3 Steps to a Customizable Landing Page Plan

3 Steps to a Customizable Landing Page Plan

Landing page optimization has finally taken hold among most companies: for the most part, we know that if we create custom landing pages for PPC campaigns, conversions will go up. And, we know that if we test and tweak those landing pages, we can improve conversions even more. But how do you create custom landing pages when you buy thousands or tens of thousands of keywords?

Obviously, you can’t create a custom page for every keyword, or even every keyword bucket. But by crafting a comprehensive keyword strategy, you can consolidate your landing pages into a sensible (and manageable group) without much trouble.

Here’s how:

Step #1. Look at keyword groups by intention

The inclination with keywords is to bucket them by category. An electronics retailer might group car stereos in one bucket, home theater systems in another, etc. But for creating a landing page optimization plan, look at how keywords signal intention.

For example, “Olympus D320” as a search is pretty high intention, and should land on a very targeted page with not just price and product, but any trust statements or information about shipping and bundling. But what about “Olympus D320 review”?

Depending on your business, visitors might be browsers or buyers, job seekers or employers, searching for a car loan or searching for an auto loan. Define intentions into two or three reasonable groups.

Then, look at those intentions and divide keywords into buckets accordingly. At first, it might be as simple as brand words (for browsers) versus category words (for higher-intentioned shoppers). As time goes on you will want to begin segmenting out people looking for speed from those who quest for massive quantities of information prior to purchase.

Step #2. Break out your categories of landing pages and create templates

Once you’ve bucketed your keywords by intention, consider the broad type of landing page that works best for each intention group and create a template for each landing page category.

For example:

º Homepage-like landing page

For many terms, your best bet is to frame the landing page with the standard home page components. This doesn’t mean that you don’t target the product or offer, or limit options in order to be relevant, but you would want to be heavy on branding, trust statements and imagery that reflect a visitor’s desire to talk to you as a company.

In the case of homepage landing pages, your goal is to get people to self-identify as quickly as possible. On comparison shopping sites, for example, you might try to discover if the visitor is interested in news, reviews, or price comparisons.

Visitors arriving from the keywords you designated as “brand” words or relatively broad categories like “loans” could be sent to this type of landing page.

In this example, selecting TurboTax from a search page for “tax software” will link you to the following page: (To see the full-size image, click on the image.)

You can see the obvious home page “look” coupled with some more targeted content for getting started. This was not inadvertent.

º Offer-based landing pages

These pages are very offer-specific with a goal of convincing visitors to act on the interest they’ve already expressed by clicking on the original ad. These pages have more limited navigation or off-linking.

For a retailer, there is the classic product page, with a product shot, pricing, features, and other elements.

For lead generation and direct marketing, this type of page will usually hit the major selling points and get you started on the order form or application.

For publishers, this could be an article that had advertising or other links to content.

In all of these cases, the key is to reinforce the source of traffic and experiment with the balance between focus on the offer and availability of off-links and branding elements.

In this example, the “site” types of elements are almost entirely absent, with only the logo and simple text. This is an E-LOAN landing page for “loan” search results.

Category landing pages

When somebody has clearly shown an interest, but the interest is in a relatively unstructured area, such as “loans” or “jeans” or “concerts,” your goal is to funnel them more deeply into your content or offering.

You might do this by grouping information in a way that allows them to make choices based on their own preferences for searching -- for example, by price, theme, editor’s recommendations, most popular, etc.

Visitors from the terms you designated as category words would be sent to this type of page.

In this case, I am going to show a category page for WEGA TV as a search term. I question whether this is an effective landing page for a category term, as it has very little reference to a highly branded category. That said, I would suggest testing to find the truth!

The category landing page is the most difficult landing page to execute well. But it is relatively easy to determine the type of tests to run. First, figure out how you want to merchandise the depth of the category – through subcategories? Best picks? Customer favorites or reviews? Second, determine the best balance between site elements (navigation bars and branding elements) and the actual category. Finally, determine how to use copy and other buying aids to help define the category and keep the sale moving.

Here’s the key:

In each template, leave “content slots,” or real estate in which you can switch content in and out, depending on the purpose of the landing page. Now you have a template that can be targeted for an endless number of keyword groups, simply by changing the content in one or two content slots.

Step #3. Test templates for general effectiveness

You can begin to test the templates with various buckets of keywords, altering the content in the content slots depending on the keywords.

Finally, once the templates have become relatively successful, you can begin testing the variables within the landing page to further improve conversions. (We’ll discuss just what variables to test, and how, in the next issue.)

This doesn’t have to be a gigantic task or mean an overhaul of every existing landing page. Consider choosing a single group of your landing pages, deciding which of these categories it fits into, and diving into it until it’s right. Then, move on to the others.

4 Effective Elements to Test on Your Category Landing Page

4 Effective Elements to Test on Your Category Landing Page

Now that marketers have embraced the idea of sending customers from paid search to targeted landing pages whenever possible, managing those landing pages has the potential to become almost as complex as managing a PPC campaign itself -- but it doesn’t have to be.

Generic vs. Customizable Landing Pages
Rather than settling for rather generic landing pages for large groups of keywords, or sending visitors to internal pages that are even less targeted, we talked in last month’s newsletter (3 Steps to a Customizable Landing Page Plan) about a customizable landing page plan you can create in order to offer visitors targeted content based upon their origination keyword and intent.

We suggested that you create a series of landing page templates geared toward visitors with specific intentions, and that you then customize them for keyword or keyword group as necessary.

One of those templates -- and perhaps one of the most ubiquitous landing page types -- is the category landing page.

Why Create Customizable Category Landing Pages?
Bringing visitors to category pages can be difficult because they may be searching broadly -- by a general keyword such as “accounting” rather than a specific keyword like “QuickBooks” -- or they could be narrowing in on a specific category -- “Puma,” for example, rather than “sneakers.” That gives you very little information on what their goal is.

When a visitor arrives from search, they’re likely to be high-intentioned, but in this instance, it is difficult to discern just what that intention is: To research? To buy? To waste time until lunch?

You can’t assume that someone who uses broad search terms is less purchase-focused than someone who uses specific ones. Broad search terms may simply be an indication of the type of person -- less specific person in nature -- rather than an indication of what their goal is. Likewise, someone who searches with targeted keywords may simply be a strategic surfer who knows how to find just what he wants, and not necessarily someone with more desire to buy.

How to Begin Testing a Customizable Category Landing Page
So when customizing a category landing page template that will meet your needs for many types of visitors, you'll need to encourage them to self-select and define for you just what they’re hoping to accomplish.

Consider testing these four basic elements:

Element #1. Key product

Since you can’t tell what their goal is, try testing a single key product or key offer. Guess, as best you can, what might give a visitor what they are looking for, and then test it.

For example, you might test a single hero shot of your absolute best product (The Sharper Image, say, might show the Ionic Breeze) versus a beautiful image that entices a visitor to click more deeply into the site (a happy couple playing with a child and a golden retriever) versus a value proposition (“lowest rates guaranteed!” or “free shipping all the time!”)

Element #2. Depth of category offering

Whether you have hundreds or thousands of products or only two or three main offerings, you want to convince your visitor to give you a little more information on what they're seeking. Showing them the depth of your category offerings is a good way to get them to self-select.

Ask, What device should I use to get them into the dept of my content or products? You might consider testing:

º Traditional tabs with categories and subcategories
º A gift finder
º Staff picks or recommendations
º “Most purchased” recommendations or “most viewed articles”
º Editorial content

When you use one of these devices, what you're really saying to the visitor is, “I have more things to offer than I can actually show on the page.” You’re attempting to entice them to make another click to get them to the next level of interaction.

Element #3. General branding and treatment

Remember, a visitor coming from search is arriving from a whole different experience, on a page that you didn’t control. No matter how excited they are to land on your page, the experience can be jarring, because you will likely have a different mode of interaction than the site from which they arrived.

If you’re trying to persuade them to do something with you, each step calls for a different nature of interactivity.

This means that you need to make an impact not only about your brand experience, but also about how they’re interacting with you. The goal here is to make the experience seem continuous.

At the same time they have to recognize that they’re at the next step of interaction. It’s a tricky balance. You might try testing:

º whether you’re very spare like Google or dense with content
º whether it looks more like a homepage or more utilitarian like a general category page
º whether you use very interactive elements or traditional, static ones.

