If you are serious about marketing and developing your online business, then getting thousands of unique and repeat visitors each month is just half the battle! A good SEO or web marketing campaign will tackle a variety of site issues, possibly identifying things you did not initially consider, such as page / domain authority or bounce rate!

So, what is a bounce rate and why should you care about it?

Well… A bounce rate is the percentage of visitors that left your site from the entrance (landing) page. A website bounce rate is a metric to measure page and visitor quality, the higher a high bounce rate the more people are leaving your site, thus not finding what they are looking for.

The challenge here is to make your landing page as interesting and relevant as possible, making more visitors stay on your site, lowering the bounce rate. Pages within your website should deliver information, services and products that were promised in the ad copy or search result, AKA your title text and meta description… So don’t title it ‘Second hand computer for sale in Portsmouth’ if a page contains info on ‘new printers for sale in Chichester!

People who land on your site may bounce away by clicking on a link to another website, hitting the back button or closing the browser… For whatever reason people do decide to leave, it is not a good one! The task here is to keep people interested, convert traffic into business and keep people browsing your website for as long as they need to!

I did some research on the web and came across the figure of 40% as a decent bounce rate… Some of the sites we work on have seen much lower, around 20%!

I guess the average bounce rate will depend heavily on the type of site / business you are in… Adding quality content, read more links and providing value to visitors should keep people interested (regardless of the sector)! In other words, having a single page website is not going to give you a low bounce rate, in fact the opposite! However, a single page site may work for you and your business… In that case, the bounce rate is not a worthwhile metric to monitor.

Understanding how visitors use and react with your website is valuable information to have, especially if you run a business! Knowing your bounce rate will allow you to address certain pages within a site, the kind people don’t get on with and the pages people like to visit!

Please feel free to post your thoughts and opinions below, we would love to hear from businesses trying to lower a bounce rate, or better understand the principles of SEO and web marketing… Whatever you decide to do next in terms of developing your site and online business, good luck!

Following on from our last blog post and the development of our FREE Backlink Checker I thought I would write a quick post about Page Authority, another popular term used in the world of SEO.

Page Authority (also known as PA) is a prediction… Imagine looking into a crystal ball to see if (or how likely it would be) a single page / domain will rank well in the future. Unlike your typical crystal ball, Page Authority does take into account certain factors / data to calculate a score… The higher a Page Authority, the greater the chance that page will rank well in Google’s SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages).

Above I have compared Tidy Design with one of our many web design and SEO competitors in the Portsmouth / Hampshire area.

The system we use to check Page Authority gives us a mark out of 100, using a logarithmic scale, making it easier to grow your score from 15 to 20, than it would be to push it from 65 to 70! Tidy Design will sometimes look at Page Authority when carrying out research for our SEO Campaigns to determine which site/page offers the best quality backlink! Remember, a link from a page with a low Page Authority won’t help you as much as a link from a page with a high Page Authority!

Yes, we live in a competitive world, and finding these quality links is not easy! Take web design or SEO as an example; there is so much competition out there that freelancers / web companies do need to work extremely hard just to compete, let alone boost their own Page Authority!

Whatever sector you are in, without the right SEO strategy, your website is unlikely to be seen! Please feel free to post your thoughts, comments or ideas on Page Authority below. We would love to hear from you!

Today Tidy Design launched a cool new FREE Backlink Checker tool for all our awesome website visitors to use. We hope this tool will help people better understand backlinks, locate new backlinks, and carry out some FREE competitor analysis… Backlinks have become an important factor for the success of any SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) Campaign.

We hope you find this backlink checker tool useful; please feel free to contact us with any questions Re SEO and how to boost your organic search results… Good luck!

Yesterday my wife and I interviewed for the P/T coder job vacancy at Tidy Design, we have had lots of CV’s over the months however finding time to filter out the good from the bad, pencil in interview dates and take time away from our busy work schedule is difficult!

So, forwards and upwards as they say! Next month Jordan will become the latest member of Tidy Design, a new chapter will be starting, and we have high hopes for him within our business… May this be the start of something great!

Lets face it… With so much on one person’s plate, certain things may get missed, overlooked or take longer than they should… I am a strong believer in working clever as well as working hard, and if like me you are working crazy hours then maybe now is the time to step back and assess how best to move forwards.

Tidy Design is fortunate being pretty busy during tough economic times; we are also very lucky to have such great supportive clients… It is therefore down to us to keep delivering competitive quotes, build on new and existing business relationships and making sure Tidy Design keeps on growing!

