Landing Page Perfection – Why It Matters Where You Send Your Content Viewers
Once you have put out all your advertising, SEO articles, press releases, blog posts and updates to social networks, you will probably expect traffic to start pouring into your website. You will also hope to have increased sales and grow a larger customer base. Yet, there might be one thing standing in your way. If your landing page is less than ideal, you might not get very many visitors who actually explore your site.
In most Internet marketing campaigns, you spend time and money producing informative and compelling content for outside websites to lead back to yours. The people who read, listen to or view your content are in it for the experience. If your website landing page does not offer them the experience they want, they will navigate away immediately.
If you are wondering what makes a good landing page, you are in good company. Savvy business owners and managers all over the web are experimenting with different landing pages to try for the largest possible return on investment for all those hours and dollars spent marketing. Trial and error can often help you find what works best, because the same landing pages do not work the same for every crowd.
Consider your target audience. If they are the pampered sort, they might want a lot of pomp and circumstance. If that is the case, set up an impressive display on your website landing page. That could be a spread with stunning visual images and well-polished writing on the page, for example. Go for the most luxurious design you can make to entice your affluent or cultured audience to find out more about your company.
On the other hand, if your target audience is a young, technologically advanced crowd, you might get farther with a layout that incorporates video along with current techno lingo. Add a high-tech interactive experience right on the landing page, and you will attract your target audience even more – perhaps to the point that they will share your website features with others.
Gaining cachet with your target audience is perhaps the most important reason for having a terrific landing page. Your content attracts a specific audience, but it cannot keep them on your website. However, when people get a first impression of you that strikes a chord with them, they will feel enough of a connection to find out more. When audiences see by your landing page that you can speak their language, they will stick with you. Reading on to find out more of what is on your site just comes naturally after that.
Image: Salvatore Vuono / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Sitemaps Can Help You Get Noticed on Major Search Engines
Do you have a new website that is performing poorly? SEO articles and other back-links are a great idea to bolster you search engine rankings but there is a quicker way to get noticed in the beginning. Submitting a Sitemap will get those search engine spiders crawling over your site and put you on the search engines’ radar faster than any other method you can use.
A Sitemap is basically a hierarchical listing of the URLs of your website pages within your website. There is a particular format Sitemaps should follow and you can find it on Google’s Webmasters Tools. You should follow the instructions given and submit your Sitemap to Google or other search engines. Then, they will crawl your web pages and index them. Your rankings should quickly improve.
One way Sitemaps are categorized is by whether they are static or dynamic. A static Sitemap is one that you set up once, and have to go in and change directly if you make any changes in your website. You will have to alter the Sitemap on your site and re-file it with Google each time. With a dynamic Sitemap, you will set it up once and it will update itself automatically whenever you change the website.
Sitemaps can make it easier for the web crawlers to see your website in general, but specifically they can make it much easier for them to index your photos and video. You put time and effort into making video for your site, and you want it to be noticed. A Sitemap can make that happen readily. Then, with a dynamic Sitemap, you can change your video often and still have it seen by the search engines.
Another feature of Sitemaps is that they allow you to add some identifying information along with the URLs of each web page. You can include all kinds of information about a video such as how long it lasts, whether it is suitable for children or its subject matter. This improves your visibility to the search engines even more.
Sitemaps are not just for newbie’s either. You can increase the ranking on an established site by adding a dynamic Sitemap and submitting it to Google. It always helps to get the word out about your website. Google would like to know about it as well. If you successfully implement a Sitemap and continue to create relevant content, you will start seeing more pages indexed and more organic traffic.
Photo: Spiders by Petr Kratochvil
Low Volume Keywords – Where Less Is More
Many companies make the mistake of leaning too heavily on high volume keywords. These are the keyword phrases that are searched by large numbers of people each day. The terms tend to be more general and common. They are words you hear often. It might seem natural that these are the keywords you would want to use for your SEO and PPC. Yet, low volume keywords can be very helpful in your Internet marketing campaign.
Low volume keywords are the keyword phrases that are not so common. They are more specific and well-defined. Less people are searching for them every day, but they are still being searched by someone. This brings up one of the advantages of low volume keywords – you get a narrower, more highly targeted segment of the market clicking on your link when you use such specific keywords. These people do not just want something in the family of what you sell; they want exactly what you sell.
Another reason low volume keyword phrases are so helpful in Internet marketing is that they make inexpensive Pay per Click keywords. There are usually fewer people bidding on them in the first place, so your base cost is cheaper. Then, you will get fewer clicks per day, so you will have lower costs for that reason as well.
