SRPI

In my last post about optimizing landing pages for PPC, one of our awesome readers asked a great question that deserved a good follow-up post.

The Question by Sean

Why do marketers recommend having your PPC ad go straight to the landing page as opposed to the homepage? I would have figured that the consumer needs the rest of the website to understand and trust the brand before jumping [into] the purchase. Why are conversion rates higher for ads that just go straight to selling?

That is a very important question, and it is often a difficult concept for many general marketers and people who are new to online marketing. There is a notion that the consumer needs to know and trust the brand first in order to feel confident about eventually buying the product. Sean’s question above is a prime example of this.

The Issue with the Home Page

If I may be so bold, I believe that a company can more easily build its brand and reputation by providing a solution to the visitor’s problem. Directing the potential visitors to a specific landing page with the answers they need is a key component to doing that.

Let’s go through a little role-play to create an example. Let’s say you are on Google searching for a netbook and the first result is Dell. Okay, so pop quiz hot shot: Would you, the visitor, prefer to go to Dell’s homepage and search through the website until you find the page about netbooks, or would you be more satisfied just going to the actual netbooks page and finding an immediate solution to your query? The answer is obvious, and that is why in the search results you’ll see the netbooks’ page in the results. Looking at the screen shots below, as a consumer which one interests you more when searching for “netbooks?”

SERPs:

Why You Want a Landing Page

Sure, Dell is a recognized and trusted brand, but it is even more important for a smaller company to send people to the right page. When you are a well-known brand such as Dell, you have the luxury of knowing that if a visitor lands on the home page, they know that Dell offers netbooks and will likely take the time to find the page they need on their own. A smaller company, though, that is not as well-known to a visitor will not be so lucky. If a visitor does not find the solution to their search query when they land on the home page they will most likely turn around and try a different website.

Give the visitors the answers to their problems, and then if they need to be reassured about the brand or company they are buying from, they still have access to the rest of the website to do the necessary research.

This is the main reason you’ll see higher conversion rates for PPC and SEO landing pages than when people are directed straight to the home page.

If you have other questions or points to make about this subject, please feel free to make a comment.

Originally posted here:
Don’t Send Them Home: Send Traffic to a Landing Page

In my last post about optimizing landing pages for PPC, one of our awesome readers asked a great question that deserved a good follow-up post.

The Question by Sean

Why do marketers recommend having your PPC ad go straight to the landing page as opposed to the homepage? I would have figured that the consumer needs the rest of the website to understand and trust the brand before jumping [into] the purchase. Why are conversion rates higher for ads that just go straight to selling?

That is a very important question, and it is often a difficult concept for many general marketers and people who are new to online marketing. There is a notion that the consumer needs to know and trust the brand first in order to feel confident about eventually buying the product. Sean’s question above is a prime example of this.

The Issue with the Home Page

If I may be so bold, I believe that a company can more easily build its brand and reputation by providing a solution to the visitor’s problem. Directing the potential visitors to a specific landing page with the answers they need is a key component to doing that.

Let’s go through a little role-play to create an example. Let’s say you are on Google searching for a netbook and the first result is Dell. Okay, so pop quiz hot shot: Would you, the visitor, prefer to go to Dell’s homepage and search through the website until you find the page about netbooks, or would you be more satisfied just going to the actual netbooks page and finding an immediate solution to your query? The answer is obvious, and that is why in the search results you’ll see the netbooks’ page in the results. Looking at the screen shots below, as a consumer which one interests you more when searching for “netbooks?”

SERPs:

Why You Want a Landing Page

Sure, Dell is a recognized and trusted brand, but it is even more important for a smaller company to send people to the right page. When you are a well-known brand such as Dell, you have the luxury of knowing that if a visitor lands on the home page, they know that Dell offers netbooks and will likely take the time to find the page they need on their own. A smaller company, though, that is not as well-known to a visitor will not be so lucky. If a visitor does not find the solution to their search query when they land on the home page they will most likely turn around and try a different website.

