SEO 2.0

Quick Guide to StumbleUpon Categorization and Tagging

tad — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 11:26:51 +0000

One of the most annoying issues on StumbleUpon, both from an user and a webmaster perspective is the bizarre categorization system. SU mixes tags and categories in a way nobody really grasps.

You can only memorize them by using this flawed system in a trial and error way. After more than a year of SU practice I finally got it, but most people don’t. So I present to you a quick guide to StumbleUpon categorization and tagging.

Why bother in the first place? As I said before, StumbleUpon is channel surfing on the Web. It means that, metaphorically speaking, if you put celebs on the discovery channel or cars on the politics channel you won’t reach your desired audience.

CC: Stumble and fall by andreasnilsson1976.

Miscategorization means:

No traffic beside the initial push of a few hundred people
High bounce rate of those people who are not interested in your subject matter
Bad angry reviews
Spam reports

I get miscategorized all of the time that’s why I wrote about the categories that make sense to submit my posts to:

marketing
search
stumbleupon
blogs
web development
internet tools
writing
business
internet

depending of course on the topic of the post. Most people just drop every post of mine in “internet” even if deals with a tiny aspect of the Internet but mostly with a marketing or search specific subject most SU users don’t care for.

Ironically people submit my posts that really deal with the Internet as a whole to the marketing category where nobody cares.

CC: Stumble Inn by Andy2Boyz.

Likewise most people miscategorize technology posts and websites. They all end up in science/tech. The science and technology category on SU is not meant for the latest Internet craze, gadgets or hardware news. You have lots of categories for that:

internet
internet tools
cyberculture

IT
computers
computer hardware
computer science
electronic devices
electrical eng.

There is another problem besides miscategorization due to lack of understanding the system. Some of the most bizarre miscategorizations happen due to the non-intuitive tag to category translation StumbleUpon performs. Some tags get assigned to categories but not always the way you think. At least one category even leads to nowhere. SU sometimes just assigns a seemingly random category which has nothing to do with the post or is based on the site’s general topic.

CC: The stumbling monk by sparktography.

So here is a little StumbleUpon tag to category dictionary. On the left is the tag you enter, on the right the category it ends up in:

electronics -> electronic devices

web design -> web development

web-design -> web development

blogs -> weblogs

design -> graphic design

health -> health/fitness

technology -> science/tech

electricity -> electrical eng (electrical engineering)

non profit -> nonprofit/charity

iraq -> iraq conflict

These tags will result in empty category (which basically kills a StumbleUpon submission):

SU offering a category that does not exist!

society -> [empty]
This is a default main category SU offers in the discovery pane you see when hitting thumbs up on a yet to be discovered page but it leads to nowhere!

tech -> [empty]
Use “technology” or some specific category from the above list.

children -> [empty]
Use “kids” instead.

charity -> [empty]
Use “non profit” instead.

Last but not least any submission that you mark as “adult” will end up in the porn category where most people won’t see it at all. So think twice before doing it just because you see some breasts on your image.

Add more categorization and tagging issues in the comments! I’ll be glad to add them in the post.

10 New Must Read SEO, Online Marketing and Web Development Blogs

tad — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 11:26:12 +0000

Recently I promised you in the 7 Things Obama Taught Me post to become less selfish and to promote other outstanding bloggers again like I did in the early days of SEO 2.0 quite often.

It took just a few days to compile a list of 10 new must read SEO, online marketing and web development blogs.

Here they are, I assume that most of them have started in 2008 so they aren’t even one year old:

I won’t describe them in depth as you will probably click yourself before reading anyways. All of those SEO, online marketing and web development bloggers have one thing common, a bright future. I know, I can spot trends like no other.

Did I miss some outstanding newcomer? I bet I have, I know there are some more buried in my bookmarks.

7 Usability Mistakes Usability Experts Commit

tad — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 12:04:18 +0000

Usability expert at work? CC: Bela donna by hypertypos.

Today, November 13th, is World Usability Day. I’m not really involved in it in spite of being really interested in

usability
user-centered design
findability.

With my soon 12 years of online publishing experience I’m still more of a DIY guy who learns everything himself by trial and error. I rarely go to conferences and the likes.

So being both keen on usability and an industry outsider I have a unique view point on usability.

