When marketers hear about bounce rates the first thing they think (like the rest of us) is about the college paddle-ball championships in which they carried their intramural team to victory when they kept their cool while their opponent sneezed at the crucial moment of a heated bounce-off . Once they come out of their reverie they then think of email but that is not the only kind or worse kind of bounce rate you can run across. Nay, the worst kind of bounce rate is the one that occurs with most site owners blissfully unaware. The bounce rate I am talking about is for your website. Now, I know what you are thinking, “But I am not sending my website anywhere, how can it bounce?”. Well. It is not THAT kind of bounce. When someone talks about website bounces, they are not talking about emails and they are definitely not talking about rubber balls; unfortunately they are referring to site visitors. Specifically ones that that make their way to your site and then leave from the same page they entered without going any deeper into the gooey deliciousness of your well crafted content.

So what can you do to mitigate this paddle-ball like nature? The best way is to try to avoid some of the barriers to entry that site owners sometimes unknowingly include in their site.

1. Design & Layout
   The first place to look for potential issues is your site design. One of the biggest offenders can be in the use of media. I am not saying that you should not use media, in fact it is just the opposite. As I have stated in other posts, media (like greed apparently) is good. It should just be applied judiciously. You would not make a meal of Twinkies (at least not on a regular basis) and that same rule applies to your site. Avoid using gratuitous animation, automatic pop-ups and under no circumstances should you have media with an audio component play automatically when the site is loaded. A lot of it sounds good in theory but in these situations it is always best to harken back to that first law of web design: First, Do NOT Annoy!. Keep your site focused and that will help your visitors focus on why they are there. Stay away from things that could be at very least a distraction or at most a full on deterrent to nestling in and basking in the Cool that is your site.
2. Content & Navigation
   The next places to look are your content and navigation. It should not require and advanced degree for people to find what they need. The ability for users to find their way around  quickly and easily is one of the most important elements of any website. If a user cannot find what they are looking for, they leave. It is as simple as that. The easier you make it for people to find what they want, the more useful your site will become. But finding it is not enough. If you want to reduce those bounce rates you also need to make it easier to comprehend as well. The content itself needs to be clear, concise and valuable. Marketing speak for the sake of hearing your self talk or technical jargon that does not mean anything to anyone outside your industry does not do anything for anyone. And forcing someone to read a hundred paragraphs on the technical specifications for flushing a toilet when the words “press lever” will do, will likely lead to that unwanted rubbery response you are trying to avoid. The easier you make it to read and understand, the faster they will get the point and the more likely that they will slip unknowingly into the comfy chair of your brilliant content without need of the Spanish Inquisition (whether or not they expect it).
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
   Probably the biggest contributors to a sites bounce rate are irrelevant search engine rankings. I know what you are thinking, “There is no such thing as a BAD search engine ranking!”, but that is not necessarily true. As you may have remembered while putting on your deodorant this morning, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression”. It does you absolutely no good to rank for keywords that are not relevant to the content on your site. Sure you might grab a good spot in some searches but by trying to rank for unrelated keywords you could be hurting yourself in more ways than one. Not only are you getting a bounce because as soon as someone realizes that your site does not have the content they are looking for  they leave but you are also creating a negative first impression with a potential customer.  So when you pop-up later in a search that actually does makes sense, you might get skipped because all they remember that your site was not relevant. So the best way to avoid this is to make sure your site is optimized for the most relevant keywords possible.

No matter what you do, some bounces will always occur whether it is a mis-clicked link, an erroneous URL or just someone playing around in their browser. All you can do is optimize your site to mitigate any real and consistent bounces. Using a professional designer from the start can help avoid common pitfalls but even if your site is already up and running and is guilty of some of the outlined offenses, you can always go back and take a lesson from the Beatles and take that sad song and make it better…

To most people LinkedIn is just part of the social media landscape but in this location you will find not only your customers and prospects but employees and competitors as well all interconnected in a web of possibilities. And while the business uses of other social networks are still being explored, here you have one whose original purpose was business networking. With over 100 million plus users in over 200 countries (and getting a new member about every second) there are exponential networking capabilities but how can you make the most of your involvement in this business networking behemoth? It is all about the basics.

Optimize:
Fully optimize your profile. I know it sounds simple but those little nagging completion meters are there to help you. The more information you provide the easier you are going to be to find by potential clients. And don’t just go through the motions to get to that ever elusive 100% mark, make it count.

