Aussie sisters taking on Europe

IT’S a brand beloved by celebs and ordinary people alike, now this Aussie family is planning to crack Europe and the US - without spending a cent on advertising.

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How not to turn up for job interviews

IT’S NOT good form to turn up to a job interview in dirty clothes. But one Sydney business owner has been slammed on facebook for giving some well-meaning advice.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1Otr5DE

Australia’s best supermarket revealed

AUSTRALIA has spoken. This supermarket has the happiest customers and has been named the best supermarket as more shoppers make the switch.

Source NEWS.com.au | Business http://ift.tt/1HMMqmW

Caesars' lawsuit against second-lien noteholders dismissed

A lawsuit by casino company Caesars Entertainment Corp. against a group of creditors known as the second-lien noteholders, who are owed billions of dollars, was dismissed by a New York state court judge on Monday, according to a court filing.

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Bunkhouse Saloon in downtown Las Vegas closes

The Bunkhouse Saloon in Downtown Las Vegas announced Monday on Facebook the venue would close "effective immediately."

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Entrepreneur dishes out advice for startups

Damien Patton loves Las Vegas. After all, he lives here and thinks about his startup all the time when riding his bicycle through Red Rock Canyon or his dirt bike across the desert.

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New analysis shows best time to have invested, bought home

You plunked down cash for a Las Vegas home in 2009 and invested in stocks in 2012. Boy, did you mess up.

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Mitsubishi apologizes to WWII POWs

As Japan prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II, one of its largest corporations has given a long-awaited apology for wartime atrocities.

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Foley formally files application for Las Vegas NHL franchise

Prospective NHL team owner Bill Foley submitted his application to the National Hockey League on Monday for a team in Las Vegas that would play at the new arena being built behind New York-New York on the Strip.

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Home builders group backs petition to keep net metering rules in effect

The Southern Nevada Homebuilders Association is supporting a petition by rooftop-solar companies to keep net metering rules in effect until state regulators are able to draft a new policy on the program as directed by the Nevada Legislature.

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Beyond Search: Bing Native Ads Launch In Beta Across MSN.com

Expanded inventory enables advertisers to pair search intent signals with native advertising formats.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Marketing Day: Instagram Desktop Search, Mobile Shopping Stats & YouTube Brand Report

Here's our recap of what happened in online marketing today, as reported on Marketing Land and other places across the web.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Instagram Search Arrives For Web Users

Desktop Instagramers will now have the ability to search hashtags, locations & accounts thanks to a new search feature for the web.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Martech Landscape: What is Call Analytics & Tracking Software?

Call tracking software can help businesses of all sizes connect online and offline marketing efforts, but it has a few risks, too.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Introducing The Martech Landscape Series

Confused about all that's happening in the world of marketing technology? Marketing Land's new series covering martech will explain all.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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AT&T Adds Virtual Reality Component To “It Can Wait” Campaign

Telecommunications company ramps up its anti-texting-and-driving campaign with a VR simulation showing the consequences of paying attention to your phone while driving.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Choice Is Good. Choose SMX East. Rates Increase Saturday!

Guarantee: you’ll never be bored at SMX East. Select from more than 50 sessions, keynotes, and clinics. You always have four or more to choose from! Attend sessions that fit your interests – SEO, SEM, social, mobile or analytics and conversions. And your skill level – expert, intermediate or...

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What Common Home Repairs Cost (and How to Budget for Them)

A new roof usually lasts 20-30 years, so if you’ve been in your home for a decade or more, it’s time to start budgeting for the inevitable. Photo: pointnshoot

Buying a home is the biggest investment most of us will ever make, and yet a shocking number of people drastically underestimate the costs that come with it.

That’s right – far too many people jump into a mortgage without factoring in the costs of actually caring for their priciest possession. As a homeowner, you can’t just call the landlord when your ceiling starts to leak. And postponing important maintenance or repairs can lead to deterioration and bigger, costlier problems down the road — not to mention lower property values over time.

This is all easily avoidable, of course — but you have to plan ahead.

Costly Home Repairs You Should Budget For

Most experts suggest having an emergency fund stocked with at least three to six months of expenses. When disaster strikes, you can pull money from this account without disrupting your regular budget or spending plans. As you figure out how much to stash away, here are seven common, costly home improvements and repairs that many homeowners will have to pay for — whether they’ve budgeted for them or not:

New Roof

Every home needs an outer crust to protect what’s inside. However, few people plan to replace their roof until it’s already leaking or showing more than an average amount of wear and tear. Even worse, an unchecked leak can cause significant interior or structural damage over time, which could mean far more money out of your pocket.