Element #4. Off-navigation

There are two schools of thought, here: do you want to offer only content as targeted as possible in the hopes that you’ll funnel the prospect right on to the sale, or do you want to show the other categories in the hopes of snagging their interest in another area?

This is a simple, relatively straight-forward element to test.

Then What?
Test and optimize these elements to find which work best for your visitors. Then, when the category landing page template has been finalized (at least until you decide to test again), simply switch content out for new landing pages, depending on keyword group -- remove all content relevant to books and swap in content relevant to CDs, for example.

You’ll find that you have created a simple and effective way to increase conversions and average order value by sending visitors to targeted landing pages -- that behave as though they know just what the visitor is seeking -- without having to create those landing pages from scratch for each and every keyword group.

Top Ten Success Secrets of Email Marketing

Executive Summary

As a savvy 21^st century marketer, you're looking to use the Internet more effectively to reach your prospects, customers, and clients. 93% of U.S. Internet users consider email to be their top online activity, according to Jupiter Research. This statistic confirms what you probably knew intuitively, people are living in their Inboxes.

Email is a fast, inexpensive, and effective way to target and address your various audiences, especially when compared to direct mail, outbound call centers, and other traditional marketing channels. What follows is a compilation of best practices of email marketing drawing on not only my experience, but some of the most successful industry practitioners. You'll also get a clear picture of trends and patterns to aid you in mapping your email marketing strategy.

SUCCESS SECRET #1: Building Your List—Be selective about who is added to your list or you'll create more work for yourself.

EXPLANATION

If you want to build an email list of existing customers, be sure to obtain their permission first instead of adding their names without telling them. Give your customers a value proposition that makes them want to be on your email list. For example, offer them an additional three-month warranty on a product in exchange for receiving product updates by email. This approach gives you the opportunity to strengthen the bond between you and your customers. If you add an email address without permission, recipients might complain and possibly abandon the relationship with you altogether.

When building an email list of fresh contacts, many companies think bigger is better, so they make a mad dash to build the largest email list while jeopardizing the quality of the list. This is called GIGO (Garbage In/Garbage Out), and it can backfire on you. Be sure to build a list of qualified names out of which a certain percentage will turn into prospects. Out of those prospects, a certain percentage should turn into conversions. When done right, catalogers and retailers enjoy higher sales results because their offers are sent to the right audience. High-tech or professional services firms avoid wasting time, resources, and money following up on useless contacts.

To further qualify new contacts, many companies and email publications require individuals to confirm their initial request to get onto an email list by replying to a confirmation email. This is called "double opt-in", and it can slow your acquisition rate by 50% or more, but typically makes for a much more qualified and responsive email list.

Asking a new contact to take a single action to get onto your email list is called "single opt-in". This approach grows your list faster than double opt-in, though the list may not be as responsive and as rich with qualified prospects.

Remember, once permission is granted for your email communications, relevancy and timeliness determines whether or not a recipient views your emails as spam.

DO'S

• Collect email addresses from registration cards, point-of-sale, customer service, and sweepstakes. For prospecting purposes, gather email addresses from your website, online white papers offered, from visitors to your trade show booths and from sales calls. Be careful: Just because you already have a person's email address for one reason or another doesn't necessarily mean you have permission to start sending all sorts of email campaigns to them. In all cases, give people an expectation of the value they will receive in return for handing over their email address to you."
• Post a privacy notice on your registration page at your website. People are understandably suspicious of any site they come across on the Internet so it's best to address their concerns up front. As reported by eMarketer, IMT Strategies found "93% of US internet users consider it very important that the site display a statement of how it will use personal information."
• Show prospective subscribers a sample of what they are signing up for at your website. "The link to see our sample newsletter is clicked on 25-30% of the time," says Wendy Cole, eMarketing Program Manager for Hewlett-Packard.
• Keep your registration page simple by asking for minimal information. You can always get more information later using surveys and incentives once an individual is added to your email list.

DON'TS

• Don't make it difficult for people to stop hearing from you by email. Make it easy for a person to leave ("opt-out") of any or all email communications. For example, people may still wish to receive your product updates but not your company news. If it's difficult to be removed from your email list, recipients can complain to their ISP or self-appointed spam police who in turn can have you blacklisted. Being blacklisted means the recipient's ISP will automatically filter out any inbound email containing your name or email address.
• Don't promote your company or services through the renting, sponsoring, or bartering of email lists without performing a background check of the list owners and asking how they obtained their email addresses. You could be guilty by association if you are perceived as doing business with a spammer. Furthermore, spam laws are currently getting tougher in this area. Monitor the latest developments in legislation by visiting www.spamlaws.com.

HEADS UP!

Pre-checked opt-in boxes: Some online subscription forms have the "check" box for receiving email communications pre-checked. While this speeds list growth, some U.S. courts and legislative bodies do not consider this practice as being truly an "opt-in" choice. Your list grows faster employing this practice, but the people who passively join your list in this fashion may not be as qualified as those who proactively check the box. Be sure to comply with the laws that pertain to you.

SUCCESS SECRET #2: HTML vs. text? No contest...its HTML for higher response rates.

EXPLANATION

The first time I emailed an offer in HTML, response rates more than doubled.

HTML emails are much more inviting to read. HTML helps direct the reader's eye where to go next and where to put one's attention. What's more, a good graphical layout communicates a better brand impression. HTML also lets you track open rates, click-throughs, and pass-along (recipients who pass your email communication along to friends/colleagues). All text email does not allow for tracking.

With each passing year, more people prefer the friendlier "look" of HTML, with the possible exception of Information Technology professionals.

DO'S

• Make certain your HTML email is easily understood when it is opened and read without the graphics appearing. Some corporate email servers do not pass emailed graphics to the PC clients on their networks. Furthermore, people often read their emails offline, and most graphics only appear when there is a live connection to the Internet.
• Keep experimenting with HTML formatting. Try different background colors. Try one column vs. two and two columns vs. three. Try putting key copy points and links in bold type.
• For long emails, consider inserting a hyperlinked Table of Contents or Index at the top of your email so recipients can quickly click and jump to where they want to go.
• You can conceal unsightly and unusually long web addresses in HTML through masked links. An extremely long web address can be embedded and hidden while the reader only sees the simpler address displayed in your email communication.

DON'TS

• Don't use too many graphics. As most of you are painfully aware, dial-up connections take too long to download large email messages; try to keep your communications to 20K-60K in file size. If your audience is known to use greater bandwidth such as cable, DSL or high speed Internet connection, then you should be able to increase the total file size of your email message with no negative feedback.
• Don't eliminate text-only email communications. Chandra Bodapati, CEO of eGrabber, a leading provider of data entry automation tools, says over 40% of his company's 90,000 subscribers prefer receiving their newsletter(s) in a text-only format.

HEADS UP!

It's in your best interest to give the recipient a choice between HTML or text versions of your email communications; that choice gives the subscriber a better sense of control. According to Gartner research analyst Adam Sarner, "Response rates increase when users are in control and feel they have a relationship with you."

SUCCESS SECRET #3: Relevancy—Make certain your emails are extremely relevant and valuable to the recipients.

EXPLANATION

In the recipient's mind, you have to be known for sending high-quality messages; otherwise, you will be ignored or recipients could unsubscribe or complain.

As of August 2003, 50% of email is now spam. This is according to Brightmail, one of the largest spam filtering companies with clients such as Verizon and Earthlink. It's no wonder that the most common Inbox activity is delete, delete, delete.

Your name in the "From" field represents your brand and reputation for sending messages that directly appeal to the recipient. The "Subject" field represents the timely and relevant proposition.

DO'S

• Get the first and last name of your subscribers, when possible, so you can later address them by name in the subject header and/or the body of the email. People like to receive personalized communications because it doesn't imply a mass email distribution.
• Use your website's registration page to ask recipients what content they want to see. Check out a good example of this practice by subscribing to IBM's customized weekly eNewsletter at https://isource.ibm.com/.
• Encourage your existing subscribers to register all of your products in their possession. In turn, you can send them relevant product updates, tips and offers in the future.
• Personalize offers based on the customer's previous buying patterns and requests from your customer service agents. Hewlett-Packard emails 120,000 unique versions of its Newsgram newsletter to over eight million subscribers. HP's eMarketing Program Manager Wendy Cole says the Newsgram is configured to start with content about HP products the recipient owns so each subscriber sees the most relevant content first.

