When you hear the word “bounce”, you’re probably more inclined to associate it with a checking account, not your Web site. But for those who study and understand Web site statistics, they understand that “bounce rate” is an important measure of your Web site’s effectiveness.

Bounce rate, simply put, is the percentage of people who come to your site, then immediately leave without viewing any of the inside content pages. Think of it like window shopping. Say you browse by a shop and don’t really care to enter based on what you saw at first glance through the window. The window in this case is your home page. A bad first impression, or irrelevant content, can chase away a visitor and stop them from freely investigating the full content of your site.

Google Analytics defines bounce rate as:

“The percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page. Use this metric to measure visit quality - a high bounce rate generally indicates that site entrance pages aren’t relevant to your visitors.”

Therefore, a high bounce rate is bad but a low bounce rate is a positive sign that your visitors are engaging and exploring your Web site. So what constitutes a good rate? This is a very hard question to answer, but if you do some research, most say it needs to be under 50%. It also will depend on the type of site that you have. For example, if you’re a blogger, many times a visitor will come to your blog to read the latest updates then leave. Thus more often a blog will have a higher bounce rate than a “normal” site as there is no need for them to go any deeper.

How do you know what your bounce rate is? One free program that makes it easy is “Google Analytics”. Register, list your sites and paste some HTML code on your pages and you’re ready to go. You’ll clearly see your bounce rate go up and down as you view the in-depth reports.

So, how can you improve your bounce rate? First, you’ll need to track the rate over time, and also look at the amount of time your visitors are sticking around. Also, take note of the traffic sources. Where is the majority of the traffic coming from? Search engines, direct links, social networking sites like Stumble Upon or Twitter, etc. The source of the traffic and the quality of that traffic will contribute to the overall bounce rate being higher or lower for the week. Some traffic, depending on the source will naturally convert better than others.

Once you know your statistical rate, you’ll need to start making small changes, then run tests to see if it improves over time. It all starts with trying to improve the usability of your site’s landing page. Translation: what people see when they come to your home page.

You can make changes to the design, look and feel of your site. Make sure there are other links readily available to peak the visitor’s interest so they’ll want to dive further into your content. Of course, you always want to make sure your site’s navigation is user friendly, and that the site itself is easy to use and well organized. Another trick is to play around with different headlines, even change your Web site’s copy. Another big problem is a heavy load time. Make sure your site loads quickly so the visitor isn’t reaching for their back button before it even finishes loading.

Change one thing at a time, and keep your eye on the bounce rate to see if it improves. If you’re not doing so already, have Google Analytics email your site reports weekly in PDF format. This will make your homework a little easier.

As you can see, bounce rate is an important statistical measure and says a lot about the “stickiness/effectiveness” of your Web site. There are also those who believe it plays a role in search engine algorithms and how they rank your site. If this is true or not, I don’t know - but if it is true it gives you some extra motivation in working on improving it. For more on this controversial subject see:

• SearchEngineLand
• WebProNews

By studying your site’s bounce rate, you really can learn a lot as to what’s working and what’s not with your Web site. It really is an important number to know and one you’ll want to continually strive to improve upon.

Like costly heated air leaking out a drafty window, you’ll want to do what you can to plug those leaks and try to keep visitors at your site a little longer. It’s only when they are fully engaged that they’ll make a purchase, subscribe to your ezine or do whatever action you consider a conversion. In the end, isn’t that what it’s all about? If your site’s been losing visitors as fast as they enter, it’s time to follow the “bounce rate” and make some much needed changes.

About The Author

Merle’s Mission Blog - “Rants, Raves and Random Acts of Kindness” a self proclaimed “Internet Junkie” with a passion for net marketing, affiliate marketing, social networking. An avid Blogger and writer with several niche sites to her credit. Find out more at MerlesWorld.Blogspot.com.

The Web is a visual medium, and people are likely to notice your design before anything else. So, if you’re a beginner designing your own Web site, you’ll need the right tools to create a quality end-product.

The most common way to design and code a Web site for professionals and amateurs alike is to build a template in Adobe Photoshop, then pull it into Dreamweaver for coding, text and images.

