Digital Marketing Blog

Not All Links are Created Equal

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:43:00 GMT

Search Engines evaluate who is linking to your website to determine how relevant your website is within your industry. Pages that are linked to more frequently are weighted higher by search engines and are more likely to be visited.

Inbound links or “back links” are considered a vote of confidence for your website. Therefore getting “quality links” is an integral part of ranking higher than your competitors on the search engines.

Quality Links:

Come from popular websites in a related industry.
Links from higher ranking pages are worth more than miscellaneous links.
Links that appear higher up in a page are more valuable than links that appear on the bottom of the page in the footer.
Pages that have large numbers of links may be diluted and less authoritative.
“Anchor Text” matters. The actual words that link to your webpage are important. For example, linking the phrase “internet marketing orange county” to my website is more effective for me than linking the words “Click Here”.

Where do Quality Links come from?
Sadly there is no silver bullet. A certain amount of links will develop naturally over time, but unless you have a very popular site to begin with, playing the waiting game won’t work. Buying links for a link farm typically doesn’t work well either. Those links are typically low quality and can get you into trouble over the long run due to their dubious source.

The first step (the only step I’m going to cover in this post) is to locate sources of quality links. I want to focus on the low hanging fruit:

Websites that already link to you
Websites that link to your competitors

In each case it is safe to assume that websites that link to you or your competitors probably link to sites that are relevant to you. Because those sites are relevant to your market, it is safe to assume that sites that link to THEM are also relevant to you and are probably also good link prospects.

There are a variety of methods for tracking down specific links to your site and to the sites of your competitors. The most efficient method is to use professional software that is designed for that specific task. Two that we user are Wordtracker and Web CEO. Keep in mind that there is a learning curve to use them correctly. There is also the associated expense of purchasing the tools, and the time to follow through with the results. I’ll cover that on an upcoming post.

What is a Long Tailed Keyword… and why do I want one?

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 21:43:00 GMT

No the keyword “alligator” would not qualify… unless of course you sold alligators. Even then that single word is not what I am referring to.

“alligator shoes” is better, but not quite the long tail I was looking for. How about “alligator shoes for women”? Now we’re heading in the right direction….

Long Tail Keywords are search phrases that combine 3 or more words. They will get fewer clicks, but they are typically less competitive (facilitating higher page positioning) and more targeted, resulting in a higher conversion rate.

Let’s take something that I am a little more familiar with: “website marketing”. If you were to search on that single keyword you wouldn’t be alone. That word does get a lot of hits, but not everyone with the word “website” on their website has anything to do with website marketing. Your search results would turn up websites that promote:

Website Design
Website Hosting
Website portfolios
Nothing to do with anything
Etc.

“website marketing” is better, but still awful competitive, and not nearly as targeted as it can be. Although my staff and I work with companies all over the Country, people have a tendency to geotarget their searches. Therefore “website marketing california” would be more appropriate for me. There would be fewer searches, but the quality of those searches would be much better.

“website marketing company orange county” is about as long-tailed as you want to get. The number of search results that I am competing with goes down from about 192 million for “website marketing” to fewer than 300 thousand, AND I can be assured that whoever is doing the searching is targeting someone in my area for a reason.

There are 4 things that I want you to take away from this article:

For every word that you add to your keyword phrase, there will be fewer searches conducted.
For every word that you add to your keyword phrase, there will be fewer competitors in the search results.
For every word that you add to your keyword phrase, there is one more opportunity to target your service or location.
No alligators were harmed during the posting of this blog

At the end of the day, I would rather have 5% of the traffic from 300,000 searches than 0% of the traffic from 192 million searches.

How much is Your Customers Life Worth?

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 16:19:00 GMT

No I’m not talking about a contract hit or an intervention. I’m talking about looking at a more appropriate way to measure your online marketing ROI.

A typically mistake most marketers make is to overlook the amount of revenue a customer brings in over the lifetime relationship. This info is important to track because it indicates how valuable each new customer is, and what it is worth spending to attract them. It also lets you know just how good your customer retention program is and how much you should invest in that.

The simple way to measure the Average lifetime value of a customer is: Total value of sales / Total number of customers.

Once you have an idea about how profitable each new customer is likely to be, you can make better decisions about allocating your online marketing budget. If the lifetime value of a new client is very high, then you can afford higher acquisition costs to obtain new customers.

One of our clients, Chris, from Oregon Mushrooms grasped this concept immediately. Years ago she told me that she didn’t care if she lost a little bit of money on each new customer because her product was unique, her service was great, and the average customer reordered every few months indefinitely.

In fact, we’ve been running her PPC and SEO programs for years, and over time her cost per acquisition has actually gone down as we fine-tuned her Pay-Per-Click program and our Search Engine Optimization efforts have matured.

I’m thinking the “intervention” should be reserved for the business that doesn’t measure the lifetime value of a new client. Oh-and Chris? She never did lose money on any of her Internet Marketing efforts.

SEO Programs v. SEO Events

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:44:00 GMT

One-time search engine optimizations are rarely effective unless they are for a localized “niche” or non-competitive market that is tightly geo-targeted (like a chiropractor doing business in a single town). Just putting your meta-tags into the code is still considered industry best practice, but in actuality has very little influence on how search engines rank you.

Search engines now take a very holistic approach to how they view the significance of a website and how they will rank it. Directory listings, Social media, Customer reviews are all part of the mix now. If I were to list all of the factors on this post it would turn into an eBook, so I want to focus on a few of the “big chunks” that are foundational:

Content: Search engines look for lots of balanced content. Their theory is the more content about a certain subject, the more of an authority you must be. It is not just sheer quantity of copy (although that is a factor), but the quality of the copy which has more impact. The search engines look at “keyword Density” or the ratio of keyword usage to total volume. The content has to be written very specifically and focus on no more than 1-3 keywords maximum.
Internal Linking Structure: Search Engines want to be able to “spider” the entire website by following the links from one page to another. We use a “silo” structure to leverage all the focus onto the Home page or landing page. Although I have to admit that recently even these pages are starting to rank independently (so they have to be more than SEO pages, they have to be marketing pages as well).
External Linking: The theory is “the more people who link to you, the more of an authority you must be”. Each link is essentially a vote for your website. However not all links are factored in. only quality links really move the needle. Quality links are links from other high ranking websites and directories. Reciprocal links (linking back and forth to each other) do not count nearly as much. They don’t hurt, but they don’t help as much as you think.
Consistency: Search engines reward consistency and penalize blatant attempts to manipulate them. This is a major factor in why one-time optimization events are largely ineffective. If you suddenly flooded your website with content and links that appear to come out of nowhere, the search engines will find that unnatural and flag you.

We typically put together a “content blueprint” that actually defines what is to be done and when. How many pages of content, how many blog postings, how many incoming links will be solicited, how many customer reviews we can cultivate, etc.

If you need instant traffic, turn to Pay-Per-Click (PPC), it’s the fastest surest technique for driving traffic. If you want long-term value, be prepared to engage in a Search Engine Optimization program, not just a SEO event.

Are you crazy? Why should I bid on my own name?

Wed, 22 Sep 2010 20:31:00 GMT

We run a tremendous amount of Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns for our clients. Sometimes it’s part of an integrated marketing strategy, sometimes it’s for initial data collection prior to launching an organic Search Engine Optimization Campaign, and sometimes it is a standalone strategy.

Sooner or later our clients discover that they show up on the search results for their own name and they want to know why we are bidding on something that no one else would want. Well there are actually two reasons:

Search Engine Marketing
Reputation Management

We run hundreds of search marketing campaigns and view just as many analytics reports, and I can tell you a good portion of searches for any business is on their own business name and even the names of individuals in their business.

Why? Because it is the fastest, easiest way to locate your contact info or to research your company. It is also the easiest way to run a free background check on your business (or on you). What shows up on those search results is also known as your online reputation and can persuade a consumer to purchase your product or service, or buy from one of your competitors.

