Dominate Your Local Market!

hear this question many times from my clients who are using Google Analytics as part of their website tracking strategy. They notice the term “bounce rate” in their stats and wonder exactly what it is and what it means to them.

Daniel Scocco of DailyBlogTips.com sent an email newsletter this morning that shed a lot of light on the subject. We’re going to cite his reasons for how a “bounce” occurs, then elaborate on what it means to your website and your business.

First, what IS a “bounce”? A “bounce” occurs when someone visits your website and then leaves without going beyond the page they landed on. For instance if someone visits your site, lands on the home page, then immediately leaves, that’s a “bounce.”

A “bounce” can be caused by many things. A few of them, outlined in Daniel’s newsletter are:

• The visitor hit the “Back” button on his browser.
• The visitor closed his browser.
• The visitor clicked on one of your ads.
• The visitor clicked on one of your external links.
• The visitor used the search box on his browser.
• The visitor typed a new URL on his browser.

What this means is that your visitor likely did one of the above things after arriving on your website and before clicking through to another page on your site.

The formula for figuring your bounce rate is:

BR = B/V, where
BR = Bounce Rate
B = Bounces (visitors that leave after viewing only one page)
V = Total number of visitors to your site

So what is a “good” bounce rate and what is a “bad” bounce Rate?

That’s usually the 2nd question I get and the answer requires a bit of explanation.

Acceptable “bounce rate” levels depend on the type of website you have. For a multi-page site with lots of information, a 75% bounce rate might be considered “bad.” But for a single page sales letter, a 75% bounce rate would be fantastic.

In general, a 40%-65% bounce rate would be considered “good.”

If you have a general interest website with lots of pages and information and your bounce rate is very high (85%-95%), there is something about the site that is driving visitors away as fast as they arrive.

That is not good and it needs to be analyzed and corrected quickly. There’s not much point in spending good time and money attracting traffic that doesn’t even read what’s on your site.

There are a lot of things you can do to lower your bounce rate. Here are a couple examples from my own experience.

I have a number of websites that offer video tutorials on how to use (mostly) Open Source software. The theory is that the software might be free to use, but it doesn’t do anyone much good if they can’t use it effectively.

We’re going to take a look at two of those sites.

The first is EZKompoZerVideos.com. When I first placed this website into operation, it was a simple one-page sales letter, with a link to an off-site page for affiliate sign-up.

After a few months, it was making sales, but had a bounce rate of 96.7%. There was a sample video on the main page. Then, I merely added a second page and moved the video to it – with a link from the main page. Since then, my “bounce rate” has come down to 76%. Better, and not bad for a website that just consists of a sales page, but think we can do better.

A few months ago, I started up the website at KompoZerTutorials.com. It’s the same content as the original site, but has been broken into 8 pages, with some content added to the new pages – but it is still essentially just a sales letter. I used Joomla! to host the pages and set up Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLs.

This page has a “bounce rate” of just 60%. That’s a HUGE difference from the 96.7% “bounce rate” of the sales letter site of one, single page.

You can lower your “bounce rate,” too. Watch these pages for more on how to do just that.

Need professional help with your bounce rate? or, don’t know what your bounce rate is? Visit the professionals at OrangeCat.com and keep more of those visitors on your site and reading your information – which of course leads to sales.

First I want to wish everyone a Happy 4th of July and Happy Birthday to this wonderful country we call home. Too often, we take the blessings we have been born into or chose by immigration for granted. Take a few moments today to express some gratitude (silent or otherwise) for the gift of freedom.

What does “independence” mean on a personal level to you? When asked that question in a survey done some years ago, the overwhelming answer was to make enough money to do what I want and the time to enjoy it.

Tall order. And it’s gotten taller in recent years as we’ve all tried to squeeze more from less.

For my own business, Orange Cat Productions, we have captured the #1, #1b, #2 and #3 positions
on page 1 for this keyword. What is not showing is that we also have #7.

An often overused (some might say clichéd) expression is “work smarter, not harder.” I recently read a thread in a forum where a member was complaining that the phrase is often used with no explanation of what the user means, making matters worse instead of better.

Taking that complaint to heart, I am going to explain what I mean when using the cliché “work smarter, not harder.”