Getting Started with Photoshop

Photoshop is a complicated graphics editing program. It might seem intimidating at first, but once you know how to use it, you’ll have the ability to manipulate images in countless ways. If you’re completely new to the program, take some time to become familiar with some of the tools and features before you attempt to design your Web site. A good way to orient yourself is to open your digital photos in Photoshop and play around with finishing them.

Tutorials

For a structured lesson in how to use Photoshop to design a Web site, check out these helpful tutorials:

• How to make a Web template in Photoshop
• How to make a grunge Web site design in Photoshop
• Blog design tips

Once you have a design for your Web site, Photoshop has a slicing tool you can use to prepare your design for the Web. Slicing is simply dividing up your large image into a set of smaller images and saving them separately so you can make different parts of the image clickable. Learn more about slicing with this tutorial.

Open Source Alternative

While Photoshop is the industry standard for graphics editing software, some users feel that it’s too complicated, expensive and loaded with features most people rarely use. If you’re looking for a free alternative, take a look at GNU image manipulation program (GIMP).

GIMP is generally considered the open source equivalent of Photoshop and can do many of the same things. Here’s a tutorial on how to create a Web site template using this program.

If the recession has you wondering where all the customers have gone, you only need to turn on your computer to find the answer. A March 2009 economic report from Pricegrabber.com shows that online consumers are spending more time searching the Internet for a deal.

Twenty-five percent of online consumers are spending more time online because of the tough economy, while 53 percent spend about the same amount of time online, according to the report. That means your presence on the Web is more important now than ever. You want your business to be there when consumers are comparison shopping whether you sell online or off.

How can you use this trend to your advantage? Here are some ideas:

• Want to reach more customers? Launch or update your Web site. A whopping 40 percent of online consumers are spending more time comparison shopping online while 54 percent continue to do so at their pre-recession rates. If you’re not online, you’re invisible to this huge potential customer base.
• Want to drive in-store sales? Post printable coupons on your Web site. A full 26 percent of online consumers are spending more time than usual finding and printing online coupons.
• Looking for a free marketing opportunity? Get on social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. More than half of online consumers are spending more or the same amount of time on social networking sites.

The study also found that many consumers plan to continue their online cost-savings strategies even after the economy improves, so anything you do now to boost your Web presence should serve you well into the future.

Read the full report.

As a solopreneur being able to follow-up with your clients and potential clients is crucial in growing and sustaining your business, and keeping a steady flow of new clients coming on board. However the downside is the time it takes to follow-up with each and every one of your contacts–after all spending all day following up with clients isn’t a good use of your time; you also need to spend your time on income generating activities and generating cash flow for your business.

So what is a time-starved solopreneur to do in order to maintain follow-up with customers and clients?

Autoresponders are perfect for automating your follow-up and freeing up some of your time. If set up correctly they will follow up with EVERY SINGLE customer who has ever purchased a product from you; or EVERY SINGLE subscriber to your ezine list! Would you be able to undertake that task yourself? The answer is no, you couldn’t, it would be impossible.

This is where you need to get smart and take advantage of technology to automate your follow-up. Create the systems and let them run on autopilot.

What is an autoresponder?

Put simply an autoresponder is a piece of software that will allow you to send email messages to people on your list. Don’t confuse this with spam or unsolicited mail though. These messages are sent to people who have already confirmed that they want to receive email from you; they have either signed up to your ezine list or they have bought a product from you. They have given you permission to email them as they have confirmed their subscription to your list.

The autoresponder is an email that is sent out automatically in response to an action taken by your customer/subscriber, and it can either be just one message or a series of follow-up messages that you set up to go out at certain intervals–you choose what those intervals are.

For example, you could set the first message up so that it goes out immediately someone confirms their subscription to your list, the next message could go out seven days later, and the final one two weeks after that. The beauty of using this system is that you decide how often and what messages are sent out.

The autoresponder doesn’t write the messages for you, you have to do that yourself, but the opportunities using an autoresponder opens are invaluable.

Once you’ve taken the time to set up the autoresponder it all runs on autopilot!

How Can You Use Autoresponders in Your Day-to-day Business?