Bidding on your business category is obvious when it comes to search engine marketing (ex: Los Angeles maid service) if you want to show up in a paid ad when someone is looking for your type of products or services. However it’s just as important to bid on your own business name keywords (ex: “Mary’s maid service”). Here are some reasons why:

Your Competition:

Why should you bid on your own name? Because your competition is! By some accounts leading brands only receive about 87% of traffic from their business name keyword searches. The remaining 13% are “poached” by their competitors. Why? Because a popular brand name makes for great search bait! Even if you are not yet a household name, there are people searching for you. Do you really want them to find your direct competitors instead?

Search Page Domination:

There is a good chance that you will show up towards the top of the organic search results for your own business name simply because your business name is probably prominent throughout the website content. However Google tells us that when you show up in both the natural results and the paid results the click-through-rate (CTR) is expediential… not just the sum of both. Why? Well for one thing every time you show up on the first page, you just displaced someone else. But more importantly you just branded the page with your presence.

Manage the Message:

Paid listings offer a precise degree of control over exactly what the search results say, and exactly what page on your website it links to. Someone searching for your business by name can now be directed to a special landing page promoting a seasonal special, new product or services or even a rewards or discount program. If they were looking for you in the first place, controlling what they see is a huge opportunity to convert them in to your next customer.

Common Business Names:

I just searched for “john smith productions” and there were well over 9,000,000 search results! Unfortunately for John Smith number eleven, only the first 10 guys will ever get any traffic. But there is hope for John Smith eleven… there was absolutely zero paid search results. That means even John Smith number nine million could jump to the head of the line for just pennies per click.

Cost Effective Placement:

Lots of businesses in your space are bidding on the same business category keywords, but only a handful of devious competitors may bid on your name. In most cases the search engines will realize that it is actually your name, and give you the best position at the best price because they deem you more relevant.

Reputation Management:

A negative review looks worse when there are lots of them. The trick it to dilute negative results with more positive results to diffuse the overall impact. Bidding on your name (and variations thereof) is a no brainer.

The Big Boys Know why:

Well if you are not convinced by now, consider that even the biggest brands such as Walmart, Apple and Verizon bid on their own keywords. It’s not like they wouldn’t show up on the top of the organic results for their own brand names. Yet they understand the value of locking out their competition by dominating the search engine results page. They’ve paid marketing companies millions of dollars to figure this out. Now you didn’t have to pay anything…

Your Website is a 3-Leged Stool!

Tue, 21 Sep 2010 21:50:00 GMT

OK… I can explain this…sort of;

A successful Internet marketing campaign is like a 3-legged stool. It needs all 3 legs to remain balanced… and useful:

The Internet is a very visual medium. It requires a reasonable degree of artistic aptitude to ensure that even at a sub-conscience level you are positioned as a professional organization.
The internet is a technical medium. New technology is constantly providing us with new opportunities to market our clients more effectively…The more technically sophisticated the Internet becomes, the more opportunity there is to focus on the third leg of the stool, which is BUSINESS.
The Internet Means Business. Face it, the internet is nothing if it isn’t the greatest commerce engine ever conceived.

If all 3 legs don’t measure up you’re going to have a pretty rocky situation. The issue is that most individuals are either left brained or right brained… They either have a creative aptitude or a technical aptitude. Few individuals posses both. That’s why most successful projects have historically been done by teams… not individuals.

The problem is that sometimes even teams with talented individuals covering all three legs have a hard time knowing where the hand-offs are. At the risk of forcing this analogy…that’s where the “seat” of the stool comes in (work with me here). Te “seat” is a systematic approach to managing a website development, landing page implementation, and Internet marketing projects.

Before aligning yourself with any digital marketing company, make sure they have a standardized procedure with repeatable steps. Such as (you guessed it), the WSI Internet Solutions Lifecycle.

If they have a cool graphic like ours over there on the right, they may have actually put some thought into developing a viable system. If not, they may have a systematic approach but I would be sure to ask about their procedures for managing a project before I (here it comes) sit on their stool.

If All You Have is a Hammer… Everything Looks Like a Nail

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:48:00 GMT

No I didn’t make that up, but I can’t think of a better way to say that as an Internet Marketing Professional it’s essential to have the right tools for the job.

In preparation for our Excellence & Innovation Conference this week in Miami, I will be sharing a variety of my most useful tools that my team uses to give our clients a competitive advantage. In particular I want to highlight one of my favorite analytical tools, the WSI WebScan™.

Individual tests cover many areas, including spelling, broken links, speed, optimization of keywords and much more – over 30 tests in total.

Results are summarized into 5 areas:

1. Search: how well optimized the website is for search engines like Google and Yahoo

2. Content: how well written the content is

3. Quality: how well built the website is

4. Accessibility: how accessible the website is to users with disabilities

5. Site: overall, how good the website is.

The technology behind WebScan was originally developed for FORTUNE 100 companies to test thousands of high-profile websites worldwide. WSI has since acquired exclusive access to this technology and made it available to our clients.

WebScan is now used to test over 10,000 websites each month in over 10 countries. The technology continues to be used by a huge range of websites, from corporations to small businesses, and is updated monthly with the latest in best practice.

All of our consultants are familiar with this tool, but I will be sharing unique ways to utilize the data in combination with other tools that I will be highlighting to the network.

If you would like to see a sample WebScan™ or request one, contact your WSI consultant, or just click here

Reputation Management…The Most Unambiguous Phrase On The Internet

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:20:00 GMT

OK…so you’re running a responsible, reputable business and you catch your bookkeeper with her hands in the till. You fire her…as you should, and threaten prosecution.

Next thing you know negative reviews about you and/or your company start showing up on Yelp, or whatever review sites are out there for you particular industry (and there are more out there than you realize). Counterfeit Facebook pages using your name and making you look like a jerk start showing up in the search results. If you are looking for a real life example check out this reputation nightmare.

Whether you’ve been victimized as an innocent business owner... or you really are a jerk is irrelevant. Your reputation, and now your business is at stake.

Reputation Management is something that must be monitored and managed, and besides…it just sounds cool. In any event it is one of the most unambiguous terms regarding the Internet that I can think of. There is nothing pretentious about it.

Where do you start?

Well let’s start by getting past the denial phase:

First; you might actually be a jerk. Come to terms with that and seek help.
Second; you are now officially in a world of hurt. Come to terms with that and seek help.

The Internet is forever. Nothing goes away…it can only be buried by other information that is deemed more relevant or more current by the search engines or it may be “diluted” by more favorable postings on review sites. The trick is to push negative results off the first page of search results, or dilute negative comments with a slew of positive recommendations.

The antidote is fairly time consuming, but the alternative is most certainly devastating. We monitor countless amounts or data for our clients, and you would be shocked by how many searches are conducted specifically on the name of an individual or the name of the company instead of just the service they offer.

Stay tuned. Because over the next week or so I’m going to go over a few things you can do for yourself, and some things that are best left for a professional reputation management company.

What Do You Want To Be When You Grow Up?

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:54:00 GMT

While I’ve been waiting for that call from the NY Yankees to shore up that third base position, I managed to carve out a pretty good living in the Internet marketing world over the last decade or so. I didn’t really do it all myself. I did it with the help of about 1500 of my closest friends.

WSI is an Internet Marketing franchise that I’ve been with since 1999. They asked me to do a webinar for a few of their candidates who are considering the opportunity. I thought I would share that with you:

https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/432600209

If this is something that you truly interested in, give me a call at (949) 481-0728, and I’ll walk you through it. If the phone is busy, it’s probably just the Yankee front office. I’ll get back to you.

Internet Company Cuts Franchise Deal For Vets

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:59:00 GMT

After his last day of active duty on Oct. 31, 2006, Darren Kincaid stumbled upon a good lead while doing a job search – one that led him to his current job with long-time friend Mark D’Etcheverry.

Since January 2007, the duo has worked for a Toronto-based company called We Simplify the Internet. They bring in about $750,000 a year through their WSI franchise in Virginia Beach. Now they want to spread the word to retired vets looking for job opportunities, like they were.

