One thing that you can be sure of, when it comes to the world of SEO, is that 2024 will be different to 2023 and 2023 was different to 2022. And that’s just down to the way that Google, Bing, Yahoo etc work. They are all looking at the ways we use Search Engines and changing things up to make sure that they deliver the websites we are looking for.
So, without further ado, here are the Top 10 things you should be paying attention to to give your SEO a boost in 2024.
Understand Core Web Vitals: Google’s Core Web Vitals are a set of metrics that measure the user experience of a website. These metrics include loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability. If your website doesn’t open quickly (in under 3 seconds) and people can’t understand what you do almost instantly, then your website won’t be generating many leads and opportunities.
2. Optimize for Google Passage Ranking: To think that Google only looks at web pages is so 2022.
Google’s Passage Ranking algorithm is designed to identify and rank individual passages of text within a web page. Google will look at the paragraphs and individual sentences on a page and will rank a page based on a single line, or paragraph, if it thinks that content is relevant.
3. Focus on Featured Snippets: Featured snippets are the highlighted search results that appear at the top of Google’s search engine results page (SERP). Google can (and does) display parts of a web page if they answer specific queries in Google Search.
4. Learn the E-E-A-T Principle: E-E-A-T stands for Expertise, Experience, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. To support your website, and help Google understand your business and how good your business is, you need to demonstrate your E.E.A.T in your content.
If you demonstrate E.E.A.T and your website becomes an authoritative go-to source for a topic (an individual content creator or a website) this demonstrates a very high level of E-E-A-T. For example, a content creator with years’ of first-hand experience in a topic where this is more important than formal expertise demonstrates a very high level of E-E-A-T.
5. Support Multiple Long-Tail Keyword Phrases: Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific keyword phrases that users are more likely to search for. Although using Long Tail Keywords won’t be as exciting as working on really popular keywords/phrases there will be much less competition which makes it easier to rank for them, ultimately leading to more visits to your website.
As an example, “SEO” is a high focus, popular keyword with millions of results which makes it extremely competitive and very hard to get a Page 1 placement for. However, “SEO specialist in Wiltshire” has much less competition, making it easier to rank for. It also means that people searching for an SEO specialist in Wiltshire who find, and visit, a website that meets their search criteria will be a far warmer lead.
6. Create New Content: How does a Search Engine tell that you are still in business? By regularly posting high quality content, that’s how. Not only that but you can focus your new content on specific issues to support your E.E.A.T. AND to focus on particular areas that need SEO support. Just make sure that it’s informative and relevant to your target audience.
7. Update Old Content: Updating old content is just as important as creating new content. Revisit existing content and bring it up to date to maintain its relevance for your target audience.
8. Understand the Importance of Local SEO: If your target market is local to your business then you need to focus on Local SEO. This will help Google understand Where you work so that people in your target area can easily find your business. Your free Google Business Profile (FKA Google My Business) is a powerful way to communicate the areas you cover.
9. Focus on User Experience (UX) Optimization: Understand HOW people are navigating through your website and how people are actually using your website. This is called User Experience (UX) and optimising UX is a surefire way of keeping your audience engaged and encourages the actions that you want visitors to take. Contact, Subscribe, Download, Buy etc. And keeping visitors on your website for more time also supports your SEO because Google knows whether people love, or gate, your site.
10.Zero-Click Searches Take Over Popularity: A Zero-click search is any result that answers your question without you having to actually click to visit a website. (See Featured Snippets as an Example) It is expected that zero-click searches will become even more popular so you should take this trend in to account when designing, or redesigning your website.
I hope this list is helpful and if you need help with your SEO then please, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Call me on 01793 238020, email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk or just search Chief SEO Officer for a free chat about your business, your website and your SEO.
Web analytics is the process of collecting, analysing, and interpreting data about website usage. Understanding the data will help you understand how visitors are using your website, and this is information that you can feed back into the design of your website.
To make the most of your website’s data it’s important to understand key terms like bounce rate, conversion rate, and sessions. Google Analytics is the most used by SMEs. Google Analytics 3 provides a lot of information about the way visitors use, interact with and move through a website. However, GA3 is highly reliant on tracking cookies, something that the EU have taken against on privacy grounds. As a result, at the time of writing, Google is in the middle of migrating from Google Analytics 3 (GA3) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4), a migration that is due to be completed by June 2023.
To help you understand the most important GA4 metrics here are 10 essential web analytics terms to get you started.
1/ Users
This is the count of visitors to your website within a specific time frame. The count starts when a visitor enters your website and ends when they leave, or after a period of inactivity, usually 30 minutes. Users numbers are important to understand, although it’s equally important to understand what they do whilst they are on your website and how long they stay on it.
2/ Pageviews
A pageview is a count of the number of times a page on your website has been viewed. This metric is useful in measuring the popularity of your content and determining which pages on your site are the most engaging. Page Views divided by Users gives you an average number of Pages Viewed per visit, To get the full benefit of this metric you need understand what you want people to do whilst they are on your site, and how many pages they have tpo visit to complete that goal. Generally speaking, the higher the average number the better but if you have a small website it’s unlikely to be more than 2 or 3.
3/ New Users
Users is the count of the total of visitors to your website over a given period of time. A “New User” is a person who visits your website for the first time within a specific time frame. New Users are important to measure because this figure counts how many different individuals are visiting your website, which is crucial in determining the success of your marketing efforts.
4/ Engagement Rate
The Engagement Rate records the number of people who actually do something when the visit your website. In GA3 the Bounce rate was the percentage of visitors who left your website after only viewing one page, the Engagement Rate is a more positive view, looking at visitors who do something. Visit another page, watch a video, spend more than 20 seconds on your site etc.
A low Engagement rate can indicate that your website is not meeting the expectations of your visitors, and they are not finding what they are looking for.
5/ Conversion Rate
Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who complete a specific action on your website, such as filling out a form or making a purchase. This metric is crucial in measuring the effectiveness of your website in achieving its goals. However, to be of value you must understand what it is you want your visitors to do and set the correct Goal in the “Conversions” screen.
6/ User Acquisition
This information helps you to understand how your visitors reached, or found, your website. Is your online advertising working? Are your Social Media campaigns delivering visits to your website? Is your SEO paying off?
The “User Acquisition” menu answers these questions, and more – such as which traffic source delivers the best Engagement Rate.
Core metrics include
Direct – Visitors who know your web address, from their “favourites”, from a business card, from a phone conversation etc.
Organic Search – Visits that started on a Search Engine, such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo etc.
Paid – Traffic from Pay-per-Click Ads, such as Google and Bing Ads, Facebook Ads etc.