There are many ways you can use an autoresponder in your day-to-day business, but just to give you a couple of examples:

Ezine Signup. When someone signs up for your ezine you will generally create an autoresponder that immediately gets sent out to them welcoming them to your list–once they’ve confirmed their subscription, of course! Add a second message to go out a few days later, and ask them how they found your free taste, what their biggest challenge is, or if there is a particular topic that they would like to find out more about.

Product Purchase. When someone buys one of your products create an autoresponder and a series of follow-up messages to ask them how they are getting on with your product, are they working through it okay, send them a ’surprise’ bonus, or ask for a testimonial. Span these messages so that they go out over the course of a few weeks. If you offer a home study system set the final message to check in with them about six/eight weeks after they’ve bought your product to see if they were able to implement the steps, or if there’s anything they need help with.

The Secret to Autoresponder Success

Even though your autoresponder may be going out to several hundred customers (or even thousands), don’t let that deter you from making your messages personal–let your personality come through in your messages, encourage feedback from your recipient, give them a call to action in your messages.

When putting your autoresponder and follow-up messages together write them as though you are writing to just ONE person. Think about the tone you use. Do you keep it informal? Chatty? Light? If you find this task hard pick a contact/client you know really well and imagine you’re writing an email to them. What tone do you use when writing to this person?

Go one better, and actually send your messages to this contact/client and ask for feedback from them. Chances are if they really like the way you’ve written your messages your other customers and clients will too!

I rely on my autoresponders to follow up with my customers, clients, and ezine subscribers–without them I’d find it impossible to follow-up and may end up losing valuable relationships.

I know that many of my relationships with my clients/customers have been established as a result of them replying to one of my autoresponder messages. I would find it impossible to make contact with each and every one of these people personally; the autoresponder does that for me, but then I am able to create a relationship with those customers who do reply to my messages.

Office organization expert, Tracey Lawton, teaches professional speakers, coaches, and authors how to operate an efficient, organized, and profitable business. Learn how to create an efficient and organized office in 7 EASY steps, and receive free how-to articles at http://www.OfficeOrganizationSuccess.com.

Using syndicated content on your Web site can be a great deal, especially if it’s free. You get high-quality content, update your Web site often and enhance your site’s value to visitors. But of course, there’s a catch.

When you post syndicated content on your Web site, you’re posting content that is published somewhere else on the Web. While adding new content helps your search engine ranking, it also has the potential to bring your ranking down because it’s not original content.

To maximize the benefits and minimize the risks of using syndicated content on your Web site, follow these five tips:

1. Achieve an optimal balance of original and syndicated content.

Consider syndicated content as a side dish to your compelling, original content. You serve up the main course that drives visitors to your Web site, and let others bring a few complementary items to complete the feast.

Well-written original content will help your search engine ranking and increase value to visitors far more than syndicated content. But syndicated content will help you add keywords and links while allowing you to update more frequently.

2. Make sure you properly attribute your articles.

It may be tempting to eliminate the bylines for syndicated articles. But doing that could void any positive effects the articles have, and can even damage your site’s reputation with search engines.

Anyone who believes their content is being used improperly may file a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DCMA) request with Google to claim ownership and request removal of the offending Web site from the search engine. Even if the content owner doesn’t report you, Google may determine that you have deceptively lifted content from the original site and remove you itself.

So whenever you use syndicated content, make sure you follow the attribution guidelines to the letter.

3. Choose only content that’s relevant to your business and Web site.

When visitors reach your Web site, the first thing they’ll want to see is that they’re getting what they signed on for when they clicked your link. That’s why it is very important to only post content on your site that’s related to your business or your mission.

Additionally, relevant content helps you rank higher in search engines because it’s loaded with keywords that relate to your site. Post off topic, and you won’t get that keyword boost.

4. Find a quality content provider.

Whether you choose to post articles via RSS or do it yourself, make sure you’ve selected a high-quality content provider. The articles should be interesting, current and well-written. Also choose a provider that offers content similar in tone to the rest of your Web site.

5. Publish frequently updated content.

If you post the syndicated articles yourself, read through each one to make sure its still relevant. In today’s world, things change so quickly, even an article from two years ago can be obsolete.