Give the visitors the answers to their problems, and then if they need to be reassured about the brand or company they are buying from, they still have access to the rest of the website to do the necessary research.

This is the main reason you’ll see higher conversion rates for PPC and SEO landing pages than when people are directed straight to the home page.

If you have other questions or points to make about this subject, please feel free to make a comment.

Original post:
Don’t Send Them Home: Send Traffic to a Landing Page

At the Tricks and Treats Workshop I talked about how to optimize press releases for the online public, and why you should write and send them consistently. What I did not explain as much, however, is what a press release is and how to write one.

After talking to a few people lately, I’ve realized not everyone gets it. For many, “press release” is synonymous with “article.” Others think it’s a sales pitch. Sometimes when I tell people what I do, they give me blank stares when the words “press” and “release” are repeated back-to-back in a sentence. They have no idea what a press release is.

So, in a nutshell, here’s my go at defining it. After all, it’s hard to optimize a press release if you don’t really know what one is in the first place.

My definition of press release: an announcement to the media and public about something newsworthy, written like a news story.

What does it mean to be “newsworthy?” If people want to read it, then it’s newsworthy. Basically, any announcement of something new with your business could probably be newsworthy. But that’s a whole other blog post.

Here’s what a press release is not:

1.       Marketing or sales copy

2.       An article

3.       A blog

4.       Promotional garbage

5.       Did I mention it’s not marketing or sales copy?

To write a press release, think of how a reporter (not a columnist) would write the story. If you don’t know how one writes, read some newspaper articles. Follow their example. Almost always, a reporter is trying to be non-biased, and tries to communicate the news or story as clearly and straightforward as possible.

Press releases can drive traffic to your site, increase organic search engine optimization, and can greatly enhance your company’s image and provide instant credibility — but only if reporters and bloggers publish your release or write a story from it. If you ever want a press release to be picked up by media and bloggers, write the way they would write it. They are likely never going to publish any exaggerated promotional material. They will publish something that their readers will want to read. Write it as if they could just take what you have and insert it into their publication.

Press releases should:

1.       Be non-biased

2.       Have no exaggerations

3.       Have no clichés

4.       Use quotes (from multiple people if you can)

5.       Contain the facts

6.       Contain the “Who,” “What,” “Where,” and “How” of the story

7.       Written in the Inverted Pyramid and AP style

8.       Be submitted to the right editor for publication

Editors and reporters are not paid to help you promote your business. They work long hours trying to fill up their sections of the paper and write stories and blog posts every day. That means they often depend on good releases to provide their audience content. If a press release is not written well, or it’s not written about something that a specific reporter covers, then it will be deleted as soon as it hits their inbox. If it is written well, and you write them consistently, you can generate buzz, both online and in the mainstream media, that can snowball quickly and bring positive exposure and website traffic that will boost your business.

More here:
Debunking Press Releases

At the Tricks and Treats Workshop I talked about how to optimize press releases for the online public, and why you should write and send them consistently. What I did not explain as much, however, is what a press release is and how to write one.

After talking to a few people lately, I’ve realized not everyone gets it. For many, “press release” is synonymous with “article.” Others think it’s a sales pitch. Sometimes when I tell people what I do, they give me blank stares when the words “press” and “release” are repeated back-to-back in a sentence. They have no idea what a press release is.

So, in a nutshell, here’s my go at defining it. After all, it’s hard to optimize a press release if you don’t really know what one is in the first place.

My definition of press release: an announcement to the media and public about something newsworthy, written like a news story.

What does it mean to be “newsworthy?” If people want to read it, then it’s newsworthy. Basically, any announcement of something new with your business could probably be newsworthy. But that’s a whole other blog post.

Here’s what a press release is not:

1.       Marketing or sales copy

2.       An article

3.       A blog

4.       Promotional garbage

5.       Did I mention it’s not marketing or sales copy?

To write a press release, think of how a reporter (not a columnist) would write the story. If you don’t know how one writes, read some newspaper articles. Follow their example. Almost always, a reporter is trying to be non-biased, and tries to communicate the news or story as clearly and straightforward as possible.

