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Good User Experience is Indispensable

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Katie Mack wrote about the importance of the user experience in SEO. We couldn’t have said it better:

We firmly believe that the best way to optimize your site for search engines is to optimize it for people. … People will stay longer on your site if they find content engaging and easy to navigate. You also want to encourage users to share your web content, which will naturally drive more traffic to your site from other sources.

What makes for a good user experience?

She cites a few criteria for an effective user experience. You need content that:

  • is easy to find
  • has educational value
  • is easy to read and understand
  • invites contribution and sharing

This is especially important for websites that have lost rankings due to Google’s Panda Update earlier this year. That algorithm change gave preference to sites that provide original, relevant content that’s easy to digest and easy to share.

How good is the User Experience on your website?

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Google wants to highlight high quality websites and the Panda update was largely focused on that goal. Consequently, Google posted (shortly after releasing the Panda update) guidelines on what they think constitutes a high-quality website. They start out by saying:

Our advice for publishers continues to be to focus on delivering the best possible user experience on your websites and not to focus too much on what they think are Google’s current ranking algorithms or signals

We recommend their article.

[Update 2021] Over the summer of 2021, Google rolled out its Page Experience algorithm update. That just makes this advice all the more important for your website.

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Is Your Bounce Rate Too High?

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What’s a bounce rate?

A high bounce rate represents lost business.Your bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to your site who bounce. What’s a bounce? It’s a very simple but important concept. When someone arrives at your website, takes one look and leaves without visiting any other pages — that’s a bounce. At a recent symposium, one presenter summed it up like this: “They came, they puked, they left.”

If lots of visitors on your web site bounce away, you’re losing them as customers. Clearly, lots of bounces are visitors who weren’t really looking for you, but for something else. When they bounce, they don’t represent lost sales. But when a real prospective customer bounces, they’re going to do business with one of your competitors. And that’s never good.

How do I tell my bounce rate?

Many hosting companies provide site analytics that display your bounce rate. Failing that, install the free Google Analytics on your site, and you can track the progress of your bounce rate over time very easily.

If your bounce rate is too high, there are wasy to reduce it.

What’s a good bounce rate?

That may depend on your business. Retail websites typically experience about a 20-40% bounce rate. Well optimized content websites normally have a bounce rate in the 40-60% range. If your bounce rate is over 60%, you should be concerned. If it’s over 80%, you have a major problem.

Do you know how bad your bounce rate is?

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How do I improve it?

First, make sure your bounce rates aren’t because people are finding you by searching for stuff you’re not optimized for. If they find you by accident when they’re really looking for something else, those bounces are fine. But if people find you by searching important keywords, those are the bounces you want to improve.

Make sure it’s immediately obvious when someone lands on one of your pages by searching a relevant keyword phrase that the page makes it immediately clear that they’re in the right place. You have no more than 8 seconds to convince them your page is really all about what they searched for. Check your main above-the-fold headline and any other above-the-fold sub-headings.

Then make sure your web page isn’t turning them off. Check the copywriting and make sure you have appealing content. Mike Williams has written about common writing mistakes that contribute to a high bounce rate and which you need to avoid.

Make those changes and watch your bounce rate. If it doesn’t improve, look for other ways to keep people engaged on your site. Link to related content, use call to action links, and give your visitors what they’re looking for.

What’s been your bounce rate experience? Let us know in the comments below.

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Break It Up to Wake It Up

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Susana Fonticoba, owner of ClearPath Strategy, recently wrote an article about how to keep your reader’s attention when you have a long-ish document by breaking it up. She was referring to text documents, but her advice applies equally to web pages.

Susana FonticobaYou know you just love to read a really long document – pages and pages of similar looking text —  your eyes get tired after the first few paragraphs. And what do you say at this point? I’ll just read the rest later. But you never do because it’s a hideously boring looking document.

You don’t want people doing that to YOUR documents. Wake them up by breaking it up.

Use paragraph headings – that way people can jump to the section they need. That’s where styles come into play. Use the Heading styles to break up pages of text into smaller blocks of text they can find and read easily.

Paper documents and web pages share the same issues

How to Keep Your Reader’s Attention

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White space

So pay special attention to white space. Using headings and sub-headings as Susana suggests not only breaks up the monotony of body text, but it also adds some white space around your content.

Bullet Lists

Turn lengthy lists from paragraphs into bullet lists. That another way to add some white space and make your copy look a bit more approachable. Add emphasis via italics or bold where appropriate to break up the monotony. (Just don’t use underlines on the web unless what’s underlined is a link.)

Graphics

Use graphics. A nice image or two, whether photos or line drawings, with text wrapping around it goes a long way toward encouraging visitors to stick around and read more of your copy.

Conclusion

Growth of revenue from better online visibility via SEOGood SEO can drive lots of potential customers to your website, but it takes a good user experience on your website to convert them into actual customers.

