Guarantee Conversions on Your Landing Pages

Given the economic environment we are all living in, businesses cannot afford to not have their landing pages convert. In this video from SES NYC, Tim Ash gives two distinct ways to ensure that they will convert.
1. Apply best practices to it2. Ask your audience
One of the biggest problems Tim sees when analyzing landing pages is a problem with clutter. The business needs to have a clear call to action. Allow the customer to focus on their current transaction and don’t confuse them with too many options. Consider basic usability tips when applying your best practices.
Businesses have to keep up with the current trends and know what their audience wants. It is vitally important to get involved and communicate with the audience. If you give your audience what they want, you will have better results, which translates into more revenue.
On the topic of tools, Tim gives 2 recommendations. The first is Google Website Optimizer. This is a free tool that Google offers which allows users to conduct both A/B split testing and multivariate testing. Tim says it is a very powerful tool that is effective for both beginners and advanced users.
The second tool that Tim recommends is OnDialog. Tim prefaced this solution in an interview with us at PubCon South. OnDialog provides landing page creation software that puts the marketer in control. Tim’s company, SiteTuners has partnered with OnDialog and incorporated its tuning engine technology into their software. The tool allows more tests in parallel and bases data on actual results.

Making Your eCommerce Site Convert

As more and more people are shopping online as opposed to shopping at brick and mortar stores, it only makes sense that ecommerce sites would want to do everything they can to ensure that their traffic is converting. In this interview, Khalid Saleh of Invesp Consulting shares the shockingly low number of conversions some ecommerce sites are getting but also shares how they can improve them.

Some ecommerce websites are only converting 1-3 percent of their incoming traffic, which translates into 1 conversion for every 100 visitors. For comparison, sites like Amazon are getting conversions at a 12-14 percent rate.

According to Khalid, conversion optimization is where the real ROI is. There are a few basic assumptions that ecommerce sites need to realize about their traffic. The first is that roughly 25 percent of the visitors to your site are probably there by accident. Secondly, you need to understand that another approximated 25 percent of your traffic are offline shoppers simply comparing prices.

You are now left with 50 percent of your traffic to convert. There are a few quick tips for converting such as correcting headlines and images, but Khalid says you have to take a systematic approach to get the conversions that really matter.

Going back to basic marketing, having a thorough knowledge of your target audience is the first step in this approach. Use your market research and translate the data into personas and then determine how they interact with your website.

Here are several common mistakes that ecommerce sites make that prevent conversions:

1. Neglect to understand what customer is looking for
2. Shopping cart and shipping costs aren’t clear
3. Assume customers are “committed” to shopping transaction
4. Fail to include security seals
5. Insist shoppers complete forms before shopping process begins

What are some other mistakes that ecommerce sites make that you have experienced as a shopper? From a marketing standpoint, what advice would you offer to ecommerce site looking to improve their conversions?

More WebProNews Videos

Content Monetization: What Not To Do

During this time in our economy everyone is trying to figure out a way to both save and make a buck. Jennifer Slegg, also known as JenSense, is well versed in monetizing online content. In this interview, she discusses some of the mistakes many people are making which ultimately prevent them from fully monetizing their content.

Jennifer believes that people are making mistakes because they are in a “freaking-out” mode as a result of the economy. They are so consumed with reaching a monthly quota in order to pay bills and provide for their families, that they are committing serious ad blunders on their site. Jennifer shares a personal experience in which she visited a blog that had 27 300×250-sized ads and only 3 paragraphs of content. Unfortunately, some people think this is effective.

According to Jennifer, a webpage should have a maximum of 3-4 ads on a page, depending upon the rest of the content. In a blog post on a related topic, Jennifer suggests replacing your ads with boxes of the same size but making them an outrageous color. This test proves that if you are more focused on the color than you are on the site’s content, then you likely need to adjust your ad structure.

Another mistake people are making involves running Adsense on sites where it isn’t allowed. If you’ve ever wondered why Google is showing Public Service Announcements on your site rather than targeted ads, you may need to check the Adsense policies to ensure that your site is following the rules. For example, sites that sell goods such as prescription drugs, school essays, tobacco products, and adult content are not allowed to run AdSense on their sites.

To get your ad campaign “right,” Jennifer recommends being creative and innovative. Try adding a border or shadow to your ad units and wrap text around them. Do you have any other creative ideas for integrating ads into content? If so, we would love to hear about your experiences.

More WebProNews Videos

Marketing Strategies for Mobile

As mobile devices become more and more popular, the importance mobile marketing becomes greater as well. Cindy Krum of Rank-Mobile always keeps us updated on what’s going on in the mobile market and this video from SES New York is no exception.

