How to Build an Effective Landing Page

• April 16, 2012
• No Comments
• Brand Identity, Marketing, SEO, Smart Design, Website Design

How to Build an Effective Landing Page

Should you build an effective landing page before you decide on your advertising, or once you know how you are going to promote your website or your products? That is not such as strange question as it might sound, because some people find it easier to build a landing page round their promotional campaigns than to design the campaign to meet the content of their web page.

To understand the reasoning behind that, stand back a moment and look at your business as a whole. Your landing page is the first page that visitors to your website from any particular link will see. It should reflect that aspect of your business that you want these visitors to associate with you.

More than One Effective Landing Page

If your business involves a number of different product classes, then you could design a landing page for each of these. If you are offering just one product then you may decide to have just the one landing page. Before being able to build an effective landing page, you must fully understand the purpose of that page.

Here are some examples of how a landing page can be used:

• To introduce prospects to your product range.
• To introduce visitors to one specific product – from an email campaign or from a PPC advert for example.
• As a squeeze page: to offer visitors a registration form to join your emailing list, with a free gift as an incentive to do so.
• As your sales page – go straight into selling mode with your long sales page.
• To offer visitors more information on your niche – for example, the link from a published article.

You can likely think of others, but these are listed simply to stress the point that your website can contain more than one landing page. The contents of that page will again depend upon how visitors reached it – what link did they click, and what would they be expecting when they did so.

Give Them What They Expect

Irrespective of how your prospects reached it, your landing page should consist of several common components. Naturally, it should provide what the link promised. If you had written an article on how to promote an online business and then published it on article directories, the link in your ‘author’s resource’ should send the reader to a landing page offering more information on that topic.

Had you offered a free gift:  a free course, eBook or video on your niche, then the landing page should be a squeeze page offering these gifts in exchange for their contact details (minimum first name and email address).

If the link was from a pay-per-click advert, such as Google Adwords, the landing page should offer exactly what was advertised.  The same with a link from your pre-selling page for your product, or for an affiliate product – give the visitor exactly what they expect to get.  Anything else will fail.

Components of an Effective Landing Page

That is the first lesson on how to build an effective landing page: it should not be a surprise, but what your visitors expected to receive. However, along with all that – the information, the product, the free gifts and so on – your landing page should also impress! Offer all these things, but offer them well!  Offer them professionally!

You must have a purpose for your landing page, and you must include a call to action to achieve that purpose.  ‘Click Here To Get Your Free Gift!’ – ‘Click Here To Buy’ – ‘Act Now!’

Even if you are simply offering more useful information, include a link to your product or service.  Never allow your visitor to leave your landing page without the opportunity to spend money!  So:

Component #1:  A Registration Form.  Most people will enter and leave your website on the same page. Once they have gone they are highly unlikely ever to return, so catch them with an autoresponder form to join your emailing list. AWeber or GetResponse are respected services that will generate a form and maintain your lists for you.

Component #2:  A Sales Link. This could be a link directly to checkout or to your sales page. Your landing page might be the only page on your website a visitor sees.  Make sure you make the best of their visit with a registration form to join your list and a link to purchase your product.

Component #3: Navigation Links. Offer navigation links to your Contact Page and Privacy Page. This will help your landing page to be indexed by Google and listed for its principal keywords.

Component #4: What NOT to Have. Do not have PPC adverts on your landing page. Adsense might make you a few bucks each month, but it is a distraction to your visitors. If they click on an advert they will leave your page, and all your hard work will be lost. So nothing except more content, a registration form and link to your product or sales page.

The Take Away

An effective Landing Page offers visitors what they expect to see and is also a means of keeping in contact and purchasing your product – no more!

The Importance of Keywords: What is the Long Tail?

• March 27, 2012
• No Comments
• Marketing, SEO, Smart Design, Tech, Website Design

The Importance of Keywords: What is the Long Tail?

Never underestimate the importance of keywords in internet marketing, particularly the long tail keywords that can pick you up traffic that others might miss. So what is the long tail, and how can it be used to improve your chances of online success?

As you probably know, a keyword is nothing more than the search term a search engine user employs to find information. In order to be more specific with our terms, let’s use Google as a typical search engine: it is used for almost 80% of internet searches, with Bing and Yahoo next at about 8% and 7% respectively.

When considering the importance of keywords in Google rankings, particularly long tail keywords, there are some aspects of the Google search and listing algorithms of which you should be aware.

1. Keywords and Search Terms

When you are seeking information online you will enter a search term into the Google search box. For example, if you want a new lock for your house door you might enter ‘locks’. Google will search its index for web pages that contain the text string ‘locks’ and then provide you with a list of web pages that contain this term in order of relevance and quality of service.

In order for your web page to be listed for ‘locks,’ it must first be indexed by Google. This means the page must meet certain other criteria – such as have a Privacy Policy perhaps, have large numbers of quality web pages relating to locks linking to yours, have a logical design and load quickly, enable visitors to easily contact you, and many, many more. However, your page must also contain the keyword because that is what the Google user is seeking.

