Print this articleTen landing page tips to turn visitors into customers
There’s something about a ten-item list that makes us want to get all Hestonian on you and break out the archaic pronouns, especially when it comes to something like getting people who visit your site to actually buy from you. After all, you work hard to get clicks. What could be more important than turning those clicks into customers?
But we’re kind of a live-and-let-live bunch here, and we’re not so big on telling people what they have to do. So consider these a set of suggestions about how to help optimize your landing pages. That way, when people get to your site, they’ll be more likely to make a purchase.
1. Tell them why they should buy from you:
Clarity of your value proposition is the most important factor in determining whether a customer buys from you or not. Ask yourself the question: “Why should I buy from this site?”
2. Keep ‘em with you:
Protect your landing pages from the #1 threat to conversions: site flow disruption. After identifying a unique and compelling Value Proposition, you must ensure that you express it throughout your sales process in a clear, consistent and compelling way. Eliminate site flow disruption to help maximize conversions.
3. Don’t try to say too much:
Don’t clutter your landing page with unnecessary details. Instead:
• Clearly state your key message using as few words as possible
• Use summary descriptions, sub-headings, bulleted lists and short paragraphs
• Adopt a standard one-column format for easy reading.
4. Make it simple:
Improve the user experience with a site that is easy to navigate. A simple page layout that employs a clean visual and straightforward design is best. Here’s how:
• Design your site with a clear hierarchy with color and contrast for easily legible text
• Use meaningful and high-quality graphics (don’t clutter with too many)
• Use breadcrumbs to let visitors know where they are on your site
• Employ a clickable logo that takes the visitor to your homepage
• Use color to distinguish between visited and unvisited links.
Just as important, make sure you don’t:
• Employ horizontal scrolling
• Direct links to new browser windows
• Have flash-based content unless required.
5. Call them to action:
Focus on one primary action per screen (don’t stuff too many products onto one screen). Make the call-to-action button clearly visible without having to scroll; don’t bury it under pages of information. Consider using tabs or a pop-up box to consolidate information.
6. Get specific:
Provide product details and a large product image while displaying incentives—such as free shipping and warranty information—high on the page and close to the product. Don’t discourage visitors by requiring registration to your site.
7. Flaunt what you’ve got:
What differentiates you from your competitors? Free shipping (both ways?), discounts, a 365-day warranty, price protection, privacy, customer service, etc.? If you’ve got it, flaunt it!
8. Search yourself:
Make your site easy to navigate by helping potential customers find what they are looking for as quickly and easily as possible. A search feature box should be simple and visible with a type-in field, not a link. To help increase conversions, make sure your search results link to product pages.
9. Rally the believers:
Credibility is a true testament: people don’t buy from websites, people buy from people. Thus, testimonials from devout customers—or even a letter from the CEO/Editor—persuades the unbelieving.
10. Let them make the choice:
“Why should I buy this specific product?” Almost every e-tailer forgets about this, but it’s the question that’s key to Mr. or Ms. Customer’s mind. Prove to him or her why they should buy this over the competitive product by offering reviews, ratings and comparisons.
– Amy Borowicz; Yahoo! Blog
There’s something about a ten-item list that makes us want to get all Hestonian on you and break out the archaic pronouns, especially when it comes to something like getting people who visit your site to actually buy from you. After all, you work hard to get clicks. What could be more important than turning those clicks into customers?
But we’re kind of a live-and-let-live bunch here, and we’re not so big on telling people what they have to do. So consider these a set of suggestions about how to help optimize your landing pages. That way, when people get to your site, they’ll be more likely to make a purchase.
1. Tell them why they should buy from you:
Clarity of your value proposition is the most important factor in determining whether a customer buys from you or not. Ask yourself the question: “Why should I buy from this site?”
2. Keep ‘em with you:
Protect your landing pages from the #1 threat to conversions: site flow disruption. After identifying a unique and compelling Value Proposition, you must ensure that you express it throughout your sales process in a clear, consistent and compelling way. Eliminate site flow disruption to help maximize conversions.
3. Don’t try to say too much:
Don’t clutter your landing page with unnecessary details. Instead:
• Clearly state your key message using as few words as possible
• Use summary descriptions, sub-headings, bulleted lists and short paragraphs
• Adopt a standard one-column format for easy reading.
4. Make it simple:
Improve the user experience with a site that is easy to navigate. A simple page layout that employs a clean visual and straightforward design is best. Here’s how:
• Design your site with a clear hierarchy with color and contrast for easily legible text
• Use meaningful and high-quality graphics (don’t clutter with too many)
• Use breadcrumbs to let visitors know where they are on your site
• Employ a clickable logo that takes the visitor to your homepage
• Use color to distinguish between visited and unvisited links.
Just as important, make sure you don’t:
• Employ horizontal scrolling
• Direct links to new browser windows
• Have flash-based content unless required.
5. Call them to action:
Focus on one primary action per screen (don’t stuff too many products onto one screen). Make the call-to-action button clearly visible without having to scroll; don’t bury it under pages of information. Consider using tabs or a pop-up box to consolidate information.
6. Get specific:
Provide product details and a large product image while displaying incentives—such as free shipping and warranty information—high on the page and close to the product. Don’t discourage visitors by requiring registration to your site.
7. Flaunt what you’ve got:
What differentiates you from your competitors? Free shipping (both ways?), discounts, a 365-day warranty, price protection, privacy, customer service, etc.? If you’ve got it, flaunt it!
8. Search yourself:
Make your site easy to navigate by helping potential customers find what they are looking for as quickly and easily as possible. A search feature box should be simple and visible with a type-in field, not a link. To help increase conversions, make sure your search results link to product pages.
9. Rally the believers:
Credibility is a true testament: people don’t buy from websites, people buy from people. Thus, testimonials from devout customers—or even a letter from the CEO/Editor—persuades the unbelieving.
10. Let them make the choice:
“Why should I buy this specific product?” Almost every e-tailer forgets about this, but it’s the question that’s key to Mr. or Ms. Customer’s mind. Prove to him or her why they should buy this over the competitive product by offering reviews, ratings and comparisons.
– Amy Borowicz; Yahoo! Blog
Last night’s MITX (Massachusetts Innovation & Technology Exchange; www.mitx.org ) titled, The 2008 Digital State - Social Media: the Opportunities and Implications for Marketers, was packed. This is not surprising given the incredible buzz that surrounds “social media”. The speaking panel included:
• Tom Arrix, Vice President of Sales, East, Facebook; www.facebook.com
• Pauline Ores, Senior Marketing Manager, Community & Collaboration, Global SMB Marketing, IBM Corporation; www.ibm.com
• Juan Fernando Santos, Chief Creative Officer, StudioCom;
• Suzanne Skop, Director of Sales, MySpace;
• Jeffrey C. Taylor, Chief Executive Officer, Eons
I enjoyed the panel and it was great to hear the enthusiasm although some of it should be taken with a grain of salt. It is always great to hear people passionate about what they do and what they sell, but that is one of the tenets of a good sales person. It they told you the challenges and the road blocks they faced, you might not be quite as impressed.