• Don’ Bury the Lead
  Make the info you provide work for you starting with a strong summary-headline. Think of it like keyword optimization for your website. What is the best way to describe yourself for a search. Are you a Graphic Designer or are you an Atlanta Logo Designer. Once term will pull you up with about a million other people while the other significantly narrows the field
• Show them what you can do
  Make sure to fill out your areas of expertise. You never know what skills a person might be looking for and the more well-rounded you are for the job, the better.
• Give them a Call to action
  Make sure they can contact you. It does not do you any good to show up in all of the searches if people cannot find a way to connect with you once they determine you are the right person for the job. You need to strike while the iron is hot so don’t give it time to cool down while they are trying to figure out the best way to make your brilliance part of their project.
• Let your music be heard
  Request recommendations them from connections you have done business with in the past. Testimonials from satisfied clients or praise from former co-workers can go a long way toward sealing the deal. Anyone can “enhance” their resume to sound better on paper but it is a whole different story when potential clients can hear people singing from the mountain tops about their amazing experience working with you.

Connect:
Making connections is what it is all about but it is more than just names on a list. You need to interact to make the most of the medium.

• Lock and Load
  Add connections from your address book or search people out based on past work history. You have to start building your connections at home before you can expect to be found. And once you make your base connections you can expand your web by reaching out to people they may know. And then they’ll tell two fronds and so on and so on and so on.
• Get Onboard
  And if you are a business owner, get your employees involved and leverage their connections as well because you never know where you might find that next project.
• Follow up
  Keeping top of mind with people only requires you to keep your eyes open. Listen to what your connections are saying and drop a quick note congratulating them on recent promotions or other events notated in their LinkedIn account. It will start a dialog that will make you more memorable.

Socialize:
Get your other social networking involved to help spread the word.

• Twitter
  Integrate your twitter feed into your profile to let people see what you are putting out there and give them an opportunity to follow your musings on a regular basis.
• Blog
  Integrate your blog as well (if you have one) so people get all the info they need about your and what you offer in one place. Give them more than they bargained for and take advantage of the captive audience to dazzle them with your thought leading brilliance.
• Trip-It
  If you travel a lot for business set yourself up on Trip-It so you can easily make sure people know where you are going and how long you will be there. That way you can kill two birds with once stone by setting up meetings with new potential clients while you are in the area.

Contribute:
As with any social network, what you get out of it largely depends on what you put into it so make a contribution.

• Say it don’t spray it
  Use updates to give useful info, not just propaganda. Become a resource for people looking for your expertise. Best case you can become a thought leader on certain subjects and worst case you can provide information that can be a tipping point for determining whether or not your get a call. Either way you can never go wrong with providing useful information.
• Get in with the In Crowd
  You will find a great many groups in Linked-In that cover a multitude of topics from Alumni associations to highly segments industry specific cabals. Find a group that makes sense for you and join. But don’t just join, in order to make the most of this type of interaction you need to participate. Join the conversation. Give your two cents and who knows you might just strike up a conversation with someone who is looking for you.
• Sing for Your Supper
  The recommendation train runs both ways. Don’t be stingy! Make sure you are helping your connections the way they are helping you. And if you are still felling a little bit selfish,  keep in ind that writing recommendations can be just as useful as getting them yourself. What you say about working with other people says as much or more than the what others say about you. Remember, you never know what circuitous route a connection may take on its way to you. Someone could be looking for something completely different, read a recommendation you posted and realize that what they really need is a person like you for a totally unrelated project.

Do the Math
Connections through liked-in are like playing 6-degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon. You start out knowing a few people in the far-flung reaches of the world and the next thing you know the Bacon Brothers are playing for your next birthday party. Lets put it in perspective. I only have 141 direct connections through linked-in but those 141 connections actually balloon up to a potential 36,600 connections and that is only going a few layers deep. Just think how many that would be if I actually had to go more than 2 degrees to get to Kevin Bacon? Going all six would yield be a crazy number of connections.

The bottom line is that there is too much business potential to ignore so get it in gear, optimize your account, load those contacts and start some business conversations.

Every entrepreneur wants to build their business but most new businesses have to be very lean in order to get off the ground. Unfortunately for most businesses that means doing without key things that can help their business thrive but that does not have to be the case. Just because you do not have the specific skills needed for a task and you cannot afford to have a full or even part-time employee around to get the things done that you need does not mean that you have to do without. There are inexpensive options available to give you the help you need so you can focus more on the business of building your business.