Fortunately, a little planning can go a long way. According to Angie’s List, members paid an average of $11,095 to tear off and replace a new roof in 2014. If that seems high, it’s probably because it is. As the site notes, a standard 2,200- to 2,600-square-foot roof replacement will cost even DIY homeowners between $2,000 and $6,000 just for the materials. Meanwhile, hiring professionals to do the job will cost you between $5,000 to $12,000 – it all depends on the size of your home.

How long your roof should last also depends on several factors. As the National Association of Home Builders notes, wood shake roofs typically last about 30 years, fiber cement shingles last about 25 years, and asphalt shingle/composition roofs last about 20 years. So if you’ve been in your home for 10 years or longer, and you haven’t replaced the roof yet — well, there’s a good chance you’ll have to do so in the next decade. Start saving up.

Hot Water Heater

If you’ve owned a home before, you probably already know that hot water heaters burst or stop working with almost no advanced notice. The first sign of trouble usually comes several minutes into a lukewarm shower – all of a sudden, you realize something has gone terribly wrong.

Fortunately, water heaters are nowhere near as expensive as a new roof. At big box stores, you can usually get away with paying somewhere between $300 and $900 for a water heater plus up to $250 for installation. Tankless models are immeasurably more efficient, but much more expensive as well. Whichever type of water heater you use, having enough emergency money in the bank will make the purchase easier to stomach.

Replacement Windows

Replacing drafty old windows with newer, efficient ones is a common and popular home upgrade that can save you money on your heating and cooling bills. But even the most efficient windows may still need to be replaced during your home’s lifetime. They age and crack, their seals break, and they ultimately wear down and stop serving their purpose. Unfortunately, there is little you can do about it – except to replace them.

According to Angie’s List, new windows cost between $350 and $500 each, including installation. The total cost will depend on how many windows you have, what type of replacement windows you pick out, and whether you need the window frames or sills replaced or repaired as well. Many homeowners replace old windows a few at a time, year by year, as their budget permits.

Heating/Air Conditioning

Even if you don’t need a new unit, you should expect to shell out some money for ongoing maintenance and repairs on your heat pump or HVAC unit. At the very least, you should set up an annual cleaning and tune-up, if not a bi-annual appointment in the spring and fall. Unfortunately, these visits tend to be costly. As Home Advisor notes, the average air conditioning unit repair came in at $320 in 2014, while the average furnace repair cost homeowners $270.

Replacing your unit altogether won’t be cheap either, although it could mean fewer repairs in the near future. In 2014, a new AC unit install came in at $5,210. A new furnace: $3,865. No matter what type of unit you have, you should expect it to last a few decades at most, even with regular maintenance and upkeep.

Kitchen Remodel

Styles constantly come and go — think back to mustard yellow linoleum and green appliances — which means a kitchen remodel could be inevitable if you plan to stay in your home for the long run. Although many homeowners opt for a “soft remodel,” with low-cost updates such as applying a new coat of paint, refacing the cabinets, and replacing hardware, many others go for the full shebang, replacing everything from the flooring and cabinets to the appliances and countertops in the process.

Popular Mechanics recently pegged the price of the average kitchen remodel at somewhere between $18,500 and $54,00, which is rather terrifying if you think about it. Even if you opt for partial remodel or upgrade over the full deal, it won’t be cheap, which is why it’s best to plan ahead.

Exterior Painting or Siding

Although exterior siding can last a lifetime, there are times when it needs to be replaced after 10, 20, or 30 years. Unfortunately, exterior siding isn’t cheap.

As Angie’s List notes, there are four common siding choices currently on the market – wood, aluminum, vinyl, and clapboard or beveled. Even for the cheapest option – vinyl siding – the base cost for a 2,200-square-foot home will be anywhere from $6,000 to $8,500. Add in the costs of old siding disposal and clean-up and you can easily rack up a five-figure bill.

Painting a home, on the other hand, is typically cheaper but needs to be done more often. Where hiring a painter for the same size home might run $5,000, someone with painting experience and a lot of free time could do the job themselves for a whole lot cheaper. Either way, you’ll be shelling out some dough — so start saving now.