The most poignant question was brought up by the moderator, Larry Webber (W2 Group Inc., www.w2groupinc.com ), “What is the new ad model for these social networks?” I did not hear a straight answer. There were statistics on how many people are joining up, that they are connecting and creating content, and how display is the “old” model. There was, however, no real discussion of how to use these new contributors as effective marketing tools. So the question remains, what is the ad model for these networks? How marketers are are going to purchase and assess effectiveness of this new consortium of content contributors is the question we all want to know…
• Tom Arrix, Vice President of Sales, East, Facebook; www.facebook.com
• Pauline Ores, Senior Marketing Manager, Community & Collaboration, Global SMB Marketing, IBM Corporation; www.ibm.com
• Juan Fernando Santos, Chief Creative Officer, StudioCom;
• Suzanne Skop, Director of Sales, MySpace;
• Jeffrey C. Taylor, Chief Executive Officer, Eons
I enjoyed the panel and it was great to hear the enthusiasm although some of it should be taken with a grain of salt. It is always great to hear people passionate about what they do and what they sell, but that is one of the tenets of a good sales person. It they told you the challenges and the road blocks they faced, you might not be quite as impressed.
The most poignant question was brought up by the moderator, Larry Webber (W2 Group Inc., www.w2groupinc.com ), “What is the new ad model for these social networks?” I did not hear a straight answer. There were statistics on how many people are joining up, that they are connecting and creating content, and how display is the “old” model. There was, however, no real discussion of how to use these new contributors as effective marketing tools. So the question remains, what is the ad model for these networks? How marketers are are going to purchase and assess effectiveness of this new consortium of content contributors is the question we all want to know…
I was in my accountant's office the other day and as we were wrapping up our meeting, he started asking questions about SEO. Apparently his site had suddenly dropped into oblivion for no apparent reason. After further investigation, I quickly found that there were about 2000 keywords hidden at the bottom of each page and that he had 5-6 domains all mirroring the same content. Over the next week we were able to get the spam cleaned up and submitted a reconsideration request to Google. In less than a week, he back up in the top three for his core keywords.
I don't think that this is a rare situation for small business owners as it there is a lot of information flowing around in forums and from eager web designers looking for quick and easy ways to confirm that "Yes, they do build optimized websites". Now in this case, my accountant had read a couple of forums and this seemed like a fine idea; Search engines look for keywords, so if there are keywords at the bottom of my page, it should help my search rankings.
I think that very often it is not understanding the big picture of SEO that can be a problem. No one technique or approach to SEO will yield long-term consistent results. When your SEO strategy is based on one single technique, you leave yourself vulnerable, at best to constant fluctuations, and at worst to penalties and even blacklisting.
When planning your SEO strategy, understand all factors that search engines look at and address many of them. Like a financial portfolio, this will hedge against short term fluctuations and will yield strong, consistent results over the long term.
I don't think that this is a rare situation for small business owners as it there is a lot of information flowing around in forums and from eager web designers looking for quick and easy ways to confirm that "Yes, they do build optimized websites". Now in this case, my accountant had read a couple of forums and this seemed like a fine idea; Search engines look for keywords, so if there are keywords at the bottom of my page, it should help my search rankings.
I think that very often it is not understanding the big picture of SEO that can be a problem. No one technique or approach to SEO will yield long-term consistent results. When your SEO strategy is based on one single technique, you leave yourself vulnerable, at best to constant fluctuations, and at worst to penalties and even blacklisting.
When planning your SEO strategy, understand all factors that search engines look at and address many of them. Like a financial portfolio, this will hedge against short term fluctuations and will yield strong, consistent results over the long term.
I came across a MediaPost Insider article this afternoon called "Holiday Shopping Season 2007: All About the Blogs", by Tessa Rudd. The article talks about how online shoppers, and advertisers and marketers trying to reach them see blogs as helping out with "guided shopping".
Rudd writes, "The blogosphere offers unbiased, third-party voice for consumers, while simultaneously empowering advertisers with the valuable opportunity to capitolize on the trust that has developed between bloggers and consumers. Numerous reports from the Internet advertising industry and market researchers suggest that advertising is working on blogs. This is creating a dynamic environment where branding meets direct marketing."
The article then goes on talking about "online e-fluencers": "The success of advertising in the blogosophere is manifested through the relationship between the consumer and online e-fluencers. E-fluencers are often bloggers who have become experts, through research and knowledge, in a specific area of interest, such as MP3 players or GPS systems. E-fluencers become an influential and guiding player in the traditional concept of consumer-to-consumer marketing."
In reading this article, I quickly came to realize that at least 2 items on my Christmas list this year came from specific items that were recommended on blogs. One item is a handbag a friend had recommended on her blog around fashion. If I hadn't asked for it for christmas, I would have purchased it right from her blog - as she often posts pictures of items, linking to the product's website to purchase.
If its wasn't for these e-fluencers, my christmas list may have been much more barren this year (and maybe would have even saved Santa Claus some money!)
Rudd writes, "The blogosphere offers unbiased, third-party voice for consumers, while simultaneously empowering advertisers with the valuable opportunity to capitolize on the trust that has developed between bloggers and consumers. Numerous reports from the Internet advertising industry and market researchers suggest that advertising is working on blogs. This is creating a dynamic environment where branding meets direct marketing."
The article then goes on talking about "online e-fluencers": "The success of advertising in the blogosophere is manifested through the relationship between the consumer and online e-fluencers. E-fluencers are often bloggers who have become experts, through research and knowledge, in a specific area of interest, such as MP3 players or GPS systems. E-fluencers become an influential and guiding player in the traditional concept of consumer-to-consumer marketing."
In reading this article, I quickly came to realize that at least 2 items on my Christmas list this year came from specific items that were recommended on blogs. One item is a handbag a friend had recommended on her blog around fashion. If I hadn't asked for it for christmas, I would have purchased it right from her blog - as she often posts pictures of items, linking to the product's website to purchase.
If its wasn't for these e-fluencers, my christmas list may have been much more barren this year (and maybe would have even saved Santa Claus some money!)
On Tuesday, Merriam-Webster announced their word of the year for 2007. And the winner was… w00t! Of course. I use this word ALL the time. For those of you out there who, like me, don’t find this word entering their daily vocabulary, let me give you a little background on the word. Webster’s online Open Dictionary defines it like this:
1. w00t (interjection)
Expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word “yay.”
w00t! I won the contest!
And while there is plenty of disagreement as to the origins of the word, one popular theory as defined by Urban Dictionary is that the term was derived from online gamers as an acronym for “we own the other team.” In other words, it was a victory cry of sorts. And now… well, now it seems to have worked its way into mainstream language, or at least into “leetspeak,” or l33t.
As a “word of the year,” w00t joins the ranks of other “word of the year winners” such as ruthiness, integrity, blog, and democracy. These are all words that are chosen by Webster’s based on their wide usage, and are then voted on by the internet public. So, the question is, will w00t become as wide-spread as “blog.” Will we all be crying “w00t!” as we ring in the New Year? Ten years from now, will we all look back and laugh that I’m blogging about the term “w00t” - a term that has become as mainstream as “internet,” “telephone,” or “HDTV?” I’m obviously just a n00bi3 at all this l33t stuff, and at this point I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I may just never be k3wl.
1. w00t (interjection)
Expressing joy (it could be after a triumph, or for no reason at all); similar in use to the word “yay.”
w00t! I won the contest!
And while there is plenty of disagreement as to the origins of the word, one popular theory as defined by Urban Dictionary is that the term was derived from online gamers as an acronym for “we own the other team.” In other words, it was a victory cry of sorts. And now… well, now it seems to have worked its way into mainstream language, or at least into “leetspeak,” or l33t.
As a “word of the year,” w00t joins the ranks of other “word of the year winners” such as ruthiness, integrity, blog, and democracy. These are all words that are chosen by Webster’s based on their wide usage, and are then voted on by the internet public. So, the question is, will w00t become as wide-spread as “blog.” Will we all be crying “w00t!” as we ring in the New Year? Ten years from now, will we all look back and laugh that I’m blogging about the term “w00t” - a term that has become as mainstream as “internet,” “telephone,” or “HDTV?” I’m obviously just a n00bi3 at all this l33t stuff, and at this point I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I may just never be k3wl.