DON'TS

• Don't overuse the first name of the recipient in the body copy of the email. After awhile, it comes across as too contrived.
• Don't ask for too much personal information on your registration page. This can be seen as being too intrusive and can turn people off, and may cause them to abandon the sign-up process all together. Get deeper and more personal information as they get to know you better.

SUCCESS SECRET #4: How Often to Send Email? Start off slowly. Get the kinks out by sending monthly or quarterly before going weekly depending on your business.

EXPLANATION

Whether you're building a house list in order to send offers, or starting an email newsletter, you are essentially getting into the publishing business. The challenges of publishing deadlines and production may not be familiar to you. So take it slow at first. You can always increase the frequency of your email communications later.

How often should you send? As often as your subscribers want to hear from you. See how cataloger Lands' End handles this at http://www.landsend.com/. After you subscribe to their email newsletter, they give you the option to select your content, frequency, and format (HTML vs. text). With the frequency option, they allow you to select "weekly, twice-monthly, or monthly".

DO'S

• Map out the publishing process. Assign specific tasks and deadlines to each member of the team. Look for prior experience when assigning tasks.
• Do a dry run. Before you publish in public, do it privately to make sure everything runs smoothly.
• Be sure to:
• Check for proper grammar and spelling.
• Check that all links are working correctly.
• Allow enough time for internal approvals.

DON'TS

• Don't wait until the last minute to produce email communications. Build up your inventory with offers and "evergreen" content ready for deployment. "Evergreen" content is not time sensitive so it can be scheduled and produced months in advance of its usage.
• Don't send too often. In many cases, too much frequency can depress response rates and increase unsubscribes.
• Don't send overnight, advises President and COO Michael Mayor of NetCreations (an email list management firm that sent approximately 300 million emails in 2002). Spammers often send their messages after midnight. You don't want your email to get lost in the morning clutter.

SUCCESS SECRET #5: Email Length—Keep it short and packed with value.

EXPLANATION

People are overwhelmed with the number of email messages they receive daily. In addition, they are inundated with direct mail, telemarketing, print magazines, and TV ads and will only pay close attention to what is immediately important. Your enemy is the delete key; make every word and graphic work hard to deliver value to the reader.

When I meet subscribers to my Web Digest For Marketers at trade shows and ask them what they like about my email newsletter, they typically appreciate the brevity of the reviews. Why? Because small chunks of information are more digestible than a 2,000-word article.

When it comes to straightforward offers, shorter is usually better. When it comes to informational and educational content, readers typically have a greater attention span.

DO'S

• Present your information in small packages. Use bullet points, check boxes, and put lots of "air" around each unit of information. The "look-and-feel" should say "Come on; I'm easy to read."
• Watch members of your target audience, one at a time, peruse your email on-screen. Say nothing at first and simply watch their reactions as they absorb your message. You will probably find what's obvious to you is not so obvious to them. When they're finished, then ask your questions.
• Prepare offers and content so exciting that even you get enthusiastic.

DON'TS

• Don't forget to print out the email you're preparing to send. Many recipients do exactly this. For emails longer than a few pages, consider embedding a link in your email to your website where the recipient can read the entire communication.
• Don't use long URLs. In the text-only version of a communication, a URL will break apart when it auto-wraps to a second line. Only the first line will be a live link and probably lead the visitor to a nonexistent web page.

SUCCESS SECRET #6: Content—Give them something they can't live without.

EXPLANATION

Whether you're preparing editorial or commercial content, make sure it is distinctive and can't be found anywhere else. Industry news and analysis, useful insights from your experience, or product tips are examples of content that can jump off the screen and into the minds of your readers. Make your content so good that your readers pass it along.

Newsletters from Hewlett-Packard feature creative ways to get more out of your HP printers, scanners, computers, and the like. Timely reminders to replace toner or extend your warranty supplement helpful product updates and tips. This approach earns HP tens of millions of dollars each year. Hundreds of thousands of dollars in savings are realized because recipients tend to use lower cost email and website technical support in place of the more expensive call centers.

With the help of integrated customer service programs, you should actually be able to predict what content your customers want next. This proactive approach to anticipating customers' needs can only help strengthen your relationship with them.

DO'S

• Subscribe to all competitive lists and see what is being done. Typically, you will notice a type of editorial that is not being offered in your space. That editorial hole has your name on it. The founders of consulting firm Future Now, Inc. saw that there was no newsletter that dedicated itself to conversion rates. Thus, they started the GrokDotCom, which now regularly feeds their firm with new clients.
• Develop your own voice or distinctive style. People like reading the words of other real people more than plain old "corporate-speak" that tends to be dry and impersonal.
• Use humor when appropriate; it humanizes the copy and warms up the reader. We all need a good laugh whether it's in the B2C or B2B space.

DON'TS

• Don't talk about yourself too much. People really don't care unless you're a big celebrity.
• Don't just feature links to articles on other sites written by other people. This is helpful content, but by itself doesn't brand you as strongly as if you create your own.
• Don't talk down to your readers. This is a common mistake in copy tone when imparting wisdom or experience.

SUCCESS SECRET #7: Design—Don't turn your email into a visual circus; remember...less is more.

EXPLANATION

It's uncomfortable staring into a screen for long periods of time to read documents. You want to offer your readers an inviting "look-and-feel" that's attractive and easy-to-understand at a glance. Make your emails look like an oasis when compared to the sea of chaos found in the rest of the recipient's Inbox.

DO'S

• Make the focal point of your email message obvious. Consciously decide and design where you want your reader's eye to travel.
• Remember, many people don't scroll. This means you need to pull your best offer or content up into the "first screen", "above the fold".
• Design emails to be viewed in the Preview Pane. You have five inches or less in which to squeeze your best content or offer. Be careful not to try and squeeze everything but the kitchen sink into this space, obviously resulting in an unattractive email. Design your logo so it has optimal visual impact (for branding purposes) without taking up so much "screen real estate" that it crowds out the value you have to offer thereunder.
• Reinforce navigational cues by stating the wanted action, such as "Click Here", "Go" or "Buy Now", etc. Don't assume the reader knows to click on an embedded link or graphic.

DON'TS

• Don't overdo the use of moving images; use them sparingly or not at all. You don't want to turn your email into a three-ring circus where readers are confused as to where to put their initial focus.
• Don't use too many exclamation points or red type. The spam filters don't like them, and the jury is out on the effectiveness of the color red.
• Don't use "reverse type" for your copy. Except in a small graphic element, it's extremely hard to read white letters on a colored or black background.

SUCCESS SECRET #8: Test everything—Test your subject header, your content, your offer, your pricing, your call to action, delivery days and times.

EXPLANATION

Get the most mileage out of your email marketing efforts by tracking everything you can, and then improving on those results.

Improving your results online is a very attractive proposition because you can do it faster, cheaper and often more efficiently than in offline media. Business Week Online reports that according to AMR Research, "finely targeted email marketing campaigns can garner 7 to 12 times the response rate of comparable snail-mail direct-marketing efforts."

Some firms find sending email on Mondays works best for them, while others discover it's better to send later in the week. Much depends on your target audience and the purpose of your email messages.

When using email campaigns to acquire new contacts or sales, NetCreations President and COO Michael Mayor observed in October 2003 that high-tech and B2B communications seem to perform better when released earlier in the week. Campaigns targeted to small businesses seem to do best towards the end of the week. Mr. Mayor advises mailers to avoid sending on weekends.

To increase response rates of email campaigns to existing contacts and customers, simply ask them how often they would like to hear from you.

DO'S

• Consider everything you do as a test. Even a successful campaign is a test on its way to providing more input to you for the next campaign.
• Benchmark yourself. When launching and testing a new campaign, direct marketers establish what they call "the control". The control is that effort which drew the best response. Thereafter, they always try to beat the control; you should do the same.
• Benchmark your competition. Track the competitors in your field that are known to be smart and savvy marketers. If you see them doing the same thing over and over, it means it's working for them. You should incorporate their best practices into your knowledge base.
• Use "split copy testing." Send one offer worded in a certain way to part of your list and the same offer worded differently to another part of your list and see which does better. Try to do it at the same point in time so results reflect similar market conditions.

DON'TS

• Don't take anything for granted. Over the years, I've found any number of basic assumptions to be proven false after testing.
• Don't assume test results speak for the ages. I've noticed things that didn't work five years ago perform well now, and vice versa. Revisit old assumptions and test them again from time to time.

HEADS UP!