Are you budgeting for any major home improvements in the future? What expensive home repairs have you had to make unexpectedly in the last five or 10 years?

The post What Common Home Repairs Cost (and How to Budget for Them) appeared first on The Simple Dollar.

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“Unleash Your Rrrr” With Volkswagen

New, interactive campaign by VW lets you control the Golf R by making engine noises with your voice.

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Carpooling Can Help You Save Big: For This Couple, $3,120 a Year

Like a lot of Americans, when my husband and I moved to the suburbs of a bigger city, one of our top concerns was the commute.

Both of us work downtown in Madison, Wisconsin, and since the downtown is on an isthmus (surrounded by water on both sides), parking is extremely limited. When we lived downtown, my husband took the bus and I drove to work where parking was included in my job. As we prepared to move to the suburbs, my husband’s bus rides were no longer possible unless he wanted to leave half an hour early to head to the bus station for a 45-minute bus ride.

SInce the bus ride was impractical, we looked into a parking space downtown. His job didn’t offer one, so he would have to buy a pass for a city parking ramp. Looking at a Monday through Friday daily parking pass that suited our needs, we were astounded. It cost $180 per month — that would be $2,160 a year for parking alone!

In addition, there would be the cost of gas, around $80 a month for his 25-mile daily round trip. He would be forking over $3,120 each year just to drive to work. There had to be a better option.

Deciding to Carpool

Like most people who commute by car, I enjoy the time alone. It gives me time to prepare for the workday, to decompress at the end of the day, and to rock out when need be.

I was hesitant to give up my alone time, and also grumpy about leaving 10 minutes earlier and getting home 10 minutes later to accommodate my husband’s schedule. But $3,120 was too much money to throw away on driving separately, especially when he worked less than a five-minute drive from my own workplace.

We’ve been carpooling for about a year now, and it has saved us more than $3,000, as well as wear and tear on our second car. We enjoy knowing we could manage with only one car, if needed.

Carpooling comes with unexpected bonuses, too, such the chance to rehash the day with someone right after you leave the office. We enjoy chatting about work on the drive home and, for the most part, talking about other things once we arrive home.

In addition, it’s good to have another set of eyes when you’re driving home in rush hour. On several occasions, we’ve helped each other watch out for cars, pedestrians and cyclists. It’s also reassuring to have someone else in the car during bad weather.

Where to Find Carpool Members

Ready to save money by carpooling? Look for potential carpool members in three parts of your life. The first is your family. Does your spouse, partner or family member work relatively near your workplace? Do either of you get parking as an employee benefit?

Next, talk to your neighbors. Does anyone in your building or neighborhood share a similar schedule and commute? Look for community listservs, Meetups and Facebook groups where you can post your interest. Check whether any of your coworkers live in a similar area or drive past your neighborhood on their way to work.

Finally, consider the broader community. Would you be willing to share a ride with someone you meet on Craiglist or a ridesharing site? What about a friend of a friend?

If your city offers incentives for carpooling, it may also provide a messageboard or other way for interested parties to connect with one another. Check this list of cities that pay you to carpool for more information on potential programs.

Be Ready for the Downsides

Of course, carpooling has a few drawbacks. Some (OK, most) mornings I’m crabby, and we have a “no talking” rule in place during the drive to work. Some drives home are stressful between traffic and airing out daily work frustrations.

To make carpooling work, commnicate constantly and be flexible. When my husband has to go in early or stay late, I have to adjust, just like he does when I have unusual obligations that keep me late or make me come in early.

Before committing to a carpool with a neighbor or someone you meet on a carpooling site, consider your safety. Don’t just invite any old stranger into your car or hop into theirs. Ask for character references, meet first in a public place, or consider finding carpool members from your trusted network.

Bottom line, carpooling is an easy way to keep some money in your pocket. You’ll slash your gas and parking costs, reduce your environmental impact and hopefully have a more enjoyable commute, all at the same time.

Your Turn: Have you tried carpooling? What tips do you have for someone just getting started?

Richanda Turner is a freelance writer living in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin with her husband, dog and cat.  She enjoys coffee, kickboxing at the gym, and counting down the days until her student loans are paid off, and she blogs at rishenda.wordpress.com.

The post Carpooling Can Help You Save Big: For This Couple, $3,120 a Year appeared first on The Penny Hoarder.

