeting Kaushik's standard on any given page of your site should also be measured against the entrance sources for that page. Depending upon how a user is referred to your site, his or her understanding of the relevance of your site's content to their query will vary quite a bit. For example, if a user searches for "Chris Butler blog" and clicks the link on the search results page that leads them to my blog, it is quite possible that they will immediately leave once they realize that my blog is about web technology and strategy (perhaps the Chris Butler they were looking for is a wedding photographer). The point is that the more specific the search query, the more likely that a user will come to your page "pre-qualified" for the content he or she is about to receive and will not leave the page immediately.

If you take a look at the image to the left, you'll see the top seven entrance sources for this blog, and the corresponding bounce rates for users that entered from those sources. Notice that users that came to my blog directly register a very low bounce rate. This is to be expected since these users know the blog and therefore know generally what information they will be getting. On the other hand, notice that users entering the blog from Google register a higher bounce rate (overall, not too low, though). This is likely due to what I mentioned above about search query specificity. In fact, one of the top search terms that lead users to my blog is "alexa above the fold," yet I only used this phrase once in my blog in a slightly peripheral comment. This means that users coming to my blog after having searched for that phrase should be expected to register a relatively high bounce rate (their bounce rate is 40%).

One of the best ways that I have found to increase the number of "pre-qualified" users has been to post my blog articles to Digg. Since I've just gotten started with this, my Digg performance isn't that significant, but what has been important to me is that the users that do come to my blog via Digg register a very low bounce rate consistently. This is because Digg allows you to post a link to an article and then place it within a set of pre-defined categories. If a user clicks to your article from Digg, he or she will theoretically have at least narrowed down to a category of interest and will be "pre-qualified" for the information you provide.

Tags: seo google search analytics

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Sitelinks and Search Snippets Updated

January 22, 2008 at 10:00 am by Chris

In a past post (Sitelinks and Search Snippets) I mentioned that Google was rolling out a more expanded snippet for URLs that included a mini sitemap for the URL shown. I had also mentioned that Google had not implemented control of these site links for webmasters. As of recently, this is no longer true. Eric sent me the following screenshot (see below), showing that you can now control the sitelinks using Google's webmaster tools.

Tags: seo google search

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Sitelinks and Search Snippets

December 10, 2007 at 10:00 am by Chris

Several Newfangled clients have asked recently about Sitelinks, the list of links that display below some search results in Google which often look like a mini sitemap of the site linked in the results. Google introduced Sitelinks as a snippet feature to make it easier for users to get to the pages on your site that they want. They do this by analyzing your site's structure to find simpler ways to navigate it. Currently, Sitelinks are controlled by Google alone, so there is no way for you to ensure that your site will have them in its snippet. However, a well-structured site that is fully indexable by Google will be more likely to be chosen for Sitelinks.

Google has recently updated the algorithm to show up to eight Sitelinks per site, double the amount that used to display, as well as increase the number of websites that will appear in Google with Sitelinks included in their snippet.

Also, Matt Cutts, of Google, has recently created a nice short video explaining the overall 'anatomy' of a search snippet. You can read his post here, or watch the video below:

http://feeds.mattcutts.com/~r/mattcutts/uJBW/~3/191055117/

Tags: seo google search

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A Few Online Advertising Links

June 29, 2007 at 8:05 pm by Eric

I've been busy with the website video this month so blogging’s been light. I've tagged a few sites relating to online advertising to blog about when I got the chance. One was an article at Fast Company covering the FOOA conference (Future of Interactive Advertising). The panel discussed the shift of ad spending drifting away from television and moving toward the Internet.

Another interesting site is Openads.org. It's the Linux of Google Ad Words. The open source nature of the platform removes the cost of the ad network and ad delivery provider thus maximizing revenues for the publisher and decreasing costs for the advertiser. Definitely keep an eye on this site.

Scott Karp's Publishing 2.0 blog had a great post called Ad Platforms vs. Ad Networks: Who Controls The Advertiser Relationship? It covers the differences between Ad Networks and Ad Platforms and the current roles that Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft are playing in this area.

Tags: search advertising20 onlineadvertising

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Additional Comparissions of AdWords and Yahoo! Panama

May 7, 2007 at 2:54 pm by Eric

Search Engine Land has posted a article called Key Differences Between Yahoo Search Marketing & Google AdWords. The articles goes into more detail on the differences between the two services, specifically at an interface level.

When I was writing Online Advertising Redux I had just set up a Yahoo! advertising account but hadn't run it long enough to report on any findings. So far I'm underwhelmed. I get far more clicks from my Google campaigns than the Yahoo! campaigns for the same keywords.

I also did a quick trial of Google's new Pay-Per-Action service. I created a newsletter sign up campaign and immediately received four sign-ups. Unfortunately, they were all bogus email addresses. I've turned off the campaign until I hear from Google about the problem.

Tags: search advertising20 onlineadvertising adwords

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