Referral – Visitors that have arrived after clicking on a link on a third party site, such as a directory site
Organic Social – Visitors who come from a Social Media platform, from clicking on your profile or something in your Newsfeed not after clicking on an Ad.
7/ Average Engagement Time
Time on site is the average amount of time that a user spends on your website. This metric is important in understanding the engagement level of your visitors and how interested they are in your content. Like a lot of the metrics here, it does mean that you have to understand your website and website goals. How long does it take to get from the Landing Page to your goal page. For a small site, with just a Home Page and a Contact Page this could be a matter of a few seconds whilst for a larger, eCommerce website for example, it could be several minutes but understanding your website is key to properly understanding the Average Engagement Time.
8/ Landing Page
Contrary to popular belief, not all Visitors will land on your website’s Home Page. Search Engines will want to provide searchers with a link that is most appropriate to their search, for example. This makes it easier for searchers to find what they are looking for.
A well planned Ads campaign will take people directly to the page or product that most closely relates to their search.
People may also save specific pages in their Favourites.
Understanding Landing Pages and Engagement Rates for Landing Pages will enhance your understanding of the performance of your website.
9/ Tech >Device
These days, Google search takes a Mobile First view, which means it looks at the Mobile version of your website first. However, it’s important to understand how many visitors to your site come from mobile phones, desktops and tablets because this will guide you as to the most important format for your website. For example, if only 5% of visits come from Mobile devices then you need to focus on the Desktop/Laptop version of your website but if more than 30-40% of visits originate from mobiles then you need your prime focus to be on the small screen versions of your website.
10/ Demographics/User Location
It is important to understand where your visitors live. If you are an exporter you need to know that people in your target markets are finding, and visiting your website and if you only trade in the UK it’s important to ensure that the majority of your Visitors come from the UK. If you receive a lot of visits from territories that you don’t serve it might be that your marketing is being sown in countries that you don’t serve and this is wasted effort and wasted money, especially if you are using paid advertising to attract people to your site.
Conclusion
Understanding these ten essential web analytics terms is crucial in optimizing your website, measuring its effectiveness, and making data-driven decisions. By analysing these metrics, you can gain valuable insights into your website’s performance and can make changes that can lead to increased traffic, engagement, and sales.
I hope this list of terms is helpful and if you need help understanding what Google Analytics is telling you about your website, whether that’s GA3 or GA4 then please, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Call me on 01793 238020, email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk or just search Chief SEO Officer
It’s the new year. Did you make any New Year’s Resolutions? Was one of them to go to the gym to get fitter and lose that Christmas podge?
Well, your website is not dissimilar. Over the years that you’ve had it, it’s hopefully been updated, edited, had new content added and irrelevant content removed. But is it still contiguous?
When was the last time you went through it,
Page by page
Link by Link to make sure everything is still working
Word by Word to ensure all your words still send the right message
Image by image to make sure your pictures are fresh, relevant and up to date.
To check that the navigation doesn’t take a visitor to the wrong page – or even worse, a 404 Error Page
To ensure that all pages load in under 3 seconds
Checking that your Shopping Cart (if you have one) still works
That your shopping cart is easy and logical to use. Ask someone unfamiliar with your site to make a trial purchase and ask for their feedback.
Ensure that the whole transaction process still functions as designed
And that your site is super easy to use on a small (mobile phone) screen
Oh, and the SEO is still top-notch, you’re using the right keywords, your Header Tags are using relevant Key Words, your Meta Title and Meta Descriptions are the right length and not duplicated, that your images have SEO relevant file names, all images have Alt-Tags and all images are of an appropriate size. That your content has keywords featured in the top one or two paragraphs but that keywords are not overly repeated. That nothing’s been missed, no stone left unturned, and your links to your Social Media profiles still work.
It’s so easy to take these things for granted, to trust that your developer has done their job but such complacency could lead to a decline in your business because you’ll never find out until it’s too late. Nobody will tell you if they encounter a problem, they’ll just go to their search engine of choice, probably Google, and look for somebody else to service their need.
Unlike a lot of website SEO evaluations, mine will be carried out by me, not by a machine, so I’ll come back with a far better evaluation and detailed list of recommendations that you can carry out, that you can pass to your developer or you can ask me to implement. And if you book your *Website Workoutby the end of January 2023 you’ll get 100% of the cost back if you choose to let me take on your SEO.
Option Two
Carry out the in-depth Website Workout yourself (but you might slip up if you are overly familiar with your site so getting a third party to do it for you is always the best option
Option Three
Get in touch to talk about other options. I can help with your website, your SEO, your Social Media, Email Marketing and much more and I even offer a free consultancy session, or you can just drop me an email or just give me a call on 01793 238020 or 07966 547146.
You’ve had a website for years, you’ve just updated your website or you’ve just launched your website and are worried that your website is invisible and your customers won’t be able to find it. What can you do, what should you do and what must you do?
Don’t panic, this simple guide will take you through the steps you must take to ensure that Google can find your website in the online jungle, how to make your site visible in Google search and even point the way to creating a website that actually works, rather than just look good. And if all else fails, or you want to shortcut the process – just get in touch and I’ll step in and help out.
How does Google find your site?
Not a Search Engine Robot
Let’s start with Google Search – used by over 90% of people who use a search engine, and that’s around 80% of web users so that’s a lot of people. Google uses software called Robots to scour websites. They send these Robots out on the World Wide Web to find as many websites as possible. They do this by following the links between websites, the Robots look at all of the pages they can find and take all of the information back to the massive Google database of websites, Google calls this database their “Index”.
If you don’t have any links (Backlinks) to your website there is a very real danger that Google will miss your site so you need to install the free Google Analytics website performance tool and sign up to the free Google Search Console. This brings your site to the attention of Google and guarantees a visit from the Robots. However, this does not guarantee that your site will feature in the search results – it needs quality, non-spammy content for that and even this does not guarantee a place ion the top pages. You need SEO for that
How does Google rate your site?
The Google Logo
Google wants to understand the purpose of every singe page of your website. To do this, it needs to be able to visit every page. This requires good navigation links on your site AND, if you have a large site, the use of an XML Sitemap so that Google, and all the other search engines, can find all of your pages.
Then, once your pages are in the Index it’s ready to be found. When somebody searches for the services you provide or the products you sell, Google checks its Index for all the words that have been entered in the search box. It very quickly finds all of the pages in the Google Index and applies an algorithm to those results. The algorithm is a set of mathematical tools, instructions and filters that measures every page of each website by looking at more than 200 different signs and signals and the results that most closely match the search terms appear at the top of the Search Results Pages (Page 1) and the poorer the match, the farther down the results the sites appear. And remember only about 50% of search users EVER make it to Page 2 whilst just 10% make it to P3 and beyond. Making P3 a great place to bury bad news.