Press releases can drive traffic to your site, increase organic search engine optimization, and can greatly enhance your company’s image and provide instant credibility — but only if reporters and bloggers publish your release or write a story from it. If you ever want a press release to be picked up by media and bloggers, write the way they would write it. They are likely never going to publish any exaggerated promotional material. They will publish something that their readers will want to read. Write it as if they could just take what you have and insert it into their publication.

Press releases should:

1.       Be non-biased

2.       Have no exaggerations

3.       Have no clichés

4.       Use quotes (from multiple people if you can)

5.       Contain the facts

6.       Contain the “Who,” “What,” “Where,” and “How” of the story

7.       Written in the Inverted Pyramid and AP style

8.       Be submitted to the right editor for publication

Editors and reporters are not paid to help you promote your business. They work long hours trying to fill up their sections of the paper and write stories and blog posts every day. That means they often depend on good releases to provide their audience content. If a press release is not written well, or it’s not written about something that a specific reporter covers, then it will be deleted as soon as it hits their inbox. If it is written well, and you write them consistently, you can generate buzz, both online and in the mainstream media, that can snowball quickly and bring positive exposure and website traffic that will boost your business.

Go here to read the rest:
Debunking Press Releases

There are many ways to screw up a web development project, and it all starts with not helping the sales managers.

You got this one
When you’re working for a studio, web development projects are team efforts. That team includes your sales staff; they’re the front line. Here’s some tips on selling them out and getting things off to a bad start.

Skip the meetings
After the sales lead comes in, usually a meeting is set up to talk about the project. Go ahead and skip that meeting. It’s highly unlikely that any thing important will be discussed, such as their goals, target audience, and metrics for success. Even if it were discussed, you certainly don’t need this information first hand. Why make informed decisions and recommendations for the project when you can make assumptions and propose template solutions.

Send a questionnaire
Now that you’ve skipped the sales meeting, it’s time to cut corners on the analysis. Nothing spells personalized customer service like a lengthy questionnaire. Be sure to lead off with simple questions to boost their confidence, like their company name and URL. This proves to them that even if the sales person already got this information, you’re just being thorough. More importantly, ask really hard questions that require essays for answers as well as significant research into their sales numbers and web analytics. Customers like to jump through hoops. They probably have nothing better to do with their time any ways.

Copy Paste
Proposals are easy. Just have the sales guy copy some text from the last couple your company sent out and paste it into a new file. Make sure to change the date on the cover and footers. Most importantly, have sales just recycle the last estimate that sounds about right.

Don’t approve the estimate
The proposal is ready to send to the customer, you should review and approve it, right? No, but I can see why you’d think that. You need plausible deniability and a scape goat if something goes wrong. Practice saying, “I dunno what sales was thinking, they just sent it out like that before I saw it”. So, go ahead and be committed to the estimate and time line in the document. It’s probably close enough.

It’s important that the client has expectations for the project and you don’t know what they are. That keeps it interesting.

Send comps
When the customer asks for three or four samples of possible home page designs for their new site, oblige them. Without a proper discovery process, its a shot in the dark, but it’s sooo worth it. They might like yours. Don’t let not understanding how they want the site to work, the target audiences needs, or even what content you’re working with hold you back. Guess.

Have a poor contract
That mumbo jumbo at the end of the proposal probably won’t ever come into play. Go ahead and use lines like “the final payment is due after approval” and see how long it takes before a client realizes the loop hole. Besides, intellectual property rights and limitations of warranties and liabilities are just fancy words that lawyers use.

Take any project
Why be picky when you’re awesome. Your solution can fit any company. You especially want the clients that have a tight budget, pressing deadlines, and a spec that only has one phase. Typically, the client can pick two out of three; cost, time line and scope. As the design and development studio, you get the third pillar of the project. That’s just being greedy, and you’re better off letting them control everything. It’s best to never think about which client’s problems best fit you’re studios skill set and expertise.