According to Google’s software engineer, Matt Cutts – Google plans to shortly roll out a new filter that will treat sub-folders and sub-domains of a site equally. According to SE Roundtable (http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/015621.html), at a recent PubCon conference in Las Vegas, Matt stated that very soon things will change and a domain will be limited to 2 total URL’s within any set of search results.
So what does this mean for webmasters? Since sub-domains up until this point have been treated as individual domains, site owners had the ability to easily game the system and index an endless amount of sub-domains in Google to dominate a bunch of rankings. Google’s latest effort to put an end to this, will most likely have a significant impact on websites using these tactics. In addition though, some legit sites are likely to hurt from this change, as certain sites who let’s say had 3-4 of their own listings within top 10 search results will now be limited to just 2, therefore losing some of the traffic.
Whether or not this new algorithm will cause relevancy issues is under question, but the filter should surely put an end to black hat SEO’s taking advantage of the current situation, especially those in the more competitive areas of the business.
So what does this mean for webmasters? Since sub-domains up until this point have been treated as individual domains, site owners had the ability to easily game the system and index an endless amount of sub-domains in Google to dominate a bunch of rankings. Google’s latest effort to put an end to this, will most likely have a significant impact on websites using these tactics. In addition though, some legit sites are likely to hurt from this change, as certain sites who let’s say had 3-4 of their own listings within top 10 search results will now be limited to just 2, therefore losing some of the traffic.
Whether or not this new algorithm will cause relevancy issues is under question, but the filter should surely put an end to black hat SEO’s taking advantage of the current situation, especially those in the more competitive areas of the business.
In a meeting with our Google team this week, one of our contacts introduced us to iGoogle. Although I was aware of it, I never really went as far as to try it out. However, out of curiosity today, I went to check it out quickly, and before I knew it 15 minutes went by with me playing around with my page, as well as some of the 'gadgets' I can add to it.
iGoogle allows you to personalize your Google homepage, spicing it up from just the plain white background. It allows you to customize your page with news, local weather, YouTube clips, and lets you 'add stuff'; gadgets that you may want to interact with when visiting the page. Our rep let us know one of his favorite gadgets was Pacman - and much to my surprise, you can play Frogger and Duck Hunt too!
Much to my surprise, some of these gadgets are being used as ad units - which Google is currently calling 'gadget ads'. These gadgets are being described as 'websites within websites'; users can post and share gadgets anywhere, engaging users around your brand. Gadget ads are comprised of 'applications incorporating data feeds, maps, images, audio, video, flash, HTML, or JavaScript in a single creative'.
Now that I've actually seen these gadgets and interacted with some of them myself, I'm curious to see how they work in an ad campaign!
iGoogle allows you to personalize your Google homepage, spicing it up from just the plain white background. It allows you to customize your page with news, local weather, YouTube clips, and lets you 'add stuff'; gadgets that you may want to interact with when visiting the page. Our rep let us know one of his favorite gadgets was Pacman - and much to my surprise, you can play Frogger and Duck Hunt too!
Much to my surprise, some of these gadgets are being used as ad units - which Google is currently calling 'gadget ads'. These gadgets are being described as 'websites within websites'; users can post and share gadgets anywhere, engaging users around your brand. Gadget ads are comprised of 'applications incorporating data feeds, maps, images, audio, video, flash, HTML, or JavaScript in a single creative'.
Now that I've actually seen these gadgets and interacted with some of them myself, I'm curious to see how they work in an ad campaign!
Yesterday, the popular social content site, Digg, made some pretty drastic changes to its taxonomy. This change certainly softened the corners of the traditionally tech driven social site, providing a greater diversity of content options. There is a new Lifestyle category and greater prominence for Sports and Entertainment categories. Additionally, Offbeat, which has historically served as the catch all for stories that didn't fit elsewhere, has been broken out into its own category with a variety of subcats.
It will be interesting to see how the fork-tongued Digg hard corps react to this invitation to art and puppy lovers to join their ranks. My guess is that it could go one of two ways:
1) They leave and find the next best thing. This is a tech savvy crowd that knows it and prides themselves on being hip to the coolest new thing out there. It is possible that this process was already underway.
2) They go the way of Phish fans following the break up of the Greatful Dead in the mid 90's. Before I go on, while I enjoy the music of both bands, I am by no means a die-hard fan of either. which I think gave me a more neutral take on the situation. When the The Dead broke up and all these people flooded over to start going to Phish concerts, it seemed that Phish fans felt the needed to super-charge their fan-dom and fight the yuppie-posers (ie Me) who were encroaching on their thing. While hateful comments are already the norm, it's possible that veteran Diggers may lash out and bury posts in the new categories.
I guess a third option is that veterans actually like the new categories because the new outlets will stop people from posting stories in categories that aren't a good fit.
I any case, Digg's reasoning has to be in-part motivated by the need to grow their audience, most likely to make the site more appealing for advertisers or potential buyers. Only time will tell if their approach will achieve that goal or if it will drive away the people that made the site what it is.
It will be interesting to see how the fork-tongued Digg hard corps react to this invitation to art and puppy lovers to join their ranks. My guess is that it could go one of two ways:
1) They leave and find the next best thing. This is a tech savvy crowd that knows it and prides themselves on being hip to the coolest new thing out there. It is possible that this process was already underway.
2) They go the way of Phish fans following the break up of the Greatful Dead in the mid 90's. Before I go on, while I enjoy the music of both bands, I am by no means a die-hard fan of either. which I think gave me a more neutral take on the situation. When the The Dead broke up and all these people flooded over to start going to Phish concerts, it seemed that Phish fans felt the needed to super-charge their fan-dom and fight the yuppie-posers (ie Me) who were encroaching on their thing. While hateful comments are already the norm, it's possible that veteran Diggers may lash out and bury posts in the new categories.
I guess a third option is that veterans actually like the new categories because the new outlets will stop people from posting stories in categories that aren't a good fit.
I any case, Digg's reasoning has to be in-part motivated by the need to grow their audience, most likely to make the site more appealing for advertisers or potential buyers. Only time will tell if their approach will achieve that goal or if it will drive away the people that made the site what it is.
As the paid search industry has evolved from the days of goto.com to Overture to Yahoo and the rise of Google Adwords all sorts of search engine marketing strategies have been suggested and debated. Bid management, writing effective ad copy and day parting are just a few worthy of mention. Yet among all of these tactics the one most fundamental of concepts is time and again overlooked, conversion tracking. Let this then be just a friendly reminder to track your campaign's target conversions and more specifically, all conversions.
A great example of the importance of tracking all available actions (and not just the most desired) is in one of Rock Coast Media's present campaigns. After a substantial period of time working through numerous technical challenges we were finally able to track call center sales in addition to just search driven online sales. All along we had some theories about the value of these calls but we were never sure...the result, over 40% of our sales were still over the phone. Clearly these numbers have substantially impacted the campaign's bottom line and our overall strategy.
Yes, the holidays are coming soon, 2008 planning is in crunch time and things in general are crazy. Hence, just this friendly reminder to review all of the available actions in your campaign and make sure they are properly tracked.
A great example of the importance of tracking all available actions (and not just the most desired) is in one of Rock Coast Media's present campaigns. After a substantial period of time working through numerous technical challenges we were finally able to track call center sales in addition to just search driven online sales. All along we had some theories about the value of these calls but we were never sure...the result, over 40% of our sales were still over the phone. Clearly these numbers have substantially impacted the campaign's bottom line and our overall strategy.
