I’ve been online since I was an early teenager back in the early to mid 80′s, running Bulletin Boards (BBS) years before the Internet.  I was on Prodigy and CompuServe years before most of my friends had even heard of the Internet.

Once the Internet became mainstream, I became involved in web design and really have enjoyed developing another creative outlet over the years.  Designing a website is easy. Designing a functional website is challenging, and designing a nice-looking, functional website is quite a task to say the least.  But simply being able to design a website is only half the battle.  The old “Build it and They Will Come” axiom no longer applies.  Whether you’re a blogger, a small company or an international enterprise, you’re online for one main reason – to be seen.

Wading through the information on how to get ranked in the major search engines can be frustrating and extremely time consuming.  Not only is there so much conflicting information available (much of which is simply wrong), it’s difficult to know who to trust.  There are a few true Search Engine Optimization (SEO) guru’s out there who are willing to teach others what they know, and Aaron Wall is one of the them.  If you want to learn about SEO from the best, pick up a copy of this book.  It’s quite simply THE DEFINITIVE guide to Search Engine Optimization. 

I refer back to this book all the time and I can tell you first hand it’s helped me tremendously.  I’ve seen huge increases in ranking and traffic for my business website, which creates IT Certification and Training videos for CompTIA, Microsoft, Cisco and more.  If the information works for me, it can work for you too.

The tips and techniques contained in Aaron Wall’s SEO Book is pure gold, and it’s information you won’t find anywhere else.  The book is updated frequently (updates are free), and his website is a wealth of information.  Aaron is regarded throughout the industry as one of the top authorities on SEO in the world.  As you read through his book, you’ll understand why.  Tips, techniques and information you can use immediately to improve you rankings, generate more traffic, and ultimately more money.

If you’re serious about your website and want to massively increase your visibility, then you simply must have a copy of this book.  I highly recommend you check it out for yourself.

However, often times the navigation of the site is confusing, or non-existent. There is no clear route for the visitor to go from one page to another, and no clear direction of what you want them to do (your “Call to Action”)

A great way to observe this is to use an analytics program to view your website’s “Bounce Rate”. The bounce rate is the percentage of people who come to your site, look at one page and leave without going anywhere else. It could also be people who come to your site for only a few seconds and leave. By monitoring the bounce rate, you can determine how well your pages are performing, and get an view of your site’s “ease of use”. If your bounce rates are extremely high (70%-80% or higher), chances are SOMETHING is wrong. Whether it’s navigation, call to action, visual appearance or relevance of content will of course vary from site to site.

If you haven’t used an analytics package before, Google’s analytics is a great place to start, is packed full of information and will give you just about every statistic you could want. For a great overview on how to use an analytics package to analyze your site’s bounce rate, read Avinash Kaushik’s bounce rate article. It’s a great in-depth review of bounce rate and what it all means.

There are lots of metrics and analytics programs out there, some of the more well-known ones are:

• Google Analytics
• ClickTracks
• PHPMyVisites
• Web Trends

So what’s the point of all of this? The point is analyze, analyze, analyze! You’re doing the work of putting your site or you blog out there, you add content diligently and try to add value for your viewers. Why not go the extra step and make sure what your delivering to the world is the best it can be? Maximize your efforts, learn from your mistakes and realize this is part of the fun! Learning the process and understanding why and how things work, will make you a more effective blogger, marketer or e-commerce site owner.

Happy analyzing!