In order to optimize your email campaigns, it is critical to employ "split copy testing" (mentioned above), also known as "parallel testing". The speed of email gives you the power to test the marketplace in minutes, hours, and days rather than weeks and months. This competitive advantage is often lost for lack of the right tools and software. Many email campaign applications cause testing to be extraordinarily complex and confusing; it's no wonder many organizations test modestly or not at all. When reviewing these applications, be sure to examine closely the ease of use and depth of all testing capabilities.

SUCCESS SECRET #9: Multimedia Emails—Know your audience before you venture in.

EXPLANATION

There are many compelling reasons for marketers to consider using multimedia in their email campaigns. Recent statistics show multimedia ads on websites draw above average click-through rates. This is probably because they're more dynamic and possibly more involving.

The majority of computers in use are capable of playing multimedia presentations. Furthermore, broadband usage (which is needed to play multimedia productions more easily) has increased dramatically. There are 39 million U. S. households connecting via broadband to the Internet. This is a 49% increase from May 2002 to May 2003 according to Nielsen//NetRatings.

Just because multimedia emails are technically feasible to produce and distribute, does this mean you should jump in now? Not necessarily. Your particular audience may or may not want to see multimedia playing in their Inbox. If you give your recipients something they're not ready for or want, you could seriously damage your relationship with them.

Certain market niches may be more apt to accept and want multimedia emails, such as gamers and people in high-tech industries.

DO'S

• Ask yourself if multimedia emails really add to the experience or if you're just showing off. If you're demonstrating how to better use a product readers have already bought, you might well be justified.
• See if your competitors are sending multimedia emails. You might want to do likewise. If they're not sending multimedia emails, you might gain a competitive advantage by being the first. Just be careful. There may be a good reason why your competitors haven't done it yet.

DON'TS

• Don't assume your audience wants multimedia. Ask them first, or try a small test. Better yet, send them a link back to your website where they can test drive your multimedia presentation. If you get a lot of click-throughs and positive feedback, you may have a winner.
• Don't jump into multimedia production without a storyboard. A storyboard shows the production team each scene (with copy) and how each scene bridges to the one before it and the one after it. Without a storyboard, your multimedia presentation can look disjointed and not make sense.

HEADS UP!

In an interview I conducted with Forrester Research analyst Jim Nail in October 2003, Mr. Nail thought marketing budgets would be better spent on database marketing rather than on multimedia productions.

SUCCESS SECRET #10: What to Expect After You Hit "Send".

EXPLANATION

It's always exciting monitoring the launch of an email campaign using your on-screen console because it's happening in real time. It's like watching election returns. In both cases, you're watching people vote. In your case, people are voting with their mouse for your offer, your content, your product upgrades, etc. Some feedback you'll like, some you won't, and still other feedback will be unexpected. Open rates tell you the success of your subject header and "From" fields. Click-throughs tell you how interesting your offer or content is to the reader.

Every time my Web Digest For Marketers is released, I see which offers from my advertisers work best. I also see what content readers like and what they ignore which helps me develop the basis for next year's editorial calendar.

DO'S

• Expect to see at least six kinds of responses as soon as you hit the "Send" button.
1. Valid responses: These most important, non-automated replies are from real people requesting specific information or action on your part.
2. Hard bounces: These are abandoned email addresses. Delete them from your email list.
3. Soft bounces: These are typically mailboxes that are full and can't accept any new inbound emails. Leave these email addresses on your list for the time being. If the same soft bounces occur regularly, then delete those addresses as well.
4. Spam filter rejections: These messages tell you your email has not been delivered. You will probably receive more and more of these notifications as recipients institute controls to cut down on spam, which is growing rapidly. According to Jupiter Research, the number of unwanted email messages per email user will increase from 2,551 messages in 2003 to 3,639 unwanted messages in 2007.* In some cases, you can manually interact with these emails so your message is delivered to the recipient.
5. Spam filter messages: Pay attention to these messages because they tell you why your email has been filtered out. Some spam notifications will actually give you their rating system and show you the words that sent you over the allowable threshold. You may want to avoid some of these words in the future in order to stay under that threshold.
6. "Out of office" replies: Be prepared to receive many of these replies, especially around holidays and the last two weeks of August.
• Reserve judgment on the success of your email campaign for at least a few days. Many people do not read email communications immediately. Recipients often put new emails in a "read" folder for review days later.

DON'TS

• Don't feel bad when people unsubscribe. No matter how valuable your email is, people are bound to do so. Follow how many people unsubscribe from one campaign to the next. If the number suddenly increases above your average, pay attention, because there was probably something that people didn't like in that last communication. Think of unsubscribes as a way to keep your database updated and clean.
• Don't use the word "Free" in your copy too often or at all. Spam filters hate that word. If you must use "Free", embed the word in a graphic because the spam filters cannot read words embedded in graphics.

HEADS UP!

Every time you send out an email campaign, be prepared to receive hundreds or even thousands of live and automated responses in return. You can handle these replies using your personnel, which can be costly. You can also have your email campaign application handle some or all of these responses. Be sure to closely examine this aspect of your email campaign solution before you commit to purchasing it. See how effectively both automated and live responses are routed. This is critical.

Conclusion

The key theme throughout all of these secrets is that you should take nothing for granted because email marketing changes at an incredible velocity. While you're building solid customer relationships, you simultaneously have the opportunity to generate substantial revenue and savings. I urge you to share these secrets with other members on your team. Use them as a catalyst for mapping out your near-term email campaigns.

While planning your upcoming communications, your long-term interests will be best served by integrating your email marketing efforts into all of your customer acquisition and retention programs.

What's Next?

Integration

As both Internet marketers and users become more conversant with the medium, it's in your best interest to knit your online efforts seamlessly with your offline efforts.

You want to create a complete customer experience through as many channels as is appropriate. The tracking of behavioral patterns on your website might trigger a special offer sent to that person via email. Your customer service agent might collect information on the telephone and then follow up by email or postal mail.

By integrating your online and offline efforts early, you will open up a substantial lead on your competition.

Segmentation

Technology and the Internet, in particular, allow a marketer to economically slice and dice smaller and smaller segments in the marketplace. Typically, the smaller the segment, the more relevant and fitting the communication and level of service. The email medium is especially good at targeting niche segments.

Your mission is to identify profitable niches in your respective marketplaces and cater to them accordingly, using email and whatever other channels you deem advantageous.

Anticipation

People don't always know what they want next. One way to delight a prospect, customer or client is to live in their shoes and walk ahead a few more steps than they have. Project what their needs are going to be from that vantage point and then fashion your email marketing accordingly.

Get Going Right Now

The implications of email marketing are far-reaching. The sooner you get started, the sooner your learning curve begins. As an email marketer since 1995, I can tell you that the more experience you have in the email marketing trenches, the greater your competitive advantage.

H1, H2, H3 Placement, per W3C standards

Technically, the H tags should be structured like the outlines we used to have to write for our term papers back in school (yes, I went to school in the Dark Ages when we had to do these sorts of things)...

So, for instance:

H1: topic of the page (aka the title of the term paper)
H2: major topic #1
H3: sub topic #1.a
H3: sub topic #1.b
H2: major topic #2
H2: major topic #3
H3: sub topic #3.a
H4: sub-sub topic #3.a.1
H4: sub-sub topic #3.a.2
H3: sub topic #3.b

That's how I'd do it, at least.

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Advanced Local & 800 numbers portray a professional presence

Small businesses with toll free numbers combined with virtual office and virtual pbx features enjoy increased productivity and greater response from customers than those businesses without toll free numbers and an auto-attendant. The more professional your small businesses comes across to customers on the telephone, the higher the impact on your bottom line. Who can help make this happen? GotVMail. Virtual Office. Quickly. Easily. Inexpensively.

In addition to providing a toll free number, GotVMail eliminates the need to invest in expensive hardware. GotVMail's VirtualOne small business communications solution provides small offices and home-based businesses the tools they need to sound like a much larger and professional company. The VirtualOne is a virtual PBX system with a local or 800 number, main greeting, multiple extensions, live call forwarding, dial-by-name directory, unlimited voice mail, and more. The VirtualOne is a completely customizable, flexible virtual office solution that is easy to setup and affordable to use, with plans starting at just $9.95 a month and rates as low as 4.8¢ per minute.

Sign up today. It takes just a few minutes to quickly begin to realize the benefits to your small business a toll free number with unlimited voice mail messages gains. GotVMail's VirtualOne toll free number even forwards voicemail and faxes to your email via MP3 or PDF attachments.