In this case, fewer clicks work out well, partly because you are not paying for a lot of unnecessary clicks as you would with high volume keywords. When people click a very specific keyword, they are usually more motivated to learn more and even to buy.
Low volume keyword phrases can also be used to boost your SERP rankings. You have very little chance of rating a top spot for a very general, common keyword phrase, and even less chance for a single common keyword. These large volume keywords and keyword phrases are in hotly contested search engine results pages, so it is very difficult to slip in under the top 50 results. Since very few people make it that far into a search before they find what they want or try a different keyword, your efforts will likely be wasted.
On the other hand, if you use a low volume keyword, it will have a great chance of being at or near the top of its SERP. People may not search the term as often, but if you have optimized your content well, they will find you at the top of the results when they do search the term. In the final analysis, low volume keywords have equal or more importance in SEO and PPC as large volume keywords for small and mid-sized businesses.
Scrabble Letters by Anna Cervova
Article Marketing Rules – How to Get Approved by Article Directories
If you want a way to direct traffic to your website without spending a lot of money, article marketing is a great choice. The good news is that you can do it yourself and spend nothing but the cost of your time. All you do is write articles, add in a link to your website, and submit them to an article directory to be published and possibly distributed.
There is one hitch, though. Most article directories where you submit your work have certain requirements. If you do not follow them, your articles will not be accepted. In fact, if you flout the rules in an extreme way, you might not be able to submit there in the future. Therefore, it is best to find out what makes the directories tick.
The best way to get your articles accepted is to go to the article directory where you want to submit and read through their guidelines. Read through all their terms and requirements until you have learned what they want. It takes some time, but it will be well worth it when you have a library of articles sitting on their directory.
To get you started, here are a few things that are nearly always at issue.
Do not sell in the body It seems counterintuitive. After all, you are marketing, so you want to sell, right? Well, you do, but it is a little subtler than that. Instead of selling your product in the body of your article, you write an article that displays your expert knowledge of a subject. Usually, the subject will be related to the items you are selling. Use every fair tactic of creating interest to get people reading your article, but do not sell.
Beware of keywords You do need keywords. Otherwise, people are not likely to find your article. That being said, you need to limit the number of keywords to a reasonable percentage. Most article directories will let you get by with 3% to 4% keyword density for any one keyword phrase. If you overuse your keyword, your article may be rejected and you will have to rewrite.
Write for a PG audience If you write adult-themed articles, they may not be accepted, depending on the rules of the particular directory. Be careful not to offend. Not only will you drive away customers if you are too graphic or x-rated, you might also be breaking the rules of the directory. Most of them spell out precisely what they will and will not allow.
Brush up on your writing Most article directories will not publish your articles if they are full of poor grammar and spelling. Luckily, most of them will give you a chance to correct mistakes. Some will even correct them for you. Yet, you should be careful to write articles the best way you possibly can because it adds to your credibility.
Sell in the author box Every article directory has some version of the author box. This is where you put your biography, your pitch, and your link to your website. Keep the selling in this box and you should safely get your article past the editors. At the same time, by including this information, you do what you set out to do. You create a marketing path from the directory and Internet searches to your website.
Photo Credit: Michelle Meiklejohn
SEO Keyword Research for Your Target Demographics
It is very profitable to do keyword research if you want your website to receive a high ranking with the search engines. Not only that, the right kind of keyword research helps bring visitors to your site who are actually interested in your products or services. If you want a high conversion rate of visitors to buyers, this is essential.
The first step is to come up with as many possibilities as possible. Keep a few basic concepts in mind. First, your keywords should be ones people would use to look for your site. Second, they should be words that you suspect your target demographic would use. Third, the commonest single words are not good keywords because it is hard to get a ranking for them and they do not tell a story about your website.
With all this in mind, you can brainstorm until you have 20 to 50 possible keyword phrases. Narrow down the list by crossing off everything that did not fit within the guidelines you had set with the basic keyword concepts. When you have limited the list to what you believe are relevant keywords, start your keyword research in earnest.
To do this, use a keyword research tool. There are many out there to choose. Google Suggest and Thesarus.com are tools that will make it easy for you to fill out your list with synonyms and related keyword phrases. Wordtracker.com is one of the most effective keyword analyzing research tool of them all. It can be used to rate the popularity of a search term.