Cindy actively promotes having only one website by making your existing website provide mobile capabilities too. The same goes with marketing strategies. Cindy suggests that businesses integrate their mobile marketing strategy into their existing marketing strategy to get the best results.

The mobile Web is not just the current trend; it’s here to stay. Not only Cindy, but also many others including Dr. Vint Cerf, believe mobile will play a large role in the future. Based upon that information, Cindy believes if you embrace mobile now, you have the opportunity to pull ahead of your competitors.

So how do you integrate mobile into your overall marketing strategy? Here are a few quick tips from Cindy:

- Follow all traditional and local SEO best practices
- Provide info relevant to mobile users
- Submit your site to mobile search engines and directions
- Don’t rely on: Embedded images, Objects, Scripts, Frames, Flash, Pop-up Windows, Mouse-over trends

There are many mobile applications for search, which are taking feeds from existing search engines and integrating results into their own. Determine where they are getting their data from and make sure you are ranking well there. For mobile SEO, Cindy suggests coding in XHTML, employing multiple style sheets, and using CSS.

For more information on Cindy’s mobile strategies, check out Rank-Mobile.

More WebProNews Videos

TwitterHawk, Spam or Not?

Twitter is receiving almost as much attention as Google receives at industry events. In this interview from SES New York, Jeff Ferguson of Napster talks about TwitterHawk and the marketing power of it.

TwitterHawk is a new tool for Twitter that is still in the developing stages. It is keyword-based and allows users to create a variety of reply phrases to respond to people with. TwitterHawk usage costs 5 cents per tweet (reply) but can be purchased in advance through a variety of packages.

In an effort to build up a client’s Twitter base, Jeff decided to use the tool for a DJ for iGlobal Radio. He used keywords such as Radiohead, alternative music, Indie-Music, etc. When someone tweeted one of those keywords, they were sent an automated response that said something similar to “If you like Radiohead, you’ll love iGlobal Radio…”

As a result, TwitterHawk helped Jeff’s client to receive many more Twitter followers and created more interactivity with his followers. On the negative side, there were a couple of people that accused Jeff’s client of spam. Jeff responded to one user and found that he didn’t like that fact that a robot was responding to him and that it was a paid service.

Jeff countered the argument by explaining that his client wrote his own copy for his responses. Also, his client’s actions were completely human but simply carried out in an automated fashion.

If users only use TwitterHawk and are not personally active on the service, then Jeff says those users could be classified as spammers. His client however, is active on Twitter and used TwitterHawk to better target his market.

What are your thoughts on TwitterHawk? Do you think it is pure marketing or does it cross the line and create a spam issue?

More WebProNews Videos

Will Monetization Models for Social Media Ever Come?

Dave Naylor is never shy to share his opinion on matters and this interview with WebProNews is no exception. As evidenced by several of our videos from SES New York, social media was a hot topic. One area in particular that raised a lot of discussion was monetization of social sites.

According to comScore, YouTube is the second largest search engine next to Google. It however, does not have a solid monetization model. Dave says YouTube users don’t care what’s going on around them. They simply want to watch a video. YouTube users turn advertisements away much like they do on television, by either flipping to another channel or leaving the room until their program comes back on.

Twitter is a whole different story altogether. Look at all the applications it provides such as TweetBerry, TweetDeck, and our very own Twellow. Dave then raises the following question: what if Twitter would start charging for their usage? How would that change your business strategies on Twitter?

Twitter recently announced that Pro accounts are coming this year but has yet to disclose what they consist of.

Moving right along to Facebook. As discussed in our interview with Tim Kendall, contextual advertising on Facebook is based on the freely submitted data Facebook users provide. On the contrary, Google and the other search engines base their advertising on the searcher’s past history.

Facebook’s model is much more accurate than the search engine’s technique. Most users conduct many searches at work, which does not reflect their actual behavior. Facebook uses the information users readily give to them as part of their preferences.

On a final note, Dave points out that Google needs to incorporate a “business account” for Google accounts since sometimes many people are logged into one person’s account. He suggests giving the account holder the ability to choose who can have access to what.

More WebProNews Videos

Paid Search Marketplace

We hear and talk all the time about the evolution of the search market and the opportunities that it brings. In this video specifically, James Colborn of Microsoft talks about the opportunities created for advertisers in the area of paid search.

James says the main stumbling block for advertisers is finding how to integrate search into the media mix. Advertising and searching used to be based on one keyword, but now searchers have become smarter and therefore, so have their queries.