In fact I can’t ignore my impression today that many usability experts commit basic usability mistakes on the Web.

Here are the 7 usability mistakes usability experts commit:

No images
Imagine a magazine cover without an image. Images of women have proved most successful at selling magazines of all kinds. Usability experts seem to hate women, they never display any on their pages. Don’t they want the people to actually use their sites? Websites need eye-catchers like magazines do. Use striking pictures.

Too much text
Usability websites tend to look like they’ve been built in 1995 when people still browsed without images. Not only that, they really focus on text. So in spite of the fact that the text is split up in small chunks you see huge loads of text on usability sites. It’s just too much. People do not read long texts on the Web, not even divided ones. Also strictly text based pages are not attractive enough to retain quick to leave users, especially from social media.

Too large text
Usability experts love large fonts. I do too but not for the sake of them but for readability. Too large fonts aren’t readable as well. The eye can’t discern many too large letters at once so you are forced to look closely and strain your eyes.

Too much white space
I love white space for my eyes to rest on the Web and I use it myself excessively. It’s partly due to the fact that I’m not a designer myself though so I cant style it in a way that makes sense other than white. Usability experts tend to make sites all white on purpose. Excessive white space has at least two major disadvantages. An all white page appears empty. It’s too bright on the screen.

No or “sad” colors
While I guess usability experts want you not to hurt your eyes on the Web which is a noble gesture they seem to assume we’re all babies or something. Usability experts rarely use fresh, striking and bright colors. You don’t have to make your text red, but an occasional red element on your page does not hurt! Otherwise try a nice green or blue!

Boring interfaces
Why is everybody buying and using the iPhone lately? It’s not just a usable interface it has a sleek and sexy interface! Why are most leading usability websites that boring? Don’t they have designers working for them too? Or is it because they hate women so hey don’t want to be sexy?

Ugly headlines
Have you ever seen a huge bold Verdana headline on Windows? It’s clumsy and it’s ugly and it’s usability headline font #1. You barely can distinguish the letters due to their sheer thickness. Usability sites Useit.com (Jakob Nielsen himself!), Usabilityfirst.com and even Upassoc.org use them, the latter in white where they’re even more difficult to read on the Web.

Just visit the sites that rank in the top 10 for usability. The World Usability Day site is not as bad as most of them but

only a few usability sites manage to be attractive.

What’s the use of usability if your site is so ugly that nobody visits it or stays there?

Commenting on Dofollow-Blogs as a Link Building Strategy

tad — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 19:07:27 +0000

CC: Conversation by kool skatkat.

Today I will write about commenting on so called dofollow-blogs and whether it makes sense as a link building strategy. Let me explain why:

No doubt the power of habit is a thing that makes you perpetrate the worst mistakes. For instance some people will vote for the same party again and again no matter what disastrous laws it will enforce. Webmasters are prone to be victims of the power of habit. The power of habit can be even inherited, then it’s called tradition. People who have never done a thing before will do what they perceive to be a habit of others.

On the Web people stick to the same habits like in the real world although the nature and rules of the Web change at an amazing pace. So many webmasters still stick to the habits of the twentieth century while we’re already nearing 2009. One of these hopelessly outdated habits is: Search engine and directory submission.

While search engine submission is obsolete since the appearance of Google 10 years ago, directory submission did make some sense for a few years longer but in 2007 and 2008 Google killed off most general web directories for being too low quality.

Some directories still work but only focused niche directories have a long term future according to Matt Cutts, Google’s “head of webspam”. I do not want to write about directories this time though. I want to write about the “directory submission approach” which is very often part of the typical SEO 1.0 mindset. People just don’t get the change that took place.

Most webmasters still seemingly assume that the best way of gaining links is to submit them somewhere.

Where can you submit nowadays when directories have less and less value? You can press “submit” on blog comment forms. It looks very similar and even does not take that much time. Many people still recommend commenting on dofollow-blogs that is blogs that do not add the “nofollow” attribute to comment links.

This nofollow attribute marks those links as worthless for search engines. Especially Google discounts them. Thus many webmasters collect “dofollow blogs” where the links still count. My blog is part of several lists by now and the more popular I get via these lists the more clumsy commenters visit my blog and leave their comments here.

