maine web development, web design, internet marketing

Have you checked your traffic sources on your website’s analytics lately? What do you see? It’s good to see that search has a big piece of the pie, but you also want to make sure that you have a healthy balance of direct and referral site traffic as well. A couple of days ago, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz, posted some advice on SEO for Startups. In the post he stressed the importance of not letting search dominate your traffic sources.

Why is web traffic diversity important?

If search engines provide an extremely high percent of traffic to your site and you are not getting traffic from other sources, it tells you that people are not finding value out of your website. A valued website will have a variety of referring site traffic from sharing links, blog posts, upcoming events, news, etc. Analytics would also show a sliver of direct traffic pie from people who have bookmarked the website or typed the URL into the address bar. Referring site and direct traffic sources show that people are connecting to a site because it offers useful content.

Photo credit: net_efekt

What can you do to diversify your web traffic?

• Provide valuable content on your website, like a blog, and keep your site up-to-date with news and events.
• Use social media like Facebook and Twitter to share links to the content on your site.
• Include links to your website on your press releases and traditional marketing pieces like direct mailers and posters.
• Use links to your web content within your email marketing newsletter that your subscribers will find useful.

Value is the key to successfully diversifying your web traffic. The content on your site needs to be of value to people or else they simply will not read it nor will they share it. Plus, search engines like to see that a site receives varied types of traffic; it lets them know that the website offers relevant content that people find useful. What does your web traffic source pie look like?

Photo Credit: tapasparida

A couple weeks back, I blogged about the importance of engaging the visitors that come to your website and enticing them to convert; SEO is only a part of your overall web marketing strategy.  Search engine optimization gives you the opportunity to be found when someone searches for the keywords related to your business, but it can’t convince someone to sign up for your newsletter or contact you for more information.

In fact, just because you come up on the first page of a Google search, there is no guarantee that someone will click on your site to see what it’s all about.  Use the meta description tag to make a great first impression before they even see your website.

Think of it as your first conversion opportunity.

Meta Description What?

You may not be familiar with the term, but I am sure you’ve seen them a million times:

In the simplest terms, all the meta description tag does is describe what that particular web page is about.  The example above, taken from the famous celebrity gossip blog perezhilton.com, is the meta description for the homepage of his site.

On the “techie” side of things, it’s located in the header of the HTML code and looks like this:

<meta name=”Description” content=”Since 2004, Hollywood’s most hated website has been delivering the juiciest celebrity gossip. The blog is The go-to source for daily happenings in Hollywood. Written by the internet’s most notorious gossip columnist, Perez Hilton (Mario Lavandeira).”/>

Search engines often take the information in the meta description tag and display it as a snippet in the results underneath the link, so this is your chance to tell people what the page is about and that it’s worth the click.

Meta Description Basics

The meta description for each page needs to be unique.  Why?  Well, aren’t all of the pages on your site different?  Exactly.  You’ve got between 20 and 40 words to state the facts and you need to keep in mind that the search engine often doesn’t use the entire text – you can see that by looking at the Perez Hilton Google results snippet and comparing it to what’s in the code.  Use the important keywords in the beginning of the statement if possible to ensure that they appear in the results snippet.  Google will also  bold the words in the description that were used in the search query.  I searched for “celebrity gossip blog” to get to Perez Hilton’s site and Google bolded those exact words for me in the snippet.

Be Specific

Put your web copy skills to work and be concise; this isn’t the time to use industry jargon.  Think of the person who might be visiting the page – what kind of information do they need?  What are they looking for?  If you’re a florist in Boston specializing in wedding arrangements, then be sure to say just that.  When someone searches for “Boston wedding florist” and your website comes up in the results, having a description that says something like “We specialize in custom wedding arrangements in the Boston area…”, you’ve got a good start.  You’ve just reinforced to the searcher that you provide the service that they are looking for.

Whenever I do a search, I always scan the description underneath the link to see what I’m in for and whether or not I want to check that site out.  It may be a bit time consuming to have to write a meta description tag for the pages on your website, but it’s well worth the effort.  After all, it could be the deciding factor as to whether or not you get a visit.

There has been so much “buzz” about Google Buzz, and the 100 other things Google launches every week, I’ve been wondering what Bing has been up to lately.  I’ve seen various blog posts and comments from people stating they are becoming less endeared to Google due to all the new features they’ve introduced into the SERPs (such as the real time results) and that Bing may becoming a more viable option for search.  With this in mind, I found some very interesting Bing developments in its quest to steal some search market share from the almighty Google.

