Wikipedia gives a good description of a bounce rate:

Bounce rate (sometimes confused with exit rate) is an Internet marketing term used in web traffic analysis. It represents the percentage of visitors who enter the site and “bounce” (leave the site) rather than continue viewing other pages within the same site.

The formula used to calculate bounce rate is:

Bounce rate = total number of visits viewing only one page / total number of visits

The bounce rate is really the easiest web stat to understand, and can be the best starting place when looking to improve the performance of your website.

First, list all your landing pages (the pages people land on when they arrive at your site) with the highest bounce and look at the keywords people use to arrive at these pages. Do these correspond with the content on the page? Where do you think you should be putting these keywords? In the header, the title tag, the copy. By doing this, people will feel reassured that they are on a relevant page and are more likely to stay put. Sometimes just making some minor changes like this can have a big affect on your bounce rate.

Other factors that may cause a high bounce rate are:

• Slow loading pages: Who wants to hang around for a page to load?
• Cluttered pages: We like to see well designed, clean web pages
• High number of adverts: If you include adverts on your website, make sure they’re relevant, well designed and kept to a minimum. You don’t want to run the risk of looking like a spam site
• Poor navigation: Is this a standalone page? Many landing pages for PPC (such as Google AdWords) have their navigation removed as part of the landing page strategy (to help boost conversions). However, this might not work for your industry or service/product and is something you should test

So what else can you do to improve your bounce rate?

• Test everything! Test your copy, your headers, your images. Test anything that you think will have an impact on your bounce rate
• Do you have a video or music that plays automatically? This can really put people off so think about removing it. Not everyone will be in an environment that can accommodate sound (i.e. public transport, a busy office, a sleeping baby next-door!)
• Think about the images you use. Are they relevant to that particular page? Are they high quality images or cheap looking ones taken from ClipArt?
• Test your website and key landing pages in a variety of browsers and versions of browsers. If you look at what browsers people actually use to visit your website you’d probably be surprised at how many people are still using really old, dated versions
• Stay above the fold. The ‘fold’ is the area of the website that you can see in your monitor without scrolling. Taken from the times when people used to buy newspapers (which they still do, but not so much!), the fold was the section of newspaper that people could see when it was sat on the newspaper stand. It was important that headlines and images grabbed people and convinced them to buy. The same theory goes for your website – what can people see without scrolling? Is it relevant and pleasing on the eye?
• Are you in an industry that uses specific language or jargon? Slipping in some relevant terminology from the start will show your visitors you know what you’re talking about
• How is your content laid out? Are you using nice small, bite-sized paragraphs, headers and bullets? People get put off by large chunks of text
• Either keep your content up to date or remove dates from your site. It can put people off if they land on a page that’s dated three years ago

If you want any help improving the performance of your website, please get in touch. We love working on websites and seeing their sales and leads increase as a result of our advice and work. Give us a call on 023 8083 7271 or email us on info@SMEketing.com. Alternatively, leave us some questions in the comments below and we’ll answer them straight away!

Following from our previous post last Thursday, here are the additional five mistakes that we see people make in their Google AdWord Campaigns:

6. Not targetting the right group of searchers: Is your product or services aimed towards a particular demographic or geographical location? Did you know that you can set your AdWord campaigns to target those demographics or locations? If you want to target women in their 30′s you can do that. You can also set very specific geographic locations to target – saving you money and increasing your success rates.

7. Only having one advert per AdGroup: It’s important to test, test, test in Google AdWords. Test everything! One of the key things to test is your ad copy. Ideally create one advert which you think will be effective – then create another 2 or so versions with slight tweaks. You’ll then be able to see which ones have the higher click through rate and most on site conversions. Take the winner of these ads, then create another 2 or so versions based on this one and test those… and continue the testing process. This is the only way to continually improve your adverts. If you’ve got two very different ads (remember to make sure they’re still relevant for that AdGroup though), test them together – see which one is more effective and then use that as a basis to start further tweaks and tests.

8. Letting Google show more popular ads most often: Google sets this as the default. You might think this sounds like a good idea – you’ve got 3 adverts in your AdGroup, one gets a lot more clicks than the others, so it makes sense for Google to show it most often right?? Wrong. Google wants to make money from you, so of course it’ll want to show the highest performing ads most often – you’ll get more clicks and they’ll get more ££. However, want you need to know is not what the highest performing ad is in terms of clicks – but in terms of conversions. If you have two ads with two different call to actions – one might get the most clicks, but only converts 1% of the time. The other gets fewer clicks but converts 5% of the time. You need to work out what generates a higher ROI – more clicks but less conversions, or less clicks but more conversions. You can only work this out by a) measuring it using your analytics (like Google Analytics) programme, and b) setting your ads to rotate evenly so you get an equal amount of results from which to measure.

9. Not having compelling adverts: You need to give people a reason to click on your ad. You’re competing against a number of other paid results and ten natural results. Why should people click on your link over another one? So use call to actions in your adverts. Tell people why they should click and what they can expect when they click.

