A high bounce rate is a red flag for any website, because it means that all of your traffic is exiting at the landing page - without even clicking through to any other page on the site. The strategy is to get your customers to stay on your website for as long as possible, the longer they are there, the more likely you are to make a sale. You have to retain your traffic.

If the rate of traffic exiting your site has been rising - it's time to make some changes. To start, you want to identify what is causing them to leave your site. A site's bounce rate is a standard analytics metric, so you will likely uncover lots of useful data when you begin to research..

Do you really want your website on page one of Google for your chosen keyword phrase(s)? What do you want your online marketing campaign to accomplish for you?

I asked a potential new SEO Coaching client last week this first question. From my end of the phone call, it sounded as if he almost fell out of his chair!

I followed up by asking him if he could ever think of ANY reason for his website pages NOT to be found on page 1 in the Google SERPs (search engine results pages)..

Everybody talks about SEO for Google. But what about Google image search? Why would you want your pictures to come up there first? Well, the answer is simple: you get more visitors from image search. For example web-page that talks about dogs, gets reasonable amount of visitors from those who's searching for dogs or puppies etc. It could be a good idea to promote your products through those pictures as well. At the moment the competitions in this field is average, so being successful could be fast..

Being a full-time SEM (Search Engine Marketer) I have been conditioned like Pavlov's dog (not a pretty picture) to jump every time Google twitches. Lately Google has been doing a lot of twitching.

Specifically, the rather startling news from Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa that Google has ditched PageRank from Webmaster Tools..

Microsoft recently released a new 24 page document titled Bing: New Features Relevant to Webmasters. The PDF file detailed not only interface updates on Bing, Microsoft's own decision search engine, but also provides SEO tips for webmasters and web publishers. In addition, the white paper document contains instructive guidelines on how to create friendly, easy to index websites, as well as ways to make sites look attractive to search engine spiders..

Nowadays, anyone can build a website. Free online services make it easy for even the non-technical user to create one. But, what do you do after building and launching a website? How do you get it noticed? How do you distinguish your site from another?

The answer is to come up with an SEO strategy. SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via natural search results. Of course, the process involves a number of steps: researching the web, monitoring your competition, tracking your online stats and anticipating your target market's search engine habits. Sound impossible to take on?

Fortunately, just as you can DIY and create a website, you can also DIY and craft your own SEO strategy. To help you get your website to the top of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), we take a look at 101 Free SEO tools, techniques and resources (available for either download or online usage)..

After years of running websites and earning a full-time online income, I am constantly reminded that it all comes down to keywords. Actually, it all comes down to obtaining top rankings for your profitable keywords in the search engines, mainly Google.

And that statement has to be refined even further, it's all about obtaining top keyword rankings and keeping them at the top. You must consistently keep your keywords in the top spots on that all important first page of SERPs since your keyword rankings can make or break your online marketing.

If you're targeting extremely competitive and profitable keywords you will have your work cut out for you; unless you have tons of money to buy your way (links) into the top spots, expect to spend months if not years, getting to those top listings. Google has frowned upon link buying and has taken steps to fight it, but this practice is still widespread throughout the web..

It didn't look too promising at the launch but Bing has been constantly in the news ever since. Some say the results are better than Google, even going as far as suggesting Google is all but finished. I don't agree.

On one of the search engine forums I often comment on, one of the moderators had this to say on the subject: "But overall this confirms my sense that Google, having abandoned the business model that got it to the top, viz. fast no frills search, in favour of added features and buying up other companies, is becoming increasingly fat and complacent, and along the way their search results are becoming less relevant."

Now, I have to say that I had a small run-in with this guy as he supports everything Microsoft does, from its browser to its operating system and now to its new "decision engine". So when he writes - "I've been using Bing lately and I'm finding a lot of advantages over Google. These are early days yet but this is the first emerging search engine that may provide a real threat to Google's dominance - something I for one welcome," - I'm a little suspicious..

If you're a business owner just starting out, you probably have a pretty idea of who's linking to you. Either you've posted to a directory or you're part of a link partnership, or you've personally asked other website owners within your niche to link to one of the pages in your website. But after awhile it's easy to lose track of who's linking to you. Google Webmaster Central has made it much easier to determine who's linking to you by giving you page-by-page report. This begs the question, what do I do with this information now that I have it? Here are 6 ways to make backlink information work for you...

1. If your website has a penalty Google will probably inform you in your Google Webmaster Account. Why? So you fix it.
2. If your website is hacked, Google will even try to email you to let you know, but the site will be removed from the index until you fix it.
3. Your Yahoo rankings can get a quick and fast boost if you submit your website to the Yahoo Directory. Why? Yahoo prefers sites that are listed in their directory..