Beyond SEO: Retaining the Visitor

**snakeair** · Share | #1 (**permalink**) 11-28-2011, 04:14 PM

FYI, if you can not retain your visitors, you won't get to far with your website. Check out this blog post before commenting.

Quote:

For the past couple months, I've been on a mission. I've been placing SEO and the psychosis of rankings on the back burner.

For what in return you ask? To better the user experience.

I had spent years placing all my concern SEO-ing sites to the fullest to maximize traffic potential. At the end of the day I realized that hordes of traffic mean nothing if they don't convert.

During SES Chicago, there was definitely a resounding theme. You have to think more about your visitor than you have in the past. It isn't always about a throng of visitors. As I've worked to create a better and more meaningful user experience for my clients' site visitors, I noticed that time and time again, my clients keep making simple mistakes that...

Continued at: http://searchenginewatch.com/article...ng-the-Visitor

Please share your thoughts on this blog post.

noelagnote · #2 (**permalink**) 12-05-2011, 11:41 PM

Keeping your visitors in your website is one of the toughest challenges that you will encounter as you implement SEO.

b.graham2006 · #3 (**permalink**) 12-06-2011, 11:47 AM

According to google, the average bounce rate of most of the websites falls between 40% to 60%. So over all, if someone's bounce rate if below 40%, he's really doing well and the same is true vice-versa. Re-look your strategy if it's beyond 65%-70%.

icecube_media · #4 (**permalink**) 12-07-2011, 04:15 AM

hi
if one is offering good content and service then its not much difficult to retain visitor to the website.

Steve_gts · #5 (**permalink**) 12-07-2011, 08:15 AM

Whilst I agree with everything he's saying (give or take), the thing I find strange is that he considers retaining a visitor to be "beyond SEO", surely this is a core part of any SEO strategy.

What's the point in 1000 daily visitors who leave the site without completing an action? I would always prefer 100 but 10 do buy, or sign up.

scraff · #6 (**permalink**) 12-07-2011, 08:53 AM

I would consider SEO to be just how the search engines find you, nothing more (including on site and off site). If the visitors stay is not SEO/optimising for search engines, thats people optimization!

**snakeair** · #7 (**permalink**) 12-07-2011, 03:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve_gts

Whilst I agree with everything he's saying (give or take), the thing I find strange is that he considers retaining a visitor to be "beyond SEO", surely this is a core part of any SEO strategy.

What's the point in 1000 daily visitors who leave the site without completing an action? I would always prefer 100 but 10 do buy, or sign up.

I agree with you. This is what i focus on when blogging about affiliate products. I'm looking for a targeted audience so i have a better chance at making a commission. If i have 1000 visitors to one blog post and non of them even like the niche i blogged about, i will make no money. (I focus on long tail keywords all the time)

Steve_gts · #8 (**permalink**) 12-08-2011, 02:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scraff

I would consider SEO to be just how the search engines find you, nothing more (including on site and off site). If the visitors stay is not SEO/optimising for search engines, thats people optimization!

You need to step back and take a much wider view of the entire process, to see that SEO is a whole, not just numerous unrelated elements. The aim of almost any campaign is to make a sale or get a sign up etc, it's not just all about getting high ranks or visitor counts.

I think that's how a lot of people go wrong, they focus on just one thing. Obsessing over pagerank was the old classic, the forums used to be full of people asking how to improve their pagerank and then once they had done would be asking why their PR4 page was listed below others with PR2 or 3.

emoetria · #9 (**permalink**) 12-08-2011, 02:44 AM

you have done beautiful work on your blog even i get some information about S.E.O from your page

**snakeair** · #10 (**permalink**) 12-08-2011, 02:46 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by emoetria

you have done beautiful work on your blog even i get some information about S.E.O from your page

That's not my blog and what are your thoughts on the blog post? Do you agree with the author?

webnewbie · #11 (**permalink**) 12-08-2011, 07:43 AM

It's really hard to retain your visitor to your site even you try to provide the good content.But the solution is that don't try just provide perfectly the content that visitor's want.

prcys · #12 (**permalink**) 12-08-2011, 11:37 PM

As other said that getting the visitor only is not the enough but one has to try maximum to keep the visitor engage with the site and allow them to do some task at the site. So this way site can get the high conversion rate and can decrease the bounce rate and this can affect the pagerank positively.
And for me the best method to engage the visitor is the blog and blog commenting. As by the blog , one can promote the content which have and then by commenting and providing the more stuff and solution to people , one can attract them more.