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How to Repel an Intern in 5 Steps

Common ways companies turn off interns – who will then spread the word about their terrible experience.

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Survey: 90 Percent Of Retail Shoppers Use Smartphones In Stores

Mobile loyalty company SessionM recently surveyed 12,000 randomly selected US smartphone users about their mobile shopping behaviors. The company found that 85 percent of respondents said their m-commerce buying was steady or had increased vs. a year ago. While roughly 15 percent said mobile buying...

Please visit Marketing Land for the full article.

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Cars We Remember: 1952 Lincoln featured new lines, overhead valve V-8, winning history

Q: Hi, Greg, and thanks for your interesting auto columns. My grandfather had a 1952 Lincoln that came with the first ever overhead valve V-8 in the Lincoln line. Can you tell me more about this car? My grandfather had the top-of-the-line model and I just can’t remember exactly what it was called and I think it was a new name. Thanks in advance, Larry W., retired and happy in Massachusetts. A: Larry, your grandfather had quite the car back in 1952, as the entire [...]

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Quantify Your Results: The 14 Most Important SEO Metrics

Many SEOs, especially those new to the game, have a constant feeling of uncertainty.

They spend weeks or months working, but it’s really hard to see if the results are worth their time.

Eventually, they (possible you) realize that without some way of tracking results, there’s no way of evaluating whether all the work you’ve done was worth it or not.

So then, you start tracking a single metric such as keyword rankings diligently. You do that for a few months and see some improvement.

However, a new problem arises: a single metric can’t describe the results of your work.

Unless you’re tracking every single keyword ever searched in your niche, keyword rankings are just one indication of whether your domain’s search authority is increasing. Sometimes, search traffic can go up while rankings decrease or vice versa.

So, what’s the solution? 

The solution is to track multiple metrics. If you’re presenting these results to a team, you might hear them refer to these metrics as key performance indicators (KPIs).

Metrics, or KPIs, are hard numbers obtained from your website data. Most of this data will come from your analytics tool of choice, whether it’s your basic Google Analytics or a more advanced tool such as KISSmetrics.

In this post, I’m going to show you 14 of the most important SEO metrics. You can pick and choose which (if not all) metrics you incorporate in your regular reporting.

One last thing you need to keep in mind is that most of these metrics are just indications of your success—not exact measurements of it.

For example, organic traffic usually grows exponentially. An extra 100 visitors in the first month after you do some specific work could really be worth thousands in the future. We’re typically using metrics as indicators of your site’s health and growth.

1. Keyword rankings: know where your traffic is coming from

There’s no perfect way to track your exact search engine authority as a whole, but some metrics are good estimates.

Keyword rankings can be used to measure specific terms you’re trying to rank for. They can also help you determine if you’re targeting appropriate keywords when trying to outrank your competition.

However, there are some pretty big limitations as well. For example, I once shared that 91% of Quick Sprout search traffic came from long-tail searches. Similarly, KISSmetrics gets 91% of its search traffic from long-tail keywords.

Then why do we want to track keywords?

Even though traffic from keywords only represents about 9% of your potential traffic, measuring rankings for keywords with significant search volumes (anything over a few hundred per month) tells us a few things:

• whether you’re targeting the right keywords – if none of your blog posts rank for their target keywords, you need to target less competitive keywords for now.
• whether you’re growing over time – all keywords should slowly improve in rank as you gain backlinks and your site becomes more trusted. If not, something is wrong with your SEO plan.
• whether you’re transferring “link juice” well – when you get a new link to a page, most of its power goes to that page. However, some will also flow to other pages you link to. If most of your older pages never improve in their rankings, you can likely improve your internal linking.

Here’s how you track keywords

Identify anywhere from 1 to 5 keywords for each blog post or important page on your site that you’d like to rank for. If you don’t know how to, refer to my guide on keyword research first.

There’s no need to manually check rankings anymore because you have many tools you can use.

If you need a free option, try the free plan for Serpfox or Pro Rank Tracker.

Most keyword tracking tools work similarly.

In Serpfox, for example, start by adding a URL:

Then, expand the URL you just added in your dashboard, and click on the “add keywords” option:

Then, you just add the keywords you’ve identified before, one per line. You can also track a specific search engine or country if needed:

Once you’ve done that, the tool will automatically check to see if you’re ranking in the top few hundred results and will do so every day. You can see the ranking on your dashboard:

You can also click the graph icon to see changes over time.