Yes, the holidays are coming soon, 2008 planning is in crunch time and things in general are crazy. Hence, just this friendly reminder to review all of the available actions in your campaign and make sure they are properly tracked.
It is no surprise that more ad dollars are being invested in pull media, such as search, as the alternative is down right annoying. This became very clear to me today when I received no less than 7 calls from the same telemarketer about these great "free" gifts that I have been randomly chosen to receive, but of course didn't request.
This situation was both annoying and a little scary, as they knew the last 4 digits of my credit card and claimed to be affiliated with my credit card. The seven calls gave me a chance to do some probing and I quickly learned that they were not with my credit card company at all. As usual, I declined their "free" offer because to be honest, I know these things are never free and I don't think my wife would be all that excited if I started to build a collection of "Girls Gone Wild" videos at the house.
Had the conversation ended there, I would have been more than happy to chalk this up as another mildly annoying telemarketing call. But each caller said that I had to go through a recorded description of the offer during which I was to respond OK twice and at the end I would be given the opportunity to decline the offer. The problem was, that I never made it to the end because their statements were worded in such a way that an "OK" response would have resulted in a recording of me agreeing to receive the offer. After explaining why I had a problem with this I was hung up on by a couple of the callers and the others said that I absolutely couldn't be removed from the list without going through the process as the system was automated. So I guess I just have to keep an eye on my credit card statement and keep fielding these calls.
While I filed a complaint with the BBB, I doubt anything will come of it. The only way to stop this is for the budgets to dry up. Hopefully advertisers will become more aware that there are better options, where you can draw your customers in by giving them what they want, rather than jamming what you want them to have down their throat.
This situation was both annoying and a little scary, as they knew the last 4 digits of my credit card and claimed to be affiliated with my credit card. The seven calls gave me a chance to do some probing and I quickly learned that they were not with my credit card company at all. As usual, I declined their "free" offer because to be honest, I know these things are never free and I don't think my wife would be all that excited if I started to build a collection of "Girls Gone Wild" videos at the house.
Had the conversation ended there, I would have been more than happy to chalk this up as another mildly annoying telemarketing call. But each caller said that I had to go through a recorded description of the offer during which I was to respond OK twice and at the end I would be given the opportunity to decline the offer. The problem was, that I never made it to the end because their statements were worded in such a way that an "OK" response would have resulted in a recording of me agreeing to receive the offer. After explaining why I had a problem with this I was hung up on by a couple of the callers and the others said that I absolutely couldn't be removed from the list without going through the process as the system was automated. So I guess I just have to keep an eye on my credit card statement and keep fielding these calls.
While I filed a complaint with the BBB, I doubt anything will come of it. The only way to stop this is for the budgets to dry up. Hopefully advertisers will become more aware that there are better options, where you can draw your customers in by giving them what they want, rather than jamming what you want them to have down their throat.
When thinking about the concept of Facebook and the overall ability it gives a user to put whatever details about the going-ons in their life right out there for everyone else on Facebook to see, one could convince that it might not be a big deal if recent online purchases began showing up in user profiles. After all, if Janie Teenager bought two tickets to see Fantastic Four with her main squeeze and wanted people to know about it, what harm could be done in Facebook displaying that Janie actually bought the tickets to said movie on Fandango, one of the participating companies in Facebook's Beacon program? In many cases users may see it as confirmation that another likes or uses certain products, however, after last weeks national news story about the intern-bust http://valleywag.com/tech/your-privacy-is-an-illusion/bank-intern-busted-by-facebook-321802.php users of Facebook and MySpace should think twice about what they put in their profiles as well as their privacy settings. Moreover, users need to be aware of what Facebook may slyly be placing on your profile.
Now this was not a case related to online purchases, but say that our friend Kevin here had purchased a plane ticket and 2 seats for a game at Madison Square Garden through Beacon participating companies on Facebook? While the fairy outfit scenario was likely far more amusing to his boss than the above would have been, there is something to be said for privacy and that goes for online purchases as well. Should this information be shared with other users of Facebook unless you were given a reasonable notice? Probably not. While Facebook's sneeky 20 second opt-out feature http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20071121/tc_nf/56860 is rather bogus, users should be aware of it and for goodness sake, if you're going to tell your employer or anyone else a white lie, don't post the truth for everyone to see!
Now this was not a case related to online purchases, but say that our friend Kevin here had purchased a plane ticket and 2 seats for a game at Madison Square Garden through Beacon participating companies on Facebook? While the fairy outfit scenario was likely far more amusing to his boss than the above would have been, there is something to be said for privacy and that goes for online purchases as well. Should this information be shared with other users of Facebook unless you were given a reasonable notice? Probably not. While Facebook's sneeky 20 second opt-out feature http://news.yahoo.com/s/nf/20071121/tc_nf/56860 is rather bogus, users should be aware of it and for goodness sake, if you're going to tell your employer or anyone else a white lie, don't post the truth for everyone to see!
With all the buzz lately about Facebook’s new advertising platform, another social media ad platform may have been overlooked. While LinkedIn’s ad platform (http://www.linkedin.com/static?key=advertising_info) may not have all the bells and whistles of Facebook’s (http://www.facebook.com/ads), it does enable advertisers to reach a different audience.
LinkedIn, a social media site dedicated to helping professionals stay in touch with past colleagues and classmates, or explore new career opportunities, is a great way for advertisers to reach a more mature, professional audience. Advertisers have access to over 16 million professionals on LinkedIn, and can target them by industry, seniority, job function, company size, geography, number of connections, and gender. Banner and text links are available to display advertising messages.
LinkedIn is great option for advertisers in industries like finance, business technology, health, travel and more. For a financial company offering Rollover IRAs, the business professionals on LinkedIn might be a better audience than the demographic that uses Facebook. That’s not to say there isn’t an audience for Rollover IRA’s on Facebook. But with almost 21 million Facebook users ranging from high school students to retirees, versus the over 16 million professionals with an average of fifteen years business experience, you might get a better bang for your buck on LinkedIn!
LinkedIn, a social media site dedicated to helping professionals stay in touch with past colleagues and classmates, or explore new career opportunities, is a great way for advertisers to reach a more mature, professional audience. Advertisers have access to over 16 million professionals on LinkedIn, and can target them by industry, seniority, job function, company size, geography, number of connections, and gender. Banner and text links are available to display advertising messages.
LinkedIn is great option for advertisers in industries like finance, business technology, health, travel and more. For a financial company offering Rollover IRAs, the business professionals on LinkedIn might be a better audience than the demographic that uses Facebook. That’s not to say there isn’t an audience for Rollover IRA’s on Facebook. But with almost 21 million Facebook users ranging from high school students to retirees, versus the over 16 million professionals with an average of fifteen years business experience, you might get a better bang for your buck on LinkedIn!
A colleague of mine and I were in New York for Ad Tech last week and had the pleasure to schedule time with a few of the leading ad serving and tracking providers. Our core focus for the meetings was to ultimately unlock that holy grail of advertising - closing the loop from customer awareness to purchase. This concept goes far beyond just direct awareness to conversion it also includes identifying the multiple touch points a consumer experiences with a brand. From hearing a radio spot to viewing a banner to finding that brand via a search engine. There are many steps to this process and many funnels to how these conversions may take place.
Fortunately, solving this challenge is at the forefront of these vendors' minds and they are making some strong steps to get there. One vendor for example will soon provide a report illustrating the relationship between media spend, impact on brand name searches and whether these brand searches converted. Another report shows the most frequent searches clicked on for a keyword prior to a conversion on that keyword. Reports such as these are a solid step toward a far deeper understanding of customer behavior.