Picture it, your office, now. You, focusing on meeting your clients needs while your daily office/business needs are effortlessly handled by an unseen force? It is an amazing feeling right? You, focusing on the stuff that made you want to start your own business in the first place, not a care in the world. Sound too good to be true? What could this amazing unseen force be? It is none other than your Virtual Assistant. That’s right, your heard me…Virtual. And I am not talking about The H.A.L 9000 or some scary SkyNet kind of thing that will take your data in a desperate plot to take over the world. I am talking about highly skilled professionals working from home that can remotely help your back office run at peak efficiency.

Think about it like hiring a temp from an agency but rather than getting basic computer skills and the task for providing office space and equipment, you get someone with experience doing exactly what you need done who provides their own equipment and can help you at just about any hour of the day (within reason of course). You can find VA’s with skills that run the gamut from very broad skill sets to help you take care of stuff that piles up and keeps you from getting to more important things to very narrow specializations to help you with more of a surgical focus and everything in-between.

Need someone to answer the phones so you can get out for a few hours a day unencumbered?
No problem. There are many ways in which your local business calls can be routed to a VA so they make appointments, take messages or anything else you require.

Perhaps you have great marketing ideas and have no clue hoe to implement them?
That’s not a problem either. You can find marketing writers to help with your website and other marketing content.

Does Social Networking completely elude you?
You are covered there too with social media experts who can not only get you setup with the likes of Facebook and Twitter but will also keep it updated for you to keep your presence fresh.

Bookkeeping not really your bag, baby?
You can find a VA to handle your payables and receivables to ensure that you are always in good standing with your vendors while making sure that your clients are in good standing with you.

Web Guys getting you down?
You can even find someone to make your website updates for you so you don’t have to pay outrageous maintenance costs to unscrupulous web developers.

And instead of paying for someone 25-40 hours a week, you only pay for the time you use and the rates are very reasonable. So what all can you get? The sky’s the limit. If there is a need, chances are the is a VA out the that is specializing in easing that pain.

• General Office Assistance
• Calendar Management
• Bookkeeping
• Travel
• Research
• Document Maintenance
• Business Writing
• Marketing Writing
• Blog Writing
• Webinars / Teleseminars
• Email Newsletters
• Website Maintenance
• Social Media
• Search Engine Optimization

And the list goes on. If you need it done, chances are there is someone out there with the expertise you need, ready to help.

So what are you waiting for? You can get exactly the help you need without the unnecessary overhead so have a seat at the table, tuck in and help your business grow.

Companies spend years building their reputations but all of that work can be for naught if they don’t know how to manage it. I know what you are thinking, you have a great reputation for excellent products and outstanding customer service, but the reputation you have cultivated with your loyal customers over the years may not be the same thing that potential clients are seeing online. The main reason for this is that once something gets loose on the Net it is almost (if not completely) impossible to remove.

All it takes is one negative blog posting on a popular site and new prospects might overlook you out of hand because that negative posting about your inferior quality products or your non-existent customer service is showing up with higher rankings than your well designed, fully optimized corporate site. This type of information can hang around long after they are posted whether or not they were ever true or have since been fixed. And although these things may never go away completely, there are things that can be done to mitigate their impact:

1. Control the message
   The key to any reputation management plan is to control the message. Make sure that all of your online communications follow the same guidelines. Wherever the company is mentioned, it should always be portrayed in the same light which means knowing what is being said on Blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other online outlets is a must. It is a big job but you need to set aside time to review these sites every week.
2. What to monitor?
   Find a group of blogs or other social medial outlets to monitor. Not just your company but competition, industry as a whole and messages to see what is resonating. You can usually start this with a simple Google search to see what is going on in your space. But don’t stop there, it is also a good idea to keep en eye on employee blogs and personal websites to identify possible internal risks to your online reputation as well.
3. Making sense of it all
   Not all conversations will affect the company. Focus on the ones that impact perception. Make note of the audience impacted using each platform as a guide (Twitter=followers, Facebook=Fans, etc). Know what is being said and to whom so you can determine the best way to respond.

Once you are set controlling, monitoring and interpreting, you will be ready if things go south and you suddenly find yourself facing some high-ranking negative information. If this happens, you can use social media to set it right again. Time is of the essence and with the recent roll out of Google’s Caffeine, and the fact that you have been paying attention, you can now make a bigger impact even faster. Keeping track of your online reputation allows you to take out those negative blips before they fester into any significant business impact by pushing them down to the level of insignificance in the search engines.