WSI, an Internet marketing solutions company founded in the mid-1990s and serving small to medium-sized businesses, is hoping to recruit fresh talent through its program, Investing in America.

The program was designed to encourage young entrepreneurs to franchise and also give back to their communities. Franchisees in the program will be required to participate in “various charitable acts,” according to a WSI press release.

WSI also established a deal that slashes the cost of franchising in half for veterans - from $49,700 to $24,700. Due to Kincaid and D’Etcheverry’s success story, the company will offer 30 franchise opportunities for vets.

“It’s really designed to go after people that may be financially disadvantaged,” said Kincaid about the recruit program. “As they separate from the military, they may not be able to afford a franchise opportunity. It’s really aimed at bringing in high-quality people for a reasonable cost.”

Kincaid is the CEO for their WSI franchise; D’Etcheverry is the CFO. The business partners have seven employees, including their Virginia Beach operation, where they work from home, and locations in Massachusetts and in the Philippines.

Kincaid and D’Etcheverry are licensed to operate under WSI from Fredericksburg to Southeastern Virginia. Their partners are licensed to operate in other areas their business covers.

Kincaid said one of the best things about the business is the flexibility it affords employees.

“Through technology these days you can basically work from anywhere,” he said. “Mark and I even worked off our sailboat for a week. We enjoy skiing vacations and take our work with us.”

While business has been good for the two, D’Etcheverry admitted they’ve faced challenges, like most entrepreneurs coming into a business new to them.

“Our business model is based on a slow-growth concept,” D’Etcheverry said. “One of the things that WSI is promoting is depth-of-network support.

“Although we both came out of a technology-related element of the military, there was some experience devoid in our skill set.”

D’Etcheverry and Kincaid both worked in the information technology and electronic communications sectors of the Air Force.

Still, D’Etcheverry said that over the last year and a half, they have not had to go out and solicit clients. Business has, for the most part, come to them through referrals.

Tammy Glover, the vice president of Tidewater Custom Modular Homes Inc., heard about the team’s WSI services about three years ago through a local insurance agent that recommended them.

“They designed our website,” Glover said. “We had a website previously to that, but they helped us pinpoint areas where the site was being slowed down.”

TCMH builds custom modular homes, and is a Carrollton-based contractor for Handcrafted Homes Inc. in Henderson, N.C.

Since most of TCMH’s business comes from the Internet, Glover said that WSI’s services made a significant impact on the company.

“We’ve been very pleased with our business,” Glover said. “I’d say 90 percent of our business comes from our Internet site. The presentation is nice and it loads quickly, which is what people want.

“Without the Internet I don’t know how our business would be. It’s kept us afloat even in the slow market.”

Kincaid mentioned other business challenges including staying within a set budget and the time it took to gain the skills to be considered expert in Internet marketing. The upside to franchising, he said, is there’s always a network behind you.

“Any early shortfalls or limitations in knowledge or skill is offset by the WSI network,” Kincaid said, “which has highly skilled people and a network to help out.”

By Danielle Walker
danielle.walker@insidebiz.com

“Investing in America” – Army Veteran Makes Good as Internet Consultant

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:56:00 GMT

In the spirit of WSI’s one-of-a-kind franchise opportunity – the “Investing in America”Program – we are recognizing some of the extraordinary individuals whoare already a part of the WSI Franchise Network. And since one of the exclusive groups that this special program is available to is American Military Veterans, one particular WSI Consultant that comes to mind is Army Veteran, Ron Packer.

Based out of California, Ron welcomed the challenge to open a WSI franchise back in 2003 and has since been able to build and maintain a profitable Internet Consulting business. Notably, Ron’s success continues, even in the face of the economic challenges across the United States. And comparatively, helping to re-build the economy is one of the very philosophies behind the creation of Investing in America. Ron is one of the exceptional entrepreneurs who have recognized a formula for success that will excel even in difficult economic circumstances.

“WSI continues to provide additional tools and knowledge that help me update my business model, and they’ve given me the opportunity to work cooperatively with other franchisees and vendors. WSI definitely provides the framework for success.” – Ron Packer

And in relation to the group of US Military veterans that this WSI franchise opportunity is geared toward, Ron has an admirable history with 5 years on active duty in the Army and 21 in the Reserves. It was this experience that acted as a large contributing factor in his path to owning a WSI franchise. You might even say that his Military background instilled in him essential experience to be successful in the world of digital marketing.

“My experience in the Military gave me the skills I needs to operate a WSI franchise. I had the ability to work with disparate teams of people, help identify specific goals and objectives, and develop, implement and coordinate projects.” – Ron Packer

Though this program speaks to the unique abilities of Military veterans, and works to improve the poor economy, Ron is also the perfect example of someone who has fulfilled the third objective of the Investing in America Program: he continuously aims to “pay it forward.”

“All you have to add is personal initiative, ethics and the ability to work with people. As a small business owner, I am more closely aligned with the local community than at any other time in my career.” – Ron Packer

It is individuals like Ron Packer and the success they’ve accomplished as a WSI franchisee that have inspired us in this program’s creation and has assured us that a program like Investing in America has been a long time coming!

If you are a young entrepreneur or a military veteran and are interested in receiving more information regarding the Investing in America Program, please visit our site.

Guest Blogging for Credibility

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:31:00 GMT

Blogging is one of the best ways to increase your Internet exposure and establish yourself as an industry leader. Being a “guest blogger” on someone else’s blog just increases your reach that much more. Not only does it give you instant exposure to someone else’s audience and associate you with other highly respected bloggers, it provides a valuable link back to your web property. Everyone wins; the blog gets some fresh new interesting content, and the guest blogger gets more exposure for their own blog, website, brand or products.

Just remember that this isn’t a secret. Many other talented subject authorities are seeking the same exposure on the top blogs. So how do you differentiate yourself and snag one of those prime guest blogging spots? Here are a few tips:

  Understand the Blog…Know your audience: Yes, you might actually want to READ the blog you are soliciting BEFORE writing your articles. Popular topics evolve and if yours is of no interest to the owner or the readers your blogging request will be denied.  Go back a few months and get a feel for the theme and the direction of the topics being discussed. Don’t pitch topics that have already been covered unless you have an interesting rebuttal or a completely different take on the subject.

Know the Rules of the Road: Not all blogs are looking for guest bloggers, so if it’s evident they don’t, you might be able to pitch them the idea. If they do accept guest bloggers, they might actually have blogging guidelines posted on their site. If you break the rules before you get started, chances are you won’t be taken seriously by the managers and you will probably blow the opportunity.

  Write First, Ask Later: The more popular the blog, the busier the blog managers. Don’t bother going through a long relationship building courtship…get right to it. Just write the article (after assuring yourself that it is appropriate) and send it to them. If they like it, they publish it and no one has to jump through too many hoops. If they don’t like… shop it around to another blog, or use it yourself.

Credibility… Credibility… Credibility: This may be obvious, but and article written by an industry expert will carry more weight than just a random person with an opinion. Along with submitting your initial article, make sure that you explain why you are qualified to write on a certain topic or how you can bring a fresh new perspective to that topic.

Write an Interesting Headline: There is so much information out there that people no longer read…they scan. That goes for busy blog editors as well as curious readers. Think about your own reading habits when surfing the Internet. We all do the same thing…we scan headlines and move on until something catches our eye. That’s when we take the time to read the article. Write something amusing, witty, mysterious, shocking, or even a question that infers an answer in the article.

Who knows…maybe you will be one of those rare guests who are invited to stay…

Reputation Management…Responding to Negative Reviews

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:33:00 GMT

Congratulations! Now your business is on Google Places, Yahoo! or Bing Local, or Yelp. You just became more visible…and more vulnerable.

Local business listings are becoming more and more popular, and more and more important. Your customers now have the ability to leave flattering comments about their experience with you. They also have the ability to leave scathing reviews about their experience.

