When you read over your web site traffic stats or Analytics, you should see some statistics or percentage for what’s known as a bounce rate.  The bounce rate is essentially what percentage of people have bounced or left your web site in under 30 seconds.  The higher the percentage, the worse the situation is. I like to see a bounce rate between 30-40%.

If you determine that you have a high bounce rate, there are a few things worth examining:

* Are people searching a search engine for what they are seeking and finding that your content doesn’t match? (Time for some SEO and Internet marketing help.)
* Are people horrified by what they are seeing on your web site? (time for a web site re-design)
* Are people being led to click a third party link (like an off site store) which your analytics program is not tracking? (see if your third party store can track your visitors and where they came from for a more accurate depiction of your reality.)

Like many things in life, SEO has a good side and a dark side.  The good side is referred to as “White Hat SEO” or playing by the rules.  Search engines such as Google have spent years building a very robust and intuitive search engine that is geared to deliver useful and relevant results: in order to deliver those results, they expect companies who directly benefit from their search engine to play by the rules.  White Hat SEO is simply that, playing by the rules. All search engine optimization companies should be familiar with Google’s webmaster terms of use located here and adhere to them.  Failure to adhere to these guidelines could get a web site banned or penalized from Google.  No Google, No Traffic.

I’ll discuss Black Hat SEO in my next SEO vocab post.

If you are seeking a White Hat SEO Company, call On Target Web Solutions of Orlando today: Toll Free: 866-998-6886 or in Orlando: 407-830-4550.

There has been a lot of buzz around the SEO world lately on this term.  Local search is basically making certain that your ‘local’ based company is found in Google Maps, In the pay per click section (sponsored listings in Google) and in the organic or natural search engine listing results. Simply put, if you sell air conditioners in Orlando, Florida, you need to focus your search efforts on the Orlando market. I know it sounds elementary, but targeting the proper keywords for proper local terms will yield much more targeted search engine traffic.

It’s very important to get your site listed at least in the Google map section which shows on a Google search directly below the first sponsored listings.  It’s free and easy to sign your company up in Google local maps, you will be asked to verify your address before Google will list your business.

See local Google search screenshot below for the term Orlando Air Conditioning:

Example Of Google Local Search

Anchoring is the process of point links back to a web site with specific keywords. For example, rather than linking back to my company On Target Web Solutions on a client site, I might use the term Orlando Web Design and hyperlink that back to my site.  Here’s why: if you focus on linking back to your web site with specific keywords you want to be found under, Google eventually starts associating your web site with those specific keywords.  The more relevant web sites that point back to your web site with specific keywords, the higher the probability that your web site will rank well under those terms.

What exactly is a meta tag and why is it critical to your web site search engine marketing efforts?

A Meta Tag is a snippet of code that SHOULD be placed into each page of your web site.  Basically, the meta tags should tell Google, Bing, Yahoo (and other search engines) what your web site is about, page by page.  I personally consider the title tag to be the most critical of all as it is actually the first string of words that a search engine reads when it visits your web site.  The Title tag should hold clearly pronounce what your web page is all about, it should also be written for human consumption! The title tag shows up in a Google search as the hyperlink you would actually click to visit that particular site, so it needs to be written to be ‘read’.

The meta description tag is also seen in search engine results (in particular, Google.) If your web site creator has inserted a meta description into your web page, it should be what the searcher sees when they google your company. This description is also a great opportunity to entice prospects to visit your web site as well as give search engines clues about what content is on that particular web page.

The meta keyword tag is actually, in my humble opinion, a dying tag.  Basically, many moons ago, the keyword tag was an opportunity for search engines to ‘tag’ your web site under specific keywords.  Spammers caught on that they could use this to ‘hyper inflate’ weight on certain terms, etc., so engines like Google stopped paying as much (if any) attention to them.  My company, On Target Web Solutions does still install the tag, but we put minimal weight on it’s overall effectiveness.

Overall, the use of meta tags is highly encouraged, to see if you have meta tags on your web site, right click on your web site and click view source.  Look at the very top portion of your web site code and you should see meta tags at the top. Then, make sure that the tags make sense and accurately represent your web site’s content.

What is Organic SEO?

Organic SEO is simply any search result that appears NOT as a result of a pay per click or sponsored listings ad.  Searchers on a search engine such as Bing or Google tend to click the Organic search results 70% of the time as opposed to the pay per click at %30. Organic rankings are calculated by each search engine differently, so your web site needs to be constructed with organic SEO (search engine optimization) in mind from the beginning. Some factors for ranking include: amount of keyword relevant content, your domain name, the web site structure, the amount of quality inbound and relevant links, the use of title and meta description tags, etc.