Bing Provides Facebook Web Search Results

Did anyone else notice that the new Facebook layout now displays the Search box at the top of every page you’re on?  Kind of like a search engine, no?  But that’s a topic for a whole different post.  For now, check out the “Web Results” for a search I did in Facebook on Google Buzz:

Yep, Bing’s search deal with Facebook allows it to power the web portion of all searches people type into the social networking site.  Plus, when you click to the next page for more web search results, the top of the page says “Find more Web Results on Bing.com“.  This could definitely result in an increased search volume for Bing if Facebook really starts emphasizing the search feature.

Bing + iPhone

It’s rumored that Apple will make Bing the default search engine on the iPhone with its next software update, replacing Google.  Apple and Google used to get along and play nice, but now they are competing in the same markets (phones, browsers, operating systems, etc).  If the deal goes through, Bing will start covering some ground in the mobile search area as well.  Obviously, it’s not going to oust Google from the top spot, but it would take a nice bite out of the search numbers if this comes to fruition.

Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal Finalized

The news dropped in July 2009 that Yahoo will be ditching its search technology in favor of Bing’s.  What does that mean exactly?  You will still be able to go to Yahoo.com and do a search, but the results returned to you will be provided by Bing.  Essentially, Yahoo and Bing will have become one and Bing will be the #2 search engine in the game.  The two companies finally came to terms with exactly what the deal will encompass back in December.  The only thing left is an investigation by the US Department of Justice, which is mandated when two businesses strike a deal of this nature.  Microsoft and Yahoo don’t anticipate any problems with the review and are hoping to make it all official in the first quarter of this year.

I do not believe that Bing will ever be numero uno when it comes to search engines, but Microsoft is not letting any opportunities go to waste.  If Bing is the default search on the iPhone (and it’s already the default on various non-Droid Verizon phones), it could potentially start cutting similar deals (Firefox maybe?) and really start to put some heat on Google.  And why not? I think it’s nice to see some healthy competition and give searchers some different options.

When I’m asked whether or not a website should have search engine optimization, I always say yes.  Why wouldn’t someone want to give their site a fighting chance to be found when someone performs a search related to their business?  This is what I do on a daily basis and I’m very passionate about it – it’s important.

But that isn’t the only thing a website needs to accomplish.

eMarketer’s “2010 Digital Marketing Outlook” surveyed senior marketers regarding which activities are their top priority in the digital space this year, as well as which measures of engagement on their company websites are most important.  9.4% of the respondents sited conversion and ROI as the most important website engagement measurement.

Only 9.4%?!

Your website is a marketing tool and conversion should be at the top of your list.  Merely driving traffic to your website with SEO doesn’t mean your work is done; you need to engage those visitors and encourage them to take some sort of action.  Conversion can be measured in the number of contact forms submitted by potential leads, the number of blog subscribers you have, how many newsletter signups you receive, etc.  The idea is to have visitors interact with your site and start developing a relationship with you.

Let’s review a couple of the metrics in the survey that trumped conversion.

Time on Site

The average amount of time that people spend on the site was the most important metric of engagement according to the survey. I agree that this is a good gauge of whether or not people are interested in the information you’re offering and it’s one of the things I look at when I view web stats.  However, if the navigation and layout of your website is confusing, then a high average time on site would also be applicable, as people are spending time just trying to get around.  Ask a friend or relative to act like a potential customer use your website and find a specific piece of information and get their feedback.  Did they have a hard time finding it?  If so, you may need to adjust the navigation of your site accordingly.

Pageviews

This metric was also high on the marketers’ lists.  A pageview is recorded when a visitor, literally, views the page.  So if someone looks at your “software consulting services” page 1,000 times, what does that mean?  It means that your “software consulting services” page was looked at 1,000 times. All you can really infer from pageviews is that a certain page may or may not be popular with visitors.  If that consulting page is consistently a very popular page but you aren’t getting many people contacting you for more information, then you may want to consider the possibility that you’re not offering enough information about it or not reaching out to people in the right way.

So all other web stats, other than conversion, don’t matter?

Conversion should be the top metric that you look at to determine whether or not you are engaging people with your website.  However, that does not mean average time on site, bounce rate, traffic sources, most popular pages, etc., are not important.  These additional statistics can provide you with the insight that you need to figure out what you may need to work on to get people to take that desired action (convert).

But My Keywords Are #1 in Google

That’s great!  Does it guarantee that someone will sign up for your newsletter once they click on your site from the results page?  Unfortunately, no.   The first step is being found.  The next step is engaging the visitors once they’re at your site, taking them by the hand and leading them to what you’d like them to do.  You may not be able to convert them the first time, but with an easy-to-navigate site, lots of relevant content written specifically for your target demographics, and prominent calls-to-action, you’re well on your way.  Monitoring your website stats and making adjustments based on them will ensure that you are focusing on the ultimate engagement: conversion.