Everyday the Internet gets more complicated. In particular, Google gets more complicated. The good news is that if you are obsessed with conversion rate and usability, like I am, Google has been moving into your strengths over the last few years.

Google is making search optimization and conversion optimization more similar.

I will save you the boring stuff and summarize which changes bode well for the Conversion Rate Optimizer (CRO) to score big in Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

1. Vince Update – Branded search increases effect on general searches
2. Panda Update – Thin content devalued and aggressive ad placement suppressed
3. Plus Your World – Social context for search results
4. Penguin Update – Unnatural link profiles devalued
5. Speed as a Factor for SEO and for CRO – Fast wins the day

The major arc of Google’s recent evolution has been engagement. Brand engages competitive type people; content engages researching people; social proof engages humanistic (social) people; and speed engages spontaneous people. If you have read Call to Action, or any of the Eisenberg books, those descriptions will be familiar.

In your next review and renovation of your site I want you to follow this mantra: Simplify, Speed Up, and Share.

This will help you improve your standing with both Google and the people that visit your site.

Part 1 – Simplify

Tasks that can help SEO and CRO be more simple:

Reduce your links

Reducing the number of links per page improves SEO by passing more value to the linked pages, and helps conversion rate by reducing distractions and keeping logical choices clustered. Double win.

Refine your purpose

Refine your purpose taking away most of the peripheral content and adding calls to action for either traveling deeper into the subject, or a well titled landing page for a lead that trades topical information (or product) for the customer action. In some ways this is returning to the concept of theme siloing. Siloing has been a very popular tactic for years, but bringing conversion concepts like leading content and timely calls to action can actually leverage this SEO tactic for conversion gains.

Explain more

Explain more. Giving more specifics and details along with reviews and testimonials will help your page be more human. The variety of language around your action and page topic will give you positive factors with Google and entice visitors to spend more time, dig deeper, and avoid the dreaded bounce that hurts both CRO and SEO performance.

Noteworthy: When you start working on simplification also redesign your public sitemap (the ones visitors see) make it well structured and informative. If your Sitemap is a smartly designed launching point you will be happy with the results, so will your visitors.

Part 2 – Speed Up

Speed is, perhaps, the most important issue in conversion, 400 milliseconds could mean a 5-9% increase in visitor retention for your business. It has also become a huge factor in SEO as both a direct factor in Google assessment and as an indirect factor in bounce rate back to Google search.

Reduce redundancy

Reducing redundancy means cutting down on duplication of both content and CSS and Javascripts that cover the same issues. Consolidate closely related content to create more comprehensive pages and 301-redirect the legacy pages. Content consolidation makes stronger pages; script consolidation makes faster pages.

Minimize scripts

Minimize your scripts by removing the parts that you aren’t using. I know that may be frightening if you didn’t write the scripts, but remember every second counts and cutting half-a-second will pay off the development time in no time at all. After you have cut out all of the unused parts run a minification script to get rid of the whitespace.

Reduce elements

Reducing elements means getting rid of all of your spacer GIFs, image segments, combining as many scripts as you can get away with. It also means making your graphics smaller in size and resolution and keeping video, Flash, and audio to a minimum. If you must use rich media don’t use auto-play. Auto-play is annoying, and the longer you wait to ask for rich media to play the less likely it will slow your overall experience and cause people to hit their favorite button (the “back” one).

Leverage attention

Make use of your H tags. All of your headers should be clearly different than your body text. Semantic details, like H1–Hx, help communicate to search engines, but they also help people scan the page for the important things they are looking for. This is more about the perception of speed than actual page load. For the user experience feeling fast is far more important than being fast.

Part 3 – Share

Who likes you? Social proof helps people understand whom they are associating with when they join you. There are also citation and link signals that are communicated through Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

• Who likes you?
• Where are you available?
• Where do your show your social connections?
• Is this sharable?

Don’t create accounts that you aren’t going to use. (Image source)

In terms of conversion you should show conversation about you in many places, but only use the call to follow you on confirmation pages and follow-up content, like email and thank you pages, especially for lead gen.

If you are putting social connections on every page you will be undercutting many of the speed improvements.

Not every page is sharable. If you think that a page should be shared you should be putting time into making it really easy to share.