I am very excited for the future and I believe upcoming changes to Tidy Design will benefit both our clients and us… Watch this space!

Today I thought I would write a short blog post about link bait… So, what is link bait and why should you be thinking about link baiting?

In a nutshell, link bait is content within a website that is created specifically for the purposes of link building! This content, website application, web page, micro-site, or what ever you decide to create, will need to attract attention and encourage other websites, blogs, and social media users to link to it.

The more links this content generates for you the better! Hence the name, link bait!

X10 Link baiting techniques

Ok, naturally attracting backlinks is not going to be easy! Here are ten tidy ideas fuelled by early morning coffee that may help you create your own link bait:

The idea here is to become ‘viral’, seeing your information being passed on by word of mouth or through social media to the masses! If Google see’s lots of pages promoting X then Google will take a long hard look at X, the likely result being, X ranking very high in its SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages)… Good job!

At Tidy Design we have been working hard to develop and expand our own ‘News Blog’ plus several other sites we setup to promote our core business MJWARD UK LTD… For example, this blog offers FREE stock photography, social icon sets, web design tutorials and more!

Remember to think outside the box! Link baiting does not need to be a single webpage, it could well be an entire website, blog or mobile application that you have setup to help market your own brand! The trick here is to offer quality and quantity, don’t rely on one decent article or expect people to find it without some assistance from your own social media / SEO campaigns.

The web is one competitive place, and without lots of hard work, a continual investment in SEO and market trends, the chances are your site may not get the coverage you desire!

If you would like to find out more about link bait or discuss with us your Link baiting ideas / techniques then please send us an email.

Yesterday morning I allocated some time to create and send a mail shot to our awesome Tidy Design clients.

As a company we feel it is important to keep connected and build business relationships with ALL our customers!

Lets face it, in today’s economic climate it is easy to get caught up in the moment, work long hours and focusing on the task at hand, maybe not seeing the bigger picture!

At Tidy Design we never want to be in this position, I mean ‘not have time’ for other businesses we work with, the ones that maybe don’t email, invest in SEO or request updates.

Ok, you could argue ‘why don’t we just focus on our bigger clients’, however we know what it is like to start out and develop a business; it takes time and support from family, friends and even suppliers!

Following yesterdays email to our client database, it was nice to receive replies from people we have not heard from in a while… Several companies have now requested +1 buttons and those who didn’t, well they have been reminded that Tidy Design is here to help as and when they require!

At Tidy Design we love everything creative! Be it digital design, creating websites, writing, photography, watercolours, sketching, oil painting etc! We enjoy it all!

During a trip to Italy last month I found time to pick up my sketchpad and start illustrating characters for a children’s storybook I am developing… You can find out more about this project at www.montgomerymoon.com

Anyway, since returning back to the UK I have re-ignited my passion for fine art and painting! After a busy day at the office it is a great way to switch off, relax and unwind! Everyone should do it!

Below I have uploaded a few photos taken yesterday afternoon, the spec ‘to draw and paint two canvases for my little boys nursery!’

Above: Here I pencilled out the basic outline of Roo from a storybook my wife purchased for our little boy…

Above: I then went on to apply colour to Roo’s jumper, you will see I used darker blue to create depth and detail…

Above: Likewise I added some colour to Roo’s face, hands and legs…

Above: Finally I spent some time adding some real depth and detail to the painting…

If you require any bespoke artwork, maybe a children’s storybook illustrated or some graphic design work for your business then please get in touch. We would love to here about your requirements!

Enjoy what remains of the weekend! Come on Rafa!

Over recent months Tidy Design has been monitoring and researching the Panda update by Google… Yes, this release has affected many sites on the web (both good and bad) however the update has been regarded as a great success by Google.

Google Panda 1.0 was first released back in Feb 2011, following this release Google rolled out 2.2 in June 2011. Google claims that Pandas algorithmic update will only affect sites with poor or duplicated content, this improving the organic SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages) for its users.

The truth is that many companies (including our own) rely on SEO and Google’s organic search results for a steady flow of new business generated via the web. This makes Google Panda an important update to be monitoring and addressing if your site / business is suffering from a Panda attack!

Below I have pencilled out our top tips for keeping your site in Google’s good books… The way sites are ranked by Google is changing; Panda has essentially changed the face of SEO so it is important to keep up!

Below I have listed some additional information on each of these points:

So there you have it, our thoughts on the Google Panda update and how a few select SEO tips may just help you retain or further boost your organic search results. If Google Panda has affected your site then please post your thoughts or comments below, as always we would love to hear from you.

Thanks for stopping by and please visit again soon!