We must remember however, that while this is a step in the right direction, it is still a baby step. 3rd party cookie limitations and the inability to track organic placements are just a few of the challenges that are still to be faced...and oh yeah, what about those offline campaigns? The good news is, we're getting there.
Fortunately, solving this challenge is at the forefront of these vendors' minds and they are making some strong steps to get there. One vendor for example will soon provide a report illustrating the relationship between media spend, impact on brand name searches and whether these brand searches converted. Another report shows the most frequent searches clicked on for a keyword prior to a conversion on that keyword. Reports such as these are a solid step toward a far deeper understanding of customer behavior.
We must remember however, that while this is a step in the right direction, it is still a baby step. 3rd party cookie limitations and the inability to track organic placements are just a few of the challenges that are still to be faced...and oh yeah, what about those offline campaigns? The good news is, we're getting there.
An often overlooked aspect of Pay-per-Click Advertising, targeted landing pages can have a significant impact on conversion rate. Why? It's the first page a visitor sees after clicking your ad, can be as relevant and granular to a search term as desired, and has the ability to give the customer exactly what they're looking for. Moreover, search engines favor campaigns whose landing pages are highly relevant to their ad groups. As Jennifer Laycock pointed out in her recent blog,
(http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/five-common-paid-search-mistakes-that-ca.php) "Microsoft and Google both look at an ad's landing page as part of their determination of what an ad will cost per click. If the landing page doesn't match up with the keywords from a user's search, the cost per click needed to rank well goes up." So, what are some elements that help make a good landing page? Here are a few things to keep in mind when designing your PPC Campaign landing pages:
1. Does your Landing Page support your ad? If the copy in your ad is focused on running shoes and the landing page is about running clothes and accessories, you are requiring visitors to search for information that you've already advertised to them was immediately accessible. In many cases, not only are you distracting the visitor from their initial focus, but you may be turning them off enough they leave your site completely.
2. Does your Landing Page match your call to action? If you are promoting "buy now" in your ad copy, a visitor will expect to land on a page where they can make a purchase. Likewise, if you are advertising "learn more" or "get more information," the user should be brought to a page where they will find exactly that. Make sure your landing page delivers on the expectations set in your ads.
3. Does your Landing Page focus on one specific action? Whether it's signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or requesting more information, everything on your landing page should be focused around this one goal. Keep distracting links that take the visitor away from this path to a minimum, shorten text to get straight to the point, and minimize the number of clicks a user must make to reach the end goal.
4. Does your Landing Page look like the rest of your site? This is not to say that the landing page cannot deviate at all from your website, but there is something to be said about keeping logos, colors, and branding in place. This builds confidence with the customer and maintains the company image that customers have come to expect.
If your goal is to increase conversion rate, creating targeted landing pages is a valuable tool which shouldn’t be overlooked. Keep the above considerations in mind, and be sure to have clear goals about what other elements you will be testing. Most importantly, remember that determining the best landing page is a process, possibly requiring several rounds of revisions to determine what factors work best together. Good luck!
(http://www.searchengineguide.com/jennifer-laycock/five-common-paid-search-mistakes-that-ca.php) "Microsoft and Google both look at an ad's landing page as part of their determination of what an ad will cost per click. If the landing page doesn't match up with the keywords from a user's search, the cost per click needed to rank well goes up." So, what are some elements that help make a good landing page? Here are a few things to keep in mind when designing your PPC Campaign landing pages:
1. Does your Landing Page support your ad? If the copy in your ad is focused on running shoes and the landing page is about running clothes and accessories, you are requiring visitors to search for information that you've already advertised to them was immediately accessible. In many cases, not only are you distracting the visitor from their initial focus, but you may be turning them off enough they leave your site completely.
2. Does your Landing Page match your call to action? If you are promoting "buy now" in your ad copy, a visitor will expect to land on a page where they can make a purchase. Likewise, if you are advertising "learn more" or "get more information," the user should be brought to a page where they will find exactly that. Make sure your landing page delivers on the expectations set in your ads.
3. Does your Landing Page focus on one specific action? Whether it's signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or requesting more information, everything on your landing page should be focused around this one goal. Keep distracting links that take the visitor away from this path to a minimum, shorten text to get straight to the point, and minimize the number of clicks a user must make to reach the end goal.
4. Does your Landing Page look like the rest of your site? This is not to say that the landing page cannot deviate at all from your website, but there is something to be said about keeping logos, colors, and branding in place. This builds confidence with the customer and maintains the company image that customers have come to expect.
If your goal is to increase conversion rate, creating targeted landing pages is a valuable tool which shouldn’t be overlooked. Keep the above considerations in mind, and be sure to have clear goals about what other elements you will be testing. Most importantly, remember that determining the best landing page is a process, possibly requiring several rounds of revisions to determine what factors work best together. Good luck!
Google announced this week that CPC site targeting is currently out of Beta, and available to all advertisers. They also announced that they will now call what was formerly known as Site Targeting, "Placement Targeting".
According to Google, "With the launch of CPC bidding, you can not only pick the placements where your ads appear, but you can also select the bidding option that best matches your clients' needs. For instance, if the purpose of your client's placement-targeted campaign is to increase sales, leads, sign-ups, or other conversion-oriented metrics, you can select CPC bidding and pay per click. Alternatively, if you want to maximize impressions and increase brand awareness among your client's target audience, you can select CPM bidding."
It would be great with the launch of these announcements, Google could also provide case studies that demonstrate the impact/performance of CPC placement targeting vs. CPM for a particular advertiser. The data must be available and is usually the first question I have when a Google feature comes out of Beta.
Currently, the search engine allows advertisers to convert their CPM placement targeting campaigns to CPC with a quick change to their campaign settings. Although not yet available through the API or compatible with Adwords Editor, Google hopes to integrate these within the coming months.
According to Google, "With the launch of CPC bidding, you can not only pick the placements where your ads appear, but you can also select the bidding option that best matches your clients' needs. For instance, if the purpose of your client's placement-targeted campaign is to increase sales, leads, sign-ups, or other conversion-oriented metrics, you can select CPC bidding and pay per click. Alternatively, if you want to maximize impressions and increase brand awareness among your client's target audience, you can select CPM bidding."
It would be great with the launch of these announcements, Google could also provide case studies that demonstrate the impact/performance of CPC placement targeting vs. CPM for a particular advertiser. The data must be available and is usually the first question I have when a Google feature comes out of Beta.
Currently, the search engine allows advertisers to convert their CPM placement targeting campaigns to CPC with a quick change to their campaign settings. Although not yet available through the API or compatible with Adwords Editor, Google hopes to integrate these within the coming months.
On Monday, CEO and Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, unveiled their new ad platform. Essentially it will allow advertisers to create a corporate profile. Facebook users will be able to become "friends" with the company and share their experience with other friends within the social network. In addition, the Beacon Project will allow user's to share their purchase and interaction behavior outside of Facebook on participating sites through feeds. Advertisers can then in turn serve up ads to people that have showed an affinity to a certain brand. There is apparently some form of behavioral/demographic targeting as well because I was just served up an ad for "SYNC" and I don't use any Blue Tooth devices nor do I own an iPod. I do happen to be male, between the ages of 25 and 34, so I expect that is why I got that ad. Anyway, I digress.
As with anything related to social networking, there is a lot of buzz about how revolutionary this idea is and that it will change the way that people market. I agree, there are certainly some interesting aspects, such as the ability to target to people that have expressed interest in a particular brand, but is that really going to help people that don't have a well established brand? Let's be real, there are only a handful of brands that are both widely known and appeal to a large enough market to make marketing worth while. We are talking about the iPod's and PS3's of the world here. I just don't see this as a viable marketing channel for companies that don't have a well established brand, even if people are looking for an buying their products online. As a result, I expect that the majority of ad space will be filled with demographically target ads, making Facebook's new ad platform not really all that unique and revolutionary after all.
