Google – Page 16 – The Web Authority

January 25, 2016January 22, 2016

Mobile Spells the Death of Google

I read an article with interest this last week that laid out a very compelling case for the death of search engines. You can read the full article called “Is Search, As We Know It, Dying?”

The key takeaway that I have seen on my own is that the increased used of mobile devices is turning the regular world of search upside down. Consider on Google AdWords – activity in mobile means increased website traffic, more clicks, but does not translate into more conversions.

As mobile activity has increased in Google AdWords, computer activity has decreased and with it conversions, time on page, and the bounce rate has increased.

Google and Bing continue to scramble to make search meaningful for smartphone users by introducing interactive maps with ads but users are looking for other resources via apps to get the information they want.

Just consider how searches for hotels, venues, and restaurants has changed. Trip Advisor is a great example of how a mobile app is replacing traditional search for smartphone users.

Just yesterday I needed a round tablecloth, I did not search on Google, but rather started my search directly on Amazon.com.

With Google and Bing getting pressure to keep their search audience and websites like Amazon and mobile apps like Trip Advisor stepping in to provide targeted quality search results, we may be seeing the demise of traditional search engines in the next three to five years and maybe even sooner.

For more about me, Nancy McCord, and McCord Web Services, please visit our website at www.McCordWeb.com.

November 11, 2015November 6, 2015

Easy Collaboration with Google Drive.

Written instructions to match our Try It Friday video on Google Drive collaboration.

To get started you’ll want to have a Google account and download Google Drive. https://www.google.com/drive/download/. Then follow the steps to install Google Drive. On installation, Google will add a link to Google Drive in your File Tree accessed through Windows Explorer.

You can also visit and view all Google Drive files online as well.

To start collaboration, load a file or photos into a folder in your Google Drive on your desktop that you want to share. Then go to your Google Drive account online.

Right click on the folder or file and then add an email address (must also be a Google account) to share the file. Give this new person rights to edit or just view the files.

The person you are sharing with will receive and email invitation. If they have Google Drive, this new file will now appear in their shared folder in Google Drive. If they do not have Google Drive, they will want to download the application as well unless they only want online access.

Once they accept to view the file for you to see any change they make and for them to see the file on their desktop offline, they need to drag the shared folder or file into their own “My Drive” folder in Google Drive.

Once that important step is done, any change they make you will be able to see. Plus by adding it to their own My Drive folder, now the file is downloaded to their own file tree and into the Google Drive folder on their desktop.

It’s super fast and easy to collaborate on files.

What could you do with Google Drive collaboration?

Collaborate with teams.
Share photos with college students away from home.
Share files and folders with family members.
Share files, photos, and folders with friends.
Plan your next family reunion and keep everyone in the loop.

Watch the video: http://www.mccordweb.com/video/index.php

November 5, 2015October 30, 2015

Fixing Your Bounce Rate Part Two

Google Partner Badge — McCord Web Services is a Google Partner.

Continued from Monday…

If you’ve been worrying that your 70%+ bounce rate needed immediate remediation, you need to take a deep breath and dig further.

If your website has in-depth informational content and a blog to build authority for search engines, with the increase in mobile searches, your bounce rate may be higher than a site without this type of content. Equally your website traffic will typically be higher.

So how high is too high for a bounce rate. When the numbers get to 78% to 80%, I would start to really be concerned. But there is more to this equation than just a bounce rate percentage.

Make sure to evaluate your time on page and time on site as part of an overall review. It may be as simple as moving out of the Google Display network with your advertising or adding exclusions to your program to drop your bounce rate fast. You may be driving low cost and low quality traffic to your own site erroneously thus negatively impacting your own bounce rate.

Before you start to tease apart your content take a careful look at your website and the potential causes for a high bounce rate.

Is your user experience good?
Do your pages load quickly?
Do you have an esthetically pleasing website design that is easy to navigate?
Do you have content that matches what you are selling or to build your authority?
Have you reviewed your AdWords traffic? Is it targeted?
Are your ads showing heavily in the content or display network thus driving up impressions?
Is your content thin or scraped from other sites. Uniqueness is important here.
Are you providing thoughtful content that builds a case for the use of your services or just filler?

Bounce rate is definitely a strong indicator of a user’s vote for your website, but a higher than typical number may not necessarily mean that you have a site that needs repair.

However a high bounce rate definitely needs a careful review to assure that you do not have a problem that needs to be addressed.

November 2, 2015November 2, 2015

What Should Your Bounce Rate Be? Part One

Before the advent of more than 50% of searches done in the mobile arena, a website wanted to strive for about a 45 to 50% bounce rate. Now with “in the moment” searches done on mobile accounting for more than half of all Google search traffic, the time on a website is dropping fast and bounce rates increasing.

When I do a survey of a number of website we access here is a quick synopsis of bounce rates we are seeing.

e-Commerce Store 73.94%
Home Service Provider 75.48%
Software and Security 65.62%
Architectural Features 95.80%
Home Service Provider 62.26%
Real Estate Services 41.68%
Industrial Product 74.58%
Home Services Provider 75.80%
Aviation Industry 69.44%
Electrical Service 67.32%
Home Services 58.69%
Healthcare 69.13%
SEO Services 77.63%
Landscape Services 66.29%
Cosmetic Services 72.48%

The site average is 69.74% this is significantly higher than the benchmark of 46.9% that Google Analytics had shared three years ago as a global benchmark. Now it is not uncommon for sites with strong informational content and a blog to have a 70% plus bounce rate.

In fact the sites in our list that have low bounce rates also typically those that have lower traffic and do not have additional informational content on their site. They are mainly brochure-type websites focused on showcasing only their own services and do not typically have a blog.

So what do you do with this new normal of a relatively high bounce rate, and should you be concerned? Please come back to read the rest of this two part series on Wednesday.