How do you make your website more visible
First off, make sure your website is fast (if it’s slow people won’t stay so it doesn’t matter how great, or naff, your site is you’ve already hampered your business). Then ensure that it’s full of great relevant content with positive calls to action. Your website MUST be for your site visitors and clients and “created to help users” – that’s directly from Google. This means that each page must be user centred and designed to –
share information about a topic
share personal or social information
share pictures, videos or other forms of media
express an opinion or point of view
entertain
sell products or services
allow users to post questions for other users to answer
allow users to share files or download software
provide something of similar quality
Google Analytics Logo
Next up is to install the free Google Analytics tracking software that will help you understand how well your website is performing with your customers. Then authenticate with the Google Search Console, another free tool from Google that will give an insight into what Google thinks of your website.
By doing this, you bring your website to the attention of Google which means they know where to send their Robots to Spider your website and take everything back in to the Google Index.
Now it’s time to build your Google My Business(GMB) profile to help Google understand your NAP, that’s your Name, Address & Phone Number. Once you’ve completed your GMB profile you should register with a number of key web based directory websites.
In the meantime you should be adding fresh, new, relevant and search engine optimised content. That’s because people love new stuff, and so does Google – it informs Google that your website is active and your business is still trading. It also demonstrates your EAT to Google, that’s your Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness. If you are in the financial sector you need to be concerned with Google’s YMYL – Your Money or Your Life.
YMYL content is content that impacts on a reader’s happiness, health, safety or financial stability which, if presented incorrectly, might have a direct, negative, impact on people’s lives
Writing something new about once a month should do it – keep your eyes open for my forthcoming post that’ll be all about writing great, search optimised, content for your website and if you need any help with your content, your SEO or anything else to do with your digital marketing, you know to do.
Social Likes
And not forgetting your Social Media. Every time you create new content don’t forget to share it on your Socials. That helps spread the word and the right posts, of the right content, will attract visits to your website. Google Analytics will show you which platforms are delivering the best traffic. As well as your Socials, don’t forget email and video marketing as well as podcasts.
And if you don’t have the time or need professional help, I am just a call or an email away.
Search Engine Optimisation, aka SEO, the process of editing your website to ensure that it meets the requirements of the search engines AND delivers on your customers’ needs and expectations.
SEO should be a key part of your marketing strategy.
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimisation is the the process that is undertaken in order to make your website search engine friendly. This makes it easy for all search engines to fully understand your business, your services and/or your products so that your website can feature in the search results when somebody is searching for the things you do, the services you provide or the goods you sell.
But it’s not quite as simple as simply being listed. I work at Search Engine Optimisation and if you do a search for that, Google comes back with nearly 23 million results. And with no more than 10 free results on a page that’s a potential of 2.3 million pages of results.
Obviously, nobody is going to go through 2.3 million pages – there’s a limit to how far people will go. In fact only about 1 in 2 (50%) of us will ever make it from Page 1 to Page 2 and only around 10% (1 in 10) will go to Page 3 and beyond
And that’s why, when people talk about SEO they talk about trying to get your business on to the first page of the results, because that’s where all the eyes are.
But it’s not quite that simple, either. Although a Page 1 result is great, the higher UP the results you are the better it gets. In fact, over 50% of the clicks on Page happen take place on the TOP 2 results and over 75% take place across the TOP 3 results with just 3% of clicks happening for the result at the bottom of the page
And this is why, when people try to pitch SEO to you, they focus on getting your site on the First Page, and as high up the First Page as possible.
But there are NO GUARANTEES. The position you reach (which will change over time simply down to the way the search engines work) is both a function of your Search Engine Optimisers knowledge, diligence and ability AND how well your competitor’s sites have been optimised. You are not in a battle for perfect optimisation (hint, it probably doesn’t exist) but simply to be better than your competitors.
Even more importantly, you should NEVER lose sight of the simple fact that the search engines are simply a means to an end. They are one of the key ways that customers (both potential and existing) find your business business website BUT it’s what the visitors do whilst they are on your site that is the most important thing. If everybody that arrived from the search engines simply leaves straightaway then you have gained nothing, no matter how good your Search Engine Optimisation is.
Which is why your focus really should be on producing a website that meets the needs of your visitors.
Is it fast to load (under 3 seconds)
Test your website here
Does it work on a small screen
Is it easy to navigate
Is it easy to read
Does it talk about benefits rather than features
Does it feature clear Calls To Action
Does it tell the visitors what YOU want them to do?
Buy Now
Subscribe
Contact Us
Book Now
etc.
Hit those buttons and you are well on your way to having a website that visitors will like and will actually do what you want them to do. And, finally, if you are converting more than about 1-2% (1 or 2 in every 100) visitors then your website is doing really well.
And that’s why you need Analytics – if you don’t know how well your website is performing then you haven’t even crossed the start line. But that’s a conversation for another day.
And finally, the pitch.
If you need help with your SEO, Email Marketing, Social media or any other type of online marketing activities then I can definitely help you so you really should get in touch – even if it’s just for a free consult. You can call me on 01793 238020 or 07966 547146, email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk or book a slot using my calendar and we’ll take it from there
I started providing SEO services in 2001 and things were a lot simpler than they are now. Back then it was all about keywords. Keywords in the Keyword Meta Tag, keywords in the Meta Title and Meta Description and Keywords liberally scattered throughout the content.
Then people came up with ways to “game” the system, to effectively cheat the search engines into giving them a better result than they were probably due. If you’d like to learn about one of these Black Hat techniques you should read my post on Keyword Stuffing.
Since those early cowboy days of SEO, many things have changed. The profession has cleaned up its game (although Black Hat SEO still exists if you want to cheat the system and eventually get kicked out of the Search Engine Results Pages – SERPs) and the search engines regularly update their algorithms – the software that decided where a website deserves to sit in the Results pages.
As things have changed, the number of SEO myths has grown and these are the ones that I most frequently encounter
SEO Myth 1 – It’s no longer about keywords
This has been around for a while now. Not only does Google examine more than 200 “signals” when ranking websites it frequently tweaks theses “signals” to ensure that you and I get the most relevant results for our searches. Every time something changes, a crowd of people claim that “Keywords are dead” or “SEO is dead”. Well, I’m here to tell you keywords are NOT dead and neither is SEO.
In fact, keywords are the fundamental rock on which all SEO is based. There’s no magic or mystery about them, they are simply the words you and I enter into our web browser when searching for something and so it’s critical that these words and phrases are embedded in your website, in the places the search engines look. This enables Google, Bing, Yahoo, Duck Duck Go, etc to match searches to relevant websites
SEO Myth 2 – it’s ALL about keyword density
If you carry out a web search for “Keyword Density” you’ll find a number of sites telling you that the ideal keyword density is between 4 and 5%. This means that for every 100 words on your web pages, 4-5 of them should be keywords.