One thing that all marketers can enjoy about Facebook is the quality and accuracy of the demographic data on their users. Because supplying real information is the only real way to connect with your friends, I think that the data people enter in their Facebook profile is likely to be far more accurate then what they might enter when signing up for a Hotmail or Yahoo Mail account.
I guess only time and testing will tell, but I am excited to start testing.
As with anything related to social networking, there is a lot of buzz about how revolutionary this idea is and that it will change the way that people market. I agree, there are certainly some interesting aspects, such as the ability to target to people that have expressed interest in a particular brand, but is that really going to help people that don't have a well established brand? Let's be real, there are only a handful of brands that are both widely known and appeal to a large enough market to make marketing worth while. We are talking about the iPod's and PS3's of the world here. I just don't see this as a viable marketing channel for companies that don't have a well established brand, even if people are looking for an buying their products online. As a result, I expect that the majority of ad space will be filled with demographically target ads, making Facebook's new ad platform not really all that unique and revolutionary after all.
One thing that all marketers can enjoy about Facebook is the quality and accuracy of the demographic data on their users. Because supplying real information is the only real way to connect with your friends, I think that the data people enter in their Facebook profile is likely to be far more accurate then what they might enter when signing up for a Hotmail or Yahoo Mail account.
I guess only time and testing will tell, but I am excited to start testing.
The new website, www.freerice.com, offers visitors the chance to donate 10 grains of rice by simply playing a multiple choice vocabulary game. That’s it, that’s all you have to do. According to my colleague, there are approximately 14,500 grains of rice in one cup - http://www.producersrice.com/rice/facts.html#A
All you need to do is answer 1,450 questions correctly and you can provide one cup of rice to a hungry and less fortunate individual somewhere on the globe!
The project was started on October 7th, 2007 and registered 830 grains of rice and yesterday, November 6th, 2007, the total had risen to 856,444,020. That’s over 59,000 cups of rice. Not bad for 30 days work.
The cause is good and it shows the power of a unique viral marketing program; There is even a freerice add on in Facebook. We will keep an eye on this one and see just how much rice the world can get… Give it a shot.
All you need to do is answer 1,450 questions correctly and you can provide one cup of rice to a hungry and less fortunate individual somewhere on the globe!
The project was started on October 7th, 2007 and registered 830 grains of rice and yesterday, November 6th, 2007, the total had risen to 856,444,020. That’s over 59,000 cups of rice. Not bad for 30 days work.
The cause is good and it shows the power of a unique viral marketing program; There is even a freerice add on in Facebook. We will keep an eye on this one and see just how much rice the world can get… Give it a shot.
Does your current marketing strategy take into consideration what types of online web directories you should submit your website to? If it does and you're not careful, you could end up wasting money away and potentially hurting or influencing your rankings. At Rock Coast Media, our SEO link building experts are constantly working to develop a comprehensive list of quality web directories to improve our client rankings. Below are Top 5 Red Flags on the types of web directories you should avoid.
Red Flag #1 No Editorial Review – Recently, Google has taken action on banning hundreds of web directories that it considers outside of its"quality guidelines". Senior Google software engineer, Matt Cutts has mentioned the importance of quality on numerous occasions in the past and present. However, while Google is the search engine leader, at one point quantity did play a greater role and was more important in other smaller search engine competitors such as MSN. These days though, this is not the case as search engine algorithms are constantly updated for improved relevance in an effort to reduce SERP manipulation.
You should always make sure the directory you submit to has an editorial policy and takes the time to review your site. If there isn't, then skip it and move on!
Red Flag #2 Excessive Advertising – When spotting a quality directory, take into consideration the amount of sponsorship/Google Adsense ads that are present on the site. There is nothing wrong with placing adsense advertisements on a web directory, but you really want to avoid excessive advertising when deciding where you should submit to. Keepin mind, a lot of webmasters will attempt to set-up web directories for the purpose of generating revenue (whether through adsense, or paid submissions) without serving any value to the individual who pays. So in the end, you end up wasting your money and getting no value back.
Red Flag #3 Directory Age – Pay attention to how old the directory is and how long it has been around. Best Of The Web (www.botw.org) is a perfect example of quality web directory which has been around since 1994! These are the type of directories you should go after.
Red Flag #4 Same IP Hosting – As I mentioned above, certain webmasters have a tendency to set-up web directories for the purpose of generating revenue and nothing else. Individuals may run a network of 100 or more directories all hosted on the same IP address, and you may not even know it. Before deciding where to submit, you should analyze each directory domain name to make sure it is hosted on individual Class C blocks as opposed to same IP.
And finally…..
Red Flag #5 – Check Domain Indexability! – So you're ready to pay to be included in a directory. Everything looks good, nothing seems shady, right? But, have you checked whether the directory is actually spidered by search engines? I am starting to see this problem more and more…webmasters will allow the indexability of its main domain name, but have you checked whether the directory listing page you plan to submit your site to is actually indexed by search engines? Webmasters will sometimes attempt to put a 'nofollow' tag on a lot of internal pages of their site to avoid a so called PageRank 'Leak', in an effort to boost up the PR oftheir homepage. Sure, a directory may look great, but one that passes no backlink value to your site is worthless!
You should pay close attention to these warning signs at any time you decide to do your web directory submissions.
Red Flag #1 No Editorial Review – Recently, Google has taken action on banning hundreds of web directories that it considers outside of its"quality guidelines". Senior Google software engineer, Matt Cutts has mentioned the importance of quality on numerous occasions in the past and present. However, while Google is the search engine leader, at one point quantity did play a greater role and was more important in other smaller search engine competitors such as MSN. These days though, this is not the case as search engine algorithms are constantly updated for improved relevance in an effort to reduce SERP manipulation.
You should always make sure the directory you submit to has an editorial policy and takes the time to review your site. If there isn't, then skip it and move on!
Red Flag #2 Excessive Advertising – When spotting a quality directory, take into consideration the amount of sponsorship/Google Adsense ads that are present on the site. There is nothing wrong with placing adsense advertisements on a web directory, but you really want to avoid excessive advertising when deciding where you should submit to. Keepin mind, a lot of webmasters will attempt to set-up web directories for the purpose of generating revenue (whether through adsense, or paid submissions) without serving any value to the individual who pays. So in the end, you end up wasting your money and getting no value back.
Red Flag #3 Directory Age – Pay attention to how old the directory is and how long it has been around. Best Of The Web (www.botw.org) is a perfect example of quality web directory which has been around since 1994! These are the type of directories you should go after.
Red Flag #4 Same IP Hosting – As I mentioned above, certain webmasters have a tendency to set-up web directories for the purpose of generating revenue and nothing else. Individuals may run a network of 100 or more directories all hosted on the same IP address, and you may not even know it. Before deciding where to submit, you should analyze each directory domain name to make sure it is hosted on individual Class C blocks as opposed to same IP.
And finally…..
Red Flag #5 – Check Domain Indexability! – So you're ready to pay to be included in a directory. Everything looks good, nothing seems shady, right? But, have you checked whether the directory is actually spidered by search engines? I am starting to see this problem more and more…webmasters will allow the indexability of its main domain name, but have you checked whether the directory listing page you plan to submit your site to is actually indexed by search engines? Webmasters will sometimes attempt to put a 'nofollow' tag on a lot of internal pages of their site to avoid a so called PageRank 'Leak', in an effort to boost up the PR oftheir homepage. Sure, a directory may look great, but one that passes no backlink value to your site is worthless!