[Update December, 2021] With the latest significant algorithm update from Google last summer, Page Experience is now an important ranking factor with Google. So paying attention to the user experience on your web pages not only helped with conversions but will help with search rankings as well.

Don’t ignore the user experience on your web pages.

Need help with what to say on your web page so it’ll show up in Google searches?  Call Rank Magic — we can help!

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Avoid Platitudes

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Don't bore your prospects to sleep with platitudes.Taglines are pretty ubiquitous, but often they’re unintentionally meaningless.  We recommend our clients avoid platitudes in their taglines because they often just make readers roll their eyes.

You need to avoid platitudes if you want to hook visitors on your website and convert them into paying customers.

A quick case in point

A company that provides marketing services to law firms recently blogged about a client:

I recently ran into a lawyer who was all excited about his firm’s new tagline. When he told me what it was, I asked, “What does that mean?”

He spent the next five minutes explaining what the new tagline meant to him. Apparently, the firm had hired a local advertising agency and spent a good deal of money to develop a “brand,” and this tagline was one of the components received…

I was concerned about the need for this attorney to spend all this time explaining his firm’s new tagline. An effective tagline conveys an obvious client benefit. If it needs explanation, it’s not going to work because prospects won’t get it.

 Avoid platitudes in your tagline

Is your tagline a meaningless platitude?

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Avoid platitudes

Certainly one thing a tagline should never be is incomprehensible. But a more common mistake is to use a tagline that’s a platitude. A friend who’s a marketing consultant said it best: If your reaction to a tagline is “Well, I should hope so”, you have a platitude: a throwaway line that just takes up space. A local moving company has a tagline of “the caring moving company”. Isn’t your reaction to that line, “well, I should hope so!”? That’s a platitude.

Effective taglines are difficult to craft. That’s why so many turned out by copywriters sound good but mean nothing. Here are some real-life examples we found on the web:

  • We provide free of charge estimates.
  • We provide quality service to our customers.
  • Experience…knowledge…quality.
  • We offer our clients on-time service, replacement and repairs done right the first time with courtesy, convenience, cleanliness, competence and character.
  • Our goal is to provide you with courteous, safe, comfortable and professional service
  • We Provide Quality Service!
  • We will provide courteous service to all customers …
  • Brakes and Brake Service – We do it right.. We do it complete!
  • We provide quality service through our well trained staffs … (grammar is another topic altogether)
  • We provide quality service and products on time, with no defects.
  • Caring and Knowledgeable Staff
  • We believe in doing it right the first time.
  • We give honest service at fair prices.

When there are lots of web sites out there offering similar products and services to yours, you can’t afford to waste web space on platitudes. You need to avoid platitudes and differentiate yourself from your competition. That’s how to capture the attention of your visitors. And that’s an essential first step toward converting them into paying customers.

Your thoughts? I’d love to see them in the Comments section below.

Need help with your search rankings? We get great RANKings in Google, almost like MAGIC. See what I did with our tagline there?

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Create Link Bait for a Plain Vanilla Business

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Helpful information can be effective link bait.Can your business benefit from link bait?

Surely your business isn’t really “plain vanilla”. But you may have a business with lots of competitors who all do much the same thing. Such are businesses like car repair shops, business coaches, web designers, florists, and so forth.

If you want the search engines to recognize that your business and website are worthy of a prominent in their search results, you can’t just have your website list what you do. That’s not enough to set yourself apart from your competitors. You need some compelling information to encourage other businesses in your niche to link to you.

Blog articles or White Papers that explain things or provide How-To information are great for setting your website apart from your competitors. And they make your web site a more valuable resource to your visitors. To the extent they can figure out what website provides more value, the search engines will reward that with higher ranking.

Create Link Bait for a Plain Vanilla Business

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Picture of a woman reading an article on a computerWhat kind of articles work? Things like these:

  • How to tell a good house painter from a bad one
  • 6 Ways to tell you need a business coach
  • What to ask a website designer before you decide to hire them
  • Your Old Appliance: Repair or Replace?
  • 5 Secrets to choosing a high-end caterer
  • Why all florists are not alike

Beyond providing value to your visitors and having the search engines realize that, these articles can help your link authority. That’s important, as we believe that your inbound link profile accounts for about 40% of where you rank in Google.

These articles may prompt other similar (but non-competing) businesses to provide links to your material. They’re sometimes referred to as “link bait” – helpful information others will want visitors on their own sites to know about. If they like what you’ve written, they may link to your article. Otherwise they may have little or no reason to link to you.

If you’re not sure you can write compelling articles like these, ask us how a copywriter can help. We’re not copywriters, but we work with several and can make recommendations for you.

Competitors beating you out on Google? Reach out for a free consultation!