Please don’t pay ANY attention to this. If you do, you’ll fall foul of one of the cardinal rules of web development, that your website is for the visitors to your site and search engines are simply a tool to deliver those clients and prospects to your site.
If you focus on keyword density, and other SEO focused metrics, you’ll have switched content focus from creating great content for site visitors to creating content for the search engines and your content will suffer. I have worked with many sites that have fallen down this particular rabbit hole. Their site has ranked really well in the search results, the search results have delivered many visits but those visitors have left the site very quickly (Bounced in Google Analytics terms) because the content wasn’t focused on their needs.
SEO Myth 3 – it’s all about buying backlinks
Back-links, hyperlinks published on third party websites that bring people to your website are the foundations on which Google was built. Originally called “Back Rub”, Google originally ONLY ranked sites based on the volume of backlinks. The thinking was pretty simple. If I link from my site to yours then I must believe that something on your site will be of interest/value to visitors to my site and, like any good democracy, the more votes (backlinks) your website has, the more popular and better it must be.
When Google was launched, backlinks remained a fundamental way that it ranked websites (and it remains so today). As a consequence, a whole industry built up around providing backlinks, including “Link Farms”. Web pages that just looked like phone directories, with each page simply featuring hundreds of links to websites. In the early days, this was quite successful and you could buy thousands of links for a few hundred dollars.
That was until Google realised that quality was far more important than quantity and started analysing where the backlinks originated. From then on, purchased backlinks became a major no-no. Backlinks MUST be relevant, so a link from your local butchers to a website providing marketing services is not relevant, for example.
For the butcher’s example above, it’s not likely to attract a direct penalty but will probably just be ignored by Google so the effort expended on acquiring that link will have been wasted.
If you take it to the next level and start purchasing links, Google WILL find out and your website will be penalised by being pushed DOWN in the results pages. This could be critical, with only 50% of search engine users ever going beyond the first page of results and just 10% making it to page 3 and beyond, a demotion to page 5 is almost as bad as being deleted.
Myth 4 – posting the same content on many different sites will boost your ranking
“Back in the day” it was common for a blog article to be posted on a number of websites that claimed to be regularly visited by journalists, and so promised a lot of “eyes on” fresh articles. The publisher’s dream was that they’d be contacted by journalists for more information. The goal being to be mentioned in an article that gets published by the national, mainstream, media amplifying the visibility of the business. The reality was than no journalists visited these sites and the actual goal was to simply build backlinks.
As Google improved its technology it recognised these for what they were, backlink building opportunities, and woe betide your website if you had had the temerity to pay to have your post published.
From here, another myth developed, that multiple placements of identical content will be penalised. Myth 14 explains this one in more details
SEO Myth 5 – You have to write at least 1,200 words on every page for optimum SEO
If you read enough posts about SEO you will ultimately come across one that talks about the number of words contained on pages that come up in Position 1 on Page 1 of Google’s search results pages. (The holy grail of SEO if you like).
Typically they’ll tell you that top pages contain 1,200, 1,600, or even 2,000 words. That’s a LOT of writing, but don’t despair. You don’t have to write so many, or you can write many more. The reality is that there is no magic “ideal” word count that will get you on the first page of the search results. It’s much more about relevance and quality.
Look at it this way. If I tell you, or you read, that your page has to contain 1,200 words, you’re going to write 1,200 words no matter what. And if you only need 600 then your page is going to be so full of padding and filler that even were your page to feature highly in the search results and attract loads of visits, no one is going to read it.
And at the other end of the scale, if you actually need 3,000 words to get your message across and you’ve heard that the ideal page is 1,200 you’re going to edit the heck out of your content and you’ll probably remove most of the value. So, again, even if your page features highly in the results and you get loads of visits, most won’t stay because the content doesn’t make a great read.
What’s the solution? The simple solution is to write as many (or as few) words as you need to communicate your message and sell your idea. My only caveat, if you have to write a lot of words you either need to be a very good and persuasive writer OR hire a copywriter to do the work for you.
SEO Myth 6 – SEO is dead
At least once a year someone pontificates that “SEO is dead” and I worry about my future. Then I relax and realise that SEO has quite a few years to go yet. it’s a long way from being an Ex-SEO, left this mortal coil, kicking up the daisies and every other quote from Monty Python’s “Dead Parrot” sketch.
Work is required, and will always be required, to ensure that your website is as #SEOFriendly as possible so that it appears as high in the search listings as possible and drives sufficient traffic to your website
SEO Myth 7 – It’s all about Social Media these days
It’s really easy to believe, that with over 2.3Bn active users, Facebook has removed the need for a website and so SEO is no longer required.
If you follow this path, you’ll be missing out. In the UK about 32m people use Facebook. With about 90% of the UK population using the internet, ( that’s about 58.5m people) you’ll be missing 26.5m people.
And that’s just the people who don’t use Facebook Lots of Facebook users (about 70%) still turn to search engines when looking for the things they want or need. So, it’s not all about Social Media, if you just do Social, then you are missing a huge audience.
SEO Myth 8 – Pictures don’t do anything to help your SEO
Although the search engines are slowly rolling out Artificial Intelligence to help then understand the content of a picture, your images contribute greatly to the optimisation of a web page.
However, you need to optimise your pictures properly. The file size has to be small enough so as not to slow your pages down, need to have SEO optimised image names, AND have optimised Alt Tags. Sign up for my newsletter and you’ll receive my free e-Guide to image optimisation.
#UseMorePictures
SEO Myth 9 – SEO is a secret magic masked by smoke and mirrors
When SEO was growing in awareness, a lot of people delivering the service hid their actions behind smoke and mirrors, making it appear as if it was something mystical, something that could only be implemented by members of some deeply secret inner circle.
I think the main reason for this was to mask their techniques (some of which may have been gaming the system for quick results but which would lead to penalties being applied) AND so that these cowboys could charge more for their services.
The reality is that EVERYTHING you need to know is “out there” on the internet if you know where to look and who to trust. But do you want to spend time learning about SEO, sorting the wheat from the chaff and then learning how to implement it on your website AND keep it up to date or would you rather bring in someone who knows what they are doing, leaving you to do what you’re good at? Running your business, converting leads into sales, and making a profit?
SEO Myth 10 – It’s not a problem if your website is slow to load
It’s a HUGE problem if your website is slow to load. 3 seconds is the goal – why?
The internet has robbed people of their attention span. Most people simply won’t wait any more than 3 seconds for a web page to open. If it’s slow, they’ll simply go elsewhere.