Obviously free tools are more limited than paid tools, but if you’re just getting started, they will do for now.

Each time you publish a post, you should add keywords to track.

At least once a month, you should export your rankings and see how they do in relation to the three items I mentioned above.

2. Backlinks and linking root domains: track your authority

There’s no doubt that search rankings are becoming more dependent on on-page SEO factors and user interaction patterns.

That being said, backlinks are still one of the factors, if not the most important factor, behind rankings right now. They will continue to play a major role in the future.

What that means is that a big part of any SEO plan should revolve around acquiring backlinks. If you’re not getting any (or many), there’s a problem that’s going to hold back your growth.

You can measure the results of your link-building campaigns by monitoring new backlinks you acquire, both in terms of quantity and quality.

Here’s how to track new backlinks.

The most popular backlink trackers are Ahrefs and MajesticSEO. You can start with a very limited free plan to try, but you’ll eventually need a paid plan.

Although Open Site Explorer is an option, it doesn’t have as large of a database as the other two options and updates slower as well.

For the purposes of this walk-through, I’ll be using Ahrefs.

Start by inputting your domain name into the search bar:

On the main results page, scroll a bit to see a graph that shows the quantity of backlinks and linking root domains over a significant period of time. This should be trending upwards (more important for the linking root domains than the backlinks).

Next, use the navigation menu at the top to select “Inbound links > New”:

This brings up the new links to your domain in the selected time period:

You can see who linked to you and even visit that specific URL. Note that on free plans, you will only be able to see a few results.

How do you track quality of links?

All link-tracking services are built on a few “scores” assigned to links. The higher the score, the better the quality of the link. Majestic uses trust flow and citation flow, while Ahrefs uses URL rating.

When you first search your domain name, you’ll see a URL rating and a domain rating.

You should record these periodically along with the rest of your results. If you’re acquiring quality links, they will both go up. The URL score will take into account only links to the homepage itself, while the domain rating is more of an overall score.

Even if you get 10,000 links, if they’re low quality and from spammy sites, your scores won’t go up much.

If you’re using Majestic, focus on improving your “trust rank” over time.

Why you should track backlinks

Tracking the overall growth of your backlinks is important, but there are three other main reasons to check them regularly:

1. To assign a cost per link – even if you acquire a few really high quality links, if it costs you $1,000 per link, it’s probably not profitable. Evaluate the cost of links from different link-building strategies and tactics.
2. To see the success of your tactics – similarly to the cost per link, you can also monitor how many links you get from a single tactic. For example, you might see that you get seven links from 100 emails in an email outreach campaign (a 7% link rate).
3. To find potential relationships – if someone links to you, they probably like your content. You can send them a quick email to begin a relationship that could lead to more links or other opportunities.

3. Organic search traffic: do search engines love you?

Why do you do SEO?

I’m going to guess that you do it to get organic—free—search traffic (that’s a good reason).

You should track how much search engine traffic you get per month and make sure it’s increasing. Note that you should look at it over a period of at least a few months because seasonal changes can affect traffic.

To start, go to your main dashboard (Audience Overview) in Google Analytics for your site. This initial graph shows you your overall traffic for the last 30 days. Feel free to adjust it for a longer period.

Click on the “Add segment” button to bring up a list of options:

Then, scroll down until you find “Organic Traffic.” Check the box and click “Apply.”

Once you do that, another line will be added to your graph that shows your organic traffic alongside your overall traffic.

You can also break down your search traffic by specific search engine. Use the left sidebar menu to navigate to “Acquisition > Overview,” and then click on the “Organic Search” link:

To see the traffic by day, and not just the overall traffic, click the checkboxes beside each search engine, and then click the “Plot Rows” button:

4. Average time on-page: are you nailing user intent?  

What do visitors typically do when they land on a page they are not interested in? They leave.

Conversely, if the page is extremely relevant and interesting, they spend time on it.

In real life, your page exists somewhere in-between the two extremes. Obviously, your goal should be to satisfy your readers as much as possible so that your page ranks highly.

Although you can find out an overall average time on-page metric for your site in the Audience Overview section, that’s not very useful. Instead, you need to dig down and look at how much time visitors are spending on each page.