Of course the optimal situation is to run your business so perfectly that you will never feel the wrath of a dissatisfied customer. Assuming that you and the people who work for you are just a few degrees short of perfect, you might want to have a policy as to how you respond to negative criticism. Here are a few pointers:

Take the High Road: Think about it, you aren’t going to win a public argument with a frustrated customer. Their experience was bad enough that they took the time to lash out. It isn’t as much about what they said, but how you respond that makes the difference.

Don’t Ignore it: No it’s not going away by itself. Ignoring an obvious problem only compounds the situation and declares that you just don’t care.

Don’t make it Personal: This is about an experience that your customer had, not about a direct attack on you. Remember there is a real person with real emotions on the other end. Address the problem…not the person. Most of these sites have posting guidelines, so if you believe the review violates those guidelines; you may be able to flag it as inappropriate.

Feedback is a Gift: Even if the customer was off-base with their comments, something set them off. Here is an opportunity to analyze the situation and make a long-term adjustment. You might find that the actual root-cause was a secondary event that wasn’t directly related to their complaint.

Rules of the Road

You can be as creative and innovative as you like in your response, but there are a few rules of the road you should follow:

1.   Be Courteous and Professional: You may think you are responding directly to one person, but in practice you are making a public statement.

2.   Less is More: Keep it short and sweet. Readers aren’t looking for a Tolstoy novel. They want to scan and move on. It’s your turn to deliver the message, make sure it’s easy to read.

3.   Be Grateful: This is an opportunity to show how you handle customer service issues, and to take legitimate customer concerns and make actual improvements in your business.
At the end of the day even negative reviews are an opportunity to bring a disgruntled customer back into the fold and mold public opinion. Don’t hide from it… embrace it!

PPC and SEO: Teaming up for Results

Mon, 20 Sep 2010 16:24:00 GMT

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) search marketing and search engine optimization (SEO) are two different strategies for achieving the same result: driving targeted traffic to your website. There is a common misconception that these strategies are independent of each other, often resulting in a search engine marketer relying completely on method at the expense of the other. Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. PPC drives faster results in terms of pure traffic because you have a tremendous amount of control over everything from the placement to exactly how the search result will appear to the searcher.

The disadvantage of PPC lies in its reliance in one specific factor… your advertising budget. The less money you spend… the less traffic you get. SEO on the other hand is the most cost-effective, long-term solution because after the initial optimization (and some on gong maintenance) your site could benefit from free traffic for an extended period of time. The challenge wit h SEO is that it requires a huge amount of initial research, diagnostics and optimizations to be successful. Even then SEO results are unpredictable because search engines are constantly updating their algorithms, and your competitors may be launching similar efforts to pursue those coveted top spots on the search results pages.

The contrasting differences between SEO and PPC can be leveraged into a comprehensive online marketing campaign. In fact, we often use PPC to monitor the results to help us with our keyword research to prepare our SEO program. With the help of a professional who knows how to leverage both strategies you should be able to drive long-term, cost effective SEO traffic and immediate, targeted paid traffic.

Why is Fresh Content So Important?

Tue, 18 Oct 2011 23:26:00 GMT

I received call from a noted cosmetic surgeon in Denver a few months back. His issue was that he was stopped and cited for a DWI (Driving While Intoxicated). This made the local newspaper (the online version) and despite the fact that he was acquitted, his business dropped off substantially.

I don’t know about you, but before someone takes a knife to my face I prefer they not be intoxicated. Apparently this is unavoidable in some pubs and taverns I’ve been to…but that is another story. In this case his potential patients easily found this out simply by Googling him by name.

He wanted to know how to make that article disappear. The problem is that content on the Internet is forever. You can’t make it disappear; you can only bury it onto deeper pages on the search results.

What makes this such a tough assignment is that the content came from a Newspaper website. That makes it extra challenging because by its very nature news sites are constantly updating their content and search engines give extra weight to pages that contain “fresh” page content. “Fresh” content refers to page content that updates regularly as opposed to being static.

A good example of this would be the home page of news sites like CNN.com. Essentially, the home page automatically updates whenever a new content page (a new article) is added. So do the links to other related articles.

It is important to consider fresh content when planning out your site architecture. The home page and all category-level pages should include a content element that will automatically update when new content pages are added. That is why Blogs and News modules have become so important.

And the Cosmetic Surgeon? In a fleeting sober moment he did the math and realized that the cost of a Reputation Management Program paled in comparison to the devastating effects of bad PR. It took a few weeks, but we were able to push the nasty article off the first page. Cosmetically enhanced faces in Denver are once again on the rise.

Don't Welcome Your Visitors

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 22:23:00 GMT

I think we can all agree that the Internet is not as shiny and new as it seemed a decade ago. Arriving on a website is no longer such a unique experience that you have to sacrifice the most valuable piece of real-estate (your top Headline) with “Welcome to Our Website!” Frankly, nobody cares….

If you want to make your visitors welcome, give them what they are looking for; A headline that lets them know they are in the right place.

Depending on personality type, you have 2-8 seconds before they decide to leave your site. There are very few things that you can almost guarantee they will look at during that time; one of them is… the Headline.

Statistically, women will read more than men, older people will read more than younger people, and few people will read your body copy unless they are intrigued by the headline. Heck, even search engines give your headlines (H1 tags) more weight when indexing your site.

Therefore your headline is arguably the most important element of your landing page. Don’t waste it!

Instead of “Welcome to our Website”, how about something interesting that will really welcome them like:

“Who Else Wants a Great Blog Template Design?”

Or…

“Here is a Method that is Helping Bloggers Write Better Post Titles”

Or…

“Get Rid of That Lame Mullet Hairdo Once and For All”

OK, maybe not the best examples off the top of my head, but you get the point. Any one of those headlines trumps the universally lame “Welcome to my Website”. If you are clever enough to weave a keyword or two into an interesting headline, search engines will be as interested in you as those lucky visitors who found your website.

In House vs Outsource

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:51:00 GMT

In September of 2007 Marketing Sherpa conducted two surveys in an effort to learn what challenges in-house marketers have designing a landing page program, and what challenges Agencies have managing a landing page campaign for their clients. Notice the common frustrations in each case:

Frustrations of In-House Marketers round analysis of Landing Pages

The biggest obstacle to in-house landing page optimization is by far is the lack of resources. In mid-sized companies the marketing department is typically overloaded. In smaller companies without a marketing department, the owner of the staff, even if they had the right credentials is (or should be) too busy minding the core business.

Frustrations of Agencies in Providing Better Analytics to Clients

Resources: It is tempting to try and do it yourself or assign it to existing staff. Take into consideration the true cost of doing it in-house. Are you diverting staff members from other necessary duties? Are you paying them to learn on the job when an agency or consultant may have already cultivated that know-how? You may indeed have the talent under your own roof; just consider carefully the true costs.

Aptitude: Most individuals are either left brained or right brained. That is to say technically or creatively inclined. Since a landing page campaign is a combination of creative and analytical, a technical oriented team or individual is not likely to come up with the compelling creative, and the creative team may not be able to interpret the data. That applies to agencies as well as you and your staff.

Experience: Agencies may have strengths in either creative or analytics; however they may not have the full array of skill sets necessary to do it any better than you can do in-house. If your current levels of web traffic are insufficient, make sure you work with a consultant that can deliver everything that you need, either in full or in part with your in-house team.

Summary

The limited scope of this white paper covers only some industry best practices. Virtually every element on a web page has some effect…positive or negative on the actions that a visitor takes. Ultimately only testing will determine what works and what doesn’t.

Whether you are working with an Agency, a Consultancy, in-house staff, or doing it yourself, this paper was designed to help you avoid costly mistakes and wasted effort. Use the information in this paper to help you implement, or manage others to implement best practices. There are however other considerations:

Traffic: If you are not driving enough traffic to your website, no amount of landing page best practices will help. There is still a common misconception that if you build a website your customers will automatically find it. Before you can gauge how your visitors react to your landing page, you need to have visitors.

Testing: It’s easy to say that you will test the results, but do you have the mechanisms in place to capture the data? Do you know how to interpret the data?

Implementation: Who will implement these best practices? Should you hire professional help or task you in-house staff? If that is a budgetary decision, what is the true cost of re-taking your staff?