And it’s worse than that. You have about 2/10s of a second for people to “Get” what your site offers and if they don’t “get” it almost straight away, they will head off elsewhere.
Because of this, Google will push slow sites down the results pages. After all, thee’s no point sending people to a website if all they are going to do is come back to their search results to go somewhere else.
A slow website is one of the reasons behind a high Bounce Rate in Google Analytics
SEO Myth 11 – You Must have perfect SEO to rank on Page 1
With Google examining more than 200 “signals” to determine where your site comes up in the search results pages, and the majority of those being known ONLY by Google thee is no way that your SEO can ever be perfect.
And you don’t have to be perfect, you just have to be better than your competitors. That’s why I’ll look at your competitors if I am working on your SEO to see what can be done to beat them.
And if you strive for perfection, you might never get anything completed. remember, perfection is the enemy of good.
SEO Myth 12 – Running a Google Ads campaign will boost your SEO
Google Ads and Google Search are two totally separate parts of Google and there is NO interlinking at all so running a large (or small) Google Ads campaign is NOT going to improve your SEO.
It will, however, give you a quick opportunity to get your business to the top if the first page of search results (In the Ads section) if you need quick traffic to your website
SEO Myth 13 – SEO is a one-time thing
No, no, and thrice no. SEO is constantly changing and you (or your search optimiser) should constantly be looking for ways to improve your SEO. After all, if you started out and were better than your competitors (See Myth 11) and they improve their SEO, they will outrank you so you need to stay on top of things.
SEO Myth 14 – Google will penalise your site for duplicate content
Myth 4 looked at the posting of content on a variety of websites with the aim of building backlinks to your website.
From this came conversations that if Google caught you doing this then they would penalise your website. This simply isn’t true. However, a very real danger of having multiple copies of the same thing is that it will dilute your search results because Google won’t know which is the most important page.
So, examine your content, and if you have more than one copy of the same thing then you need to let Google know which is the most important and the Canonical tag is the way to do this.
A canonical tag (aka “rel canonical”) is a way of telling search engines that a specific URL represents the master copy of a page. Using the canonical tag prevents problems caused by identical or “duplicate” content appearing on multiple URLs
Thanks for reading and remember, if you have any problems with your SEO please don’t hesitate to get in touch. I’ll be only too happy to answer any questions that you might have
As I write this Christmas is just around the corner. That means that it time for some top tips for your SEO for 2022. Now is an ideal time to take a step back from your website and look at all the things that are to do working ON your business rather than the day to day effort of working IN your business.
Your website should be top of the list, giving it an SEO makeover, an SEO refresh or just an SEO tweak could pay dividends by making your site easier to find. After all, if it’s easier to find, then more people will come to visit, take a look around and get in touch or buy something (if you are running an ecommerce site.
Here are the top things that YOU can do to improve the Search Engine Optimisation of YOUR website.
1/ Monitor and Measure Performance
Following the trusted mantra of “If you don’t know where you are going, how do you know when you’ve got there” you MUST be monitoring the performance of your website. If you aren’t, then how DO you know whether the investment of time (and possibly money) is actually paying off.
You could be doing something that’s working but what’s worse is you might be doing something that is harming your website. Google Analytics is free to use and easy to get going.
Set it up on your website, understand what the data is telling you and check in regularly to monitor performance.
I know that Analytics isn’t the only performance monitoring tool out there, and if you are using something else – well done. At least you are using something.
2/ Performance Monitoring Pt 2
Once you have Analytic up and running, head over to the Google Search Console. This is another free tool provided by Google. Analytics looks at how visitors found your website and tells you what they did whilst on their visit and the Search Console tells you about HOW they found your site in Google Search (the actual words and phrases typed in to Google Search) and provides recommendations to improve your website.
Again, sign up, visit and learn about the data provided. Turn it in to useful information that you can feedback in to your website design and SEO.
3/ Website Structure
Get the structure of your website in to tip top shape – even if it means a bit of work.
Make sure your website is easy to navigate. Are you using language that’s easy to understand? Does each product or service that you provide have its own, unique, page and are similar products/services grouped together in their respective “families”.
All of this makes your site easier to use AND helps Google understand what it is that you provide.
4/ Keyword Research
Do your keyword research. Understand the words and phrases that your customers are using when they are looking for your website. The Google Search Console is a treasure trove of information but tools such as UberSuggest will also help.
Each page on your website MUST be uniquely optimised for the product/service that’s featured on the page and you should filter out the 3-4 top keywords for each page. Allocate no more than 3-4 key words per page. These are the words/phrases that you will be optimising the pages for.
5/ Where do the Keywords Go
Now that you know which key words/phrases are going on each page (you might find a Spreadsheet is a great way to mage the lists) then you need to ensure that these keywords are “woven” in to the page in the places the search engines check out. If the terminology confuses you, then check out my SEO Glossary of Terms
~ Meta Title & Meta Description tags ~Header Tags (H1, H2 etc) ~ Web Page URLS https://mywebsite.co.uk/service-type ~ Image and File Names ~ Alternative Attributes ~ File Download Names ~ Main page content, ideally in the first 50 – 100 words ~ Selected text in bold
6/ Identify Links TO your website
Use the Google Search Console to identify third-party websites which Link to yours (backlinks). Conduct a backlink audit by checking every single one and make sure that you are happy with the quality of the originating site AND the relevance.
If you are a decorator, then a link from the local butchers has no relevance and it may be worth breaking the link. Check for unsavoury content and poor quality sites too – sites where there’s more adverts than proper content for example. Google will penalise you for this.
7/ Build Backlinks TO your website
One of the key ways that Google judges the value of your website (and the higher the value the higher in the results your site will appear) is by the number of links that point towards your website from third party websites so you need to build links to your website. Not just any old link though. They MUST come from trusted, high quality sites that are relevant to your business.
So, no links from click baity sites, no links from pages that are 70% Ads and 30% content, no links from sites with poor quality (or scraped/copied) content and no links from sites that have absolutely no relevance to your business.
It’s NOT easy but hard work will pay off.
8/ Fresh Content.
Ensure that you regularly add NEW content to your website. It’s not a case of subtly rewriting content but it has to be fresh and new.
Why? There are loads of reasons.
a/ It keeps Google happy. b/ It gives a reason for people to come back to your website. c/ It gives people a reason to LINK to your site d/ It provides you with content that you can use elsewhere – such as email newsletters, Social Media, podcasts, videos etc.
Imagine that you didn’t add anything new to your site – how would Google know you are still in business and why, therefore, should Google give you a good ranking on the Search Results Pages (SERPs)?
Your blog/news page is a great way to do this. You can even write specific content with SEO in mind but don’t over optimise. if you do you’ll be creating content that people won’t read – defeating the purpose of your website.