Start by going to the “Behavior > Overview” option on the left-hand menu:

That will show you a few of your top pages. Look at the bottom right corner for the “view full report” link, and click it:

This will bring up all your pages ordered by the traffic volume. Look at the “Avg. Time on Page” column for each page:

If you only have a few pages, you can record the results in a spreadsheet manually. Otherwise, scroll back up and click the export option to download a spreadsheet of data you can work with:

Typically, time on-page won’t change much once you have a few hundred visits. So you only need to record this value for most pages once.

Sometimes, you might see a really low average time on-page. Record your initial time and the dates over which that data was gathered. Then, work to improve your content, and then re-check the value after you’ve had enough visitors.

There’s no specific “good” or “bad” time on-page for all pages. If your content is really short because it addresses a very specific issue, the visitor shouldn’t spend much time on it (then you can look at other metrics such as bounce rate). If your content is very long, the average time on-page should be relatively high.

5. Pages per visitor: track your usability

For most content (not all), you want your visitors to continue to read other content on your site after they visit the initial landing page.

To test your internal linking practices (both in content and navigation), you should track pages per visitor.

You can find the average pages per visitor in your Audience Overview:

If your site and/or blog is relatively new, it’s okay if the number is low. However, you should record it as well as the date when it was recorded. Ideally, you want to increase this number as much as possible over time.

In general, there are two ways you can improve this:

• link more within your content
• add more enticing links in your sidebar or after the post

You can also dig into the pages per visitor for each landing page, using the same report as was described in point #4 (average time on-page). Look for any values that are relatively low, and see whether you can add some appropriate links.

6. Returning users: are you making an impression?

The number of returning visitors your website gets is a measure of how engaging your content is.

If you’re just slapping together some mediocre content, visitors aren’t going to return. You won’t be able to add them to your email list either, which is another way to get them to keep coming back.

No matter how you’re monetizing the site, having visitors who don’t come back is a bad thing.

Within the main screen of Audience Overview, look in the bottom right corner for a graph that looks like this:

Not only can you see the percentage of new and returning visitors individually but you can also hover your mouse over each section of the pie graph to see the actual numbers of visitors.

Record both the ratio and the absolute number of returning and new visitors at least once a month. The absolute numbers of both types of visitors should be going up. The specific ratio isn’t a big deal, but the returning traffic should make up a good chunk of your traffic (at least 20%).

Returning visitors already know who you are and like you, which makes them more likely to buy from you. They are the most valuable traffic you have.

7. Bounce rate: don’t scare off visitors

It’s debateable whether or not bounce rate is a direct factor in search rankings.

After all, for some pages, a high bounce rate could be good. It can mean that a user came to your page, found what they wanted, and then left.

However, it’s still our best indication of pogo sticking.

Pogo sticking refers to users’ behavior of continually hopping back and forth between search results because they can’t find what they’re looking for:

Google wants to satisfy users, which is why it doesn’t want searchers to get frustrated by not being able to find an answer. If too many visitors to your page click the back button and then choose another result, your rank will get worse.

A “bounce” is when a user lands on your page but doesn’t interact with it. They either close it or click the back button. Closing the page might not be a bad thing, but clicking back is. Since we can’t measure this specific action—closing the page, we look at the closest thing—the bounce rate.

Since the bounce rate is important on a page-by-page basis, that’s how you need to look at it.

Start by revisiting the “Behavior > Overview” option on the left menu:

Then, click the link in the bottom right corner to view a full report:

This report will list all the pages on your site with traffic as well as their bounce rates:

Keep in mind that unless you have a few hundred visits to a page, the bounce rate isn’t all that accurate. Have a big enough sample size before drawing any conclusions.

A “good” bounce rate will depend on the topic. If it’s a very straightforward answer you’re trying to provide, like “how many grams are in a pound,” then you will have a high bounce rate because visitors will see the answer and leave.

If it’s a more open-ended question or topic, like “how to reduce your bounce rate,” good content should have a bounce rate of under 50% in general.

If you are interested in learning how to reduce your bounce rate, read this post that offers you 13 ways.

8. Optimize page load speed: bounce rate and speed go hand in hand

Bounce rate mainly depends on two things: good content and its accessibility.

If your page takes too long to load, visitors will leave even before they have a chance to read it. A slow loading web page is a leading cause of a high bounce rate, which in turn will result in lower Google rankings.

Ideally, you want your web page to load under two seconds, but lower is even better.

To test the load speed of a page, you can use the Quick Sprout tool. If you don’t want to use that, you can use alternatives such as GTmetrix or Pingdom.