Now that you realize you’re in a world of hurt, it’s time to look back at the questionnaire and proposal and start pointing fingers. Maybe you don’t “got this one”, but there’s always next time.

We’ve all made some mistakes. What have you done or seen done by others that’s a sure fire way to screw up a project?

More here:
How to Screw Up a Web Project – During the Sale

Howdy everybody!

We are going to migrate http://getyacg.com and http://blackhatseo-blog.com today, so you should expect them to be offline for some hours.

We are going to pimp out everything, so you should expect faster and better forums and tickets system.

If you are a [YACG] Mass Installer or Link Farm Evolution customer, you can send us all your support inquiries to support@blackhatseo-blog.com while the ticket system is offline.

EDIT: Everything is back to normal now! We apologize for such a long downtime, all the open issues and e-mails will be answered shortly. Thank you for your patience.

See more here:
Migrating Servers

So I was down in Vegas for a 3-day conference, staying at the Hilton Hotel. I am pretty big into fitness, so I woke up early the first morning and headed over to the spa/workout room. Lo and behold, there was a $20 charge to use the facility!? I was incensed, and also pretty out of sorts since I didn’t get to take my rage out on a treadmill that morning. It so happens that the Hilton Hotel Casino’s CEO, Petere Arceo, was speaking at the conference I was attending.

He had a great presentation about social media, twitter, Facebook, etc., that gave me an idea. I tweeted to the world a short message: @PeterArceo, How can I bypass the $20 cover charge in the workout room at the Hilton?’ Peter responded within a 1/2 hour to my message, @yummytork “DM me your room and name and I will see what I can do.” Wow! What service! I went and used the spa, for free, and got to keep my great figure. I also was super impressed that Peter had that much involvement in his social media strategy.

This should be a great lesson to everyone who reads this. If the CEO of the Hilton hotel has the time to twitter to one little guy about saving some money, then anyone else in the world has the time to twitter with their customers as well! The Moral of The Story: Make sure you monitor what people write about you or your brand (that’s how Peter knew I had twittered about him.) TweetDeck is a great tool to help you speed up this process. Respond to the people who do mention you or your brand, positive or negative.

Quick Update: Just to be clear, Hilton did not pay me to write this, and also, I can’t guarantee anyone who reads this will also get comped for their spa usage, so don’t expect it every time.

Read the rest here:
How Twitter Helped Me Save Money and Stay In Shape

So I was down in Vegas for a 3-day conference, staying at the Hilton Hotel. I am pretty big into fitness, so I woke up early the first morning and headed over to the spa/workout room. Lo and behold, there was a $20 charge to use the facility!? I was incensed, and also pretty out of sorts since I didn’t get to take my rage out on a treadmill that morning. It so happens that the Hilton Hotel Casino’s CEO, Petere Arceo, was speaking at the conference I was attending.

He had a great presentation about social media, twitter, Facebook, etc., that gave me an idea. I tweeted to the world a short message: @PeterArceo, How can I bypass the $20 cover charge in the workout room at the Hilton?’ Peter responded within a 1/2 hour to my message, @yummytork “DM me your room and name and I will see what I can do.” Wow! What service! I went and used the spa, for free, and got to keep my great figure. I also was super impressed that Peter had that much involvement in his social media strategy.

This should be a great lesson to everyone who reads this. If the CEO of the Hilton hotel has the time to twitter to one little guy about saving some money, then anyone else in the world has the time to twitter with their customers as well! The Moral of The Story: Make sure you monitor what people write about you or your brand (that’s how Peter knew I had twittered about him.) TweetDeck is a great tool to help you speed up this process. Respond to the people who do mention you or your brand, positive or negative.

Quick Update: Just to be clear, Hilton did not pay me to write this, and also, I can’t guarantee anyone who reads this will also get comped for their spa usage, so don’t expect it every time.

Here is the original:
How Twitter Helped Me Save Money and Stay In Shape

Last month, my wife and I jumped on a plane out of Salt Lake City and headed toward what my wife refers to as “the most magical place on earth,” Walt Disney World. Why were we going when we don’t have any kids? I can promise you it wasn’t because of all the wonderful childhood memories. After all, this would technically be my first time.