Choosing The Right Domain Name

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:51:00 GMT

There is a lot more to consider when choosing a domain name than once might think at first glance. Once you build your website, publish your domain name on collateral material and optimize it for search engines, you are somewhat committed… so better make a good choice up-front.

In general, here are my rules of thumb:

Shorter is better than longer: 

Obviously shorter domains are easier to type, and in most cases are easier to remember. The problem is that almost all the good short domains have already been taken. You may have to get creative, or go to a new extension (Dot Net or Dot Biz, etc.). Shorter is definitely desirable, but not at the expense of some other considerations (read on…)

Easy to spell: 

Face it, some words are just commonly misspelled… consistently. I would never recommend taking on a purposely misspelled domain name as your primary, but you do need to weigh the ease of spelling vs. the targeted nature of the words in your domain. The worst case scenario is if the common misspelled name is that of your competition.

Avoid special Characters: 

Dashes, underscores and dots are all easily missed. More than likely you are resorting to special characters because the versions without all those dots and dashes have already been taken.

No Acronyms: 

Unless you’re already a brand name…or trying to establish one, don’t expect people to remember that www.scvma.org is the domain for the “Southern California Veterinary Medical Association”. OK… that is a tough one, but if possible go with something longer that is memorable an easy to spell before you try to make someone remember SCVMA…

“Dot Com” trumps “Dot everything else”… most times 

Dot Com is the granddaddy of all domains. If you have a good “Dot Com” most people will give you credit for being around a while… or at least being the original. There is no shame in going to a different domain extension, but see what you can do with a “dot Com” first. The exceptions are a “Dot Org” if you are indeed an organization. Or “Dot Info” if you want to be perceived as a source for information and not commerce. Don’t knock yourself our trying to force-feed yourself into a leftover “Dot Com” if it doesn’t make sense… Just take a look first.

Easy to remember: 
Sometimes even short domains are not easy to remember. Acronyms can be very hard; meaningless words or easily confused names can be a challenge as well. This becomes a factor when trying to leverage word of mouth advertising (one friend telling another) or collateral advertising that requires the target audience to visit the site after the fact (such as radio advertising, of billboard advertising).

It’s not particularly relevant if someone is clicking on a link, but if they have to remember your domain name or spell it… they better be able to remember it.

Use Keywords: 

Search Engines assume that if there is a keyword in your domain name, that your website must be relevant for that word. If possible, use a word or words that are appropriate for you to show up for on the search engines as part of your domain.

One more tip:

When publishing your domain use a technique called “stemming”. That is; instead of www.mydomainname.com, publish it as www.MyDomainName.com so that human beings can actually make sense of it whenever they see it. That will make it easier for them to read it and memorize it.

None of these rules are absolute. The best alternatives available might require you to break a rule or two. Just consider that you are probably going to have to live with your domain name for a long time… so make a good decision.

Best And Worst Industries For Paid Search

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 22:57:00 GMT

Not all industries are appropriate for paid search. Rather than just provide a list of optimum industries, I wanted to focus on the concept on why some industries provide a better ROI than others.

As a general rule, service industries typically provide the best opportunity for ROI. There are however some exceptions where eCommerce websites perform extremely well. Let’s take 2 examples:

Example of a Good choice:
One of our clients sell gourmet mushroom products. This performs extremely well. Why? Two reasons:

The average customer orders are enough to more than compensate for the total costs per click. That typically means that either the margins are high enough to absorb the clicks that don’t result in a purchase, or the sales volume or conversion rate makes up for the cliks that don’t result in a sale.
Because this is a unique product where the consumer only has so many choices, there is a lifetime values to a new customer. That is; once someone finds this store the first time, there is a lifetime of repeat business that will never cost anything again once the customer has been introduced to the website.

Example of a Poor choice:
One of our clients wanted to run a PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaign to sell laser print cartridges. A few simple questions and a quick analysis determined that would be a losing proposition. Why?

The average profit on a sale was about $12.00 - $14.00. Suppose the average cost per click (CPC) was $2.00 and the conversion rate was 10% (one out of every 10 visitors made a purchase). That means that the vendor would spend about $20.00 to make about $14.00 ( a net loss of about $6.00).

Does that mean that all eCommerce sites are not good candidates for paid search? No… suppose that the majority of those print cartridges were sold in bulk. Then a single click could result in hundreds of dollars in sales.

Conversely, suppose the margin on a single item was extremely high. For example, auto dealerships routinely use PPC to sell cars off their lots. You don’t buy cars online, but you do research on line. A single purchase more than makes up for the investment.

Summary:
When deciding if paid search is a good strategy for an eCommerce site, ask yourself these questions:

Are the margins high enough?
Is the potential volume high enough?
Is there a lifetime value to a new customer

To Scroll Or Not To Scroll

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:07:00 GMT

First off, I want to go on record by stating that scrolling is not inherently evil… or disastrous. In fact it may be infinitely more desirable than trying to fit 10lbs of crap into a 5lb bag.

Over the years I’ve had several clients that understood what the “Fold” is, and proclaimed that “Nothing must be below the fold!” (The “Fold” is the point on a web page where a visitor would have to scroll down to see the rest of the page.)

The difference was that some of those clients weren’t willing to shorten or sacrifice some content to make it happen. Instead they directed us to “fit it all in”. The end result was a lot less effective landing page.

In fact, I have the dubious distinction of developing perhaps the worst landing page ever created (all be it under duress).

The client had us pack it above the fold with so many attention getting devices (animation, bright colors, too many graphics, etc.) in an effort to avoid scrolling, that all those elements canceled each other out. We had to use a complex structure of nested tables (tables within tables). Not a very sound structure for a variety of reasons… but the design was so compact, that we discovered a typo, and by adding one additional letter “e” to the end of a word, it tore the entire design apart.

That might be a hint that your page may be a little too crowded.

No matter how sophisticated your visitors are, they probably have the attention span of a 6 year old. You only have 2-8 seconds to win over your visitor, so above-the-fold info must contain enough convincing data to win over these short attention span visitors.

The truth is that people WILL scroll down to see something they are interested in. The trick is to get them interested immediately. Scrolling isn’t exactly a laborious activity; you just have to convince your visitor that it is worth it. How do we do that?

Headlines… Images…Bullet Points...Minimal Distractions!
In other words, info that can be digested at a glance.

Tips:

•	Concentrate on a headline that is large, intriguing and descriptive.
•	Make the first paragraph particularly engaging and unintimidating.
•	Make sure that any “Offers” or call-to-actions are above the fold (supporting info can be below).
•	Make sure that any images serve to brand you, or to tell a relevant story.
•	Repeat important info below the fold so now the visitor doesn’t have to scroll back up in the other direction.
•	Realize that different people have different screen resolutions, so the fold is in different locations for different people. Cater to the lowest reasonably popular screen resolution. For now it may be safe to assume if you can see the pertinent info at a screen resolution of 1024 x 768, that almost everyone will see the info that you want them to see.

Summary: Don’t sacrifice functionality and common sense for the sake of scrolling! As long as the important stuff is visible at a glance, interested visitors will make the effort….

Organizing The Project For The Graphic Team

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:06:00 GMT

This is actually the responsibility of the project manager or creative director. However you as project owner must take an active role. You have the ability to get the project off to a quick and accurate start by making a few simple design decisions upfront.

Start with the Basics:

Top v. Side navigation: Possibly the single most impactfull aspect of the design. Determine this first. Everything that the designer does will be predicated on this decision. Ultimately it is a personal choice.

Color preferences: You may have personal preferences, or your colors may be pre-ordained by virtue of your logo or other existing collateral material.

Existing marketing material: To help maintain your “brand” consider your existing marketing materials. The web design should integrate seamlessly with your existing brand image…or redefine it. Be prepared to give your project manager samples of any pre-existing materials. Digital samples are always best because they can be easily reproduced.