You should pay close attention to these warning signs at any time you decide to do your web directory submissions.
At the end of last week, I started receiving emails from Yahoo "informing me about the savings I've received for my account(s) due to Pricing Discounts":
"Pricing Discounts are designed to take quality into account in pricing traffic from Yahoo’s partner sites. This means that you may be charged less for certain clicks coming from partner sites depending on the quality of those clicks. Quality is calculated based on conversion rates and other measurements of the ability to deliver more interested customers to your website."
The email went on to outline which accounts I got pricing discounts in, listing out the days I received less than quality clicks, and the savings I received. The discounts were pretty good; for the couple days last month where I received discounts, it looks like I'm receiving over a 50% savings. Not so bad!
However, rather than finding out when a refund was going to be attributed to my accounts, Yahoo went on to outline "potential opportunities for reinvesting my pricing discounts" which included utilizing the team for keyword research, increasing bids on keywords that were effected, increasing terms that were otherwise unaffordable, etc. While this is all good (and its great to see Yahoo being proactive with our accounts), I'm left with feeling confused on just how these discounts are being applied, whether I talk to my rep about keyword research or not. I’m sure the goal is to have us spend more on account of these discounts, but I’ll let you know what I find out.
"Pricing Discounts are designed to take quality into account in pricing traffic from Yahoo’s partner sites. This means that you may be charged less for certain clicks coming from partner sites depending on the quality of those clicks. Quality is calculated based on conversion rates and other measurements of the ability to deliver more interested customers to your website."
The email went on to outline which accounts I got pricing discounts in, listing out the days I received less than quality clicks, and the savings I received. The discounts were pretty good; for the couple days last month where I received discounts, it looks like I'm receiving over a 50% savings. Not so bad!
However, rather than finding out when a refund was going to be attributed to my accounts, Yahoo went on to outline "potential opportunities for reinvesting my pricing discounts" which included utilizing the team for keyword research, increasing bids on keywords that were effected, increasing terms that were otherwise unaffordable, etc. While this is all good (and its great to see Yahoo being proactive with our accounts), I'm left with feeling confused on just how these discounts are being applied, whether I talk to my rep about keyword research or not. I’m sure the goal is to have us spend more on account of these discounts, but I’ll let you know what I find out.
It is impossible to discuss social media these days without the mention of Facebook. And why not, given their recent deal with Microsoft that values them at over 15 billion, Facebook is worth talking about. I clearly see the excitement from a marketing perspective. Over 40 billion users that provide an estimated 15 billion page views a month is more than a popular site, it’s a cultural phenomenon.
I have a Facebook account and it seems that in the past 3 months I have received more “requests” from other Facebook users than I did in the 12 months prior. Is that because I have been spending more time trying to figure out what exactly Facebook is good for? Probably. I have requested connections with people I used to work with and went to college with and I have accepted them in return, but other than that, what have I really accomplished? Nothing as far as I can tell. Once I make the connection and we are “friends” again but other than that, not much else happens.
Don’t get me wrong, it is fun and it is a cool place to surf around, it has a nice interface (much nicer than MySpace), but I feel that in the long run, Facebook will prove to be more valuable as a testing ground for technologies that resonate with users and ones that don’t.
By no means have I given up on Facebook and I plan to keep using it, but I am still trying to figure out if I will ever use it if for more locating old friends and colleagues and becoming “friends” again.
I have a Facebook account and it seems that in the past 3 months I have received more “requests” from other Facebook users than I did in the 12 months prior. Is that because I have been spending more time trying to figure out what exactly Facebook is good for? Probably. I have requested connections with people I used to work with and went to college with and I have accepted them in return, but other than that, what have I really accomplished? Nothing as far as I can tell. Once I make the connection and we are “friends” again but other than that, not much else happens.
Don’t get me wrong, it is fun and it is a cool place to surf around, it has a nice interface (much nicer than MySpace), but I feel that in the long run, Facebook will prove to be more valuable as a testing ground for technologies that resonate with users and ones that don’t.
By no means have I given up on Facebook and I plan to keep using it, but I am still trying to figure out if I will ever use it if for more locating old friends and colleagues and becoming “friends” again.
Last night I went to a lightly attended, (I assume due to the distraction of the best baseball team in the world beating all heck out of the CR’s), BIMA event along with two of my co-workers, where we were almost instantly pounced upon by a rep from SpiralFrog www.spiralfrog.com . This rep was very excited and proud of SpiralFrog’s offerings and was going to tell us all about it no matter what. I recognized the name and told him I had seen their logo before, but that I was unaware of their product. SpiralFrog, new to North America as of September 2007, is a downloadable, ad-supported music site that allows users to download free music legally. It operates on a rev-share model and is on a mission to save the music industry while shinning the spotlight on the true heros--advertisers. The company is headed up by Joe Mohen, who was quoted by an article in Online Media Daily (http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=67512&Nid=34366&p=338449) as saying, “[our] main competitor is piracy”. Overcoming the wide-spread use of illegal music sites is what SpiralFrog is here to do. SpiralFrog downloads are in WMA format and unfortunately are not ipod compatible--so dig up those old-school MP3 players!—but, the music is free and legal. If SpiralFrog gains momentum it could really become the new big thing in music downloading since it is likely to draw consumers from both the subscription world of Napster and Rhapsody as well as from the large pool of illegal downloaders. If SpiralFrog becomes successful in the music realm, who is to say it couldn’t work for other downloads, like movies, video games and ringtones? With SpiralFrog, advertisers will have a new and big opportunity to target the estimated age group of 18-34 year-olds and look like the cool kids while doing it. After all, who doesn’t love an advertiser that gives us free music without the risk of virus?
In a 10/25 Search Insider article: "Search and The Digital CPG Shelf", Gord Hotchkiss covers off on a research project he did with comScore and Proctor & Gamble called "The Digital Shelf" http://www.comscore.com/press/release.asp?press=1835. I thought the project was pretty interesting; in a nutshell, the study was run to tie online activity to offline purchase behavior, and determine whether or not search marketing was vital for brand building and driving offline sales for a category not typically tied with search (in this case Consumer Packaged Goods).
Interestingly enough, Hotchkiss finds:
"People went online for CPG information -- in fact, to a significantly higher degree than even our most optimistic predictions. Over a 3-month period, comScore recorded over 150 million visits to CPG websites in four categories: Food Products, Personal Care Products, Baby Products and Household Products. Those are numbers no marketer should ignore. But even more significantly, search drove significant portions of that traffic, from 23% of all visits in Household Products to 60% in Baby Products... It's not just automotive or travel that drive search traffic. We search for recipes, how to get the stains out of carpets, the most eco-friendly disposable diaper and yes, even the nutritional information for potato chips. We search, a lot!"
In the article, Hotchkiss seems blown away that people are searching for these things (primarily to compare against competitors). Although a bit surprised about the Food & Household products (I actually ran a campaign for a particular food & beverage product - I too was surprised at how many people searched on the brand), I'm not as surprised about the others. I've found myself researching personal care products from time to time, and I'm at the age where many of my friends are starting to have babies; most who, in their spare time, are surfing baby sites - researching the best products, etc. to use for their little one (or soon to be).
Hotchkiss closed the article asking why these companies are not investing more branding dollars in search. I guess that’s another project to dig into ;)
Interestingly enough, Hotchkiss finds:
"People went online for CPG information -- in fact, to a significantly higher degree than even our most optimistic predictions. Over a 3-month period, comScore recorded over 150 million visits to CPG websites in four categories: Food Products, Personal Care Products, Baby Products and Household Products. Those are numbers no marketer should ignore. But even more significantly, search drove significant portions of that traffic, from 23% of all visits in Household Products to 60% in Baby Products... It's not just automotive or travel that drive search traffic. We search for recipes, how to get the stains out of carpets, the most eco-friendly disposable diaper and yes, even the nutritional information for potato chips. We search, a lot!"