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Top Two Google Ranking Factors

Top Two Google Ranking Factors

In this article I reveal what I believe are the two most important ranking factors used by Google.

My findings are as a result of my ongoing optimization experiments of my network of web sites on Google.

The top two Google ranking factors are:

PageRank and Incoming Text Link Keywords

I'll explain each in more detail and what you MUST do to maximize the effectiveness of each element.

1. PageRank

PageRank is determined by the number and quality of links to a page. Both the quantity and quality of text links are important. Always try to get links from web pages with a PageRank rating of at least four.

Concentrate on getting as many different quality sites as possible to link to one page on your site, usually your home page. Do not spread the links to different pages. This will maximize the PageRank of your main page, plus those of the subpages.

2. Incoming Text Link Keywords

ALWAYS provide text links for linking to your site. Avoid image links.

Google does index image links, but without any text for it to index, it won't help your link popularity rating for your important keywords.

In addition:

Include the most important keyword phrase in the text link, using the EXACT spelling. Do not pluralize the keyword phrase, if people usually search the singular version of the phrase. And vice versa. Avoid excess words, where possible. The linked to page MUST have the text link keywords in the body of the page, otherwise Google will discount the page. Include the text link keywords within the title tag of the linked to page. It is possible for a page without the text link keywords in the title tag to get top rankings. But I have discovered that around 80% of top 10 rankings have the text link keywords in the title tag, so always include it.

Well, there you have it. Those are what I consider the two most important ranking factors used by Google. Other factors are considered by Google, but their importance pales in comparison to the two I have discussed in this article.

Follow these tips whenever you optimize your web pages and they will quickly shoot up the Google rankings.

Google Ranking Tips

Google is by far the most popular search engine available today for both ordinary surfers and webmasters.

Surfers like it because of the highly relevant results it gives, and the speed at which it delivers them. This is due to its complex text matching algorithm and of course the Pagerank™ system that this engine uses. More on the Pagerank™ system later.

Google is popular with webmasters and Internet Marketing companies due to the highly workable ranking system it uses.

Unlike other engines where information about how the results are obtained are sketchy at best, Google actually publishes information on its site about the results it produces. So webmasters have things they can do to produce higher rankings. What also makes Google popular with webmasters is the speed at which they will spider / list your site.

If you are not listed in Google and submit you are usually indexed within two weeks. If, however, your site is already listed in the index Google should reindex once every month, but more frequently if you have a high Pagerank™.

This indexing / reindexing time is much quicker than most other search engines, this allows webmasters to edit their pages properties such as title, first few lines of text, headings, keyword distribution and of course the number of incoming links to their site. They can then discover quickly if the changes were successful or not.

It's because of this popularity that you need to know the workings of the google search engine. Without knowledge of it you will be ranked lower than all other sites that are only slightly familiar with the Google algorithm.

So let's indulge ourselves in the Google ranking algorithm. Well, there are two main parts to the algorithm google uses, the first is its text matching system, whereby Google tries to find pages relevant to what the searcher has entered. The second and equally important part of the algorithm is of course the Google patented Pagerank™ system.

I'll first go through how to make your page relevant, i.e. - the text matching part of the algo.

Google gives a lot of "weight" to the title tag when searching for keywords. So make sure your most important keywords or keyphrases appear in the title tag. It seems to work best if you have other words in your title tag, too, after your keywords, but try to remain under 35-40 characters.

As many of you know, Google does not use meta tags such as keywords or description tags. This is because the text in these tags cannot be seen by visitors to a website. And Google feels these tags will be abused, by webmasters placing lots of unrelated words in them in order the get more visitors.

The lack of support for meta tags means that Google creates your description from the first few lines of text on your page, this means you have to have your keywords and phrases right at the top, if it finds them your page becomes more relevant. If it doesn't the rest of your page has to work harder to become relevant. For example Scroll back to the top of this page and you will see:

AKA Marketing.com - Free Internet Marketing Articles , Google submitting tips, ranking high at google.com

The above sentence includes keyphrases related to this page.

Google considers keyword density in the body of a page for determining relevancy too, so make sure your keywords and phrases appear a couple of times throughout the whole page. Don't go overboard though, a density of 6-10% seems to work best.

Other advice about making your page relevant includes putting keywords into the heading tags . Also try and bold as many keywords as you can. As of late Google seems to be indexing text in alt image tags, so includes your keyphrases in there too.

One final tip on page relevancy is the point on having your keywords and phrases in links which point to your site. It is a good idea to have the linking text contain your keywords as Google even says itself that it analyzes pages that links come from too, in it's description of it's pagerank technology.

How much keyword laden links matter is anyone's guess. But I have noticed a lot of sites which give the HTML code to visitors who want to exchange links do include keywords in the actual linking area. You should do something like this to on your links page. Say something like "if you want to link to this site, please use the following code".

In the above section of the article you have learned what areas Google uses and looks at when looking for a relevant site. But what method does Google use to determine which site is better, the answer is the Pagerank™ system.

Pagerank™ is as the name suggests a ranking system of pages. It works on the basis that if a website ABC.COM has been linked from a website XYZ.COM, abc.com must have some good content and therefore Google will count the link from XYZ.COM as a vote for ABC.COM. You can check your link popularity on Google by downloading the Google toolbar from http://toolbar.google.com

The Pagerank™ scale goes from 1 to 10 on the Google toolbar and from 1 to 7 beside listings on the Google toolbar. A less important site is of course a site with a PR of 1 and a very very important site is a site with a PR of 7 or 10, in the directory or toolbar respectively.

The more links or votes a site has the more important it must be and therefore the higher it will rank for search words which it is relevant to, right?, WRONG!.

Google does not simply count the number of incoming links a page has, if that was the case every webmaster from Iceland to Vietnam would try and exchange links to every tom, Dick and harry website that would let them. In Googles own words

"Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

Hopefully your beginning to get the idea. If not - The idea is to have your page linked to by as many high quality and high pageranked sites as possible. Right?, RIGHT and WRONG.

WRONG BECAUSE - You see Google pagerank system also takes into account the number of links the page that has linked to you has. The reasoning for this is that a page X has a certain amount of voting PR, if your site Y is the only link from that page X, then Google feels confident that page X thinks your page Y is the best link it has, and will give you more PR. If however page X has 50 links, page X could think your only the 50th best page. So the more links it has the less of a PR boost your site gets.

RIGHT BECAUSE - Linking to a site with a 6+ PR will provide a significant boost to your PR in most cases, but in cases where the site also links with 100 other sites the boost will be almost zero. Likewise if a site has a PR of just 2 but you and only one other site are linked from it, then the PR boost would be more than the site with 100 links and a PR of 6.

It's beginning to come complex isn't it, just wait till you see this formula. Its looks scary for non math's people.

First let me explain what the damping factor is. The damping factor is the amount of your PR which you can actually pass on when you vote / link to another site. The damping factor is widely known to be .85 . This is a little less then the linking pages own PR.

PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + ... + PR(tn)/C(tn))

In layman's terms PR(A) is the Pagerank™ boost your page will get after being linked from someone else's site (t1). PR(t1) is the pagerank of the page which links to you and C(t1) is the amount of total links that (t1) has. It is important to know that a pages voting power is only .85 of that pages actual PR and this voting power gets spread out evenly between all sites it links to.

Imagine akamarketing.com was linked by XYZ.COM's link page which had a PR of 4 and 9 other links, here's how the formula should look like:

PR(AKA) = (1-.85) + .85*(4/10)
PR(AKA) = .15 + .85*(.4)
PR(AKA) = .15 + .34
PR(AKA) = .49

To sum up my site would get an injection of .49 PR after being linked from a page with a PR of four and 9 other links.

Lets say I was linked from a site with a PR of 8 - double the previous example's amount, which had 15 other links, a total of 16 outbound links, my boost would be:

PR(AKA) = (1-.85) +.85*(8/16)
PR(AKA) = .15 + .85(.5)
PR(AKA) = .15 + .425
PR(AKA) = .575

The above two worked examples show that not only is the PR of the linking page important but what is also important is how many other sites are also linked / voted for from that page.

OK, I think we've had enough mathy stuff for now. Just remember that the name of the game is to get as many links from pages with high PR and few other links. The more of these links you get the more your PR will grow and the more your rankings will improve for your relevant keywords.

The best thing you can do for your PR seems at the moment seems to be getting listed in Dmoz.org - The Open Directory Project.