I have formulated quite strict instructions as to how you should comment here but many people fail to follow those simple common sense rules and get their comments removed for breaching my commenting guidelines. Also I’m amazed at how people apparently assume that blog commenting is a viable link building strategy in the first place. Why?

Dofollow links in comments get discounted as well!

It’s widely known at least since 2006 that Google knows where a link resides on a given page, whether it’s in the footer, in the sidebar or in the editorial part of a page. Also Google knows that a link is a comment link which is no wonder as most blogs out there are either Blogspot or WordPress blogs and most other platforms have a similar structure.

Not surprisingly Google assigns less value to comment links. Footer links have been devalued long ago, I think 2005 or 2006. Sidebar links have been discounted a while ago too, 2007 when the first anti link buying campaign by Google has been started.

So even if your comment link is on the same page as the high value authority link in the post your link counts much less if at all.

Watching the bizarre ways people comment for links I can only scratch my head:

Barely any context agreeing: “I also like SEO”
Bot-like flattering: “Thank you, great post”
Stupid questions: “What is the difference between blogs and SEO blogs?”
Repeating a phrase from the post or rephrasing it, sometimes ignoring the message in the post: “Dofollow blogs are great for link building”

The ways people to circumvent my guidelines are ridiculous as well.

Making up a keyword containing nick name like “SEO guy”: I said a name not keywords, besides, I’m the SEO guy here.

Do you really think that dropping a nonsense comment on my blog will be of advantage for you? Do you really assume that I won’t notice “solely for SEO” links as a SEO since 2004 and online publisher since 1997? At the same time I got a few real commenters, be it other bloggers or my peers from social media. Even without seeing their names I can already recognize their style of commenting:

It’s adding value
it’s conversational
it’s not flattery even if it’s a compliment

I check each of my comments and I visit the sites you link to.

I will delete links to empty pages etc.
I will just take a short look at the “directory submission style” comment links.
I will visit the pages of real commenters and read the content there
I will submit their content to StumbleUpon
I will bookmarks or link their blog

So do you see the difference? The SEO 1.0 type commenters add no value and receive no value. The SEO 2.0 type commenters add value and get more value back. So does commenting on dofollow-blogs make sense as a link building strategy? No, it doesn’t.

Does it make sense to participate in blog discussions in the comments in order to get links and traffic? Yes, it does! In case you have some valuable content it will often end up getting my power stumble, bookmark or a link.

7 Things Obama Has Taught Me

tad — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:09:46 +0000

CC: Yes we can by zyrcster.

Sorry to bother you again. I still can’t believe that America has made such a huge leap. A few days ago I wanted to write an article titled “Why Obama and America have already won” in case Obama would be defeated.

I wanted to make a point of the great achievement for both Obama and the whole USA and how it was a win to win situation even if Obama would not become president.

The sheer possibility that an African American (and Obama is truly “African” with a father from Kenya) could run for president shows how far the US society has evolved. Now, after Obama was elected I’m still in awe.

I watched the campaign from Germany more closely than the previous ones. Today I realized that Obama has taught me a few very important things along the way. Here they are, 7 things Obama has taught me and how they relate to my area of expertise:

Do not divide. Unite!
Obama managed to distinguish himself without diminishing his opponents. He showed integrity and never used smear tactics to attack his opponents. While focusing on change he still emphasized bipartisanship and did not alienate moderate Republican voters. On the Web we have many very negative people who badmouth others for personal gain and fare well this way. That’s why you already call this “pull a Calacanis” when you attack a group of people to gain attention and links for SEO reasons. Lately I flirted with the idea of striking back at the latest “SEO is bullshit” post writing a post about “why you don’t need a web designer”. I won’t do that. I will explain how web designers and SEO experts can work together to benefit both parties.

Do not brag. Inspire!
While senator McCain focused on his years as a soldier and POW which many people approve of senator Obama highlighted the achievements of others and things you can do too, he didn’t repeat again and again how he was a social worker in Chicago. In blogging we have plenty of people who brag how much they earn etc. Only a few of those could inspire others though. Even less could really follow on the make money blogging path. Inspire by doing things others can reproduce. I will offer you more hands on advice on how to succeed on the Web in future.