9/ Speed Speed Speed
Website speed, so important I mentioned it three times.
Your website MUST be fast. If pages take more than 3 seconds to open your visitors will leach away. We have NO patience when it comes to the internet, pages must open fast, both on desktop/laptops AND on phones. And if people don’t like slow pages, and leave almost straight away why should Google promote sites that it knows people leave almost straight away? And Google doesn’t.
Slow sites make their down the search results pages, exactly the opposite of what you need.
10/ Monitor Results
Monitor your results. Use Google Analytics, the Google Search Console AND carry out manual searches to see where your site come up. Keep a record (a spreadsheet’s one good way to do this) and keep working on your SEO.
11/ Have patience
SEO doesn’t have an impact straight away. It can takes weeks, frequently months to have an impact so don’t panic. SEO is a Marathon not a Sprint. And, if you’ve not seen a change in a couple of weeks DON’T assume that your SEO hasn’t worked. Keep at it.
Keep measuring, look at visitor sources in Google Analytics to see whether the visitors come from. Is the percentage of traffic from Google and the other search engines on the increase?
And remember, SEO is NEVER finished. You can always tweak, review and continue to make improvements.
12/ Mobile Phones
Most websites have been getting more than 50% of their traffic from mobile phones and tablets for years now. I would hope that your website is Mobile Friendly – and if it’s not, then it needs to be.
Google looks at the mobile version of your site FIRST.
Don’t take it on on trust that your site is mobile friendly, make sure that it is fast to load and easy to read.
Go to it on your phone, how does it look? Is it easy to read? Does it convey the right messages and is it easy to navigate? Can you even find the navigation?
And finally
If you need help with your SEO then all you have to do is get in touch. I’ve been working on SEO since 2001, so that’s more than 20 years, and have a good feel for what needs to be done. Not only that, but I talk in English and don’t use jargon. This means that I’ll be easy to understand when we have conversations and I won’t baffle you with bullshit. I’ll tell it as it is and if I don’t think I can help, I’ll tell you why.
Back in the early 80s, when I was undertaking quite a bit of management training I became familiar with 7Ps. Proper Preparation & Planning Prevents Pretty Poor Performance*.
When I moved from IT Support Engineer and Consultant in to Internet Marketing I learned about a different 7Ps, the 7Ps of Marketing:
Product/Service
Price
Place
People
Process
Physical Evidence
Promotion
Sometimes, when I introduce myself as a marketing professional, some conclude that I work with “advertising”. As you’ll see as you read on, you’ll see that advertising is just one part of marketing communications, which is one of the 7 Ps of marketing.
I’ve touched really briefly on the various elements of the marketing mix – but please get in touch if I can help you work through anything in particular, email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk or give me a call on 01793 238020.
This is just a snapshot of the breakdown of marketing. But it is good to sit back from your business and challenge yourself with some of these questions.
Product/Service:
Is there a market for what you do? How do you know?
Why should people buy what you offer at all and why should they buy from you?
What makes you different from your competition?
Who is your competition – when did you last do a competitive SWOT?
What are the overall growth trends in your sector?
What is your sales pattern? What area of your sales is strongest and why and can you harness this strength elsewhere?
And what area is weakest? What are you doing about it?
How well do you treat your customers?
Which profitable customers can you win from whom? Who? How? Why? Where? When?
Price
Have you built value into your pricing?
Are you competitive?
Is your cost enough for you to work with profit?
How do you set your price?
Will you discount?
How will you avoid being always known for discounting?
What do your competitors do?
Keep It simple
Place
How easy/convenient is it for your customers to buy from you?
Where and how are you currently selling your products and services?
What are the opportunities to extend these?
If you are selling a service on the web, are you supporting with testimonials and case studies?
People
Are your people one of your main strengths of your business?
Or are you the bottle neck in your company? Are you better than everyone else and does everything have to come through you first?
What type of leader are you?
What is the path for your team to voice their concerns other than coming through you?
Are your people your best ambassadors or are they whinging about you/the business as soon as they are out of the door?
Are they as well trained as they can possibly be?
Did you involve your team when you last undertook a company SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) –really powerful.
Process
One of the vital Ps but often overlooked and often designed for the company’s benefit rather than the customer’s. Ask yourself:
Can your team deliver a consistent level of service to all customers and at all times?
Customer retention is critical.. how failsafe is your process to ensure you don’t lose any?
How effective is your sales process?
What processes have you in place for telephone answering/billing/communication with your clients/recommendations/operations/
Physical Evidence (Brand)
Your brand is defined as
Signs by which you are known and remembered
A bundle of explicit/implicit promises
A reflection of personality
A statement of position.
Have you thought about/discussed what does your company stand for? What’s its personality and philosophy? What’s your one key brand promise to your customers?
Your brand is so much more than your logo. Think about a new visitor’s journey to your web site – does this reflect the look and feel of any communication they have had from you hitherto? Will they recognise this as being part of the same business? Have you had your website made mobile friendly? Really important.
A few hours spent on this are far from fluffy nonsense.
Promotion (Communication)
Just a few from the hundreds of options
Off line
Face to face
Word of Mouth referral
Networking
Telesales as part of a process
PR
Exhibitions and events
Direct marketing and sales letters with appropriate follow up driving to the web
Postcards
Events and seminars
Advertising but think carefully before you embark here. One off random ads are a waste of time and money! Is it the right target market? Don’t be dazzled by offers…
On line
Website and how are you pushing your web? Does your copy talk about ‘you’, ie the reader? Are you making regular blog posts and updates? Have you considered more SEO, more PPC, back links, etc
Online videos on YouTube – how to/ about/testimonials – so many options.
Social media – which platforms should you invest time in?
So then, back to the management version: Just think how powerful your marketing strategy will be when you combine the planning from my original 7Ps with the focus provided by the 7Ps of marketing.
Combining your marketing knowledge to create a good strategy/plan using the 7Ps of Marketing coupled with the the 7Ps of Management managing implementation will surely lead to improved business performance.
But there are few quick wins when it comes to marketing, the more you work at it, the better it becomes. So, remember to take time away from working IN your business, (doing the business stuff) to work ON your business, doing the stuff that makes your business better. Set aside time on a weekly basis – little and often on a regular basis.
Remember though, I’m an Internet Marketing specialist although I’ll be more than happy to talk over other elements of your marketing activities and help where I can, Digital Marketing is where my skill set lies. If you have any questions, call me on 01793 238020, email andy@enterprise-oms.co.uk or just search Chief SEO Officer
*Oh, and of course we didn’t learn “pretty poor performance” we used a far more pithy term than “pretty”
A lot of the work that I do for my clients is Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). This involves working on websites to move them higher in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). Most of the time, when talking about SEO, I talk about Google because Google is, by far and away, the most used search engine on the internet. Notice I say “used” rather than “loved” simply because a lot of people use it because it’s Number 1 but they don’t trust Google due to the amount of data it grabs and the huge power it wields.