Examples of existing sites: Nothing helps a designer more than visual examples of existing websites. Be prepared to share your thoughts on other websites that you like or dislike. These examples may not necessarily even be in your industry. In fact there may only be a single aspect of the site that you really like. Make sure that you tell your designer specifically what it is that caught your eye.

The last thing that you want to happen is for your graphics team to burn expensive, project delaying time offering comp after comp hoping that you will like what they do. Voicing your preferences upfront and establishing a dialogue with the project manager can seriously cut development time, save you money, and result in a project that meets your expectations.

Your responsibility:
As the project takes shape the development team will have certain expectations of you. Chief amongst this is the content and timely accurate feedback.

Content: Typically that means images and text. Unless otherwise specified you can expect to provide these items yourself. However most good design teams will offer a library of stock photos, and many have access to quality copywriters and photographers. Note that the single largest project delay is often associated with the client. For the design team to format individual pages they will need to know what they have to work with. If you do not have the time or resources to provide the page content, consider asking your project manager to assign a copywriter to your project.

With the exception of business specific images your design team should be able to provide appropriate stock photos.

Feedback: Most development teams work in phases where they complete a pre-determined phase of the project and await feedback before they make changes or proceed to the next phase. They typically assume feedback will be forthcoming within a few days and they plan accordingly. It is not uncommon for excessive delay in receiving feedback to result in longer delays as other projects usurp your scheduled production time.

What is Bad Design?

Too much Flash: Improper use of flash is gratuitous and may detract from the purpose of the website. Make sure that flash is used judiciously and not just as “eye candy”.

Pages that are too long: Long pages are subconsciously interpreted as too much work to read. It is much better to break content into multiple, well organized pages.

Pages that are too cramped: Not everything has to be seen all at once to be appreciated. Too much collocated information is in itself a distraction.

Unnecessary repetition: Give your visitor a little credit. Convenient navigation is one thing, but force-feeding it to your visitors is something else.

Too many attention getting devises: If everything is highlighted, then nothing stands out.
www.websitesthatsuck.com (just in case you need additional clarification).

Essential Concerns To Address When Developing A Website

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:02:00 GMT

There is a difference between a “web designer” and a “Web Marketer”. A web designer can make a web page pretty. A web marketer can make a web page pretty compelling. Although a list of tips is no substitution for a web-savvy marketing professional, there are certain industry best practices that every business can use as a guideline or “check sheet” to avoid some campaign killing mistakes.

Scrolling, Paging & the Fold

Scrolling is the point on a web page where a visitor would have to scroll down to see the rest of the page. If the visitor isn’t intrigued at first glance, you will never even get to show them what is below the fold.

Do NOT make text-copy columns too wide or fonts too small just to keep content above the fold.
10-12 point or larger fonts / no more than 50-60 characters (including spaces) across.
Women ages 34-45 are more likely to scroll, read more info and click onto additional pages than men.
Above-the-fold info must contain enough convincing data to will over the short attention span visitors.

Navigation Bars

It is very tempting to make sure that no information about your company is left out; however the truth is that most people just don’t care at this point. Keep in mind what your goal is… if it is to get visitors contact information, you will have plenty of opportunities to educate them as you build the relationship.

You will have plenty of opportunity to tell your customers how wonderful you are.
Would you tell an attractive stranger your life history when you are just trying to get them to agree to a first date?
The objective is to not encourage the visitor to wander “off-point”

Landing Pages with Links to Other Pages

Use discretion when providing links to other pages or websites from your landing page. You may be tempting the visitor to wander off-point. In some cases it may be permissible or even desirable to offer the visitor an opportunity to lean more as long as each link returns the visitor back to the sales funnel.

Eliminate any clicks to irrelevant pages or advertisers
Minimize font size of links to privacy and legal information
Make the ENTIRE area around a link clickable
Make the first 3 words of a link descriptive
Make your Hero shot clickable and open in a separate window of information so the visitor does not lose the main landing page (Hero Shot is a single picture that tells the story).

Color Choices

Believe it or not, color choices have remarkably little influence on the effectiveness of a landing page. However poor color choice that impacts reading comprehension does have a negative effect. Keep in mind that a higher percentage of the population than you probably realize is color blind and may have trouble with the contrast of certain color combinations.

Copy: Black (or dark) text on a white (or light) background
Headlines: Large enough to be readable in most colors, so largely irrelevant.
Hotlinks: Blue until clicked and then turns purplish. Designer colors are OK…but test first….
Branding Colors: OK if branding is more important than copy.

Typeface Fonts

It is hard enough to get a visitor to actually read your copy, so don’t make it any more difficult than necessary. Generally small font sizes “look” better because they mentally form a block which is a convenient design element. However, effective trumps pretty every time.

Make copy easy to read as possible. Many visitors will bail just because the page “looks like work”
Use 10 point or larger font. Consider a larger size if you are targeting children, adults or if you have very long copy
Captions, form field names, legal and some tech-specs can be smaller
Smaller texts promotes slower reading and a drop-off in comprehension
Text should never run more than 52-60 characters across the screen. People can’t comfortably read long or wide columns.

Keep columns at a fixed width (no liquid designs)
Use “Web-safe fonts” to control the appearance of the page. (http://www.efuse.com/Design/web_fonts_basics.html#WebSafeFonts)
With the possible exception of one-line headlines, all text should be flush left and NOT centered.
Headlines should be significantly larger and possibly bolder. Sub-headlines should be close to body copy size and bold

How many elements should be on a page?

The correct answer is…. As many as necessary… no more no less….
These are just some items that MAY go on a landing page. It is not meant to be a checklist of items that should be on every landing page.

Trust Icons

Data and Case Studies prove conclusively that trust icons do make a difference in conversions. Multiple icons may help even more. Make sure you place the icons above the fold and at critical decisino points such as form submissions or transaction point in a shoping cart.

Consider using the space around your logo to identify it with a trust image and slogan like the Kelley Blue Book logo to the right Notice that Kelley Blue Book awarded themselves their own trust icon, however it gives the appearance of an award or certification.

Video on Landing pages

Video can be a powerful tool or an unwanted nusance depending on how it is used. NEVER start playing the video automatically when the visitor arrives on the Landing Page!!!

No one lieks a commercial forced on them. The visitor just may not be prepared. In fact visitors might be in the work place and might bail as soon as unexpected sounds start blaring from their computer. They may want to scan the page before investing in the video, or simply adjust their speaker volume. The quikest way to shut down an unwated video is to close the web page. That is the last thing ou want.

There are many reasons to use video; to educate, to demonstrate, to entertain and become viral… One of the more successful commerisal applicatoins of video on a website is the “As Seen on TV” scenario.

The purpose is not to sell, but to brand and reassure the visitor that they are in the right place
Use a shorter version (30-seconds or less) than the original TV version
Typically works best on the top left side of the page or in a featured area

Video Testimonials are very powerful. There is eveidence to support that amature video of a real person is more credible than professinal video of a model. Not all video should intentionally be poor quality, but in the case of testimonials, or product demonstrations, it does give it a sense of realism.

Response Devices

Unless you are cultivating a branding only web presence, you are probably trying to elicit a particular response from your visitors (remember your goals). It’s important to consider that different personality types prefer to communicate using different media. Some people prefer to pick up the phone for the comfort of a human voice, others prefer the anonymity of email.

Phone Numbers:

Bigger is Better….don’t be shy
Some consumers just prefer to call
Some consumers just want to be reassured there is a real person available (even if they never intend to call)
Put phone number on EVERY page, not just the Landing page or Contact page

Buttons
Next to Headlines, button copy, color and shape as the most important element on the page. Don’t be afraid to test; Red vs. Gray… Round vs. Rectangular. Wording is important as well. You may get different results from “Buy Now” vs. “Try it Now”.

Different buttons work for different audiences

But don’t get too cute with the labels….say what you mean!

Registration Forms

As a rule the less you ask for, the more likely you are to have people fill out the form. Go on the premise that you will have future opportunity to get the rest of the information as you build a relationship with the visitor.

Be patient. Ask for only what you need… you will have more chances to get the rest. Roughly 40% of visitors may answer a few extra questions on the “Thank You” page for example.