For search engines, the challenge is to address the user’s motive for going to search. As search has developed, they are better able to detect user behavior and also the information a user readily provides to social networks.

James says search integration is the key to uncovering the right solution for advertisers. Microsoft strives to find the right mix of media to provide an effective result for advertisers. They are also making sure that their solutions are compatible with what people are doing online.

According to Virginia Nussey and her liveblog of the Orion Panel James spoke on, there is growth potential in search engines offering new outlets for the advertisers. She also reports that Microsoft is “very interested in becoming the key search provider for Facebook and offering educational opportunities to advertisers…”

More WebProNews Videos

Truth About Search Engine Optimization

Rebecca Lieb’s The Truth About Search Engine Optimization

Rebecca Lieb’s new book was briefly mentioned in our interview with Kevin Lee. In this video however, we have the entire rundown on her book, The Truth About Search Engine Optimization.

Rebecca describes her book as being “conceptual” as opposed to “geeky.” It contains 51 short chapters with information marketers need to know in order to effectively do SEO.

The book is geared toward marketing managers and chief marketing officers, but Rebecca says that it contains usable information for anyone wanting to be found on the Internet. Rebecca included all the recent hot topics such as social media, video, online PR, and blogs and how they interact with search engine optimization.

Also in the video above, Rebecca discusses the importance of building online communities. Your business not only needs to have a consistent presence on Web, but it also needs to have a consistent presence in the area of social.

Social media has been a running theme at recent shows and it is not going to go away. Leveraging social media and online communities provide more value to your business now than they ever did, due to the economic downturn and marketing budget cuts.

For more information on social and search engine optimization, check out Rebecca Lieb’s book.

More WebProNews Videos

Twitter Exclusively As A Marketing Tool?

The SEO/SEM community loves Twitter. The term “loves” in this sense is used in the strongest possible manner. Guy Kawasaki loves Twitter also, but views it strictly as a marketing tool. His strong stance in this area brought about a large response from attendees of SES New York.

Sage Lewis was among the attendees at the event and expressed some concern about Guy’s position. As he shares in this video, Sage was very excited to attend the keynote address from Guy Kawasaki and hear what he had to say. Even so, he admits that he was surprised by Guy’s message.

As mentioned above, Guy actively advocates Twitter as a marketing tool. His marketing philosophy is to obtain as many followers as possible and to measure success based on retweets.

While Sage respects Guy’s openness and the extremeness of his position, at the same time, he has mixed feelings about it. He does not like that Guy has up to 3 other people tweeting on his behalf and calls it “provocative.” Although there is no concrete measurement model for social media yet, Sage doesn’t know if Guy’s methodology is the correct solution. At this point, the measurement model has to be “home-grown” and based on individual business goals.

Sage isn’t the only one who has mixed feelings about Guy’s use of Twitter. Lisa Barone over at Outspoken Media live blogged Guy’s keynote and expressed some strong feelings toward Guy’s position on Twitter. She also received a large amount of feedback from her readers, some in her favor and others siding with Guy.

Li Evans of KeyRelevance also voiced her opinion on the issue over on SEM ClubHouse. What’s your take on the issue? Do you agree with Guy Kawasaki and his Twitter habits or do you have different feelings?

More WebProNews Videos

Future of Search

The search industry is always changing as a result of advancement and development. In this video, Anne Kennedy discusses these changes and how they impact the future of search.

Anne has examined the marketplace, researched Google’s investments, and studied how people use and access the Web. Based upon her investigation, she found that customers will look for products and services with video and Twitter. She also discovered that these actions would take place on mobile devices.

According to comScore, the mobile audience in the UK has increased by 10 percent. It has however, doubled in the U.S.

How does Google fit into all this? According to Anne, many people speculate that Google should purchase Twitter, comparing it to YouTube. Anne says that YouTube grew so rapidly that it needed someone like Google to maintain and support its technology. She believes the YouTube acquisition was beneficial to the search giant because YouTube is the television platform for Google to use to develop Google TV as an advertising model.

As a result of its high market penetration, Google has to constantly find methods to sell and reach its customers. If social networks continue to grow and people turn to them for search, and if Google sees that it needs to find more ways to increase its advertising revenue, Anne says that Google may consider purchasing a social network such as Twitter.

The fact that many of the social networks lack a revenue model could be one reason that large players such as Google are hesitant to acquire them. Another drawback for Google at least, is traditional advertisers.