Do not offend. Argue!
Obama never used demeaning tactics in his campaign. He argued and explained why his opponents erred. Offending people alienates other people. When you argue people might disagree with you but they still will accept you. In my first year of blogging I have made the mistake a few times of venting my anger. There are plenty of people out there who hate me or my blog just because it’s a SEO blog due to wide spread prejudice. It does not make sense to hate them too though. Instead I will prove them wrong again and again in the future. Not one of those people could ever substantiate the “all SEO is spam” claim yet. When I’m done people will be proud to do SEO instead of hiding it like they do now.

Do not parrot. Be yourself!
Some people try to be somebody else on the Web. They try to copy the success of others by just parroting them. Obama had the disadvantage of being “black”, having a weird sounding name for Americans (both Hussein his middle name and Obama sound like US enemies) and growing up partly in Indonesia, a Muslim country. He could instead focus on being a Harvard graduate to appear more like many other presidents in history who had been law makers but he didn’t. Everybody knew that he had family in Kenya and been living in Indonesia as a kid. So he won by being himself without pretending. On the web people pretend all the time, they pretend to be successful or truthful just to make you click their affiliate links. I haven’t and I won’t do that. Honesty wins. I will focus even more on why I’m different (I’m a Pole living in Germany and I’m a media activist turned SEO).

Do not repeat. Try new things!
Obama never relied on traditional “ways of becoming president”. He skipped the interest groups and the traditional media to reach out to his voters directly via the Internet. It worked out so great that he succeed with the interest groups and the traditional media as well due to his success. Just because something has worked for others doesn’t mean it will work for you. You have to analyze your own situation, your weaknesses and strengths and try new things that might work specifically for you. I’m contemplating my blog business model all the time and I will come up with something quite unique instead of publishing ebooks or offering consulting like many other pro bloggers. I will work out a business model that works for me and you, my readers.

Do not separate yourself. Be part of something bigger!
Sometimes you might wonder if it’s not too much of “Obama here Obama there, Obama this Obama that” but Obama is like a movement. People are not just followers it’s about them. They do not just work for Obama, Obama works for them. So you have to be there for your community and empower it. Selfishness does not lead to success, altruism does. In recent months I have rarely written about the great bloggers I discover and seldom praised others. I will do more of it like in the first few months of SEO 2.0

Do not stop yourself. Be optimistic!
What tremendous optimism was needed to believe that Obama could achieve what no African American has achieved before? No pessimist or realist could have ever achieved that. A pessimist would not even contemplate becoming a “black president”. A realist would fail as well looking at the US reality where the population of color is largely disadvantaged in spite of affirmative action and the civil rights movement. Only a die hard optimist could have achieved that. I’m far too often a pessimist or a realist but in future I will “change my mind”.

I know most Americans do not mix politics and daily business but sometimes you just can’t ignore things going on around you. This time things are historic in a positive sense. Let’s learn from it.

7 SEO 2.0 Methods Obama Used to Score on the Web

tad — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:35:01 +0000

SEO 2.0 is a term that summarizes all modern methods of making a message heard online, getting found via search engines or any feasible way of reaching an audience by use of the Web. Typical SEO 2.0 methods are:

Business blogging
Social Media participation
Online reputation building (not solely management)
Video, especially viral video
Web Design for ROI (instead for looking fancy)
Local SEO (Optimization for Google Local/Maps etc.)

The Obama campaign has been far better at employing modern web based SEO 2.0 methods than the McCain campaign

that lagged behind on the Web and preferred more traditional ways of disseminating their message as I outlined in my Obama vs McCain post.

The Web alone does not make you a President though, we’ve seen the Republican candidate Ron Paul fail spectacularly in spite or maybe even due to his overwhelming Web presence, especially on social news sites.

Nonetheless Barack Obama is also hugely popular in real life. We can see it based on the campaign funding from citizens and the large crowds that follow him everywhere he speaks whereas the McCain campaign has to order school kids to fill in the ranks like they did in the former Soviet Union.

From a SEO and SEO 2.0 perspective you can’t help to admire Obama for his Internet campaign. Thus I will outline the 7 SEO 2.0 methods the Obama campaign has scored with on the Web most successfully:

Pull vs Push
SEO 2.0 relies entirely on pull tactics that is attracting people’s attention to make them followers, whereas conventional SEO 1.0 depends on push tactics to force people to see a message even if they don’t like it. The Ron Paul campaign used especially obvious push tactics flooding social news sites like Digg and Reddit. The Obama campaign relied on people subscribing themselves voluntarily on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter or his own website. The McCain campaign did this too but far less prominently and successfully.

