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Excerpt: A metric is used to measure something. In SEO we want to measure the effect of the changes we are making to the website to know we are doing the right things. Ranking used to be seen as a sign that SEO was working and we would rejoice whenever a key-phrase would reach that page one, position one ranking. With the advent of personal search, ranking becomes less reliable as a factor of success. However, there are many other metrics that can be applied. Business Metrics Business metrics are by far the most important measures of success. The reason you are paying…

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Excerpt: Google Analytics is a wonderful tool for analysing your site visitors and its performance. Obviously good indicators of success are the number of unique visitors and the number of pages per visit. Another metric which is less clear is the bounce rate. The bounce rate is the percentage of people that visit a page and then leave your website after only looking at a single page.  Your bounce rate will depend on the sources of traffic. You can consider four main categories of traffic: search engines – this is an important category and you would like to make the bounce rate for…

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Excerpt: It is reported in the Yahoo blog, that a survey found that 85% of people need help with searches. To answer this problem, Yahoo introduced Yahoo Assist in 2007, which became global in March 2008.  For those that haven’t used it, it is simply a means of suggesting searches related to what you are currently typing. As shown below: I am trying to use Yahoo on a more regular basis so that I spread my searches over more than one search engine. I would advise anyone else to do the same just to get a feeling for the major search engines…

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Excerpt: You may think that you have the coolest web site and you sell the best products at the lowest prices, but if you neglect usability you might be throwing money away. Web usability should work hand-in-hand with search engine optimisation so that you can keep your visitors when they arrive at your web site. What is Web Site Usability? Web site usability is about how a site works from the users perspective. It is about making the user feel comfortable finding information on your site, knowing that the design follows conventions that most other web sites do.  They can subconsciously navigate and…