2. The Mystifying Google Algorithms—Otherwise Known as Latent Semantic Indexing

Google applies an algorithm known as LSI (latent semantic indexing), which calculates mathematically the relevance of the vocabulary on your page to the search term used by the Google user.

a) You Are the Customer

Let’s say you enter ‘locks’ into the Google search window. You will receive information on locks of hair, canal locks, internet security devices and even poems containing the word. The vocabulary you use on your web page should make it clear to a search engine algorithm exactly what the topic of the page is – the Google LSI algorithm is programmed to recognize synonyms, and to relate their use to a specific search term.

So you should also use vocabulary such as ‘key, door, house,’ and so on. The Google LSI algorithm will then know to list only pages that refer to door locks.

b) You Are the Seller

So let’s now turn that on its head, and assume that you are not carrying out the search, but are offering information and products on your web page. You should make it clear to Google within the text on your page exactly what kind of locks you are selling. The more relevant your page, and the better it meets Google’s listing criteria, the higher your page will be listed in these results.

By using the main keyword (‘locks’) and including the secondary keywords in both your title and the body of your page content, you will find that Google will provide the prospect with pages that relate to the type of locks you are selling. In other words, you should optimize each web page on your website for one specific search term, so that your page has a good chance of being listed when a search engine user uses that term or something close to it, then also include semantically relevant vocabulary to emphasize the relevance.

3. What Is the Long Tail

The logical conclusion is to design your web page content round keywords consisting of multiple words. In fact, a good strategy would be to create a few pages using popular keywords such as ‘security locks’, chub locks, ‘door locks’ and so on. Then create more pages on longer keywords/phrases.

Keyword analysis might find terms such as ‘front entry door locks’ and ‘door locks and hardware.’ By optimizing a page on each of these you would likely pick up traffic that web pages without these terms would not get. You could take it even further, to real long-tail keywords of five or more words such as ‘Door security – benefits of 7-lever door locks.’

Here are some specific advantages of using the long tail keywords in your keyword strategy:

• When used in large numbers, long tail keywords can get you a significant number of visitors.
• Long tail keywords are more specific than shorter phrases, so the traffic that reaches your web page is highly targeted and more likely to buy.
• The more words used in their search, the more focused prospects are and the more committed they are to buy.
• Long tail keywords are cheaper to buy in CPC advertising due to the lower competition, and they also offer higher click through rates.

The Take Away

While the importance of keywords should be obvious to those involved in internet marketing, the long tail keywords should be targeted as part of an effective comprehensive SEO campaign marketing. What is the long tail? It is an opportunity!

Facebook Page Timeline Goes Live on March 30!

• March 19, 2012
• No Comments
• Marketing, Smart Design, Social Media, Social Media Design, Tech

Are You Ready?

I know! More changes to Facebook! But, I think this new change is fun and will boost your Facebook Marketing efforts.

The good news is the Facebook Page Timeline Design is exciting and new! The bad news is the new Facebook Page Timeline Design will go live on March 30, 2012! That means all pages will be automatically converted to the FBTimeline Design layout on March 30!

Don’t be a Left Out! Be a Stand Out!

Get a sparkling, creative, stand-out Facebook Page Timeline Design.

Major Brands are already in the know. Here’s some great examples of the way major brands have introduced the new Facebook Pages Timeline:

Hyundai – https://www.facebook.com/Hyundaiworldwide

Starbucks - https://www.facebook.com/Starbucks

Adobe - https://www.facebook.com/adobespp

AT&T - https://www.facebook.com/ATT

Nike - https://www.facebook.com/nike

Check out this informative FACEBOOK TRAINING VIDEOfrom the experts…Facebook!

Get Your New Facebook Page Timeline Design TODAY!

Whether you are looking to create your very first Facebook Page or you are ready to Blow Up your current Facebook Page,  Shorten Your Path to Facebook Success Now!

No matter what the economy is doing, folks don’t stop going to the Internet & Facebook to find the products and services they need. In fact, it’s where they are turning more than ever—and as a business owner, NOT having a professional Facebook Page  is no longer an option!

How to Use Pinterest for Fun and for Business

• February 28, 2012
• No Comments
• Brand Identity, Marketing, Photos, Social Media

Most people have no idea how to use Pinterest – either for fun or for business.  ”What’s Pinterest?” Is the answer you will likely get when you mention it to somebody, and little wonder. It has not exactly advertised itself, but between December 2011 and January 2012, the sites membership increased by 155%.

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a new social network that reached #5 in Hitwise’s top 10 social networking sites in December 2011. That’s higher than Google+ or LinkdIn and pretty good for a relatively new site. Knowing how to use Pinterest can help you market your products & services or help you build your email list.