Blogging
Obama’s blog has been far more lively than McCain’s. As I already have written it has offered both better quality content and the number of blog posts is much higher. On the other hand the blog has created some serious information overflow no single person can digest. There were more than 20 posts on one day after the last debate! This surge of activity will drive more search traffic though.

Viral video
One of the first things many people noticed on the Web in connection with Obama’s campaign was a viral video made but musicians and actors. It has a very positive empowering message and it has a quality on its own. It’s not just a “cool video” in case you like Obama already but it makes sense to watch it just for the music or the recognition of super stars. Also it has much “beautiful people” value with appearances by Scarlett Johansson for instance.
The McCain campaign focused on their conventional video ads displaying them right away on their website. This is probably the better solution for more conservative voters they aim at.

Social Networking
I mentioned MySpace, Facebook and Twitter above but the Obama campaign utilized far more social networks, especially “niche” social networking sites where religious people, sexual or ethnic minorities or other groups convene online. This can also backfire in some cases as examples show. On Glee the first thing we see on Obama’s profile is an anti-Obama ad. A 3 days old post titled Will you join Barack on Election Night? had also an embarrassing zero comments. Also the number of “friends” on hispanic Batanga seems to be pretty low (177).

Web Design for ROI
Business oriented web design is not artsy, fancy, flashy or decorative, it’s based on your objectives. The most important element of web design for ROI (Return on Investment) is not the homepage (which must look cool in conventional web design) it’s the forms. Obama’s website greeted you with a form. A form that encouraged participation. When you skipped the first form you encountered more forms like that on the main page and throughout the website.

Local SEO
While subscribing on Obama’s site they ask you where you live “Enter Your Zip Code” and then you get localized alerts. This ensures that your online subscription does not make you an armchair activist but also has community relevance locally.

Mobile Marketing
Obama not only offers a text messaging subscription and a mobile phones web site version (which seems to be made in an outdated format though, WAP) he also offers an iPhone APP. The iPhone is currently the single most popular smartphone to access the Web.

Whether you supported Senator Obama or not you have to admit that his usage of web tools for his campaign has been outstanding and far more advanced than of any campaign before. Many people won’t agree with the label SEO or SEO 2.0 to describe this phenomenon but that’s exactly what SEO 2.0 is about. ~~In case Obama prevails~~ As Obama prevailed nobody will be ever able to ignore SEO 2.0 methods to spread a message on the Web again.

SEO Company, SEO and Search Engine Optimization Google Results Are a Disgrace

tad — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 20:16:34 +0000

cc: Magic movement by Gojca.

The SEO industry is outraged about search engine optimization leading figure Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz calling the Google (and Yahoo) results for “SEO company” an embarrassment. The main problem about that post seems to be “the outing” of the site currently at #1 for the term SEO company.

The website gets analyzed and their link structure which in fact is quite low quality gets dissected. While it might be indeed viewed as bad style to “out” a company like this, the point of the post, the embarrassment, is true and should be highlighted.

What we see here is that the US search results in this very competitive SEO niche are not the best ones to say the least.

You know what? The key phrase SEO company is not the exception. Take a look at the more generic terms SEO and search engine optimization and you’ll quickly realize that they are even less relevant.

For SEO company we see from the US as of October 29th, 2008:

At #1 a SEO company barely anybody has heard of that optimized its way up with link exchange it seems and probably their own projects, a “network” as SEOs tend to call it
Google ranks second
Then a company that states in their headline “Search engines and directories are the main way Internet users discover web sites.” so it seems they haven’t changed it since 2001
Number 4 is a “News” search result which basically is a press release of a random SEO firm
#5 is a no name no brand SEO company advertising, among others, SEO for AltaVista (good old days again)

So the top 5 are all irrelevant and bad results.

Let’s compare it with other more generic SEO results. What do we see searching for SEO itself?

Wikipedia entry, a SEO for noobs article you only read once in a life time
Wikipedia entry for a Korean first name
At three an infamous SEO forums which holds the official record for the most ads per pixel in the SEO industry
#4 is Google again
This result is basically an institution the initials of happen to be SEO but has nothing to do with the topic

Looking at the search engine optimization results is no good as well:

Wikipedia
Google
The forums mentioned
Another press release again
Here we find a company offering “search engine submission” and “guaranteed results in major search engines” - just no comment.