Microsoft completed its rollout of Bing on June 3, 2009, replacing MSN. Billed as a “decision” engine, the new search engine has distinct features intended to make search engine results pages more useful and require less clicking. For example, when a user hovers his/her cursor over a search result, a summary of the page appears, thus providing more information without requiring a click.

Optimizing Your Web Site for Bing

According to the Webmaster section of Bing’s Web site, there are no major changes to the way Bing’s search results are calculated. Suggestions for optimizing your Web site for Bing are nearly identical to those of the other search engines, including:

• Include relevant, interesting content
• Use your keywords, but don’t go overboard with them
• Make sure your Web site has a static link to every page of the site
• Don’t put important keywords or important information only in an image

Submitting Your Site to Bing

Just like nearly every other search engine, Bing has crawlers out on the Internet constantly finding and indexing Web sites. Your site can be included in Bing results without you submitting it to the search engine. However, you can also submit your site directly to Bing for inclusion.

Check out the Webmaster tools and guidelines for more information.

Today’s topic is based on the importance of refreshing your on page content from time to time to toggle “the fresh content factor” to get a boost in the SERPs (search engine result pages) using SEO.

Chronology and relevance reside at the core of search engine optimization, and frankly, a Web site that has remained dormant for weeks or months without an update is not that appealing to search engines. Search engines reward fresh relevant, content or content layered with existing context to reinforce relevance.

Once you reach a particular stage of on-page and off-page relevance for a series of keywords and terms, allowing your site to percolate ranking factors is just fine. Once you exceed the base level ranking criteria for a keyword, you can remain buoyant for extended periods. The point is, you must first cross the tipping point or your Web site and its rankings will be subject to volatility and receding in the index.

The primary objective is to get a Web site into a favorable position if you intend to decrease post frequency. Since relevance is a two way street (based on the synergy or information and people looking for information), one metric search engines use to assess relevance is how frequently you add or modify content.

In fact, there is even an HTTP/1.1 status code to summarize if your content has changed or not, it is known as the 304 HTTP status code. The 304 status of a page translates into “not modified” and in a sea of gigaflops of information being skimmed, crawled and indexed on virtually every topic and Web site online, the Web site/page freshness factor counts when it comes to how your page is evaluated in the index.

Aside from relevance and the volume of competition on each subject in search engines, you must first mirror that relevance within your Web site, then receive validation from other Web sites in order to exceed others targeting the same keywords and rankings.

I have seen this aspect of optimization countless times. If you neglect a Web site before reaching a particular relevance plateau, a Web site can flounder and remain dormant and essentially fizzle out in contention to SEO.

One tactic we utilize to overcome such stagnation is to go back and edit similar pages in the site that share a topic or have an overlapping frequency of terms which can be used to strengthen the internal linking of a Web site.

For example, if you wanted to increase your search engine positioning for Keyword A, then you (1) find all pages in your Web site that have context for singular and plural versions of Keyword A (2) edit those pages to link out to your NEW page (based on Keyword A) and then when those old pages get crawled and indexed you already have relevant links to reinforce and communicate topical relevance for Keyword A.

Link reputation, also known as the link graph, (a metric that looks at the links in and links out to each page in your Web site) is responsible for sculpting the way a page communicates intent and how it is valued in context for the keywords appearing in the links. Fifty percent of the ranking factor is under your control with on-page optimization and layering through methods described above (uniting co-occurrence for a favorable concentration of context).

These two attributes on page continuity and off page link reputation are some of the primary metrics search engines use to determine where to put your page in the index (relevance score) as well as the degree of trust and authority your Web site can gain regarding the topical context of the subject matter.

The idea is to concentrate your content as much as possible through revisions, deep links and creating fresh content based on keyword research to preserve the rankings you have, while simultaneously scaling the heights of new/relevant keywords that can benefit your Web site and ultimately your business model.

Jeffrey Smith is an active Internet marketing optimization strategist, consultant and the founder of Seo Design Solutions Seo Company http://www.seodesignsolutions.com. He has actively been involved in Internet marketing since 1995 and brings a wealth of collective experiences and fresh marketing strategies to individuals involved in online business.