I’m sure that you will find that some of the advice above conflicts in the real world. So, you have to balance which decisions you go with, but if you answer those three questions: Is this fast, is this simple, and is this sharable (not everything needs to be shared) you will be doing well with both search engine optimization and conversion optimization.

– Carlos del Rio

Well, apparently Charlie Sheen had it right. Who would have thought “Winning” was the right word for him to use when he was in the midst of his nervous breakdown/publicity blitz last year?

Winning is one of those words that copywriters have designated as a “Power Word.”

And because words have the ability to connect readers with emotions, savvy advertisers have been secretly (and not so secretly) influencing you by slipping these words into their marketing to create compelling copy.

But, do they work? Maybe. –> Watch the video below and decide for yourself…

Words emote feelings when used correctly. (Image source)

Experts claim that there is a finite list of words that subconsciously grab the attention of a reader and can unleash never before seen success, but even the best psychology majors who ended up in computer programming have not been able to devise a test that isolates and analyzes the true benefit of power words within the copywriting context.

It’s easy enough to determine whether emotionally charged words are more easily recalled. That’s been proven in a number of studies.

But the best way to decipher whether or not power words make a difference for you is to change up your content to include them and then run an A/B test. Test your current dull, drab copy against a jacked-up power-words version.

Case Study Example

Let’s take a look at a case study from our friends at Visual Website Optimizer. Their client, Scandinavian Outdoor Store, decided to run a split test to see if some subtle changes to their copy would make a difference. They focused on their headline which simply read (in Finnish) “Men’s Clothing.”

How the Test Was Won

Understanding the power of words, the headline was changed to “Order Men’s Clothing easily for bargain prices” (Which I’m sure translates much more eloquently!) The new version, saw a 127% increase in conversion rates, simply by adding a few key words.

Easy and bargain are listed on nearly every power words list. By simply maximizing the power of this headline the company was able to sit back and let the profits roll in. (It doesn’t hurt either that it turned a blasé header into a call-to-action.)

Power word tip

Challenge your copywriters to find value in the words they choose. Remember that the descriptive words that illicit emotions are the ones that work. I can guarantee that words suggesting your customers are going to save money will be effective. For ecommerce: Think FREE, SALE, DISCOUNT, CLEARANCE and AFFORDABLE.

Choose Your Words Carefully – Video

So why does it matter what words we use? Because the human brain is wired to react to words that inspire action and conjure up positive images or emotions. Words like quick, improve, quality, new, unique, exciting and convenient all have an uncanny ability to draw a reader to action.

Words can hurt too. Using words that trigger feelings of dishonesty and distrust could alienate your visitors faster than a HIPPO on a power trip. The goal is to create a need based on fear or avoidance to convince prospects to buy, not to make readers uncomfortable and force them to leave. Unfortunately, there’s a fine line between the two that even the most skilled copywriters struggle with. (And that’s another reason why A/B testing is SO important.)

But, a conglomeration of the right words doesn’t mean success is imminent. It’s as simple as Marketing 101: The right message + The right people + The right time = Success aka Conversions. And the right message in the web world is different than in traditional media. It’s a mix of good copy, good design and tons of other factors (context, readers’ moods, etc.) that all must come together perfectly to compel a reader to take the next step. Otherwise, engagements are limited, conversions sink and bounces skyrocket.

Power word tip

Be conscious of the words you are choosing when writing copy. If a power word fits, use it. Steer away from words that insinuate uncertainty like try, might, maybe, perhaps, etc. People are smart (well, at least some of them) and will see right through a company that is unsure of itself and its products.

With a simple Google search you can find list upon list of power words. Most are pretty similar, sharing a majority of the words. Words are powerful. There is no doubt about it!

So, the next time you are writing copy consider adding a few in. Or, if you’re not seeing the conversions you think you should, run that A/B test to see where the breakdown occurs.

Oh, and did you notice, this post is chockfull of power words. How many can you uncover?

– Angela Stringfellow

What Does Chuck Norris Think About the Facebook IPO?

