Often times I receive emails about being #1 on Google. I usually just end up deleting the many spam emails that I receive regarding this. At DDA, a search engine marketing company, we already know what it takes to be listed in the top spot on major search engines.

Our own website statistics show that we currently have 1698 terms with a first place ranking on Google. We have also attained 6234 terms ranking in the top five and 8182 terms in the top 10 positions on Google. And we have achieved all of this success with organic search engine optimization. We do not have a pay per click campaign for our website. We just continue to optimize our website and continually create page after page of keyword-rich content.

Being a search engine optimization specialist, I have received an email or two from a client regarding being number one for a certain single term in the search engines. In my mind when I read, “we would like to rank number one for the term _______” I think, “Yeah, you and everyone else honey!”

The truth is that achieving the number one spot is not an overnight success. And I must remind clients that patience is a virtue. Thinking that you can have terms that rank at #1 in a matter of a few months is unreasonable. It may take even longer than that for Google to reindex your website. As for new websites, they are stuck in Google’s sandbox for a short period as well.

I do my best to improve my SureThing Website Optimization client’s website rankings. And I have the ranking reports to prove it. It is just that people expect immediate results and need to realize that time is also a major factor in achieving higher rankings in the major search engines.

Now I am thinking about multi-colored spandex and a black-tiled room full of overweight men working out… ah the 1980s… All Olivia Newton-John song references aside (although I am sure you are singing it in your head), Google Analytics is a free website analysis tool that generates detailed traffic reports for websites. These traffic reports “talk” to us in a sense, by listing important website statistics that are useful in many ways.

DDA, a search engine marketing company, uses Google Analytics on websites that we are not hosting, but are enrolled in the SureThing Optimization Program. By adding a piece of tracking code to each page, we are then able to track our progress of website optimization by viewing the improved traffic to the site.

We find that being able to view traffic reports is an important part of website optimization. We can see which keywords potential customers are using to search for a website’s services and can then point out which terms need focused optimization to improve rankings. This software can show how visitors find a website and how they interact with the website’s content.

Being a search engine optimization specialist, I find it important to be able to view a website’s visits and pageviews, new and returning visitors, and also which search engine the visitor is coming from.

What is Bounce Rate?

Well lets say that it is the Brad Pitt of current website statistics. The textbook definition is this:

Bounce Rate – the percentage of single page visits, or better defined as visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page.

Now there can be some technical nuances to this, like the minimum or maximum times by which a visitor must leave in order for a bounce to occur. If they sit on one page for over 30 minutes then move on, most software will count that as a second visit and therefore the first as a bounce. The actual stat for a website is saved as a percentage value — it’s the number of web site visitors who visit only a single page of a website per session, divided by the total number of website visits.

So why is it so popular? Well because it is very easy to understand or should that be hard to mis-understand? On top of that you can quickly see how your efforts can affect it. The lower the Bounce Rate the better, or more sticky, your site is.

What’s also good with Bounce Rate is you can use it to judge the quality of traffic from various sources.

You can measure the Bounce Rate of traffic just from Google, or from an email campaign, or maybe referrals from MySpace versus referrals from Facebook. And what could be even more important, you can use this to help gage the effectiveness of your PPC campaigns. You may get clicks from your ads but you’re not converting if they bounce straight off. At a glance you can compare terms against each other to see which one are under performing and which ones are wasting your money.

So have fun using this info to tweak your landing pages and watch that ROI rise, or if you want find a expert company to help you tailor those pages for maximum stickiness, say, oh I don’t know a company like DDA.