Pagerank™ is widely known to be biased towards big name directories such as Dmoz.org, Yahoo and Looksmart.

This is true, especially in the case of Dmoz.org. These ODP links are treated like gold by Pagerank™. It doesn't even matter what the individual PR of the category page is. I have seen sites gain a large PR boost on the toolbar as soon as Google updates it's directory with the latest one from dmoz.org. This is because Google uses it's own version of ODP for the Google web directory.

Don't believe ODP links are very important to Pagerank™?
Don't believe a listing in the ODP will boost your ranking?

Well they are and they will. Perform a search for almost anything on Google and you'll discover that 75-80% of the top 10 results are also indexed in the Google directory. The fact of the matter seems to me to be if your not listed in ODP, you shouldn't expect much traffic from Google.

It's not difficult, it does sometimes take time, but it's not difficult. Just make sure you site has good content and follow the guidelines for adding a URL. Try to get you index page listed at least. I say at least because although ODP claims only to list your index page, there are plenty of sites with 5 - 10 pages listed. So if your site has very distinctive sections, then submit each section - slowly. Once Google updates it's directory, these listings could do wonders for your site maximum PR.

As for Yahoo and Looksmart, Pagerank™ will usually allocate a more than normal amount of PR boost for any sites listed. For tips on getting listed in Yahoo, read Yahoo Submitting Tips.

If you are a non-commercial site or have a site that's almost completely non-commercial you can get into the looksmart directory through www.Zeal.com. I really love this site, just like Google obtains results from ODP, Looksmart obtains it's non-commercial listings from the Zeal web directory, without Zeal I would have to fork out hard earned cash and all my site does is provide information.

To continue - I submitted inetready.com on a Tuesday and was listed in Zeal by Thursday morning. On Monday I checked my logs and found lots of referrals from Looksmart, I was in Looksmart already. I looked at my logs later only to find MSN had updated it's DB from the looksmart DB and was sending my loads of visitors cause of the good listing I got. My site was listed in Zeal, Looksmart and MSN within six days. So get over to Zeal.com and submit your site.

Before you can submit a site however you must pass a member quiz, which is fairly simple and straightforward.

If you happen to be a webmaster that has a listing in all three of Dmoz.org, Yahoo and Looksmart then I'm guessing your site has good to very good PR and rankings.

RECAP
Have your main keywords and phrases in your TITLE tag and well spread throughout your page. Get as many links from as many high PR low number of outbound links pages you can. GET LISTED IN DMOZ.ORG, Yahoo and Looksmart.

Well that's it. I hope you have enjoyed this Google Ranking tips article, as much as I have enjoyed writing it. I also hope that you can put this advice into use and help get yourself some real traffic.

SEO for Page Rank vs. Site Rank

Do SEO on a "site" level

By James T. Faasse

I think you would agree to do seo for pages instead of site. Search engines' ranking is page-based algorithm (think about the PageRank and your pages are ranked instead of your whole site).

Most seo experts believe incoming links from theme relevant pages can give you a boost in SE ranking. This also gives you a hint that you can organize the whole site and build internal supporting pages around targeted page to increase your ranking.

For example, when you want to optimize your homepage for a highly competitive keyword, first place the keyword in index page with important and favorable locations by SEs(such as in title, bold, h1, h2 etc.) Think about a list of related keywords (as many as possible) and start to build a series of pages, each of that is to be associated with one or more keywords in your list. Make all your pages well-readable and with good keywords density (it's said 2% tolerance with Google), assign a unique title containing keywords (should be theme related to the "most important" keyword). And link internal pages with each other using "good" anchor texts. Last but not the least, make all your supporting pages link to your home page with that keyword. A tip here: make small variation in anchor text to keep from triggering the SE filter.

Another strategy for you here is to include a blog. Blogs usually get indexed and re-indexed faster and loved by search engines. This helps in two aspects: your blog can make high ranking seperately in SE for certain keywords (think about theme focus, new content and frequent keyword appearance); secondly, your blog naturally "link" to your main site with dedicated keywords.

After you finish all this, keep an eye on your ranking and keep doing research on keyword popularity for your client. Target new keywords to get more visitors and traffic!

Some Tips for Planning your SEO Campaign for the Long Term

Some Tips for Planning your SEO Campaign for the Long Term

Posted by: Rob Sullivan on Sep 21, 2005

At one time you used to be able to perform a one time optimization on your site and reap the benefits for months. In todays competitive landscape, however, that is not the case. This is because your competition is always growing and changing and therefore you have to as well. This article explains what you need to do to plan a long term SEO campaign.

Before Google there was Altavista, and once your got your site into Altavista you didn’t want to change it for fear of a loss in rankings. achieving high rankings was easy enough and without changing anything you could maintain them for months.

But Altavista isn’t the important engine it once was. now you have to optimize for Google, Yahoo! and MSN. The good news is that the three engines generally consider the same factors when ranking your pages. They are: Content, meta tags, links and age of all those factors. Granted no one knows for sure which of these are more important than the others, but in general, content is the most important.

All the engines have realized that the most important aspect to their business is people. In order to keep the people coming back and using their engine, they have to continue to improve on their results.

The results have to be relevant to that person at the time they are searching.

As a website owner, it is imperative that you understand how these search engine changes can affect your site. If you don’t adapt to their changes your site likely will suffer.

Therefore it is imperative that you have some form of ongoing SEO campaign, whether its aggressive as a monthly target of incoming links, or as simple as regularly publishing new site pages, or a combination of these two aspects of SEO.

Therefore, the main considerations for one planning a long term search engine optimization campaign are their budget and how aggressive they want to be.

A site owner who doesn’t have an extensive budget likely can’t compete against a site that can afford to spend thousands per months on link building for example. That is because all the engines use some form of link popularity for ranking sites and generally the site with the most links wins (There is much more to link building than this, but essentially it comes down to volume).

Similarly, a site owner needs to invest in an ongoing content campaign as well. Because you can be sure that your competitors are doing so as well.

Now a content development SEO campaign can be something as simple as setting up a blog on your site and posting regularly, or going so far as to hire professional SEO copywriters to create optimized content for your site.

In either case, the growth is positive, however there are obviously benefits to professionally written pages.

So what should one consider when defining an SEO budget?

There can be many aspects which affect your SEO. Some companies like to perform an in-depth analysis of your current site, making suggestions to improve existing optimization, and remove barriers to search engine indexing, while other firms will swing into action performing keyword analysis and writing meta tags.

Ideally you should receive quotes from many SEO firms and pick the one you feel best suits you. Keep in mind that you do have a budget, and don’t be afraid to negotiate with them. Prices can vary from $50 per hour to many hundreds per hour depending on the caliber of firm you choose. And like most things, you generally get what you pay for.

What should my SEO campaign contain?

Depending on what way you go, I would recommend a key phrase analysis, to help suggest those phrases which accurately represent your site, which you can compete for that will drive traffic to your site. Also, if you can get it, a detailed site analysis outlining the areas of improvement your site needs.

Sometimes the SEO firm can perform these changes for you (at a cost) or you can do them, if you have sufficient skill. If not you can perhaps find a third party to make the changes for you.

Some SEO campaigns will also either contain meta tags to use on your pages, as well as optimization suggestions for those pages, so that the content can be tweaked to match the meta tags. If you don’t receive meta tags you should at least receive guidelines and assistance on optimizing your pages yourself.

Some SEO programs also include some link building, however this can be a time consuming and costly process. The last time I did link building for a client (using some automated gathering and parsing tools) still took me over an hour to find one high quality link. Therefore if you are paying an SEO firm an hourly rate for this, it can get quite expensive.

However, link building is something you can do on your own time, provided you have some guidance from the SEO firm, or you can hire a firm which specializes in link building.

In general a lot of the firms out there have a variety of packages from mostly self serve, with consulting, to full service. It is up to you to decide what you think you can afford.

Some other considerations for an ongoing SEO campaign

Now, you are probably thinking “great I can spend a few hundred (or thousand) and get this work done at once and be done with it.” But I’d have to tell you that you’d be mistaken. SEO is not a one time thing.

I consider it like car maintenance – it’s something that has to be done on a regular basis. If you don’t perform regular oil changes, your car breaks down and repair bills can get very expensive. Similarly, simply performing a one time optimization will only take you so far, and then the site begins to lose in the rankings it once had.