While most people can easily write a few sentences, not many of us can design a Web site. So, you may focus on getting your site designed pre-launch but then be at a loss for words post-launch.

Syndicated content can help fill your pages with information-rich content that adds value for your readers and boosts the quality of your Web site on search engines.

Placing syndicated content on your Web site can help you:

• Update your Web site more often
• Provide relevant content for your readers
• Improve your search engine optimization

How It Works

You have two options for managing syndicated content on your Web site.

First, you could place code on your site that allows content producers to automatically push their content to your site via a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed. This is a low maintenance option. If you select a reputable content provider and make sure your feed focuses on the right keywords, this can be a very easy way to supplement your own Web content.

A second option is to select content from a third party yourself and post it on your Web site. While most content sources will not allow you to edit their articles, you have control over which articles you run and when you post them.

Twitter is a useful tool for engaging your customers in a conversation and driving traffic to your Web site. Watch this video to learn how to:

• Send a tweet, retweet, @replay and direct message
• Build a following
• Search tweets by keyword

Video: Start Using Twitter for Your Business

Your Web site is designed, the CMS works, content has been added and the client is happy. It’s time to take the Web site live. Or is it? When launching a Web site, you can often forget a number of things in your eagerness to make it live, so it’s useful to have a checklist to look through as you make your final touches and before you announce your Web site to the world.

This article reviews some important and necessary checks that Web sites should be checked against before the official launch - little details are often forgotten or ignored, but - if done in time - may sum up to an overall greater user experience and avoid unnecessary costs after the official site release.

Favicon

A favicon brands the tab or window in which your Web site is open in the user’s browser. It is also saved with the bookmark so that users can easily identify pages from your Web site. Some browsers pick up the favicon if you save it in your root directory as favicon.ico, but to be sure it’s picked up all the time, include the following in your head.

• <link rel=”icon” type=”image/x-icon” href=”/favicon.ico” />

And if you have an iPhone favicon:

• <link rel=”apple-touch-icon” href=”/favicon.png” />

Titles and Meta Data

Your page title is the most important element for SEO and is also important so that users know what’s on the page. Make sure it changes on every page and relates to that page’s content.

<title>10 Things To Consider When Choosing The Perfect CMS | How-To | Smashing Magazine</title>

Meta description and keyword tags aren’t as important for SEO (at least for the major search engines anyway), but it’s still a good idea to include them. Change the description on each page to make it relate to that page’s content, because this is often what Google displays in its search result description.

• <meta name=”description” content=”By Paul Boag Choosing a content management system can be tricky. Without a clearly defined set of requirements, you will be seduced by fancy functionality that you will never use. What then should you look” />

Cross-Browser Checks

Just when you think your design looks great, pixel perfect, you check it in IE and see that everything is broken. It’s important that your Web site works across browsers. It doesn’t have to be pixel perfect, but everything should work, and the user shouldn’t see any problems. The most popular browsers to check are Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8, Firefox 3, Safari 3, Chrome, Opera and the iPhone.

Proofread

Read everything. Even if you’ve already read it, read it again. Get someone else to read it. There’s always something you’ll pick up on and have to change. See if you can reduce the amount of text by keeping it specific. Break up large text blocks into shorter paragraphs. Add clear headings throughout, and use lists so that users can scan easily. Don’t forget about dynamic text too, such as alert boxes.

• Writing for the Web

Links

Don’t just assume all your links work. Click on them. You may often forget to add “http://” to links to external Web sites. Make sure your logo links to the home page, a common convention.

Also, think about how your links work. Is it obvious to new users that they are links? They should stand out from the other text on the page. Don’t underline text that isn’t a link because it will confuse users. And what happens to visited links?

W3C Link Checker

Functionality Check

Test everything thoroughly. If you have a contact form, test it and copy yourself so that you can see what comes through. Get others to test your Web site, and not just family and friends but the Web site’s target market. Sit back and watch how a user uses the Web site. It’s amazing what you’ll pick up on when others use your Web site differently than how you assume they’d use it. Common things to check for are contact forms, search functions, shopping baskets and log-in areas.

