^^^cool, I really appreciate the response!
I'm almost at the 2 month mark so I'll keep an eye on things, I guess if the google drop hasn't already happened it will happen fairly soon.
thanks for the link as well, I'm part of another forum but that one focuses more on 'big box' camming, so gfy is a bit of a goldmine when it comes to the webmaster end of the business. I have most of the 'educational series' section here bookmarked
I'd bookmarked the thread you linked but I hadn't really focused on the bounce rate aspect. Right now my bounce rate is 40%, but I don't know if my tendency to link new customers (some of whom find me in places other than on my website) right to my booking page is factoring into that (as in, even when they book a show they'll still contribute to 'bounce' just because they don't visit any other page during that visit). I've been really trying to target traffic who would want what I'm offering, as having a ton of people NOT interested in what I offer messaging me only serves to waste my time and theirs. I'm going to try linking new customers who find me elsewhere to the main page of my website to see if that lowers my bounce rate before I make any other changes, not so much for google, but to see if my stratgey (of targeting people who actually want what I offer) is working the way I think it is. I'll test that out for a bit, and if the bounce rate is still high I'll start tweaking my marketing strategy
Interacting with customers and potential customers takes alot of time, so I'd rather have 10 out of 15 people visit my site per day and book shows than have 15 out of 100 people do so. In my situation the quality of traffic (which I'm assuming a lower bounce rate would reflect) is way more important than the overall number of visitors, so I'm definitely going to keep an eye on that.
thanks again for taking the time to write! your comments have been incredibly helpful, and you answered a question I hadn't even thought to ask
peace and $$$$