On certain occasions however, you may actually want to use a longer form as a screening or “qualifying” tool. You might want to trade volume for quality if there is a cost associated with following up.

Copy Tips

Use half the copy that you would use in printed material
Headline should exactly match the headline that got them there
Stay on point…. Headline match Body Copy
Nothing more than needed…nothing less than needed
Don’t waste valuable real-estate with “Welcome…”
“You” and “Your” trumps “We” and “Our”
People read only the first few words of bullets and paragraphs
People read the tops and bottoms of lists…not the middle
Keep your first few paragraphs short and inviting
Alternate long and short Paragraphs
Paragraphs shouldn't be longer that 4 or 5 lines long
Numerals have more impact than written numbers

Long Copy vs. Short Copy

Face it, the USA Today newspaper is written at a 6th grade reading level for a reason. Attention spans and motivation to invest time reading is contingent on the demographic of the visitor, and the nature of the product or service. Long copy works well for….

Expensive Products & Services
Money related products and services
Health related products and services
Older consumers
Reading related products
Technical products

Search, Surf & Social…a Love Story

Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:35:00 GMT

I recently had the pleasure of listening to a good friend of mine and Co-Founder of ReachLocal; Nathan Hanks talk about the relationship between searching the web, surfing the web, and socializing on the web, and how they are all related to how consumers make decisions about buying. To illustrate the relationship he made up a little story (or did he make it up?)

Search:
Vicky has a friend that in Dallas Texas who is getting married. Vicky is the bridesmaid wanting to take her friend and three of the other bridesmaids to a special day at a local spa. She is taking all five ladies and is looking for a place that has great pre-wedding spa packages.

Vicky is at work and its 2:00 in the afternoon and she is taking a break and starts searching on Google for “wedding party spa packages dallas”. She hits “enter” and boom!...there on the page are 5 or 6 different search results. One of those search results is “Suzie-Q’s Day Spa”, and another one is the Crescent spa; which is a very well known spa in Dallas at the Crescent hotel.

Vicky clicks on a couple of sites and says “what about the Crescent? I’ve heard of them”. “What about this Suzie-Q spa?” She clicks on a few pages and minutes later she realizes that she has to run over to a meeting and takes off.

Surf:
At the end of the day Vicky comes back to her desk and as is her afternoon ritual she goes to check her email and the news online. She opens up her CNN news and wow! There is a display ad… (banner ad) for Suzie-Q’s spa!

Vicky doesn’t know or care or even think too much about why Suzie-Q’s banner ad showed up just when she was thinking about a local spa. But we know it wasn’t an accident. That is something called “remarketing”. When Vicky originally visited Suzie-Q’s website, a tag or a “cookie” was dropped on Vicky’s computer. Later when Vicky went to look at the news, there was the banner ad for Suzie-Q’s business just waiting for her.

Vicky remembers that she has to book that spa package for the girls. “This must be a pretty cool spa; they must have a pretty large advertising budget”. So Vicky clicks on the banner and finds herself back on Suzie-Q’s site. Vicky browses through the site and thinks it looks pretty good. She sees some pages and some programs and thinks it looks pretty reasonable.

Maybe she doesn’t know what to make of the pricing, or maybe she just hasn’t seen enough pictures, maybe she is leaning on going to the Crescent because she suspects the Crescent is a sure bet based on its reputation.

Social:
Vicky turns around and goes to Yelp or CitySearch. Now instead of searching on “wedding party spa packages dallas” she types in “Suzie-Q day spa”. Vicky is no longer searching, she is researching Suzie-Q, and she is doing it on a review site. Maybe there weren’t any listings, so Vicky goes back to Google and searches on “Suzie-Q spa” to see what comes up. Well Suzie-Q’s map listing shows up on Google maps section with 3 and a half star rating. In fact there are 3 reviews on Suzie-Q’s spa.

Vicky thinks “only three reviews, that’s not a whole lot of reviews for a spa in downtown Dallas”, but she clicks on the first one. It just so happens that review is by another woman who brought her friends there for a pre-wedding spa getaway who wrote that “it was the best value for her money and really a great experience athletically and in terms of and relaxation”.

Conversion:
Vicky likes what she sees and is now ready to pick up the phone and book a package for her group.

This is just an example of how Search, Surf & Social work together to drive a conversion. Now this of course is just a made up scenario, but I can tell you that is a typical scenario that happens more than you might think.

Landing Page Design: Ready…Fire…Aim!

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 22:36:00 GMT

It’s awful tempting to dive right into a landing page project with the first glimmer of inspiration; however even a brilliant concept is destined for failure if it isn’t objective driven.

In order to accomplish your goals, you have to know what they are. Is this an eCommerce website focused on transactions? Is the purpose to generate leads, or is it about branding or relationship building, or is it about increasing your database through membership registration? A good marketer will often start at the bottom of the sales funnel and work their way up to the point where the visitor first enters the funnel.

After you decide what constitutes “Success” you best figure out exactly who your ideal customer is. Remember; it’s NOT about YOU! Many businesses feel compelled to tell their story to what they perceive as a captive audience. There is no captive audience on the Internet. Check your ego at the door, it’s just too easy for a visitor to leave and find what they really want.

Before you can tell your story… you have to know who you are telling it to. A tried and true technique for defining your customer is to actually create one… complete with name and age and marital status, etc. You may even have multiple profiles; just make sure that you prioritize them. Remember…if you try to appeal to too many different customer types, you will wind up appealing to no one. Once you know WHO you are selling to, you can craft your message so that it appeals to THEM.

Stephen R. Covey said in his book “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” to begin with the end in mind. In the world of landing page design, you have to know what YOU want and what your CUSTOMER wants. Then work from there.

What are the Elements of a Good Landing Page?

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:42:00 GMT

There is no one size fits all checklist of elements that comprise a good landing page. However there are some common elements… a menu you might say, of various concepts and best practices you might want to consider.

Don’t try to force-feed these elements onto your page just because they are on my list. Instead consider the basic concept of what I am trying to accomplish in my example below, and why I designed this landing page as I did.

1.   Branding: WSI is a brand unto itself and using our logo in a prominent position serves two purposes. First it enhances the overall branding effort of the organization, and second, it allows my targeted PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaign (for which I designed this landing page) to capitalize on the already established WSI brand. If your brand isn’t already established, this is a step in the right direction.
2.   Local Appeal: Naturally this is only important if you are a local company serving a specific area, or a national company with local representation. Studies show that most people gravitate to doing business with local companies. It is less about regional patriotism, and more about their own sub-conscience comfort level. My office has a toll-free number, and we serve the entire USA, but I chose to put our local phone number on top because the targeted nature of this PPC campaign will restrict this particular page from being seen outside this area code. I WANT people to see the local area code.
3.   Calls to Action: The topic of “Calls to Action” is worthy of an entire book, (and has been). I will cover this on a separate post. Suffice it to say that you want to reverse engineer what you want to accomplish, and then direct your visitors to the “top of the Sales Funnel” to get them started. Don’t rely on them to figure out what to do, or to be insentified to do it without prompting.
4.   Credibility: In this particular instance we recognize that the Internet is full of hucksters and pretenders. Touting one of our qualifications with a seal representing our qualifications is designed to elevate us and establish a sense of confidence in our abilities. This is particularly important in any industry involved in health, wealth, legal or large investments.

5.   Visitor Oriented: People want to know they are in good company (or at least appropriate company). These particular local search services are geared for the small and medium sized businesses. Displaying an image of our target market allows the targeted visitor to identify themselves with our service.
6.   Justifications: The target market is small and medium sized businesses. Although most people buy on emotion, they justify on reason. In this case I merely listed some relevant statistics as published by respected sources.
7.   Rich Media: People would rather watch than read. Rich Media is more engaging than the written word and statistically increases “time on site” and conversions. This particular video is of me explaining how we operate so our future clients will understand that we have a standardized process with repeatable steps, and presumably establishes a sense of confidence with my organizations and with me in particular.
8.   Above the Fold: The expression dates back to the way newspapers were displayed at newsstands. They were typically folded in half, thus you would only see the top portion at a glance. It was the visible headline on the top portion that attracted attention and drew the viewer in. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Today’s fold is the point on the computer monitor where you have scroll to see more. It is not necessary to squeeze everything above the fold… just the important stuff.
9.   Clarification: You have to make it very clear what this is all about, what you want them to do and what you will do for them.
10.   Bullet Lists: People don’t read on the internet… they scan. They see headlines, images and bullet points.
A note on positioning: Where you place the elements on your page are just as important as what you place on the page. I will cover this in a subsequent post about Eye Tracking.