But enough of the pre-amble, I want to tell you that there are other search engines available and there may be excellent reasons for using them. If you regularly check Google Analytics, or other web analytics applications, you may already be wondering about the traffic sources that appear.
And if you are not regularly checking a web analytics program to understand how your website is performing, the see me after class.
From my perspective, the work that I do on SEO actually works for ALL of the search engines out there so, without further ado, and in strict alphabetical order, here are the world’s top search engines
Ask.com – Founded 1996
Ask.com, started out as Ask Jeeves, a butler style service to help you find the answers to your important questions. Ask Jeeves has quite some history. It was founded in 1996 but in 2006 dropped “Jeeves”. Ask uses a unique algorithm to help you find the answers that you are looking for. It is designed to answer questions (hence the name) and favours expertise on a topic – instead of popularity
Baidu – Founded 2000
Baidu was founded in 2000 and is the dominant search engine in its country of origin, China. They have a market share of 75% in China whilst Google comes in with 3.76% – which is surprisingly high seeing as Google is banned in China. As with most Chinese entities, they are heavily policed which means certain images are censored and pro-democracy websites are blocked. Even so, if you are looking to break in to the Asian market, Baidu is were you have to be.
Like Google, they are investing heavily in Artificial Intelligence and self-driving cars. Sound familiar?
Bing – Launched 2009
Bing is Microsoft’s search engine, it was launched in 2009, which was when it replaced MSN Search. Later that year they also started providing search results to Yahoo, added AOL and Ecosia to the list of sites they support and Bing accounts for around 10% of US searches.
They are competitive in the Ads market too, although their total share of the market is small, compared to Google, so the impact is a lot less
DuckDuckGo – Founded 2008
DuckDuckGo is the search engine that looks after your privacy, touting itself as “the search engine that doesn’t track you”. DuckDuckGo doesn’t track you, and it doesn’t collect or store any information about you either. You’ll still see Ads (powered by Microsoft) but they won’t be personalised, based on your browsing history.
Ecosia – Founded 2009
Ecosia was launched in 2009 and it’s the first environmentally friendly search engine.
Ecosia is CO2 negative. To achieve this Ecosia donates 80% of profits to tree-planting projects which means that for around every 50 searches carried out on Ecosia, a tree is planted.
Ecosia have also built a solar power generation facility so that it can run its servers on clean, eco-friendly, energy.
Ecosia buys search results in from Bing and tweaks them with their own, unique, algorithms.
Google – Founded 1996
Founded in 1996 Google is the search engine of choice for millions around the world and has over 86% of the search engine market globally. As well as powering Google itself, the company also provides search results to a range of smaller search engines, such as ASK
Google has tremendous computing power but it comes at a cost to the environment.
Huge data centres dotted around the world use huge amounts of electricity and although Google is working hard to mitigate their environmental impact a lot of CO2 is generated by every single search.
Search-Wise – First Seen 2005
If you watch a lot of TV, particularly Dr Who and EastEnders, when actors are using a search engine they’ll use Search-Wise to carry out their internet searches.
Search-Wise is actually non-existent. It has a “home” page that has been mocked up and that’s all you ever see – there’s no technology behind it. Search-Wise is a digital prop, that’s all.
Start Page – Founded 1998
StartPage may just be the perfect search engine. It was launched in 1998 and is based in the Netherlands.
What makes it the almost perfect search engine is that, like others in this list, it buys in its results from elsewhere. StartPage actually buy their results from Google but StartPage’s USP is that it doesn’t track you, doesn’t pass your IP address to Google and doesn’t use trackers to gather data about you.
This means that you get the benefits of access to all of Google’s search nous but none of the privacy threatening downsides. See what I mean when I said that StartPage might just be the perfect search engine
Yahoo – Founded 1994
Once upon a time, Yahoo was the Number One search engine and was a mighty company. How things change. Yahoo now buys results from Bing and has about 3% of the global search market. Although a small percentage, that 3% translates in to 1 billion users, 600m of whom use Yahoo on their phones and tablets.
In a cross business deal, Microsoft makes use of Yahoo’s Ad engine to provide Pay per Click advertising.
Yandex – Founded 1997
Yandex is a Russian search engine, Yandex standing for Yet Another iNDEXer and the domain Yandex.ru was launched in 1997. Yandex is where you need to be if you are targeting Russia for business.
Yandex is also popular in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Turkey and Belarus. It’s available in both English and Cyrillic.
In 2011 Yandex went public on the New York Stock Exchange and the search engine currently powers 42.35% of Russian searches
What can you learn from this
The reality is that no single search engine covers 100% of the World Wide Web although Google probably has the most comprehensive index. However, it’s a trade off between depth of coverage and the value you place on your privacy.
What I can say, though, is that if you are looking at targeting China or Russia you really need to focus your efforts on the search engines that cover these territories, Yandex and Baidu, for maximum visibility
If you need help with making your website more visible in the search results, increase visits to your website AND increase your profits then all you have to do is get in touch.
I’ve been a fan of Google’s web metrics tool (Google Analytics) since it was introduced in 2005. For most businesses, it’s free to use. The necessary tracking code is easy to add to your website and provides a wealth of information about your site’s performance but the Bounce Rate is one of the most powerful metrics, a powerful insight into the minds of the people who are visiting your website.
And yet all the Bounce Rate does is record the percentage of people who visit your website but leave almost straight away without doing anything more than viewing the page they landed on.
With 15 year’s experience, my view of the Bounce Rate is as follows
0-20% – Phenomenal. In 15 years I think I’ve only come across 4-5 sites with a Bounce Rate in this area and one of those was only because the site hadn’t installed Google Analytics correctly.
21-50% – Most of the sites that I work with fall into this region. One where between 1 in 5 and 1 in 2 visitors leave the site without doing anything
+51% – Any website with a Bounce Rate of 51% and higher really needs the reasons investigating. These sites are hemorrhaging visitors and, more importantly, opportunities but HOW do you go about analysing a high Bounce Rate and turning things around.
Remember, a 51% Bounce Rate (BR) means that over half of the people that you have persuaded to visit your website, whether that’s by SEO, Google Ads, Social Media (And Social Media advertising), e-mail and video marketing or simply word of mouth are just leaving without doing anything meaningful. If your website were a shop, they’d be sticking their head through the door, shrugging their shoulders and moving on. As a consequence, this has to be worth investigating. After all, if you invest in more marketing, all that’s going to continue to happen is that over half of those you attract will just do as the 51%+ have done before – and leave.