I went for the food.

This was not just any food, mind you. I’m talking fillets, lobster, bread pudding and more! We sampled everything from the fufu of Africa to the burgers of a Sci-Fi diner. The best part was that the food was free! That’s right. We ate free for the entire week.

Why am I talking about this in an SEO post? It is because amid the lobster, the best milk-shakes of my life, and riding Everest seven times in a row, I began to realize that I had been tricked. Walt Disney in all his cunning had unraveled the magic of successfully inspiring his customers. He understood the principles behind making a customer both happy and engaged. While Disney incented me to become a customer through free food, business owners have used other giveaways to develop opportunities to involve, channel, and give back to their customer community.

Involve Your Customers

The International Olympic Committee recently announced a social challenge called The Best of Us. Utilizing YouTube, Olympic athletes are challenging the young crowd to film themselves completing various challenges and submit the video. Winners will receive everything from T-shirts, to tickets to the Olympic Games.

In recent years the committee has seen a drop in interest from younger generations, and they know they need to act quickly or lose their audience. Setting YouTube as the platform for this involvement campaign brings the Olympics into an environment that their viewers are comfortable with. Assuming that their audience decides to become involved, we should see a viral spread of some of the more impressive videos that have been submitted for the contest.

I rate this as a “good” offer. The actual act required to receive the benefit does not increase your company’s revenue, but it gives your customer a chance to challenge himself, and become more engaged with a great product or activity. YouTube viewers love to see and promote impressive videos done by regular people. We’ll see if the execution of the Olympic campaign brings about the intended goal.

Channel the Community

With the example of the Olympic Challenge, we see an opportunity to inspire individuals to better themselves, but Disney has a current campaign that takes this one step further. Through an initiative called Give a Day Get a Disney Day, Disney challenges us to seek volunteer opportunities and give a day of service. In return, Disney will give one day admission to either Disney World or Disneyland.

This campaign does not engage the customer through a digital platform at all. In fact, it is encouraging the audience to step away from the digital world while performing these acts of service. Effective?

Disney’s idea is counter intuitive, but I personally consider this to be a “better” offer. The intent of the offer is to get the customer to look away from themselves and serve in their community. Guess how many individual bloggers would love to post pictures and summaries along with links to Disney promoting the campaign?

Disney has the goal of getting one million volunteers to participate. We will assume that a fraction of the participants is made up of bloggers, some fraction will be active social network users, and a small fraction will have some other form of a personal website. If the campaign becomes a success in the eyes of the participants, you can bet that they will do their best to evangelize, and that means social promoting, links, and higher customer devotion for Disney.

Give Back

Here at SEO.com we have been trying to do our part to give through the Ultimate Web Marketing Makeover. Our company has seen great successes during a time when other companies may be hurting, and we see our chance to give back. Throughout the month of October we accepted submissions from companies all over.

Aside from being a great opportunity to give back, we found that this was a great chance to increase awareness of what our company represents. We saw thousands of people reached via Twitter and Facebook. Each digital impression is a chance to reach a new customer. Each time that impression is placed in front of a blogger, he has the chance to write a post about your activities. Each email you send to webmasters inviting them to promote your event is a chance to gain a business partnership.

When you are willing to give, your customers are willing to give as well. That is the Law of Reciprocity. Your customers will see your efforts to give back to them, and it will create more respect for your business. While this would be reward enough, links will have a funny way of heading in your direction. News sites and bloggers will spread their opinion of your efforts.

I encourage you to look at your sphere of influence. Think about what you can do to support your customers and give back to the community. Set a plan in motion to involve your customers, encourage them to excel, or give back to the community that helped your company to grow. If you do this, you’ll find that your customers will develop a greater respect for you. When respect for you grows, the internet community starts to talk, and I bet you’ll see some links coming your way.

Read more:
Is It Really Better to Give?

