Posts

Posted on

Bing and Facebook Grow Closer

If you haven’t noticed, let me bring your attention to this point, Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, and Facebook are growing closer together every day. First, Bing powered the web searches on Facebook. Now Bing has a social component that is accessing activity on yours and your friends Facebook accounts.

The most recent integration is found at this link on Bing. When you activate the service you will allow Bing to show friends’ interests and links as a social component on Bing.com right in the search results. Watch the video here and you’ll get the low down on what Bing is pulling from Facebook. In essence, once you allow the sharing of information, you will see your Facebook friends’ faces in Bing search results. You will see local reviews and pages that your friends have liked all at Bing.com. One of the best parts on sharing is that you are in control and can turn this feature on and off.

With Facebook hating on Google right now, this is a very important alliance both for Bing and for Facebook. I expect more integration further down the road. Who knows, Bing and Facebook may end up sharing advertising and tracking as well in the future, but for now, they are both working to actively lock Google out of the potentially lucrative social component of search and sharing.

Posted on

Using the Microsoft Online Fix It Center

I know computers, but I am not a computer geek like my husband. Although I can fix many things that happen to my computer with a Google search and some time, there are times when the instructions are too complicated or simply over my head. There are other times when I wish I could just click a button and my computer would fix itself. If you’re like me, you may want to check out the new improved, Microsoft Online Fix It Center.

This online tool created by Microsoft fixes your computer with one click, or nearly that. For example if IE 9 is acting flaky and you need to reset all settings that would typically require multiple steps and changes to multiple settings, the Fix It Tool can do it all for you with one or two clicks.

Here are some of the things that the Fix It tool can correct, but there are more and the repairs are personalized to what your computer needs. Here’s a great tool that will help you know what it can fix: http://support.microsoft.com/fixit/

  1. Fix IE 9 issues like settings and display.
  2. Repair missing icon images on your desktop.
  3. Provides preventative care services
  4. Restores tool bar icons and start menus
  5. Windows Aero Glass visual effects are not working or displayed.
  6. Diagnose and repair Windows File and Folder Problems automatically.
  7. Fix broken desktop shortcuts and common system maintenance tasks.
  8. Your CD or DVD drive can’t read or write media.
  9. Fix Windows system performance problems on slow Windows computers.
  10. Diagnose and repair sound recording problems automatically.

So if you are busy like me, don’t have the computer know-how you need, you need to try out the Microsoft Fix It tool today. You can find the tool here: http://fixitcenter.support.microsoft.com/Portal or browse the listings here: http://support.microsoft.com/fixit/. Fixing your computer has never been easier with these great personalized and automated tools from Microsoft.

Posted on

Google+ and Sparks

If you have not tried out Google+ yet contact me with your GMail or Google account ID and I will send you an invitation if you cannot sign up. I am not totally sure that Google+ will replace Facebook or Twitter but so far I am having fun playing around with it. One of the interesting things about Google+ is the Sparks section.

This section is kind of like the old AOL keyword section or Technorati’s blog sections. Twitter has something similar to Sparks too.  Sparks are Google derived best items grouped by categories. I haven’t found out how you get your own content into the Sparks section as it appears totally Google controlled for now, but if you make it there the traffic could be huge.

With Sparks being easy to read and interesting newsy current articles all on one theme, you can go into information over load if you are not careful. You can even create your own Sparks categories by entering in a short keyword phrase. How and why Google chooses to return certain sites, blogs, or articles is unknown, but may potentially hold the key to not only big traffic but good organic placement.

My feeling so far about Google+ is mixed. I like the interface, but no one I really want to connect with is really there right now, not even family members or co-workers. I see the potential, but it may simply be too hard to get people to move out of Facebook and into Google+. There are just no really big incentives to move right now.

What has your impression of Google+ been so far if you have been using it? Do you like it? Do you think you will stick with it or drift back to Twitter and Facebook?

Posted on

Your Bounce Rate on Google Analytics

This past month if you are sharing your website statistical data with Google Analytics, they emailed you a very interesting aggregate report on bounce rates. Here is an executive snapshot:

 

Traffic Sources

Pages / Visit

Bounce Rate

Avg Time on Site
Direct 4.0
(-0.5)		 47.2%
(-4.0%)		 5:21
(-0:07)
Referral 5.0
(+0.1)		 43.1%
(-1.1%)		 6:36
(-1:48)
Organic
Search		 4.9
(-0.1)		 47.9%
(-1.1%)		 4:43
(+0:06)
CPC
Search		 5.6
(+0.0)		 41.4
(-1.7%)		 3:57(+0:07)

What is very interesting is the industry average of typical bounce rates in the report. If your site has a bounce rate higher than these, it is definitely time to review your website content or at least evaluate if you may have a potential problem to address.

Another interesting trend noted was the time on a typical website and bounce rate has decreased for websites on the average this past year.

“Compared to a year ago, websites have seen reduced pages / visit, average time on site, as well as bounce rate.”

11/1/09 – 2/1/10

11/1/10 – 2/1/11

Difference
Pages/Visit 4.9 4.5 -0.4
Bounce
Rate		 48.2% 47.0% -1.2%
Avg
Time on Site		 5:49 5:23 -0:26

If your site is not stacking up to these global aggregate averages it may be time to adjust your message, review the informational value that you provide to readers, and change your focus of being self centric to user centric in your content. In some cases you may have a high bounce rate that you do not need to be concerned with based on the pages involved. For example, I have some informational white papers on my website that have high bounce rates. These pages are really built to generate links and draw in traffic. The people that come to visit may never be interested in my services, but I still like having the information and helpful content there for readers for a big picture.

Some of you may be asking why should I care about bounce rate?

Well first the bounce rate is the percentage of readers that hit your page and then surf off immediately; meaning they did not find what they were looking for on your website. If you have a high bounce rate for cost per click advertising it means keywords need to be immediately reviewed and some potentially dropped. If you are not using pay per click but rather your bounce rate is high for organic searches it may be that you should rework content with new keywords that are more specific to the services that you are offering instead of general terms. Check first to see what pages are involved first don’t just start changing things.

What I personally found interesting was that we finally have some benchmarks to compare sites to for evaluation of health as industry averages. I am going to check out my website stats right now to see how I personally stack up, how about you?