Well let’s find out. And please feel free to tweet these choice nuggets of wisdom… Otherwise you’ll be in trouble with Chuck #NotAGoodIdea

1. Chuck doesn’t invest in anything except roundhouse kick lessons, which he teaches himself. » Tweet This «

2. Chuck doesn’t “Like” anything. Okay, a roundhouse kick to Zuckerbergs face would be somewhat Likeable. » Tweet This «

3. Shares in Chuck Norris are measured in badassery, not dollars. And he has muscles in his toe nails that are bigger than your biceps. #TrueStory. » Tweet This «

4. If you suggest a share price to Chuck Norris, he’ll kick you in the face and tell the New York stock exchange to buy more Chuck stock and devalue Facebook. » Tweet This «

5. If you unfriend Chuck Norris on Facebook he’ll just bitch slap you, take your money and invest in himself rather than Facebook. » Tweet This «

6. When Facebook’s share price falls, Chuck could just pick it up again with his awesome fists. But why would he? » Tweet This «

7. When Chuck was asked about the Facebook IPO, he said “I Poked Oli” … he’s now in a coma. » Tweet This «

If you liked these ones, you might like the 9 Reasons Chuck Norris Shouldn’t Work in Marketing too.

– Oli Gardner

Startups are the lifeblood of the American dream. In the midst of economic turmoil and uncertain financial stability, these visionaries continue to pursue their dreams. The startup world is a subculture of passionate, enthusiastic entrepreneurs who stop at nothing to make things happen.

They turn to bootstrap tactics to operate the businesses and when it comes to marketing, they often use Guerilla tactics.

Here are 8 ways to get your startup started without breaking the bank:

1. Word of mouth
2. Social media marketing
3. Use partnerships to build awareness and credibility
4. Sponsor a contest
5. Do some pro-bono work
6. Host an event
7. Content is still King – Write Like a #&@#$&@$^@^
8. Use a pre-launch landing page to collect leads: This should be #1 – it’s your biggest key to success along with blogging (***Special Offer***)

1. Word of mouth

Word-of-mouth marketing is the oldest form of marketing and still one of the most effective. People trust people, especially those they already know and respect.

Startups can capitalize on word-of-mouth by tapping into their social networks, both online and offline. Old colleagues, friends and loved ones and business associates can help spread the word.

Make it happen

Give an elevator pitch to everyone you talk to, and ask them to share the message with at least one other person. You should also pimp yourself shamelessly via email to all of your contacts – you never know when the right person will take your story and run with it. Not spam – make sure you’re emailing people you actually know.

2. Social media marketing

Social media marketing is akin to word-of-mouth, but technology allows messages to be spread to far more people in a shorter amount of time.

Users connect with old classmates, former co-workers, distant relatives, acquaintances and like-minded folks they meet on Twitter. The same message can be easily shared with hundreds of thousands of people.

Make it happen

Now is not the time to be humble. Let your enthusiasm show and announce your latest venture to your personal networks. And set up business accounts for your company on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+. Start sharing regular updates on company news and relevant industry information to build a following.

Tip

Use each social medium for a different reason. Facebook for fun company culture and sharing related but fun industry links. Twitter for starting the conversation of your latest post, Google+ for more marketing related content (but it needs to grow up) and Pinterest if you have graphic heavy content.

3. Use partnerships to build awareness and credibility

Startups are faced with at least one common hurdle: a lack of brand recognition. Depending on the industry, consumers aren’t always enthusiastic about trusting a new entity. Other times, they’re happy to dive head-first into the latest trend. A good strategy for overcoming this initial hesitation is to partner with a well-known trusted brand for marketing or for an event. Piggy back with a related business for an interview, co-host a webinar or offer to write a guest blog.

Make it happen

Make a practice of reaching out to related companies & startups. Approach other entrepreneurs with an idea in mind, or state your interest in working together on a project. You’re already a member of the startup community. Members are typically friendly to their own kind, and most are happy to help.

If you’re a funded startup, it can be worth getting some PR just to get those 5 big logos on your homepage (CNN, Mashable, FastCompany, New York Times etc.) – but be very strict about goals with PR companies.

4. Sponsor a contest

Contests are a viable way to boost followers on social media channels. This can be something closely tied to your industry or completely unrelated. For instance, Emeritus Senior Living is running a “Grandma’s Worst Date Ever” contest. It’s a great example because it’s in line with a few good rules of thumb:

• Industry-relevant
• Fun and easy to enter
• Ties into a mainstream event: Valentine’s Day
• People tend to enjoy the occasional mindless task, so concepts like the “Bubble Game” can also take off in social media. Offer a valuable prize, but it doesn’t have to cost thousands. A tech gadget or even a package of free services from your company are suitable

Make it happen

Create a fun, lighthearted contest that can be run via social media or the real world. (Or both!) Make it relevant to your industry and if possible, tie it into a widely-known event or holiday.