The top 5 results in all three cases, SEO company, SEO and search engine optimization are either completely irrelevant, outdated and off topic or solely suitable for the first time searcher who never before has heard of SEO.

Do you really think someone searching for a SEO company needs a warning by Google? All of these results are both a disgrace for Google and the SEO industry as a whole. All those search marketers with incredible link power could easily propel the legit SEO resources to the top but most of them are too selfish to even link out. They rather will “PageRank sculpt” and “nofollow” all day.

I used the US based proxy service Proxbrowse to determine these results. In German Google.com they are quite different. The situation in the UK is by far better. At #2 for SEO company is a specialist I know personally and who does really great work I’ve seen some examples of already. His site The SEO Company aka seoco.co.uk can be recommended.

Please tell me, who in your opinion should rank in the top 5 for SEO company, SEO and search engine optimization? Please refrain from self promotion. If you ask me both SEOmoz and SEO Book deserve to be in the top 5 for SEO and search engine optimization.

What about the SEO company results? I’ve collected by now more than 50 SEO company websites or other companies offering SEO services for a follow up on this list. So stay tuned.

What Social Media Benefits for Business Can You Expect?

tad — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 21:50:57 +0000

Many people in business and even marketers discount social media as worthless saying things like “social media traffic is low value”. They are not completely wrong about that but they aren’t right in their conclusion either.

Discounting social media is like saying that planes suck because you can’t drive them.

Social media benefits vary depending on

the situation
the specific social site
the business you are in

but there are several general business advantages social media has.

So what kind of social media benefits for business can you expect?

Feedback
Ever wanted to get feedback before your client sues you or just switches to the competition? Who can you call? Social media! Best example: Dell Idea Storm. You don’t have to set up your own site. Use existing channels like Twitter, Facebook and blogs.

Word of mouth
Ever wanted to advertise for free without it even appearing like advertising? Social media word of mouth is your friend. Best example: Apple. You don’t need to be a huge or cool brand. Just search for: “Will it blend?”

Reputation
Ever wanted to be a dog? Did you know that nobody knows on the Internet that you are (not) a dog? So you can be a dog but you can be anything n the Web. Like I decided a year ago to become the guru of a new cult, the cult of SEO 2.0. How did I get there? I used a blog and social media like StumbleUpon, Sphinn, Mixx and Twitter. A year later I get invited to search conferences as a speaker and top search marketing bloggers refer to me as an expert.

New visitors
Search engines are great. They are great for bringing you targeted visitors that is people who want to get exactly what you offer. Sometimes a niche is just too small (like SEO) or the product is just too new or exotic so then you don’t have enough people who search for what your offer. Then you got to attract those who are interested in something broader or similar. In my case it’s web design. Only attracting the same SEO people over and over would not allow my blog to grow. That’s why I broaden my focus from time to time to appeal to the people preoccupied with web design, CSS and web standards.

Relationships
While traditional media is broadcasting, social media is narrowcasting being about a message aimed at specific groups of people or even individuals. Whether it’s Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter: Social networking allows you to foster a career without meeting people in real life.

This is an experiment in speed blogging. It took 30 minutes to write. Do you like it?

The 7 Simplest Ways To Lower Your Bounce Rate and Get More Conversions

tad — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 11:36:01 +0000

cc: Please open door slowly by splorp.

Every website or blog has a purpose, be it a sale, a subscription or simply conveying the message, whatever it is. Achieving this goal is called conversion. The worst enemy of the conversion is the bounce rate. Most people who visit your website, unless you have perfectly targeted and optimized it leave before even reading it or taking a closer look.

You can’t convert users to buyers or subscribers if they bounce right away. So you need to lower the bounce rate as much as you can.

How do you measure the bounce rate? Using an analytics tool like Google Analytics or Woopra allows you to check the bounce rate. Any bounce rate below 50% is OK but most bounce rates are far higher. 80% is really bad but very common. Social media like Digg and Reddit even have 90 - 95% bounce rates. In case you have 80% of visitors bouncing you lose 80 users of of 100! Imagine a shop where 80 out of 100 people just open the door and leave instantly.

cc: Door to nowhere by jamelah.