10. Failing to track results: As I said earlier, it’s important to test everything in Google AdWords, and this means tracking and understanding the results. You can set up conversion tracking which means that Google understands that page you’re trying to get people to get to (which is commonly a ‘Thank you’ type page). Once you’ve told Google this, they can then tell you which Campaigns, AdGroups, Keywords and Ads resulted in conversions. If you know this you can put more focus (and budget) on the better performing areas and either eliminate or work on improving the poor performing areas. Make sure that you also link up your Google Analytics to your Google AdWords – this will give you a host of additional information. Data such as the bounce rates of landing pages, time on site and visitor paths can all help to improve you results.

So these are just some of the common mistakes. Google AdWords can have an enormous impact on your online success, but they must be managed and monitored in the right way.

Have you made any huge mistakes with Google AdWords? Share your story in the comments and help others from making those same blunders!

Google AdWords

Setting up a Google AdWord account is relatively straightforward. However there are some common mistakes that people make along the way. This list just features, in no particular order, ten of the biggest and most frequent errors people make:

1.  Not putting keywords in your adverts: Putting keywords in your advert will not only help increase the click through rate (CTR), but will also give you a higher ad position. The more relevant your ad is to the query the user typed in the search engine, the higher the position and the less you pay – it’s win win!

2. Not having enough relevant keywords: You may have an AdGroup focused on a particular term – you need to ensure that you cover as many different variations on this term as possible – think outside the box here and also make use of the Google Keywords Tool. However, you must also make sure that all the keywords in that AdGroup remain focused – don’t branch out too much otherwise you may end up with keywords which don’t closely relate to their dedicated adverts.

3. Having too many keywords in an AdGroup: On the other hand… Google really doesn’t like you to have hundreds of keywords in one group. It’s unlikely that they’ll all be tightly focused on the one subject. You’ll also end up having many keywords which don’t produce any impressions or clicks – and Google doesn’t like this either. They like nice tight, focused AdGroups, with a list of focused keywords which generate impressions and clicks. So make sure you have covered all your bases with your keyword list, but don’t go OTT.

4. Quitting too soon: Success with Google AdWords doesn’t always happen overnight. It takes time and lots of tweaks to get a successful campaign. Because there are so many variables (such as keywords, adverts, bidding, ad position, geographic targeting, timings etc… ) it’s almost impossible to get it right first time. But the great thing about Google AdWords is that everything is tracked and measured – meaning you’re able to instantly see what does and what doesn’t work. How many other advertising mediums give you as much statistical information as Google AdWords?

5. Not having dedicated landing pages: We’ve discussed this subject in blog posts before (Top Tips For Landing Pages and Do You Have Dedicated Landing Pages for Your PPC?). Having landing pages that have been create specifically for your Google AdWord campaigns can be a key factor in success. The focus of the landing pages should match the offer and focus on the adverts, which in turn match the focus of the keywords in that AdGroup. Everything should tie together in one focused path. This will not only help to increase your Google Ad Quality Score (which can mean you pay less for higher listings), but will also increase the number of conversions you have on-site.

So these are just some of the common mistakes. Google AdWords can have an enormous impact on your online success, but they must be managed and monitored in the right way.

Come back on Tuesday 31st for Part Two and the other 5 mistakes.

So imagine you have a new offer – promoting 50% of a particular product – what can you do to push this promotion online?

• Create special offer page
  • Explain what the offer is
  • What are the benefits?
  • What are exactly are you offering – what can your customers expect to receive?
  • What is the cost? (free, percentage off, pounds off etc)
  • How to order?
  • Include form on the page to register

Then promote this page using various online platforms:

• If you are using Google AdWords or any other form of pay per click advertising, create a special campaign with dedicated adverts pointing to your promotion web page.
• Create a press release about your offer
  • Upload it to online newswires
  • Might be worth paying £45 or so to put it on a paid newswire
  • Email it to industry journalists and publications (both online and physical)
• Promote on all social media sites
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
• Create a blog post about it
  • Link to the main landing page
• Create an article about it
  • The benefits of your offer and how it can help your customers
• Create an email about it and blast it out to your email marketing list
  • For previous prospects that maybe didn’t convert in the past, try writing a personalised sales letter to the contact and posting it (old school, but still a good-un!). Explain what the offer is and include a link to the page for people to register for it, and a paper form which they can fax/scan/email back.
• Add it to your email signature
• Maybe consider buying some banner ads on relevant event marketing websites
• When you sell one, try and get a customer testimonial which you can add to the promotional page (and other marketing materials)
• See if you can get existing customers to spread the word to their customers/partners etc

So you see, that with a bit of time and effort there really are very effective methods you can use to promote your latest offer.

If you need any help with any of these areas (creating landing pages, Google AdWords, press releases, blogging or article writing), get in touch with us today. We’re passionate about creating optimised content and have helped many of our customers get fantastic results using such methods.

Call 023 8083 7271 or email us on info@SMEketing.com

If created well, landing pages can be used to make a ‘hard sell’. Not in a hammy, used car salesman way, but in the sense that you have visitors where you want them. Show them what they need to see, present the information with a focused message and hit them with some strong call to actions – remember we talked about your goals in the previous post? Landing pages allow you to create a pre-planned funnel/path, pushing visitors to complete those goals.