Working to reduce the Bounce Rate. Where do you start?
First, ensure that you have a really good understanding of your website because if you don’t know what you want your website to do for your business how do you know whether it’s doing it – or not.
What are the goals of your website? Here are some common ones.
To sell something
To attract newsletter subscriptions
To encourage inquiries
To allow people to download something
If your website has a high Bounce Rate where do you start looking? There are many ways to approach this, but I always like to start by taking a look at the website itself. What message is it sending to visitors?
Let’s say, for example, that you sell widgets and those widgets are used to attach the engines to an airliner.
Having a large photo of an airliner at the top of your home page probably looks good to you. And, because you know that your widgets play an important part then it sends a message – to you, and you alone. To everybody else all it actually says is “here’s a pretty picture of an airliner”. Questions that could come into the visitor’s mind might be “is this a travel company?” “do they make the whole airliner” – not – “aha, these are the guys that make the widgets that hold this airliner’s engines on”.
Remember, although you may have 3 seconds to get your webpage open in front of your visitor that’s an eternity compared to the 2/10ths of a second that a visitor takes to “get” your website……..or not!
Once happy with the website the next place that I’d look would be at marketing activity. Are the messages being broadcast by the marketing actually delivered by your website? For example, it’s no good talking a two-for-the-price-of-one offer if there’s no mention of it on your website, or if the offer is difficult to find. Visitors won’t look around – they’ll leave (bounce) and may never come back
Now that the marketing messages align with your website, and your website is as good as it can be, it’s time to dive into the data provided by Google Analytics.
Using Google Analytics to troubleshoot the Bounce Rate
The first place I look is the source of your web visitors.
Google Analytics/Acquisition/All traffic/Source/Medium will answer this one
Website Traffic Sources in Google Analytics
Traffic Sources Key
Any entry that’s tagged “/referral” is where a visitor to your site has followed a link published on a 3rd party website. This could be an indicator as to how your online marketing is performing
CPC = Google Ads
Google Organic = Google Free Search Results
Direct = Either Google can’t identify the source or people have entered the URL directly in their browser
Bing Organic = Traffic from Bing (Microsoft search)
UK Search Yahoo Organic = Traffic from Yahoo UK
Yahoo Organic= Traffic from Yahoo
m.Facebook = Traffic from Facebook on a phone or tablet
Google.com = Traffic from Google.com
Traffic from a third party website
Traffic from a third party website
For this particular website, you’ll see that the Bounce Rate is very high for the majority of traffic sources and particularly high for visitors from Google Ads. With the majority of sources having a high Bounce Rate it would appear that the problem either lies with the marketing that is attracting the wrong people to the site, the website is failing to meet expectations or the problem lies elsewhere.
Bearing in mind that one of the earlier exercises was to ensure that marketing was sending the right message it’s obvious that, for this website, the problem with the Bounce Rate lies somewhere else
Geographical Source of traffic
Navigate to Audience/Geo/Location in Analytics
Scroll down past the map to see the countries where the traffic is coming from. You’ll see the Bounce rate for each source country. If you are targeting the UK and your UK Bounce Rate is OK then the next step is to try to understand how your marketing is promoting your traffic outside of the UK.
It’s possible that your website is attracting visitors from markets that you don’t serve. I have seen a number of sites that have attracted a lot of visits from the USA. When American visitors have landed it becomes immediately obvious that the website can’t address their needs so they leave immediately (Bounce).
The reality is that there is probably very little that you can do about this but it’ll be a relief to see that the Bounce Rate for your target locations is OK.
For this site, the Bounce Rate is high for all countries so the answer doesn’t lie here and the hunt continues
Visitor Demographics
Navigate to Audience/Demographics/Age in Google Analytics
Although Google can’t identify all visitors to your website it’s still worth checking the visitor demographics. You can check that your website is reaching the age groups that your business is targeting.
Again, for the website being used in this blog, the Bounce Rate is high across the board so the answer lies elsewhere.
Navigate to Audience/Demographics/Gender in Google Analytics
Some companies target specific genders and this enables you to make sure that your visitors are coming from your target demographic. Once again, with a high Bounce Rate for both genders, the answer isn’t here. The hunt continues.
Web Browser Issues
Navigate to Audience/Technology/Browser & OS in Google Analytics
Web browsers are complicated pieces of software and it’s not unusual for websites to hit problems with some browsers and not others. This screen looks at the browsers used by visitors to your website and the Bounce Rate per browser. If a particular browser has a high Bounce Rate, but only delivers 5% of visitors (or fewer), it’s not worth paying too much attention. The cost to investigate, and resolve, the problem probably outweighs the benefits
This website is performing poorly in all browsers so the problem isn’t here either and the hunt continues.
Mobile Issues
Navigate to Audience/Mobile/Overview in Google Analytics
We are all used to accessing the web on our phones, but how well does your website work on small screens. It’s possible that this is the cause of the high Bounce Rate.
Now we’re getting somewhere. Desktop visits have a Bounce Rate in the comfort zone (44.50%) whilst phones and tablets are well above 50%.
Take a detailed look at your website, using your phone. Try to act as a customer and see whether you can spot any problems. Is the site slow? Is the navigation poor? Is excessive scrolling required?
Ask friends, colleagues, family to do the same, and feedback their findings and thoughts.
Next, take it up with your web developer.
Site Speed
Navigate to Behaviour/Site Speed/Overview in Google Analytics
I think we have gotten to the nub of the problem. This is a slow website. Although the server is quite slow to respond (0.36 seconds) the technical elements (screenshot above) taken to find the website and start to open it on a device are still under 1 second so the problem lies with the content of the website itself.
Navigate to Behaviour/Site Speed/Page Timings in Google Analytics
Page Speed Report – blurred to protect the company
This page looks at the performance of every page of your website and details the speed of each page as a + or – when compared to the site average. It helps to identify poor performing pages.
Navigate to Behaviour/Site Speed/Speed Suggestions in Google Analytics and Google will provide information and recommendations as to the actions you should take to improve the speed of your website. This might be a list that you take up with your web developer
Another way to identify issues is to put your website URL into https://www.webpagetest.org . This site runs a speed test three times and then displays the results as a waterfall graph, highlighting the speed of each element of a website, enabling you to identify problem areas.
A web page speed test waterfall chart
Summary
So, there you have it, a detailed look into the Bounce Rate, and the ways that you can use Google Analytics to identify issues so that you can take corrective action.
Thanks for reading and you need more help with your website’s Bounce Rate or anything else to do with your web marketing all you have to do is get in touch. I’ll be only too happy to answer any questions that you might have.