So what’s below the Fold?

What you don’t see on this example is what I place below the fold. To support the Call to Action, Clarification and the Call to action I am offering my visitors a sample of our WebScan™ report, typical of what we would do for them.

To build credibility I offer 2 Testimonials from actual clients who have used these very services. It culminates with an invitation to fill in the form and contact us for a “FREE Evaluation”.

You can see the actual landing page in its entirety at: www.wsieworks.com/local-search.

6 Steps to Effective Landing Page Design

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:42:00 GMT

Step 1: Define Success
In order to accomplish your goals, you have to know what they are. Is this an eCommerce website focused on transactions? Is the purpose to generate leads, or is it about branding or relationship building or increasing your database through membership registration? A good marketer will often start at the bottom of the sales funnel and work their way up to the point where the visitor first enters the funnel.

Step 2: Define your Customer

It’s NOT about YOU! Many businesses feel compelled to tell their story to what they perceive as a captive audience. There is no captive audience on the Internet. Check your ego at the door, it’s just too easy for a visitor to leave and find what they really want.

A tried and true technique for defining you customer is to actually create a persona… complete with name and age and marital status, etc. You may even have multiple profiles; just make sure that you prioritize them. Remember…if you try to appeal to too many different customer types, you will wind up appealing to no one. Once you know WHO you are selling to, you can craft your message so that it appeals to THEM.

Step 3: Selecting Domains

Most businesses consider their Home page their landing page. That may be perfectly acceptable in some instances, but it is not always the best choice. Your landing page may be part of a micro-site or single page with its own domain name. You might consider one or more “vanity names” targeting a specific product or service. That is particularly effective when the domain will be visible such as on printed material or other instances where the domain will be visible such as on Sponsored Links advertising (pay-per-click).

Step 4: Wireframing

Essentially a “sketch” of the page layout. Start by listing all of the elements that go on the page and lay them out on a piece of paper taking up approximately the amount of space they will warrant. You should do this “before” you write the copy because the space available will dictate the amount to copy you have to work with. Make sure that you place the most important elements above the “fold” (the spot on the page where most visitors will have to scroll down to see more).

Step 5: Copy writing

People don’t actually read on the internet...they scan. They see headlines, bullet points and graphics. Headlines should refer back to what the visitor was looking at before they landed on your page. Only about 20% of your visitors will actually read the body copy... still, it has to be good (less is more).

Don’t forget the call to action! You might test matching up the call to action with the headline since that is almost certainly the one element on the page that you can be sure they will read.

Step 6: Testing & Tweaking

This is not a spare time activity. It is something that should be scheduled at regular intervals. Examine your metrics, make incremental changes and reexamine the effect. Don’t make too many changes at once or you won’t know what you did to effect the changes. Your testing and adjustments should match your original goals (Transactions, Lead Generation, Branding/Education, Relationship Building, Registrations, Viral marketing, etc.)

Who Else Wants to Know What Our Visitors Are Looking At...

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 22:54:00 GMT

I’ve mentioned in previous articles that you have between 2-8 seconds to interest your visitors before they decide to leave, or go deeper into your website. Naturally they will only see so many elements of your landing page before they make that decision.

Remember, people don’t read on the Internet, they scan. They see headlines, images and bullet pointed lists. We scan over web content at such a great rate, milliseconds become very important. You don’t want to waste any of the visitor’s time, and make sure you get all your USPs to the user’s eye as quickly and as clearly as possible.

So how do you know what they are likely to look at during that brief amount of time while you control their fleeting interest?

Well you could conduct a focus group, but that is time consuming and expensive. The easiest way is to subscribe to eye tracking software that through a series of complex algorithms is able to simulate the path the human eye is likely to take based on size, position and color of the elements on a given page.

Eye tracking is a technique used to determine where a person is looking. It allows you to see your website literally through the eyes of your users. The concepts underlying eye tracking are deceptively simple: track the movements of the user's eyes and note what the pupils are doing while the user is looking at a particular feature.

Eye tracking is great for determining:

Whether or not users notice adverts and/or key calls to action
What users pay most attention to and what they don't notice
The order in which users notice items on the page
Where users look for navigation links to take them to another page

The technology helps you explore whether users:

Notice the logo?
Discover the main navigation quickly?
Attend to the critical information on the page?
Absorb the information on the page or simply scan it?
Observe how users interact with your site by following their point of gaze

To summarize, we already know that the hierarchy of elements on the page will greatly influence your click-through-rate and what your visitors will target, however it is nice to actually see it with your own eyes. I do recommend taking a look at Eye Tracking software, or working with an Internet Consultant who is familiar with the process, however I do not consider it to be the absolute definitive answer to what users are drawn to on your site. As with anything, an objective dose of reality goes a long way.

It’s not about Technology; it’s about Psychology…

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:43:00 GMT

“Advertising is the art of getting people to buy things they don’t need with money they don’t have”. That statement predates the Internet by a number of decades, yet it is as true today as it was back then. A bit cynical? Perhaps, but let us not forget that in the Internet world people rarely stumble across a website without actively searching for something. If you have what they are looking for, your job is to help them find it.

The problem is most websites are so ill conceived and poorly constructed that they are little more than monuments to their owners.

Let’s make something transparently clear; people do not read on the Internet… they scan! They see headlines, images and bullet points. Depending on the personality type of your visitor, you have between 2 and 8 seconds to convince them to stay on your website and delve deeper into it. They click in… take a quick peak… and click out. Those are the conditions in which business is conducted on the Internet.

Why are effective Landing Pages essential?

A Landing page is where visitors land after clicking on an email link, a search engine result, a banner ad, or manually typing in a specific advertised address. Actually making use of that tidbit of knowledge is a little more complex.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of throwing money into driving traffic and living with your conversion rate. Want more customers? Just buy more traffic. Not exactly efficient…or cost effective.

The scenario below illustrates that a mere 2% increase in conversion results in 240 additional customers WITHOUT increasing traffic. Depending on the lifetime value of those new customers, that might be a game changer for this particular business.

Design for your customers… not for yourself.

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 22:32:00 GMT

Regardless of how visually appealing or uniquely original the graphic look and feel of a website is, it is meaningless if it does not meet the expectations of the target market. Is your site about branding? Is it about sales? Is it to be used as a tool to support off-line activities?

Start by defining your target audience and their purpose for visiting your site. A web solution that is designed for a manufacturing company whose target audience are information seeking engineers will have a different “flavor” than a branding site designed for the 18 to 24 year old hair care demographic. Whereas the hair care crowd might be impressed by MTV-like sound and graphics, the engineers would most likely be more impressed with the ease in which they can find the information they are looking for with minimal distractions.

Ask yourself “what is the image I am trying to convey to my customers?”

Professionals in the financial, medical or legal fields might consider a more conservative approach that conveys a sense of confidence and reassures the consumer that their issues will be handled with the utmost dignity. On the other hand, creative specialists such as advertising agencies, graphic designers and entertainers have the luxury to experiment with a more flamboyant design, whereas printers may want to lean toward a more colorful, graphically intense style without the hype.

Consider your existing collateral material…brochures, mailers, advertising media. What does that say about you? Does your existing material (and that of your competitors) effectively convey the right attitude? If it does, that might be a great model to begin with. Ultimately your website design must stand on its own merits, as does your other marketing material. If any of these pieces do not visually convey the right message about you it may be worth reexamining your entire brand image.