Last month, my wife and I jumped on a plane out of Salt Lake City and headed toward what my wife refers to as “the most magical place on earth,” Walt Disney World. Why were we going when we don’t have any kids? I can promise you it wasn’t because of all the wonderful childhood memories. After all, this would technically be my first time.

I went for the food.

This was not just any food, mind you. I’m talking fillets, lobster, bread pudding and more! We sampled everything from the fufu of Africa to the burgers of a Sci-Fi diner. The best part was that the food was free! That’s right. We ate free for the entire week.

Why am I talking about this in an SEO post? It is because amid the lobster, the best milk-shakes of my life, and riding Everest seven times in a row, I began to realize that I had been tricked. Walt Disney in all his cunning had unraveled the magic of successfully inspiring his customers. He understood the principles behind making a customer both happy and engaged. While Disney incented me to become a customer through free food, business owners have used other giveaways to develop opportunities to involve, channel, and give back to their customer community.

Involve Your Customers

The International Olympic Committee recently announced a social challenge called The Best of Us. Utilizing YouTube, Olympic athletes are challenging the young crowd to film themselves completing various challenges and submit the video. Winners will receive everything from T-shirts, to tickets to the Olympic Games.

In recent years the committee has seen a drop in interest from younger generations, and they know they need to act quickly or lose their audience. Setting YouTube as the platform for this involvement campaign brings the Olympics into an environment that their viewers are comfortable with. Assuming that their audience decides to become involved, we should see a viral spread of some of the more impressive videos that have been submitted for the contest.

I rate this as a “good” offer. The actual act required to receive the benefit does not increase your company’s revenue, but it gives your customer a chance to challenge himself, and become more engaged with a great product or activity. YouTube viewers love to see and promote impressive videos done by regular people. We’ll see if the execution of the Olympic campaign brings about the intended goal.

Channel the Community

With the example of the Olympic Challenge, we see an opportunity to inspire individuals to better themselves, but Disney has a current campaign that takes this one step further. Through an initiative called Give a Day Get a Disney Day, Disney challenges us to seek volunteer opportunities and give a day of service. In return, Disney will give one day admission to either Disney World or Disneyland.

This campaign does not engage the customer through a digital platform at all. In fact, it is encouraging the audience to step away from the digital world while performing these acts of service. Effective?

Disney’s idea is counter intuitive, but I personally consider this to be a “better” offer. The intent of the offer is to get the customer to look away from themselves and serve in their community. Guess how many individual bloggers would love to post pictures and summaries along with links to Disney promoting the campaign?

Disney has the goal of getting one million volunteers to participate. We will assume that a fraction of the participants is made up of bloggers, some fraction will be active social network users, and a small fraction will have some other form of a personal website. If the campaign becomes a success in the eyes of the participants, you can bet that they will do their best to evangelize, and that means social promoting, links, and higher customer devotion for Disney.

Give Back

Here at SEO.com we have been trying to do our part to give through the Ultimate Web Marketing Makeover. Our company has seen great successes during a time when other companies may be hurting, and we see our chance to give back. Throughout the month of October we accepted submissions from companies all over.

Aside from being a great opportunity to give back, we found that this was a great chance to increase awareness of what our company represents. We saw thousands of people reached via Twitter and Facebook. Each digital impression is a chance to reach a new customer. Each time that impression is placed in front of a blogger, he has the chance to write a post about your activities. Each email you send to webmasters inviting them to promote your event is a chance to gain a business partnership.

When you are willing to give, your customers are willing to give as well. That is the Law of Reciprocity. Your customers will see your efforts to give back to them, and it will create more respect for your business. While this would be reward enough, links will have a funny way of heading in your direction. News sites and bloggers will spread their opinion of your efforts.

I encourage you to look at your sphere of influence. Think about what you can do to support your customers and give back to the community. Set a plan in motion to involve your customers, encourage them to excel, or give back to the community that helped your company to grow. If you do this, you’ll find that your customers will develop a greater respect for you. When respect for you grows, the internet community starts to talk, and I bet you’ll see some links coming your way.

Read the original here:
Is It Really Better to Give?