Even before the Great Recession, many of us were working harder. Many of us were approaching the limits of endurance. This helps to increase production and generate wealth, but leaves us with precious little time to enjoy it.

And when you are working as hard as you possibly can (the ‘work harder’ part), how do you produce more leads and more sales, especially those working in the retailing and community sectors of the industry?

Within three (3) days of launching this completely new website and domain,
Premier Limousine had the #3 position on page 1 for their keyword.

One answer is take advantage of available technologies (the ‘work smarter’ part).

What is the lifetime value of a customer to your business?

Most businesses don’t think of this when it comes to acquiring and retaining new business, but it is very important when budgeting the cost of acquiring leads.

Figuring the lifetime value of a new customer (or patient in the case of medical practitioners), is a fairly straightforward task. What is your average sale? How times per week or month does the average customer make that purchase? How many years can you reasonably expect them to continue.

People are creatures of habit. Get them coming in and they tend to keep coming in if your price and service meet their expectations.

How much of a difference in your annual bottom line would adding new customers per month make? For most retailers, a huge difference! For chiropractors, dentists and the like, even greater!

Now what can you do to make that happen, where you are now and starting with the tools you have right now?

We’ve all heard (probably repeatedly) the fact that 82% of all consumer searches for a new place to live originates on the Internet. That fact alone should convince any retailer or community owner who doesn’t have a website to get one – IMMEDIATELY! (we can help)

If you already have a website, congratulations. You have the first part of the puzzle in place.

But do you have any idea how important it is to have your website appear on page 1 of search engine results pages (SERPs) for your keywords?

The Twisted Sifter’s blog holds the #1 and #2 positions on page 1, and the website is #4. Rounding that out is a directory service entry holding #3 for a clean sweep of the top four positions on page 1 for this keyword.

Even in a small market, it can be the difference between getting those two extra sales per month and not getting them.

How do you get your website onto page 1 of the SERPs?

Either through hard work or working smarter. And the working smarter part involved in attaining a page 1 listing will generate secondary sources of leads and can even compound your success rate. Sensing a theme here?

Moving your website from wherever it is now in your local search rankings to page 1 is a time-consuming and laborious process – but carries with it great rewards. And this is one of those tasks that brings to mind the quote from Red Adair that appears in my signature every time I send an email, “If you think it’s expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur!”

The more competitive the local market, the costlier in time and money gaining a page 1 position will be. But the greater the reward of success.

Making the wrong choice here will cost you money – a LOT of money. But far more important, it will cost you a lot of that irreplaceable resource – time. Time where you could be earning, but are still struggling.

Sometimes a keyword can be very competitive in a locale. A properly configured
Google Local Business listing can then help fill the gap until SEO can help claim a page 1 position.

For those of you who are inclined to take on this type of project yourself, I will be creating a product to help you ‘work harder’. I’ll be announcing it here in this blog – watch for it.

For those of you who choose the ‘work smarter’ option, help is just a phone call (859.544.9005) or email away.

Independence of this sort is a choice. Make your choice today.

Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO, is one of the most cost-effective ways to market your local business online.

SEO is what will determine your placement in search engine results pages (SERPs) for certain keywords or keyphrases. And the higher your placement on those pages, the better your chances of sending traffic to your website.

Your SEO strategy will be different depending on your particular product(s) or services. A retailer’s SEO needs will be greatly different from a service’s, which in turn will greatly differ from a restaurant’s.

Read more…

In 2009, 46% of Internet users conducting a local search then visited the place of business, up from 34% in 2008. A flat 38% contacted the business via the telephone. Those are some whopping numbers.

If you haven’t as yet seen the value of having a solid local search strategy, remember that one or more of your competitors will. Having a local search strategy may mean life or death for your business over the next several years, regardless of what type of business you are in. Have one and prosper or don’t have one and wish you did later.

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26% of those using local search to find a business are seeking the name and address of the business and 21% are seeking driving directions. An additional 21% were seeking a business that has the product or service that they needed – at that moment.

This highlights the importance of having a local search strategy. Being able to put your name, address and driving directions in front of persons searching for the exact product or service you offer at the very time they need it is a golden opportunity.

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