• Silverback - guerrilla usability testing

Graceful Degradation

Your Web site should work with JavaScript turned off. Users often have JavaScript turned off for security, so you should be prepared for this. You can easily turn off JavaScript in Firefox. Test your forms to make sure they still perform server-side validation checks, and test any cool AJAX stuff you have going on.

Validation

You should aim for a 100% valid Web site. That said, it isn’t the end of the world if your Web site doesn’t validate, but it’s important to know the reasons why it doesn’t so that you can fix any nasty errors. Common gotchas include no “alt” tags, no closing tags and using “&” instead of “&amp;” for ampersands.

• 10 reasons your code won’t validate (and how to fix it)
• W3C validator

RSS Link

If your Web site has a blog or newsreel, you should have an RSS feed that users can subscribe to. Users should be able to easily find your RSS feed: the common convention is to put a small RSS icon in the browser’s address bar.

Put this code between your <head> tags.

• <link rel=”alternate” type=”application/rss+xml” title=”Site or RSS title” href=”link-to-feed” />

Analytics

Installing some sort of analytics tool is important for measuring statistics to see how your Web site performs and how successful your conversion rates are. Track daily unique hits, monthly page views and browser statistics, all useful data to start tracking from day 1. Google Analytics is a free favorite among Web site owners. Others to consider are Clicky, Kissmetrics (still in closed beta yet), Mint and StatCounter.

Sitemap

Adding a sitemap.xml file to your root directory allows the major search engines to easily index your Web site. The file points crawlers to all the pages on your Web site. XML-Sitemaps automatically creates a sitemap.xml file for you. After creating the file, upload it to your root directory so that its location is www.mydomain.com/sitemap.xml.

If you use WordPress, install the Google XML Sitemaps plug-in, which automatically updates the sitemap when you write new posts. Also, add your Web site and sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools. This tells Google that you have a sitemap, and the service provides useful statistics on how and when your Web site was last indexed.

Defensive Design

The most commonly overlooked defensive design element is the 404 page. If a user requests a page that doesn’t exist, your 404 page is displayed. This may happen for a variety of reasons, including another Web site linking to a page that doesn’t exist. Get your users back on track by providing a useful 404 page that directs them to the home page or suggests other pages they may be interested in.

Another defensive design technique is checking your forms for validation. Try submitting unusual information in your form fields (e.g. lots of characters, letters in number fields, etc.) and make sure that if there is an error, the user is provided with enough feedback to be able to fix it.

Optimize

You’ll want to configure your Web site for optimal performance. You should do this on an ongoing basis after launch, but you can take a few simple steps before launch, too. Reducing HTTP requests, using CSS sprites wherever possible, optimizing images for the Web, compressing JavaScript and CSS files and so on can all help load your pages more quickly and use less server resources.

Besides, depending on the publishing engine that you are using, you may need to consider taking more specific measures - for instance, if you are using WordPress, you may need to consider useful caching techniques to speed up the performance.

• Best practices for speeding up your Web site
• Web page analyzer

Back Up

If your Web site runs off a database, you need a back-up strategy. Or else, the day will come when you regret not having one. If you use WordPress, install Wordpress Database Backup, which you can set up to automatically email you backups.

Print Style Sheet

If a user wants to print a page from your Web site, chances are she or he wants only the main content and not the navigation or extra design elements. That’s why it is a good idea to create a print-specific style sheet. Also, certain CSS elements, such as floats, don’t come out well when printed.

To point to a special CSS style sheet that computers automatically use when users print a page, simply include the following code between your <head> tags.

<link rel=”stylesheet” type=”text/css” href=”print.css” media=”print” />

Download the Ultimate Web Site Launch Checklist!

Just recently Dan Zambonini has published a very detailed checklist that covers both the pre-launch and the post-launch phase of the web site life cycle. Among other things his Ultimate Web site Launch Checklist contains checks related to content and style, standards and validation, search engine visibility, functional testing, security/risk, performance and marketing.

Lee Monroe - Freelance Web designer from Belfast Northern Ireland - http://www.leemunroe.com Web design portfolio and blog.