In the article, Hotchkiss seems blown away that people are searching for these things (primarily to compare against competitors). Although a bit surprised about the Food & Household products (I actually ran a campaign for a particular food & beverage product - I too was surprised at how many people searched on the brand), I'm not as surprised about the others. I've found myself researching personal care products from time to time, and I'm at the age where many of my friends are starting to have babies; most who, in their spare time, are surfing baby sites - researching the best products, etc. to use for their little one (or soon to be).
Hotchkiss closed the article asking why these companies are not investing more branding dollars in search. I guess that’s another project to dig into ;)
Generally accepted practices in SEO have indicated that title tags are for keywords and that any extraneous, marketing-type words should be reserved for meta descriptions and your on page copy. While I would agree that this is partially true, this line of thinking may require a bit more consideration.
The reason for the needed paradigm shift is the engines ability to factor in click through rate (CTR) into their ranking algorythm. So much like the impact of CTR on your quality score in paid search, it is believed that the rate at which people click on your organic listing versus the number of times your listing is shown is an important factor in determining organic rankings. If you think about it, it makes sense. A search engines goal is to give you the most relevant results for a particular query and CTR is a potentially a good indicator of what users find to be relevant. There are some potential holes in this logic, but I'll reserve that discussion for a different post.
So how does this play into your title tag strategy? Because in order to improve CTR, you need to make your listing stand out from the other 15-20 paid and organic listings on SERPs page so that users will be enticed. Also, because title tags are the one thing that you can almost always rely on to be a a part of your organic listing, this is really your best shot to improving CTR. Now making your title tags more interesting, and thus more clickable, does not mean abandoning keywords and using straight-up marketing speak. It simply means making title tags more readable and eye catching by taking a more descriptive approach.
For example, lets assume that we have a page about how to teach your dog to sit and your target keywords are: teach dog sit and dog sit training. An old title tag might look something like this:
"How to Teach Your Dog to Sit Training a Dog to Sit"
A more enticing title tag might look like this:
"Dog Training Experts Show How to Teach Your Dog to Sit from "
You can see how the second version is more eye-catching as it creates a sense of expertise and is also more readable.
When writing title tags, be sure to accurately represent your target search terms but also find creative ways to grab a user's interest. If you can do so, your organic search rankings will thank you.
The reason for the needed paradigm shift is the engines ability to factor in click through rate (CTR) into their ranking algorythm. So much like the impact of CTR on your quality score in paid search, it is believed that the rate at which people click on your organic listing versus the number of times your listing is shown is an important factor in determining organic rankings. If you think about it, it makes sense. A search engines goal is to give you the most relevant results for a particular query and CTR is a potentially a good indicator of what users find to be relevant. There are some potential holes in this logic, but I'll reserve that discussion for a different post.
So how does this play into your title tag strategy? Because in order to improve CTR, you need to make your listing stand out from the other 15-20 paid and organic listings on SERPs page so that users will be enticed. Also, because title tags are the one thing that you can almost always rely on to be a a part of your organic listing, this is really your best shot to improving CTR. Now making your title tags more interesting, and thus more clickable, does not mean abandoning keywords and using straight-up marketing speak. It simply means making title tags more readable and eye catching by taking a more descriptive approach.
For example, lets assume that we have a page about how to teach your dog to sit and your target keywords are: teach dog sit and dog sit training. An old title tag might look something like this:
"How to Teach Your Dog to Sit Training a Dog to Sit"
A more enticing title tag might look like this:
"Dog Training Experts Show How to Teach Your Dog to Sit from "
You can see how the second version is more eye-catching as it creates a sense of expertise and is also more readable.
When writing title tags, be sure to accurately represent your target search terms but also find creative ways to grab a user's interest. If you can do so, your organic search rankings will thank you.
In response to a recent Online Spin article: "Shaping or Breaking Brands", the author talks about how online reviews can make or shape clients brands. Mulcahy writes:
"... According to a recent survey by Deloitte's Consumer Products Group, consumers are turning to online reviews in large numbers. And guess what, those reviews have been found to have a serious impact on purchase.
Findings show that 62% of consumers read consumer-written product reviews on the Internet. Out of that group, more than 8 in 10 say they have been directly influenced by the reviews. Influence, of course, is twofold: consumers are either influenced to buy the product they were researching, or switch to another brand."
This note brought to mind an e-commerce campaign I managed, whose majority of PPC revenue was generated through brand terms (no surprise). In digging a little further into some click path data, a decent percentage of users started out in the search engines typing the brand term (let's say in Google), then went on to type in a non-branded term across several shopping engines, *then* came back to Google on the brand term again and purchased. This wasn't just one event... it was one of many.
The analysis was exciting to see (to prove the value of brand terms- yay!) but also scary, as it showed many users were not loyal to the brand. Luckily, they had a lot of good reviews. As Deloitte's survey points out, having reviews available on your site (and on the shopping engines) can influence users to (with good reviews) positively impact your brand.
"... According to a recent survey by Deloitte's Consumer Products Group, consumers are turning to online reviews in large numbers. And guess what, those reviews have been found to have a serious impact on purchase.
Findings show that 62% of consumers read consumer-written product reviews on the Internet. Out of that group, more than 8 in 10 say they have been directly influenced by the reviews. Influence, of course, is twofold: consumers are either influenced to buy the product they were researching, or switch to another brand."
This note brought to mind an e-commerce campaign I managed, whose majority of PPC revenue was generated through brand terms (no surprise). In digging a little further into some click path data, a decent percentage of users started out in the search engines typing the brand term (let's say in Google), then went on to type in a non-branded term across several shopping engines, *then* came back to Google on the brand term again and purchased. This wasn't just one event... it was one of many.
The analysis was exciting to see (to prove the value of brand terms- yay!) but also scary, as it showed many users were not loyal to the brand. Luckily, they had a lot of good reviews. As Deloitte's survey points out, having reviews available on your site (and on the shopping engines) can influence users to (with good reviews) positively impact your brand.
In today's MediaPost Search Insider article, "Unearthing Your Hidden SEO Guru", David Berkowitz provides some fantastic suggestions for just about any individual within an organization to help out with their Search Engine Optimization efforts. He points to the rise of "Universal" or "Blended" search which, to paraphrase Berkowitz, is the new practice of search engines pulling in data from a host of content sources. This means that anyone involved with press releases, social media channels, news articles distribution, video clip or photo submissions, etc can all contribute to his/her company's search engine ranking.
In thinking about all of these small ways to help improve and expand search rankings, the real question on my mind is how do we measure these contributions? What is the impact of that news article that is picked up by countless sites, talked about in blogs and in turn placed in the search engines? Clearly it has increased brand awareness, but how is this measured? And brand lift, for how long? What are the other indirect results of this article? When we think about this small piece coupled with video submissions, photos, blogs, press releases and more, there are a lot of moveable parts. When we can agree on the metrics and means by which to measure the sum of these parts is when we will really be onto something!
In thinking about all of these small ways to help improve and expand search rankings, the real question on my mind is how do we measure these contributions? What is the impact of that news article that is picked up by countless sites, talked about in blogs and in turn placed in the search engines? Clearly it has increased brand awareness, but how is this measured? And brand lift, for how long? What are the other indirect results of this article? When we think about this small piece coupled with video submissions, photos, blogs, press releases and more, there are a lot of moveable parts. When we can agree on the metrics and means by which to measure the sum of these parts is when we will really be onto something!