How Well Does Your Website Keep People On It?
So you’ve worked hard to get to a high position in Google for a number of important keyword phrases. However, you note that people who reach your site using these keywords leave quickly or bounce away.
You are not engaging your visitors that reach your site when they reach your site with your best keyword phrases. What a waste!
What can you do?
Google Announces Panda 4.0In a move sure to create shivers of concern for people that have a high place in search Google’s Matt Cutts announced yesterday that it’s rolling out Panda 4.0. This is the latest upgrade to the content quality ranking system that Google uses. The reason for the concern is that anyone with less than adequate content quality will be moved down in search position.
Google’s Panda algorithm is designed to prevent sites with poor quality content from working their way into Google’s top search results.
Shakespeare and SEOWhat did Shakespeare teach us? He taught us that for sustainable and long term success we need to write well. We need to write what people want to read. We need to create content that they do not see everywhere else.
We need to write regularly and with an effort to create variety and depth of content while entertaining and providing new stimuli.
Web Copy for WomenThis is an interview with Heidi White who is a freelance copy writer. In this interview she shares her thoughts on web copy for women. Women are a major economic force and it is wise to consider how to write for them if this makes sense for your business.
A question I often get asked is what is the ideal keyword density for a given page on your website. For a question such as this, I often simply say that you want to write for humans. After all, Google and the other major search engines need to take proper care of their customers and their customer are humans. Google and the other major search engines actually try to emulate humans. That’s right! They actually try to emulate us.
Web Content – The Scalable AssetOne of the big reasons you need to publish your content online is that it is so easy to reach an audience. If you create web content for one of your visitors then you have spent some time and effort. This time and effort is almost the same if the content is consumed 100,000 times. Content is and will continue to be a vital and essential part of marketing.
Content is not a fad.
High quality web content has always been a smart way to build a loyal audience. It also allows your audience to grow.
Web Copy SEOI recently studied a website and soon discovered that its content was essentially identical to many other websites. These websites were all part of the same franchise and the owners of the individual franchises – though capable business people – probably were not aware that the individual websites were working against each other. The issue was the duplicate content.
As defined by Google . . .
Duplicate content generally refers to substantive blocks of content within or across domains that either completely matches other content or is appreciably similar. Mostly, this is not deceptive in origin and examples of non-malicious duplicate content could include:
- Discussion forums that can generate both regular and stripped-down pages targeted at mobile devices
- Store items shown or linked via multiple distinct URLs
- HTML and Printer-Friendly versions of web content
If your site contains multiple pages with largely identical content, then you may want to make some adjustments just to be on the safe side. There in no need to be penalized by Google for legitimate duplicate content.
Here is more from Google . . .
In the rare cases in which Google perceives that duplicate content may be shown with intent to manipulate our rankings and deceive our users, we’ll also make appropriate adjustments in the indexing and ranking of the sites involved. As a result, the ranking of the site may suffer, or the site may be de-indexed.
Here is my Web Copy SEO advice:
If you are interested in an SEO Audit then feel free to contact us (802-457-9799). Our SEO Audit will also provide you with insights as to whether your site could be perceived as having duplicate content as well as providing you with insights on other SEO related aspects of your website.
Long Copy versus Short CopyThis is a classic debate and I will answer it with the classic answer of a fellow website developer – it depends.
The real way to determine this is to create two versions – one long and one short and then perform an A/B Test. Note that many higher priced products and services may require more detail. Some target market segments may require more rather then less information before making a decision to purchase. A target market segment may be of a nature to require more research and in this case perhaps a landing page is not the best choice to satisfy this need. Anyway a short copy page will not suffice.
Therefore, the debate on long versus short copy will continue to rage. Do not worry about this too much but continue to think about it for your products and target audience. The more you know about the nature of your audience the better off you will be. You need to think like your audience. You may think that they will be bored with your long copy but if your write long copy and make it entertaining, informative and engaging then it will not bore your audience. You may think that you need to keep it short and sweet but if your audience desires more that they will not be satisfied at your attempt to keep it short.
Ask this important question – what is the goal of the page? Then work to achieve that goal. If it is lead capture then provide enough incentive on the page with your copy (long or short) for someone to complete your download file form or subscription form. You may need to tell a story (short or long) or perhaps you need to offer a gift in exchange for their name and e-mail address.
Do the right thing for your target audience and perhaps do an A/B test (or two) and you will create effective web copy whether it is long or short.
A/B TestingAt its core, A/B Testing is exactly what it sounds like – it is an experiment. You have two versions of an item (A and B) and a metric that you define that defines success of the experiment. To determine which version is better, you subject both versions to experimentation simultaneously. You measure which version was more successful versus your success metric and select the better version for real-world use. You can do this with pages on your website. You can even push this concept further and apply it to an entire contact path.
This is similar to the experiments you did in your high school science classes. You may remember the experiments in which you tested various substances to see which supports plant growth and which suppresses it. At different intervals, you measured the growth of plants as they were subjected to different conditions. You measured and tallied the height of the different plants which were subjected to the variations in conditions. Your success metric was height but it could have been another metric (color, number of leaves, seed production, etc.). You defined a metric and then measured against it. The results told you which conditions were optimal for performance versus your success metric.
In the case of a website page, you define a goal metric (a sale, a booking, a new subscriber . . .) and then measure how well the A version of the page performs versus the B version. You let the data define the best performance.
Consider how A/B Testing can help the performance of your website pages.
Lead Capture & E-Mail & TestingThe enduring value of opt-in email lists to eCommerce efforts is one of the longest Running success stories in digital marketing. Email is still going strong as a channel for delivering traffic and sales, even as other channels continue to emerge, such as social media, SMS, and mobile apps.
The implication is clear: You should acquire a name and an email addresses whenever you can.
Presenting an email signup box for visitors who are not yet on your list is a best practice that can pay dividends for years. Also, email lists are one of the assets by which companies are valued these days.
There are numerous ways of presenting an email signup box that are both effective and inoffensive. You can use some form of light box and you might include some sort of incentive (like a discount coupon or one-time reduced shipping charge).
Deciding on the best approach for a specific website calls for testing. Whenever you test options make sure that your decision metrics include other important conversion events such as product purchase. A well planned series of A/B tests can help you quickly achieve the right balance.