How do you create good call to actions, and how do you get people to do what you want? Well there’s no secret recipe I’m afraid. It’s a case of trial and error – test your landing pages and constantly tweak and amend them based on the results you get.

Here are the main things you need to be aware of when creating landing pages:

• Colourful, big and bold buttons: Hit them with a call to action in a visually appealling way with good quality buttons that tell them to ‘Buy Now’, ‘Sign up for our newsletter’, ‘Take a Free Trial Today’, ‘Download Now’ etc.. Make these buttons stand out from your page through the use of colour and good quality design
• Limit the use of links and menu options on the landing page: The more links on your landing page, the more likely people will click off elsewhere, get distracted and never complete the action you want them to
• Clever content layout: People scan webpages, they don’t read them (this goes back to the ‘lazy, demanding and impatient’ bit I mentioned in the previous post!). So make it easy for them to get the key information – use bullet points, short paragraphs, bold text and colour
• Make it easy for visitors to complete the goal: If your goal is to have them contact you, make the contact form small and simple. Do you really need their full address, date of birth and favourite colour? Think about the minimum amount of information you need in order to follow up that lead and only request that. If you’re trying to get them to make a purchase, don’t make them go through hoops. Display your delivery details and return policy clearly to instill a feeling of trust, and make sure you let them know that your online payment process is secure. Don’t give them any reason to start clicking about off the path you’re directing them down
• Make sure the key information is above the fold: This goes back to newspapers – when they’re delivered or displayed in newsagents, you can see the top half of the front page – this is where they put all their major stories and headlines. The same goes for landing pages – make sure your most important information is towards the top of your landing page – above the fold. Anything people have to scroll down to view is below the fold. Remember that people have different monitor sizes too, so what may be above the fold for you, may not be above the fold for all your visitors. Why is this important? Again, people are lazy, demanding and impatient and can’t be bothered to scroll down the page to find the information they want! If they view the content above the fold and it looks relevant to their query, then they may make the effort to scroll. But if not… bang goes the back button!
• Remember that not everyone will convert: Not all visitors will be in the position to buy the item they’re searching for (or contact you for the service your offer). They could just be in the research stage of the purchase process. Do you have anything you can give them? If you can’t fulfil your primary goal of a sale, what secondary goals do you have. Can you get that visitor to sign up to your newsletter, or can they download a guide with advice on the purchasing process (possibly via a form to capture their details)? It’s important to try and make the most of each click, and understanding that not everyone will convert is important. Give people more than one option – so create more than one call to action on your landing page.

If you have any other landing page tips, leave them in the comments below. Have you tried something that had amazing results? Share it with us.

PPC advertising, especially Google AdWords are a fantastic way of increasing the volume of traffic to your site. Many types of websites and businesses will benefit from PPC:

• If you have a new site which is not yet ranking well in the search engines
• If you’re in a very competitive market and don’t really stand a chance for ranking on your key terms
• If you haven’t got any optimisation on your site, so probably won’t rank for your desired terms

PPC is a great way of getting traffic to your site, but that’s only half the battle. Once someone clicks on your advert and lands on your website, what happens then? You need to carefully think about what your goal is for that visitor:

• Signing up for your newsletter
• Making a purchase
• Registering for an event
• Making contact via your ‘Contact Us’ form

Once you know what your goal is, you then have to think about how you’ll achieve that goal. This is where landing pages come in. A landing page, simply put, is the page that visitors ‘land’ on when they first enter your site. With PPC you have control over this (whereas in natural search it’s most likely to be your homepage, however other pages will rank also, but unless you’ve optimised a particular page for a specific phrase, it’s unlikely you’ll have much control over this).

Anyway, back to PPC where you can specify the landing page you want your visitors to land on. So what is the best page on your site to direct them to? You may think that your homepage is the best page – let the visitor click about and go to the content they want to see. But that’s where you’re wrong. The Internet has made us all lazy, demanding and impatient! We don’t want to have to search your site for the information we’re looking for – we want it presented to us straight away!

For example, if you’re selling bikes and have an advert running for the keyphrase ‘Ladies red bike’, when a searcher enters that term into the search box, they’ll get a list of natural and paid results. If they click on your advert…

Ladies Red Bike
Wide Range Of Bikes For
Ladies Who Like To Ride
www.yoursite.com

…where will they land? Do they land on your page featuring all your ladies red bikes, or do they land on your homepage? What makes more sense to you? If they can’t see immediately what they’re looking for, they’ll hit that dreaded ‘back’ button and click on another advert, and you’ve just been charged for a click with no result.

So it’s important that you direct people to landing pages that are relative to their search query.

Come back on Monday to find out what our top tips are for creating landing pages with conversions in mind; getting people to take the action you want. The more conversions you get, the better return on investment you’ll get from your PPC campaign.

In the meantime, if you’ve had any success using landing pages in your PPC campaign, leave a note in the comments telling us abou it! And remember, SMEketing are dab hands at creating high quality landing pages. If you’d like us to overhaul your PPC campaign and help you get more conversions, get in touch with us on 023 8083 7271 or email us on info@SMEketing.com.