Ironically most webmasters nowadays still obsess about rankings or PageRank instead of focusing on lowering the bounce rate and delivering the product, service or message to the people who already arrived at their site. It’s far easier to please those people than frantically look out for other visitors.

That’s why I introduce to you the 7 simplest ways to lower your bounce rate and get more conversions:

Depending on what kind of visitors you have or expect,

casual social media visitors (CSMV) vaguely interested in your subject “I like blogging, let’s see what we have here”
search visitors (SV) keen on finding exactly what they need to know, download, buy etc.
returning visitors (RV) wanting to more of what you already offer, or deeper insights

you have to slightly adapt your bounce rate lowering tactics.

cc: Blue door - White wall by Klearchos Kapoutsis.

1. Place your offer above the fold
Offer what the people expect right on top even if you just link to it. For the casual social media visitors (CSMV) you need to emphasize the new aspect of your offering. The “simplest ways to” in the title might suffice. The search visitor (SV) needs to see the keyword right there “lower your bounce rate” in my case. The returning visitor (RV) has to see the additional value to what he already read on your blog. A gripping image as an eye catcher and a short teaser paragraph are also key for all visitors. For ecommerce sites the product and a call to action “buy here” button is key above the fold.

2. Do not distract
Do not distract your visitors from their purpose by offer several things at once (ads, products, plenty of links). Portal like sites have failed long ago but people still assume that you have to overload your pages. All three kinds of visitors expect the fulfillment of their wishes above the fold with no distraction. If they can’t see or find what they are after they’ll leave.

3. Be readable
Seeing just a huge junk of text without anything bold, italics or otherwise highlighted just makes me skim the text to find a clue whether I’m interested or not. In most cases, without those little clues i do not find anything and bounce. So add basic text decoration. For CSMV you can even ad an image with text in it.

4. Target specific topics
Don’t offer solely too broad low value information and be clear on what you offer. The most targeted search traffic comes from so called long tail queries that is very specific inquiries or when people enter 3, 4 or 5 keywords into the search box. So when writing for targeted blog posts or product pages focus not on the very broad term like “SEO tips” but also on the very specific ones.

5. Explain acronyms and industry terms
RTFM ASAP? Bounce rate? Conversions? Some people argue I should even explain “SEO” for my visitors, Acronyms and industry terms must be explained, even if my RV already know them. Some SV just look for an explanation. CSMV often do not know them but once you explain are drawn to the “new know how”.

6. Mind the eyes
The eyes of Internet users are strained most of the time. looking long hours at the screen is not healthy. Websites that offer no white space for eyes to rest are sometimes so annoying for the visitor’s eyes that s/he will leave just because of this.

7. Place search on top
Many people who don’t find what they seek in an instant resort to search. So those visitors, especially SV who do not find exactly what they want and who do not spot the search form will leave. If you’re after the conversion this also applies to the call to action.

This is more a primer than an advanced SEO post but I plan to write more about these issues. Also I’d recommend these fine blog posts elsewhere to read more about usability & findability, which are basically what I described above:

7 New Social Browsing Services that Will Make the Web a Better Place

tad — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 10:52:55 +0000

A little more than year ago I presented you 7 social browsing services that will kill Digg and SEO 1.0 - most notably StumbleUpon but also Yoono or Me.Dium.

The decline of Digg seems unstoppable and at least blogs by now have far more visitors from StumbleUpon than Google so that SEOs had to adapt and embrace SEO 2.0 methodology.

The web is still a lonely place though. We’re still alone staring at the screen and often get angry for reasons we wouldn’t be in real life.

This is due to the lack of contact with other people during prolonged work hours at the screen. Sites like StumbleUpon do not really help here as the social aspect is still rudimentary. It’s more common that you get spammed or flamed than getting “social” with other people.

Like it or not, a new generation of social browsing services is already there and in future people won’t believe how you could ever walk the Web alone instead of “web together“:

Many of these advanced social browsing apps are or require browser add ons. Some of them offer chat functionality for real time social browsing and contact to other users. In most cases you won’t be alone anymore browsing the web. It can’t make you as happy as meeting real people face to face but it will at least make the Web a better, a more humane place.

Finally there are social browsing plus Second Life combinations emerging. I don’t think these are ready for prime time yet but probably they sooner or later will.