Despite all the questions and speculations, most people agree that the industry has to build new models to quantify spending and determine results. Anne says there is a model that is currently under development called visibility scoring. It looks at the data of visibility outside the site instead of only looking at the traffic on the site.

Although marketers can see the benefits of social media especially in the area of brand awareness, C-level executives have a harder time seeing growth unless they see actual profitability in numbers. With that being said and as budgets continually get tighter, it is even more imperative that models such as that described above emerge.

More WebProNews Videos

SEO Alphabet Soup

A Cup of SEO Alphabet Soup

Often times, the topics at conferences are almost too narrow and the C-level attendees struggle to see the big picture. SES New York tried to solve that problem by dedicating an entire track of sessions to C-level executives and their understanding of the industry.

Amanda Watlington presided over one of those sessions and as she explains in this video, told the attendees how to manage their search efforts strategically. Approximately half of all online marketing spending is being used on search. As a result, Amanda says that conferences within the SEO industry are seeing more attendance from C-level executives and entrepreneurs.

Amanda began her session by differentiating between SEO and SEM. SEO is search engine optimization and is a long-term effort. SEM is search engine marketing and usually refers to short-term campaign efforts. Also, SEM is sometimes used in reference to the industry as a whole.

As if executives and managers didn’t have enough on their plate already, the advent of universal/blended search complicated matters even more. Also, since the search industry is expected to grow even in the down economy, it is more important now than ever for executives to understand how to manage their search efforts.

Just as she mentioned in our interview from PubCon South regarding universal search, Amanda says that SEO must be the visibility manager and not a soloist. It requires that companies broaden their online efforts and embrace video, images, news, maps, local, and mobile.

SEO managers must collaborate with videographers, the public relations team, and content creators to ensure that their SEO efforts are achieving the best results. They need to be aware of current trends and make sure they are capitalizing in those areas.

More WebProNews Videos

SEO Alphabet Soup

Finding SEO Metrics That Matter

Most companies track rankings, traffic, backlinks, conversions, sales, repeat visitors, etc. While those metrics are important, do they honestly reflect your business’s marketing opportunities?

In this video, Mike McDonald interviews Seth Besmertnik of Conductor who shares some important information regarding metrics. He explains that businesses need to look at their overall marketing opportunities in order to understand which metrics they should focus their efforts on.

According to Seth, many businesses are investing a lot of time and money in areas that are not bringing in a great deal of return. He recommends looking at all your keywords, search volumes, potential click-thru-rates, your site’s conversion rates, and your potential average sale price if you’re a retailer. As you examine these metrics closely, your overall marketing opportunity should become apparent.

Seth emphasizes the significance of sharing all the data with the entire company. Successful SEO efforts require involvement from all members of the company. Also, use your data in every way possible. For example, Seth suggests using your paid search data to help with your organic search efforts.

Ultimately, companies need to be able to foresee their full potential, which sometimes requires looking from the outside in.

More WebProNews Videos

Finding SEO Metrics That Matter

Recession Keyword Tool

Google Speaks Out On Recession Keyword Tool and New AdWords Interface

WebProNews has emphasized the importance of keyword research many times. In order to reiterate its power and to share some new offerings from Google, we interviewed Frederick Vallaeys, the AdWords Evangelist for Google.

In this video from SES NY, Frederick first discusses a new tool called the Search-based Keyword Tool. Frederick calls it the recession tool because “it allows you to do more with less.” Specifically, the tool looks at Google’s organic data and determines new advertising opportunities for your AdWords campaigns.

The tool gives you the keyword and the destination url for the keyword. Using that data, you can apply it to your ad groups based on your landing pages and then add it into your accounts. From there, you can monetize the keywords that weren’t performing to their full potential.

This Search-based Keyword Tool is the first time Google has used its organic data in this way. Because there is so much data, you will be able to find missed opportunities. The tool also helps long tail efforts.

In addition, Frederick highlighted the new interface for AdWords. He is quick to point out that “there’s nothing changing on the backend.” There will be no changes in the way the ads run or in the pricing structure.

According to the site, the new interface “makes campaign management faster, clearer, and more intuitive.” As Frederick explains, the new interface was needed as a result of the evolving Web.

For information on both announcements, visit Inside AdWords.

More WebProNews Videos

Advertising Based on Factual User Data

When Facebook launched its advertising platform back in 2007, the company received a lot of criticism from users primarily regarding Beacon. Nearly a year and a half later, users have grown accustomed to the ads and webmasters and site owners are taking advantage of the tremendous opportunities. Tim Kendall, the Director of Monetization at Facebook, walks us through Facebook’s advertising system in this video from SES NY.