Use the keyword analyzing research tool by looking at the results for the keywords you expect will be the best for you. Are they the most popular? Sometimes it is not the best idea to choose the most popular keyword phrases. If they are so general that they apply to millions of sites, you might not stand a chance. Look for keyword phrases a little lower on the list.
Now, move back to your demographic concerns. Some of these analytical tools can tell you who is searching for keywords by gender, age, geographic location, and possibly factors like education level. Use this information to choose keywords that will zero in on your specific target market.
An example will make all this clearer. Say, you sell used textbooks. Your first reaction might be to use a keyword of “books.” That would be too generic. You might get traffic, but it would not be geared to your particular audience. Then, you try “used textbooks” in a synonym-type keyword research tool and find that there are some more popular keywords that are related to it. One might be “cheap used textbooks.” Another might be “used biology textbooks.”
Finally, you use a keyword analyzing tool, such as Microsoft’s Keyword Forecast tool, which gives you demographic information about who is searching for the terms you have chosen. For used textbooks, you might target a market of young adults with a high-school graduation-level education. When you have found the most popular keywords for your specific target demographic, you have your keyword list.
Design and SEO for Effective Blog Marketing
Whichever type of blog you decide to use, there are several factors that can give you that little edge over your competition. We will look at several of the places you can enhance that edge. The goal is to keep potential customers on the site as long as it takes for your reader to decide to buy. Probably the first of these factors is the design of the blog. Compare the design to the demographic your products will target.
For example if your demographic is younger, your blog design will need to be brighter and flashier. It may be and really is more about your content but you have to keep them there long enough to read the content. A younger demographic will click away from a site that is unappealing in a second. An older demographic can appreciate a blog design that is calming and more muted. They will be more likely to stay and read. They are looking for information and do not want to be distracted. They also have much less tolerance for flashy.
Of course you will want to look at the content you are writing. Employing good SEO practices will get your blog recognized by the search engines. The charm and technique to a blog is posting often. Often in a blogs life is different than, say, often in Social Networking. In Social Networking you want to post several times a day. Posting to a blog can be done every day or every other day. Some bloggers are successful posting on a schedule like Tuesdays and Thursdays, with an occasional extra post. Whatever you decide the goal is consistency. You want to consistently get information about your products and services in front of their eyes.
Another SEO content technique is to use keywords. Long tailed keywords are more successful in blog posting because the posts can be longer. You have the opportunity to develop the long tailed keyword a little more effectively. Just remember how often you want to use it and do your best to keep it natural. This part is quite similar to SEO on your website. Of course this can also get your blog onto the first page or two of the search engine.
Assuming you have taken the time with your blog you can link to your website. Sometimes you will want to link to content on your website. It can be information about a product or service. It might be a sales page. The trick here is not to do it in every post. Just occasionally, a link will keep your readers reading. Links to different parts of you website will keep them clicking. On a blog it is all about keeping your readership interacting.
Search Engine Optimization for Everyone
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the best ways to raise your search engine rankings. Raising the search engine ranking will naturally raise the number of visitors to your website. Depending on whether your goal is to ultimately increase sales or capture personal information, an increased number of hits to your sight should help with that goal.
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is considered an ‘organic’ or natural way to raise rankings. The beauty of it is that there should be no extra costs associated with this concept. If a website owner is doing their own content it will be even better. Even if a website owner contracts with someone to do the content, SEO should present no extra costs unless you hire a search engine optimization company or person to specifically optimize your site.
SEO can be used in a variety of areas. It can be used in image searches, video searches, content, shopping, menus, backlinks, inbound links, and of course HTML. The process can be used in more areas than this list.
Part of the art to Search Engine Optimization is the use of what is called “keywords”. Keyword is a term that describes the set of words an average person would type into a search engine to look for information about something important to them. People are typing keywords into search engines millions of times every day. If you do a search the first few listings on the page are probably listings which were bought in some way or another. Directly under them are the ones that happen organically or naturally.
Being able to know which set of words would be important to a person utilizing SEO. Although we all know what terms we would use to look for information we may not be using the words that are most often searched. There are several paid and free websites that will give the website owner the keywords that were the most used at a specific point in time.
There are rules to Search Engine Optimization. Looking back at the first paragraph of this article one of the first rules of SEO is being used. The rule is to look at your content and see if you are using the keywords in the first paragraph of you content, preferably the first sentence.
It will take some effort to start thinking about SEO and using keywords in the right manner. Eventually the website owner will start using the rules in their content automatically. If they contract out they will be able to recognize when Search Engine Optimization in content is being used. It will take time and practice to do this.