The Pinterest website says, “Pinterest lets you organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web. People use ‘pinboards’ to plan their weddings, decorate their homes, and organize their favorite recipes.”

You can “pin” just about any photo for other folks to view (just like Facebook and other social sites), and you can also pin promotional photos with an associated link. So, the cool thing is that you can pin photos that link to a specific page on your website. Pinterest is meant for you to pin whatever you want to share and you’re passionate about.

How to Join Pinterest?

Technically, you can join Pinterest by invitation-only, but if you wish to join you can visit the site and click “Request an Invitation.”

A much quicker way to join Pinterest is through invitations from other members – so ask a friend that is already a member to invite you. You may have already received an invitation without even knowing it and ignored the invite, not realizing the potential Pinterest has to offer.

When you receive an invitation from Pinterest, be sure to sign up through Twitter rather than Facebook, so you can tie your Pinterest account to your business’s Twitter account. Because, at this time, Pinterest cannot tie to Facebook business pages.

What Are Boards?

A board is a set of pins. A board an be created on any topic, like Books Worth Reading, Favorite Recipes, Favorite Photos, etc.. You can find great tips on just about anything accompanied by photos. This is not Flickr, but a significant extension that works in a completely different way and also works like a blog. The site enables you to create boards, each containing pictures relating to specific topics.

You may have one board full of recipes, another of your own artwork and yet another with pictures of old comic books. These are just examples, and each board is focused on a specific topic, niche or even on your mood. That’s one major way in which it differs from other social networking sites that enable photographs.

Can You Market with Pinterest?

Part of the Pinterest Terms of Service is that you cannot use it for commercial purposes.  However, many do and it is hard to prevent, so the general feeling at the moment is that Pinterest is evolving with uses for branding-type of content.

For now, it is easy to include links to your website by pinning a photo from your website. For example, I love to read, so I have a board of “Books Worth Reading” with some photos of books that link back to my website’s “About” page. I also have a board with “Favorite Logos” that points to my website. The take-away here is that any link back to your website should be for branding purposes. Not direct selling. Etsy has a great Pinterest page with photos of ideas for gifts, holidays, etc. These photos link back to the various Etsy sellers and their products. So, Etsy is offering tips and ideas to help Pinterest viewers, not sell to Pinterest viewers.

The Take-Away

Pinterest is growing, and is ready to help you share your brand’s image. Like Facebook and Twitter, Pinterest is about the content you share, not about the products and services that you sell. You can use Pinterest to personalize your brand, and simultaneously connect with followers and potential clients and customers. Just as Facebook and YouTube came to be essential marketing tools for your business, Pinterest can as well.

Why WordPress Works for Websites

• February 20, 2012
• No Comments
• Brand Identity, Marketing, Tech, Website Design, WordPress

Recently, I have received lots of questions & inquiries about WordPress websites. So, here it is, in a nutshell, “Why Worpress Works!”

What is WordPress?

WordPress is web software that anyone can use to create a beautiful website or blog.

Originally, WordPress was designed as web software for creating blogs. But, thanks to its open source platform, and the thousands of programmers that comprise the WordPress community, WordPress has become the most-used content management system (CMS) on the Internet today.

How Can WordPress Help You?

WordPress is simple to use. WordPress can help you create and maintain a full-sized, multi-page, media-rich website for any kind of business.

5 Reasons to Use WordPress for Your Website:

1. Ease of Use – No HTML or CSS Required

You can use WordPress as a website without any knowledge of HTML or CSS text or graphics formatting. WordPress offers a WYSIWYG editor for your pages and posts, and you can change elements of your website easily with no technical expertise.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

No need to study and implement a ton of SEO techniques. WordPress is inherently dynamic and SEO-friendly. Search engines loves fresh content, so updating your WordPress site adds to your search engine ranking.

 3. Unlimited Themes

While the term ‘unlimited’ is perhaps unrealistic, there are countless WordPress themes that will likely fit your needs. Many themes are free while others are paid. You should be able to find a theme for any niche you can think of. WordPress has their own theme directory and is a great place to start researching the many available themes.

Finding a theme is fun, and even when you find a free or paid theme that you love, you will want to customize the theme to meet your own unique brand.

4. Plugins for Maximum Functionality

You can use any of the thousands of plugins online to add specific functionality to your WordPress website. You don’t even have to worry about SEO, because plugins look after that for you, optimizing your site so it gets listed by search engines such as Google.

5. Easy Updating

It is easy to update a WordPress website. All you need do is click on ‘Add Post’  or ‘Add Page” and there you have it.

-      Pages and Posts. You have a choice of two types of online publication with WordPress. Standard websites offer only static pages, but with a WordPress website you can choose whether a page or article will be a static page that can be included in your navigation bar, or a post to which your visitors can make comments.

-      No need for any coding knowledge or even to understand how your CMS system works. You can use the site as your main website and include events and blogs for timely updates.