According to Tim, site owners and webmasters want to know how advertising on Facebook compares to the paid search campaigns they are used to doing. He says Facebook’s self- service advertising product is similar to paid search because it is based on a cost-per-click standard.

The primary difference between paid search and Facebook advertising is that paid search is centered on the user’s behavior and Facebook ads are based upon the data and preferences that users submit to Facebook. Tim says:

“We [Facebook] think that a Facebook ad is a way to reach customers before they search.”

In the above video, Tim demonstrates how to create an ad campaign for “tents” on Facebook. Before beginning the demo, Tim gives an example that 138,000 people in the United States search for tents in exact match queries on Google. This would mean that retailers selling tents have a predetermined allotment of 138,000 opportunities to sell their product. On Facebook however, those retailers can target millions of users who have shared an interest in hobbies such as hiking and camping, which could produce potential customers.

As Tim illustrates above, creating an ad on Facebook is a simple process that consists of a title, an optional image, and the text body. After the ad is complete, identify the target audience by selecting keywords from users interests (e.g., hiking, backpacking.) Facebook also displays an approximate reach based upon the number of people that included hiking as an interest on their profile. Once the target is selected, provide a bid according to standard cost-per-click (CPC) practices. The auction works just as any other online auction works.

Facebook believes it can provide a target market that is more direct than most other ad platforms. Also, the company believes that by offering this “demand generation solution” it will increase the number of searches.

Tim says that the product has exceeded its expectations and that some people are even getting better ROI on Facebook than they were getting with paid search. He said Facebook will continue to improve and develop their tool according to advertiser’s wants and needs. For more information on Facebook Advertising, visit www.facebook.com/advertising.

More WebProNews Videos

Online Video Mysteries Revealed

Why is video so hot right now? According to Greg Jarboe of SEO-PR, the reason people are creating videos right now is because so many other people are as well. It is simply a chain reaction.

In this video from SES NY, Greg discusses several topics and questions regarding video. Monetization is a hot topic surrounding video since many people struggle with it. On the positive side, initial startup costs are feasible for most users and are only going to get better. Remember the Blendtec campaign? They started with $50 dollars and produced 5 videos, which gave them a 700 percent increase in revenue.

Video can be done on a small budget, but ongoing video campaigns can become expensive. Greg says that each video needs to have its own marketing objective and also be monetized individually. He goes on to say that “every video doesn’t have to go viral to be a success.” Whether or not your business meets your objective is the factor that determines success.

Marketing video is another hot area of interest right now. According to Greg, marketers have to realize that video marketing doesn’t follow traditional marketing standards. He also says marketers need to understand video segmentation. The whole world is not your audience. Businesses do not need to attract a mass audience to meet their goals. Instead, they need to determine who their target market is, and then act accordingly.

Advertising and video have had their fair share of differences from the beginning of the online video boom. Greg says the ad’s placement isn’t the challenging issue. However, the relevancy of the ad’s placement is what really matters. Video advertising will get easier and better and Greg indicates that that time is not too far down the road.

All this information and more is featured in Greg Jarboe’s upcoming book, YouTube and Video Marketing: An Hour a Day that is set to be published in August.

More WebProNews Videos

Guarantee Conversions on Your Landing Pages

Given the economic environment we are all living in, businesses cannot afford to not have their landing pages convert. In this video from SES NYC, Tim Ash gives two distinct ways to ensure that they will convert.

1. Apply best practices to it
2. Ask your audience

One of the biggest problems Tim sees when analyzing landing pages is a problem with clutter. The business needs to have a clear call to action. Allow the customer to focus on their current transaction and don’t confuse them with too many options. Consider basic usability tips when applying your best practices.

Businesses have to keep up with the current trends and know what their audience wants. It is vitally important to get involved and communicate with the audience. If you give your audience what they want, you will have better results, which translates into more revenue.

On the topic of tools, Tim gives 2 recommendations. The first is Google Website Optimizer. This is a free tool that Google offers which allows users to conduct both A/B split testing and multivariate testing. Tim says it is a very powerful tool that is effective for both beginners and advanced users.

The second tool that Tim recommends is OnDialog. Tim prefaced this solution in an interview with us at PubCon South. OnDialog provides landing page creation software that puts the marketer in control. Tim’s company, SiteTuners has partnered with OnDialog and incorporated its tuning engine technology into their software. The tool allows more tests in parallel and bases data on actual results.

In the above video, Tim indicated that an official announcement regarding OnDialog may take place at SES, so be sure to stay tuned to WPN for an update.

More WebProNews Videos