Abington Choral Club & The Phillies
Abington Choral Club made their national debut singing “The Star Spangled Banner” at a recent Phillies game. I was proud of their awesome performance. I was also proud to see a Tarkoff-designed logo doing its best to represent their vibrant personalities. Great Job—Abington CC!
How to Build an Effective Landing Page
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!
Action Steps
- Review your online marketing strategy – where are folks landing on your site and why are they landing there.
- Create an autoresponder form, so that when prospects land on your page, they can sign-up for your free ezine or “free taste” promotion.
For more info on how to capture prospects on your website – get in touch with me!
Call: 484-452-6343
Email me, or get your sign-up for more free info today.
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with Great Design & Great Content!
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Facebook Page Timeline Goes Live on March 30!
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!
Special Limted Offer - Only 5 spots available!
My usual fee for a custom Facebook Page Design is $400!
I am offering this SPECIAL, LIMITED-TIME OFFER
for A NEW FACEBOOK PAGE DESIGN FOR $200. (That’s a $200 Savings!)
But, Hurry, I can only take 5 new spots for this special offer!
Get your New Facebook Page Timeline Design Today!
How to Use Pinterest for Fun and for Business
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.
Action Steps
Get invited to join Pinterest. Once you set up a Pinterest page, start pinning content that reflects your company’s brand identity. Pinterest can be really addicting, so be mindful of precious time spent on this new social media network. The most important of component of your marketing with Pinterest is to support your brand image.