That being said, you can generally find a firm which will do a bunch of optimization initially and then step down to a maintenance package, whereby they provide ongoing consultation and minor changes on a monthly basis to help maintain your rankings.

As such you need to factor this ongoing monthly cost into your “Cost of Doing Business” online. just like you’d have to hire a janitor and repair crews to keep your brick and mortar store clean and functional.

For example, you might have an initial “setup” that can run you a few thousand, and may take a month or 2 to complete, but after that work is done perhaps you can “step down” to a $500 monthly maintenance package including some consulting time, maintenance time and perhaps even some light duty link building.

Why else you should plan for long term SEO?

November 16, 2003 will be a date that many webmasters, site owners and SEO firms will remember. This was the day that the now infamous “Florida” update began on Google. It was at this time that sites which had traditionally owned the top of the SERPs had disappeared altogether while sites that struggled for a top 30 listing moved to the top.

For a long time people complained about how Google could do this to them. We know now this was Google’s first attempt to drastically improve the index. And the results can be felt today – the index is much cleaner and you don’t see the same poor quality sites you used to.

And as an SEO who went through this time I can tell you that of all the clients I deal with on a regular basis, probably less than 10% felt any negative impact. If anything most of my clients benefited from the change. Why?

Well for one, I don’t go for the “quick fix” SEO tactics. Up until the Florida Update all you needed was tons of links. Quality and Relevancy didn’t matter. But I didn’t condone that type of link building. Sure it may have taken me longer to find the relevant authoritative links that I felt my clients needed but in the end they weathered the storm that was the Florida Update.

I also instituted a regular content development program with many of my clients long before Florida. This too helped them weather that storm and the many which have followed since then.

And this is my point to all this – a good SEO firm will not only help you weather such drastic algorithm changes they should in fact be able to predict them to a certain extend and help you develop strategies to help combat them, should your site suffer the effects of a Florida like update.

So just how do you plan a long term SEO campaign?

Well there are two ways you can go about it – the first is the DIY path but this requires significant investments of your time, to learn the proper way to do SEO, as well as time to keep up to date on the current state of search engine affairs. And I have to tell you from experience that this can be very time consuming.

I spend a good part of my job researching SEO tactics so I can develop effective strategies for my clients. It’s not like I have a business to run on top of that. My job is to understand how search engines work so my clients can benefit. That type of understand takes a long time to pick up and maintain.

That being said, if you have the time to devote to this, you can save yourself a lot of money. Perhaps all you need then is a consultant, perhaps, which you can throw ideas at to get their expert opinion.

the second way is to hire a firm to do it for you. Granted this will cost you more, but you will be able to sleep at night knowing you are in good hands, and that the firm you hire should be on top of things and won’t get you banned for unethical tactics.

However you go, you MUST plan for the long term with any SEO campaign, you are no longer able to perform a one time optimization and walk away from the site. Today’s search engine landscape required constant change and innovation because if you don’t do it, I can almost guarantee you that your online competition is.

Effective web copy that is optimized for SEO and converts traffic

Effective web copy that is optimized for SEO and converts traffic

Posted by: Rob Sullivan on Oct 06, 2005

Web copy has evolved from the “early days” of SEO. Back then (3-4 years ago) doorway pages were all the rage because they could be auto generated on the fly and were built to rank highly on the search engines.

The problem was that these pages, while highly ranking, did little to help convert visitors into buyers. In fact more often then not turned people off websites.

Today however search engines put much more stock into the content of page, not just counting occurrences of phrases but actually understanding what the page is about which is why effective web copy is even more important than ever.

Just what is effective?
Trying to balance the need for effective web copy that ranks well, as well as converts traffic is an ongoing task. This is because both the search engines and the site’s visitors change over time. A page you wrote today won’t likely be as effective a year or even six months from now.

In fact I know from experience that page rankings change monthly across most of the engines. A well optimized page that was re-optimized in May is just now starting to show good rankings while pages which haven’t been touched in more than six months are beginning to drop in the rankings. This is the cycle of the search engines. As they find content which they deem more effective they will gradually refresh the index, dumping those pages which aren’t as effective and replacing them with ones that are.

Effective copy is found on pages that both rank highly and helps convert visitors. That means they are written to rank but are compelling enough to encourage users to first click on the listing and then stay and read the page and click through to other pages, hopefully converting in the end.

Now I can’t tell you how to write effective copy but I can give you some tips on how to optimize it so it will rank. Therefore, if you are reading this to learn how to write I’m sorry I can’t help you.

This is because to me writing is just one of those things that come naturally. You can either write or you can’t. Mind you, you can practice and you will get better over time, but I wouldn’t expect that the average person can just sit down in front of the computer and bang out web copy at will. As I said, it takes time, trial and error to learn how to create effective web copy.

That being said, I can give you pointers on optimizing your copy to make it effective from the search engine point of view.

Step 1 – choosing keywords

There are two ways you can go about creating effective copy – the first involves creating content around keywords, while the second involves optimizing content after it is written.

Let’s start with the first type of SEO copy:

Writing Around Keywords

Often, you will have an idea of the keywords you’d like to position your site for, so you just need to have appropriate content to support it. That means writing around the words or phrases you have in mind.

To do this, I like to take a look at a few of the sites currently ranking for those phrases. These sites can give you an idea of the writing style that is used, as well as the approximate word count on the pages. Remember, its a combination of factors which got those pages to the top of the rankings, so analyzing them can help give you an idea of just how they got there.

Once I have a “feel” for what’s required, I begin writing. Sometimes I take a block of text from a ranking site and copy it to a document for reference. For example, if a government site is occupying a top spot and it has statistics relevant to what I’m about to write on, then I copy the stats into a document for later use.

One thing to be careful of is to NEVER EVER COPY directly. It is OK to copy and use as a reference but your pages should never be the same as someone else’s for many reasons including legal. If you are struggling creating your unique content consider hiring someone (I’m always available :) ).

As I said, if you can write, by now you should have a good idea what the tone and style of your writing should be, and you already know what keywords you are using so its a matter of doing it.

Like I said, I can’t tell you how to do it. I don’t even know how I do it. All I know is I can sit in front of a keyboard and the words start to spill out onto the screen via my fingers. Sometimes I can’t type fast enough to keep up with my racing brain.

In the end, though, I get a page there. I don’t always get the important keywords out in the first try, but that is ok. I go back and revise the page as needed. The important thing at this stage is to be sure your page emulates those pages already ranking.

Once the page is created (it could take only a few minutes, or it could take days depending on your creative ability, but don’t let that stop you – practice does make it easier) it is time to optimize it.

As a guideline I like to keep my pages between 400 and 500 words, with 2-3 occurrences of any given phrase. I also like to try and keep my pages to 2 or 3 phrases per page. For more details on the perfectly optimized page, be sure to read my other article on the topic of Perfectly Optimized Web Pages.

Optimizing an existing page

As with creating new content from scratch, you need to keep your keyphrases in mind when optimizing new or existing content.

Using the same guidelines as found in my Perfectly Optimized Web Pages article you can optimize your existing content around your chosen phrases.

Sometimes that means rewriting parts of the text, while other times it could be a matter of changing synonyms to the phrase you want to position for.

If you need to, now is a good time to split up larger pages into that 400-500 word range. This also gives you more pages to optimize for those phrases which helps show your authority status on that keyphrase to the search engines.

Know your audience

While nailing the tone and style of the currently ranking pages is key to helping you achieve rankings, it is equally important to write for your target audience to help them stay on your site, ultimately converting.

That means writing something that is compelling for them. But in order to do this you need to know just who they are.

As I mentioned in a previous article you want to be as detailed as you can in knowing your target customer. That means getting as much realism as you can into your profile. Don’t just settle with the demographics (ie. 30 year old male, 45,000 annual income) but get into the details as well – is he married or single? What kind of car does he drive? Does he own or rent? What does he look like? Answering all these questions to the best of your ability can help you write content that is compelling to this person.

Test your content

Once you’ve chosen your keywords and written and optimized your content it would be a good idea to test it out on some visitors.

What I’d recommend here is talking to your friends and family. If they fit the profile of your target audience then get them to browse through your site, making notes about things they liked and didn’t like as well as any improvement suggestions they have. A lot of the time these people will give you an accurate idea of your average target audience. A warning though, you may have to be a little thick skinned. But keep in mind that all the criticism is good for your site in the end.

The advantage of recruiting friends and family is that you get instant feedback – you don’t have to wait for the engines to re index and re rank the pages. While you could do this, and then monitor your analytics to note any changes, this process could take months.