Enter a URL into the Quick Sprout tool, and submit it. You’ll get a report with an overall speed score at the top:

To get more details, click on the “full speed report” button below. It’ll take you to the report, where you can pick from three tabs:

Each tab will give you different insights about which parts of your page take the longest to load and in what order.

Next, scroll down to get speed recommendations in simpler terms:

Addressing the “high” priority concerns should have the most effect on your page’s loading speed.

Technically, you should do this for every page on your website. In reality, though, that would be a waste of your time. Check all standalone pages such as your homepage and landing pages as well as 5-10 blog posts.

If all those blog posts load in under 2 seconds, the rest typically will as well. You can always check a specific post if you have reasons to believe it loads slowly (like a high bounce rate).

Warning: Optimizing a page’s load speed is not easy if you’ve never done it before. There’s a lot of technical terminology involved that will take a significant amount of time to understand. If it gets the best of you, consider hiring an expert to help you out.

For the DIY approach, here are some of the best guides when it comes to fixing page speed problems:

• How to Make Your Site Insanely Fast
• 10 Ways to Speed Up Your Website – and Improve Conversion by 7%
• Performance Unleashed: How To Speed Up WordPress Load Times
• Ultimate Guide To Web Optimization (Tips & Best Practices)
• A Beginner’s Guide to Website Speed Optimization

9. Monitor and address crawl errors: eliminate indexing problems

In order for Google (or any search engine) to understand what your pages are about and what you should rank for, it needs to be able to crawl it.

Putting it simply, it doesn’t matter how good your content is and how many backlinks you have if Google is having trouble reading your page.

To check crawl errors, log into your Webmaster Tools (now Search Console) dashboard.

Use the left-side menu to go to “Crawl > Crawl Errors”, which will bring up a report:

Most sites have some crawl errors, and some even have thousands. Fixing these can have a significant impact on your overall search visibility.

You’ll also likely see multiple tabs across the top. Google categorizes the errors to make them easier to identify and fix.

Here’s a complete guide to fixing the most common crawl errors.

It’s important to keep an eye on crawl errors on a continual basis because issues can unexpectedly come up and pages that used to be accessible can become blocked. If you don’t catch it in time, those pages can become de-indexed.

10. Check traffic by device: SEO in 2015 doesn’t discriminate

Mobile traffic makes up a significant portion of most Internet audiences. It makes up about 50% of all online retail traffic.

Google recognizes the importance of mobile optimization. If your site isn’t responsive or optimized for mobile, it’s difficult for your readers to easily read your content, which leaves them less satisfied.

On April 21, 2015, Google’s “Mobilegeddon” update was released. It wasn’t quite as big as anticipated, but sites that were clearly mobile-unfriendly took a bit of a hit:

Think of this as a warning shot. Google will likely continue to place more emphasis on having mobile-friendly content, which means that the consequences will only become more severe.

To check if your pages are mobile-friendly, you can use Google’s own checker:

If you fail, refer to Google’s guide to mobile-friendly websites.

Having mobile-friendly content is important not only for SEO but for other reasons too. If your readers can’t easily read your content, you have less of a chance of moving them down your conversion funnel.

To get a general look at your performance on mobile, go to “Audience > Mobile > Overview” in Google Analytics:

Look at the other metrics we’ve looked at (bounce rate, time on-page) for each type of device. While mobile stats are usually a bit worse than desktop, there shouldn’t be a huge amount of difference. If there is, you need to look into making your site more mobile friendly.

11. Pages crawled per day and time spent downloading: invite search engines

If Google likes a site, its bots will crawl it often.

What makes Google like a site? It’s a combination of many things, including good user metrics (bounce rate, time on-page, etc.), as well as having a good page speed (optimized page size) and a lack of crawl errors.

Ideally, you want your site crawled as much as often. That way, when you make a change or publish a new post, Google will notice quickly. A new Quick Sprout post is indexed in minutes usually.

Go to Webmaster Tools, and navigate to “Crawl > Crawl Stats”. You’ll see graphs for pages crawled per day as well as the amount of time spent downloading them:

You want your numbers for pages crawled per day to be as high as possible while your numbers for time spent downloading to be as low as possible.

You need to check this report once every few weeks or once a month and look for any strange differences. If all of a sudden the time spent downloading pages goes through the roof, you likely have a loading speed problem that needs fixing.

