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Time and time again on SEO forums, you hear the advice that to improve your rankings, you need to provide a constant source of fresh content and improve your bounce rate.

While there is some truth in this advice, it is mostly a myth as there are so many different factors when it comes down to how well your site ranks.

I’m going to show you the Google Analytics from two of my sites that would normally be considered to not be optimized SEO wise.

They share the following characteristics:

Static content

The content on both sites has been virtually unchanged since they were created.

High bounce rate

The bounce rate (ie: the percentage of visitors that leave the site after viewing one page within a certain period) is over 80%.

Short Visit Duration

Related to bounce rate is the amount of time a visitor spends on your site.  Both of the sites have a average visitor duration less than 2 minutes.

Low Number of Visited Pages

Generally, the higher the number of pages visited, the better, as it indicates your website has content that is of interest to visitors.  Both my sample sites have an average page views of less than 2 pages.

Google Analytics

So given the sites have the characteristics listed above, let’s look at the following analytics for Site 1.

Click to view full size

The analytics period is from October 2011 to the end of November 2013.

As you can see, the number of visits over that period has been steadily rising and there certainly haven’t been any drops in the number of visitors due to major Google updates like Panda and Hummingbird.

The other interesting stats are:

Average Pages per Visit: 1.25

Average Visit Duration: 1:36

Bounce Rate: 83.67%

To show how consistent these figures are, here are the stats from the previous month:

Click to view full size

The corresponding stats for this period are:

Average Pages per Visit: 1.21

Average Visit Duration: 1:40

Bounce Rate: 86.61%

Similarily, here are the analytics for Site 2 (which is a much smaller niche)

Click to view full size

Where the corresponding stats for this site are:

Average Pages per Visit: 1.28

Average Visit Duration: 1:39

Bounce Rate: 83.65%

Why are these sites ranking well?

So the obvious question is why do both of these sites rank well and have very consistent traffic if the don’t fit the general SEO advice on how to rank a site?

The short answer is returning visitors.

In each of the three graphs above, the percentage of returning visitors is around 40%.

The percentage of returning visitors is a very good indication to Google (and other search engines) that your site is useful to visitors as they have a reason to keep coming back.

There is also another related factor, and that’s the referral source.

Click to full size

In the analytics screenshot above, it gives a breakdown as to where/how visitors are reaching the site.

You can see the number one source of traffic is direct traffic.  This means visitors are either typing the URL of the site into their browser or accessing it via a bookmark.

Number two on the list is Organic Search, ie: visitors coming to the site via search engine.

Referrals are the third highest source of traffic.  In most cases, is visitors coming to your site via a link on another website.

Fourth on the list is Social.  This includes visitors coming via Facebook, Twitter and other social media sources.

Given that  less than 40% of visitors are coming via a search engine, this is also a good indication to Google that the site has something of value for visitors as most of them are arriving via other sources.

The Defining Characteristics

So now, you might be wondering what characteristics the two sites that I’ve given a breakdown of the analytics for have in common.

Simple answer is that they are both lookup services.

By that, I mean a visitor comes to the site, enters in some type of query, clicks on a button and sees the result.

There are many examples of lookup services, eg:

• Calculator sites – home loan calculators, temperature conversions, currency exchange rates etc.
• Query sites – search engines (general and specific), domain lookups etc.
• Generators – baby name suggestions, domain name generators etc.
• Voting sites – voting on popular social memes, current affairs etc.

The point is, these sites can provide a useful service to visitor that encourages them to return to the site.

Cheers

I came across this great mashup video of Matt Cutts giving out some hilarious SEO advice as to the ideal keyword density to ensure you get a number 1 ranking on Google.

The video was made by Sam Applegate who obviously has a lot of spare time on his hands to produce a video like this.

However, it is a very good example of a viral video (although not in the same category as the truly viral videos that appeal to a mass audience).

I know a lot of people love to hate Matt Cutts, but I’m sure even his detractors would have to admit that Matt would most probably get a good laugh from the video.

How To Rank #1 On Google

Hope you found the video as funny as I did.

Cheers

If you’ve been near any Internet Marketing forums and blogs recently, you’ll be aware of the general panic and despair over Google’s announcement that Exact Match Domains (EMDs) are being targeted.

As usual, there’s the typical fear and loathing from many people who don’t properly understand what the change was all about.

It pays to go straight to the source (Matt Cutts), to see what he actually said.

The initial tweet from Matt said:

[success]”Minor weather report: small upcoming Google algo change will reduce low-quality “exact-match” domains in search results.”[/success]

I’ve bolded the words “low-quality”.

Now you could argue what “low-quality” actually means, but one thing that is certain, is that it’s not a blanket change affecting all EMDs.

All my EMD micro sites have stayed pretty much static in their rankings.

Certainly plenty of people have reported big rises and falls in their rankings, but I don’t think that can be attributed directly to the Google EMD update.

Gregory Smith on Twitter was highly critical of the change, until they got the following clarification:

[success]Matt “Multiple algos are rolling out all the time. Likely those sites weren’t affected by EMD update but by another algo.”[/success]

[info]Gregory “Thank you matt but all this happened during the past 3 days. Has another update happened during this time?”[/info]

[success]Matt “yes. 500+ algo launches/year mean 1-2 a day. I know of at least one other algo rolling out over same timeframe for example.”[/success]

Read that last response again.

Google makes over 500 changes to their algorithm each year!

The bottom line is if your rankings change drastically, don’t look at the cause in isolation.   In almost all cases, it’s going to be a combination of factors.

Cheers

There are a number of legitimate reasons why you want to perform Google searches with privacy.

Just because you don’t want Google tracking your searches, doesn’t mean you are up to something bad like looking for illegal software or spamming purposes.

This article covers why it is a good idea to not let Google have access to your search history and how best to perform private Google searches.

On the various marketing forums I read, I see the same questions about PageRank coming up over and over.

The question asked is:

How do I increase my PageRank?

At first glance, this might seem like a reasonable question, until you start to delve a little deeper into the reasons why the question is asked so many times.

In this article, I’ll be looking at those reasons and some of the misconceptions and myths surrounding PageRank.