All Entries Tagged With: "blog"

Why Your Site’s Bounce Rate Is Important For Rankings

Blogs are at a disadvantage in one regard: Traditionally, they have high bounce rates. That’s because readers generally read one post and they’re gone. This is especially true of subscribers.

But that may not matter in the long run even though bounce rates are important for ranking purposes. This isn’t proven, but I believe it’s true. Google has stated publicly that they measure traffic and rank websites based on traffic. But a high traffic site may not necessarily be of any value any more than a low traffic site with a low bounce rate. All things considered, a high traffic site with a high bounce rate may actually be holding a negative, not a positive.

Consider this: A site receives 100,000 daily visitors on a regular basis. 80% of those visitors are unique and 80% of those read one page and they’re gone, never to return. Would you want that? Or would you prefer to have 1,000 daily visitors of which 80% are loyal and return on a regular basis? I think we’d all rather have the latter, right?

Particularly if your site is a blog. You want readers coming back.

A loyal readership is much more valuable than high numbers of people that show up and leave. But I do believe that your site’s bounce rate may be an indicator of user value in the eyes of at least one search engine. Work on creating valuable content and your bounce rate will go down. You might even see a resulting increase in search ranking for some of your keywords.

Should You SEO Your Blog?

Lately I’ve been speaking to quite a few more people than I’d expect to who write blogs, but don’t SEO them. I’ve even heard a few debates about whether or not you should SEO a blog. The pros and cons and yada yada yada. Quite frankly, I find the discussion just silly. Why wouldn’t you SEO your blog?

The thinking behind not SEOing your blog boils down to one thing really: The blog owner doesn’t want to appear like they are spamming. They want their content to be “readable”. Well, who doesn’t?

By “readable”, those who argue against SEO for a blog do so on the basis that natural language writing is best for humans because it is more interesting, thought provoking, and inviting. I agree. You should always write your blog in a natural way. Natural language writing is better for humans and, here’s a little secret, the search engines like it too.

The whole argument about SEO on your blog is really missing the point. Those who argue against SEO don’t really understand SEO. It isn’t about tossing in keywords where they don’t belong. In fact, if you toss in keywords just for the sake of it, you are likely to do yourself more damage in the search engines than good. That’s not what SEO is all about.

Effective SEO is natural language writing. But it’s natural language writing that is cognizant of the SEO benefits. If you are aware that the words you use will be ranked in a certain way then you’ll use those words in such a way that they benefit you while you write in a natural language way.

So the next time someone invites you into a discussion about SEO vs. natural language, just grin and say, “I’d like both please.”

Should Salesmen Have Their Own Blogs?

If you’re a sales representative for a company and you are responsible for generating your own leads, you should have your own blog. There is no better online lead generation tool than a personal business blog. Note that I’m talking about a personal business blog. Not a personal blog.

So what’s a personal business blog?

First, it’s a business blog. A blog that you write for business purposes. If you’re a member of a sales organization then your blog can be used to present your product to the public. You don’t necessarily have to “sell” in every blog post. Not all blog posts are sales oriented. The purpose is to generate an interest in what you have to offer. You do that by discussing the benefits and entering into dialogue with your target audience.

I call this type of blog a personal business blog because the blog belongs to you, not your company. Because it your blog and not the company’s blog, you get to decide how the blog is written and make the editorial decisions on a daily basis. Your sales manager doesn’t do that for you. It’s your responsibility. That said, many company’s want to ensure that their image is presented accurately and within the context of their own branding efforts. And that is possible with a personal business blog. I didn’t say you couldn’t consult with your sales manager or corporate headquarters. They do have a stake in the game. But you can use a blog to help you develop your territory and generate leads that you follow up on daily. It is called efficient time management and good use of resources.

To learn more about writing a personal business blog, visit with a blog consultant.

Should Your Blog Be In A Folder Or A Subdomain?

Where you place your blog can be critical to its SEO success. There are three places, technically, to put your blog so that it sits on a server and does what it is suppose to do. It can sit in a folder on your domain, it can be a subdomain, or it can sit on the root of a domain. Here’s what your blog URL will look like in each case:

In a folder:

http://domainname.com/blog

As a subdomain:

http://blog.domainname.com

On the root domain:

http://blogname.com

There are benefits to placing your blog on its own domain name and using it to drive traffic to your main website, but that’s a separate discussion. Let’s assume that you want your blog on the same domain as your website. Should it be in a folder or operate as a subdomain? I think you’ll get more benefit from putting your blog in a folder. There are several reasons why.

First, subdomains do not always receive the same benefits as the domain under which they sit. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. For instance, if your site’s PageRank is a 6, your subdomain may receive that same benefit or it may not. If your site has 1 million inbound links, they may tranfer to your subdomain or they may not. There is no clear policy or trend on how subdomains are treated by the search engines. Some subdomains are dismissed altogether.

A folder, on the other hand, always gets the benefit of the domain on which it sits. If your site is a PR 3 then that will benefit your blog. The blog could have a higher or lower PR than the website itself. Individual blog posts could have higher or lower PRs and each will have its own link popularity, but the link juice that flows from your main website to your blog and each page on it will be real benefits.

Another reason you want your blog in a folder and not on a subdomain is because if your blog is in a folder then it will benefit your entire rank’s search engine saturation numbers. A subdomain won’t do that. A subdomain is often treated like a standalone domain and doesn’t always carry the same benefits as a standalone domain.

There are plenty more reasons why a folder is better than a subdomain, but these are the big reasons. Can you think of any more reasons why you’d want your blog in a folder as opposed to a subdomain?