Similarly, if the number of your pages crawled per day takes a dive, you could have some new crawl errors that are having a big negative impact.

12. Index status: monitor your site health

Don’t close Webmaster Tools just yet.

It’s time to check your site’s index status, which is a count of your indexed pages.

As you might expect, it’s a good thing if all your pages are indexed as only indexed pages show up in search results.

Under the “Google Index” category, click on “Index status”, and then on the “Advanced” tab:

You’ll be able to see how many pages are indexed. On top of that, you’ll be able to see all the main errors that caused your pages to be de-indexed. So if your indexed pages started to drop at any point, you’ll be able to see why.

13. 404 pageviews: don’t lose your audience

Some website owners go through all the trouble of getting links and traffic and then send them to non-existent pages.

I don’t think I need to spell out how much of a waste this is. You aren’t getting maximum value from your traffic or your backlinks.

If you grow to a certain size, you’ll inevitably have 404 errors. Most of the time, it’s simply other websites linking to the wrong address.

If you have that problem, invest in a custom 404 page. When you get a 404 page on Quick Sprout, you see this:

At the bottom, there are two links to popular parts of the site so that I don’t automatically lose the visitor.

When it comes to finding broken links, you have a few options.

Option 1: Quick and dirty method

This isn’t the best method, but it gives you a quick overview of the size of the problem.

Go into Google Analytics, and go to the Behavior Overview tab:

Then, go to the full report (bottom right):

Now, sort the pages by either bounce rate or time on page. But click twice so that it’s sorted from worst to best.

If someone goes to a page that doesn’t exist, it’s going to have a near 100% bounce rate, or zero seconds spent on the page.

Alternatively, if you have a 404 error URL, you can just look at the number of visitors that came to that page.

Either way, this tells you how big the problem is—but not what’s causing it. Which is why either of the two other methods are best.

Option 2: Use Webmaster’s Tools (Search Console)

Go back into your Webmasters Tools, and navigate to “Crawl > Crawl Errors.”

This time, we’re specifically looking for “Not found” pages:

When you click on one of these URLs, a pop-up will appear with error details. You can then click on the “linked from” tab to see which pages link to it.

Fix the link on those pages and then mark the problem as fixed.

Option 3: Ahrefs broken links tool

To find out when someone else has linked to your pages incorrectly, search for your site in Ahrefs.

Then, under the “Inbound Links” dropdown menu, click on “Broken Backlinks.”

This will bring up a list of sites that incorrectly linked to a page on your site. You can then contact someone from the site and nicely ask that they fix the link.

If you don’t hear back from them, you can 301 redirect the incorrect URL to the right one.

14. Conversions (goal completions): find out if you’re making the most of your traffic

Search traffic is great, but what you’re really after is traffic that converts.

Once you understand how well your search traffic converts, you can figure out how much you can afford to invest in content and link building.

A goal is a specific action or event that you can track in Google Analytics. For example, a goal can be a visitor visiting a specific page that is only available after making a purchase (like a thank-you or receipt page).

To create one, go to the “Goals > Overview” link at the very bottom of the left menu:

Then, pick a template for your goal. Typically, it’s going to be something like making a payment or signing up for an email newsletter:

After that, pick a type of goal, which is usually a destination (a specific URL they visit).

The final step is to input that destination’s URL as well as to assign a value to that event. For example, you might know that every email subscriber is worth $20 to you, so you can quantify the value of your search traffic.

After some time, you can go to the “Goals > Overview” tab again, but this time you’ll see a graph of your goal completions:

You can then click on the “Source/Medium” option in the bottom left to see how well your search traffic is converting.

If you need to sell your work to your boss in order to keep your job or get a bigger budget, this metric is great. Show them exactly how much money you are making them.

Additionally, you can also see if any particular pages are converting well by going back to the Behavior tab and clicking on the site content option and then landing pages:

Conclusion

If you don’t track metrics, it’s impossible to know what is and isn’t working.

If you don’t know how effective your SEO work is, you could end up spending time and money on work that has a poor return. This could cost you your job or your business.

Metrics aren’t sexy, but they’re important.

You can’t leave them up to chance. Decide which metrics are most relevant and important for your website’s SEO (it probably won’t be all 14), and then decide how and when you will track them.

Follow a tracking schedule, and take conscious action to improve each of the metrics over time.

Let me know which metric(s) is most important or useful to you and your SEO work in a comment below.

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