There you have it – a somewhat brief introduction into effective web copy.

Granted it is difficult for me to tell you what effective is. Really it is up to you, the website owner, to know what is effective and what isn’t. And as I mentioned above, a good way to do that is get someone you know to give you an honest evaluation of your site.

It is also important to write for your target audience. If they prefer highly technical commentary, and lots of details then don’t be afraid to give it to them. If they prefer a story behind every product or service, then give them one.

Let me tell you a little story about effective copy. A while ago I was researching a purchase. I want to buy a big screen TV. My current TV is pretty small and old, so I thought it would be time to upgrade. While I could find tons of generic information on which type to get, when it came to the specifics I needed to help make the final decision on what make and model to buy I found the information greatly lacking.

While there was lots of this type of information out there, I found that the dozen or so sites that I visited had EXACTLY THE SAME INFORMATION. And worst of all, it wasn’t what I wanted. If I were to buy online it wasn’t going to be from one of these sites because they didn’t answer the questions I was asking. If they can’t answer my questions before purchase, what are they going to be like after the purchase?

Whatever you find that your target wants to see should be incorporated in your site. Because this is the only way to get these visitors to stay on your site once they’ve found it in the search engines.

Remember, getting your site found through effective SEO is only part of the equation. The real trick comes in the conversion cycle, and what it will take to turning visitors into buyers. One important element in this cycle is the effectiveness of your content.

5 steps to a perfectly optimized web page

5 steps to a perfectly optimized web page

Posted by: Rob Sullivan on Sep 19, 2005

There is so much talk out there about what the ‘perfect’ web page looks like. In this article we give you tips on what we consider perfectly optimized as well as tips on helping turn the page into a great conversion tool.

Step one – Know who you are targeting
As with any marketing campaign the first step in optimizing ANY web page is to know your target audience. Is your site B2B (business to business) or B2C (business to consumer). This is important because this not only affects the tone of your site, but also the keywords you chose.

It is imperative that you nail who your target is before you do anything else because if you don’t it doesn’t matter how big your site is, or how many pages you have. If you don’t write to the right crowd you aren’t going to get too much business.

The best thing is to write down who you think the target is. Be as detailed as possible. For example, your target may be a 30-45 year old female, in middle management, who drives a mini-van and takes her 3 kids to school before she goes to work. She makes $45,000 per year and has a bachelors degree in finance. This is the type of detail you need. You should be able to picture this person in your mind. Not just the abstract idea of her, but a physical look as well. the better you can picture them in your mind the more successful you will be.

Once you know who you target is the next step is choosing keywords.

Step two – Choosing the right keywords

This may be the most difficult part of your journey, especially if you don’t fit the target profile. That is, picking the keywords they will use to find your site.

You can start by using free tools like Yahoo!s keyword suggestion tool. It gives you a good place to start picking keywords.

Start with a phrase you know your site is about (i.e. if you sell widgets, then simply put “widgets” in the search box). The tool will then not only spit out other related words, but also the search volumes associated with each for the previous month.

A word of caution however: Sometimes, depending on when you use the tool, the search volumes are from a couple months ago. So if your product is seasonal based, the numbers may actually be lower or higher than represented.

Don’t be afraid to get a few hundred words to start. Remember, right now you are just gathering ideas – phrases that could drive traffic to your site. They aren’t all necessarily being used by your target customer.

You can also go to Google’s Adwords site and perform the above steps. Start with a phrase or two which describe your site or product and use Google’s suggestion tool to help expand your list.

At this point you want as many phrases on your list as possible. Don’t worry, you will cull the list pretty quickly.

Once you have a huge list of words, the next place to go is a site like Wordtracker, which has a keyword analysis tool. This tool can be used for a one time fee, or if it’s something you might want to return to you can purchase a subscription. It is a fairly simple tool to use and will give you a good idea of just how likely your site will be able to compete for a phrase.

A warning about Wordtracker: The software uses search volumes from some fairly minor sites such as Dogpile, so the estimates could be a little skewed. But again, unless you deal with an SEO firm that has their own proprietary software, this is about your best alternative.

Also remember as you are culling your words, don’t just focus on the competitive factors. These won’t account for your target audience. Therefore you need to have that picture in your mind of the target as you are selecting phrases that they might use. If you are unsure, you could always as for help from friends and family that fit the target profile.

A good rule of thumb would be to chose about one phrase per page. That doesn’t mean that you will only have one page per phrase, but it gives you a good target. So if your site is 300 pages, consider having a list of 300 phrases.

Step 3 – Write your pages

Now that you have your keywords its time to write, or re-write, your content to make them more appealing to the target audience, inserting the key phrases you’ve selected whenever possible.

Keep in mind that you don’t want to over do it. Also now is a good time to ensure you have proper keyword density’s and page length.

I recommend pages that are 400-500 words long. If they are a little longer or shorter that is fine, however if they are approaching 1000 words or more you should split them up, trying to hit that 400-500 word limit.

On this 400-500 word page you should have 2 or 3 occurrences of a key phrase, and you want to limit the key phrases used to 2 or 3. In other words you could have between 4 and 9 occurrences of all your key phrases per page. This should provide you with optimal keyword density.

Above all, make sure the pages are readable. Don’t optimize for optimization’s sake. If only one key phrase applies to the page, then only use one.

Step 4 – Optimize your Pages

This can be done in conjunction with the writing. In fact it should be done at then to save time. I purposely made this a separate step so that I could outline the finer points of optimization.

Provided that you are following the guidelines found in step 3, your pages should already have good keyword density, now is the time to improve that optimization by adding optimized meta tags and if appropriate, some image alt tags.

First is to write the meta description tag. While many engines will index thousands of characters in your description, I recommend no more than a couple hundred characters. That is about how long this paragraph is.

The meta description should be a readable sentence or two with the same keywords that you wrote the page for. In other words, the same phrases should appear in the meta description as the body. They should also appear as near to the front of the tag as possible however don’t sacrifice readability for this. If the tag doesn’t make sense with them at the front, then reorganize until they do make sense. Be sure to use proper punctuation as well.

Also preferred but not mandatory is a meta keywords tag. While none of the major engines use this tag, other smaller ones, and some specialty engines do use the meta keywords tag. If your target uses one of these engines then it makes sense to have that tag in place.

Also, with the keywords tag there is a lot of debate over using commas or not. Personally I do not use commas. I just combine the phrases and remove duplicate words. For example, if the page is about blue widgets, yellow widgets and red widgets then the keywords tag could be: “blue yellow red widgets.”

Common sense should be used when deciding if you will use image alt tags as well. If your keywords match the image and you can make a compelling image description, then do it. Otherwise don’t.

Step 5 – Write a compelling title tag

I purposely left this as a separate step from meta tags because this is the most important part of your optimization program. Again, it can be done at the same time as the previous two steps, but it’s importance can not be over-emphasized.

This is because the title tag is the tag which is displayed in the SERP (Search Engine Results Page). It is the link that people click on, and also the tag which is generally read by the visitor before they decide to visit.

Therefore, if your title tag isn’t compelling, it doesn’t matter how well optimized your page is, it may not get that click.

For this step, you need to look at your competition to determine what they are doing. Perform a search to see what is compelling about their listing? Is there one that stands out? If so what are they doing? For example, if on every other site the keyword is the first phrase on the title, then consider moving your keyword in to the second or third phrase.

This is because, as you will notice, engines like Google bold the search term in the title and snippets or description. One way to make your title stand out is to have the term in a different position than the competition. That way the bolding stands out like this:

key phrase in title tag
key phrase in title tag
title tag with key phrase
key phrase in title tag

Notice how the third one stands out from the rest?

I can not emphasize enough how important that title tag is. As I said, it is the “hook” to get visitors to your site. If the title is ineffective, then it won’t get clicked which means you don’t get the opportunity to woo that client.

Summary

As you can see, optimizing a page has less to do with optimal keyword density and more to do with knowing who it is that will be using that page.

If you don’t know who your target audience is you will never be able to properly optimize your pages. Sure you can optimize it for whatever keywords you choose, but if they aren’t the words that your customer will search for, what’s the point?

In the end, the more you know who your customer is, the better you will be in all your online ventures, from introduction of your product or service, to closing the sale. It is up to you to cater to them, and not force them into a more generic mold. This is because todays web searchers are much more savvy and willing to browse more if a site doesn’t appeal to them.