5. Do some pro-bono work

Charities are always in need of help, especially volunteer services. Startups can capitalize on this need to enhance credibility and build brand awareness. Not to mention the gratification of knowing you’ve done something to help someone else.

Make it happen

Seek opportunities to participate in fundraising events or do some free work for your favorite charity. This could mean doing some free web work, volunteering at a fundraising drive or sponsoring a local event. You might not get paid in dollars, but you’ll reap rewards through free exposure and good karma.

6. Host an event

Webinars, Twitter chats and Google+ hangouts. There are a multitude of ways to host an event online, and most don’t cost a dime. Services like AnyMeeting allow businesses to host meetings or webinars for free, or you can opt for a paid service like WebEx. People love free information, and they also love being able to attend from the comfort of their couches.

But you can take this concept to the real world, too. Partner with local groups, like the Small Business Administration’s Small Business Development Center, to serve as a workshop facilitator. Or if you’re cool with spending some money, host a conference by renting a room, providing some food and investing in some traditional advertising.

Make it happen

Set a goal and set a date. What information does your business have that people want to know? Start working on some awesome visual materials and start promoting your event.

7. Content is still King – So write as much as you can

Content makes the Web go ’round. And if you write it yourself, it’s free. If you’re not such a good writer or you don’t have the time, it’s probably in your best interest to spend some money to hire a professional writer – Contently.com is a great source. The content on a company’s website is just a starting point. Content can be used to build backlinks, feed links to social media channels, establish thought-leadership and develop connections.

A content strategy may include creating some or all of the following:

• Static web content
• Blog content
• White papers, case studies
• Guest bloggers
• Newsletters
• Social media content
• Infographics
• Marketing collateral

Make it happen

Create an editorial calendar. Start blogging immediately. Hire an expert writer to help craft your message. Use content consistently to draw traffic to your Website, promote your business and catch the attention of investors or potential partners.

Startups are known for using creative tactics to market their businesses. Use the tactics above to get started and enhance your campaign by stretching the limits of your imagination.

8. Use a pre-launch landing page to collect leads

Don’t be one of those companies that’s afraid to have a presence before you have a product ready. You can throw together a “coming soon” pre-launch page in minutes to sell your idea and collect leads for your beta version.

Special Offer – build a page now

If you need to get a page up to have a presence and start collecting leads – then you can (shameless plug) do it using the Unbounce coming soon templates (and even add a sweet fullscreen background with tip #2 on this page).

And because it is such a shameless plug – the first 50 people to sign up for any Unbounce paid landing page plan with coupon code “marketyourstartup” will get 75% off for the first 3 months (after the no-risk 30-day free trial ends).

– Angela Stringfellow

I see a lot of great blog posts go to waste simply because the writer or marketer didn’t understand how content marketing works (if this includes you, read this post on 98 Content Marketing Articles to Make You an Insomniac). These people are relying on the “build it and they will come mentality” which just doesn’t work unless you have a giant powerhouse with a massive existing readership.

So how can you get the word out about your latest and greatest?

The infographic below is a 12-point checklist that walks you through an excellent process.

1. Keyword optimize your post: Focus on the title of the post and use the Google AdWords keyword research tool to help.
2. Syndicate your content: Automatically feed the blog content via your RSS feed to multiple destinations. Including your Facebook Business Page, LinkedInProfiles, Plaxo and Ning.
3. Shorten your post’s URL: Gives you more space on Twitter and allows you to gain some insight into your posts success through the analytics provided by shortening services like Bit.ly.
4. Tailor your status updates: Write for your audience, so the message is appropriate for the people hanging out at each destination.
5. Post teasers on other sites: Write a compelling headline or question as a forum post title, then include some thoughtful commentary followed by your shortened URL. Lastly, ask for readers to provide feedback on the forum to continue the discussion
6. Bookmark your content: Posting your content to popular social bookmarking sites (Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious, SERPd etc.) can still be a great source of traffic, backlinks and overall exposure.
7. Comment on other blogs: Providing helpful, valuable comments on other blogs can be a great way to generate traffic, develop relationships, build a following and add backlinks.
8. Seek and assist on Twitter: Search for relevant discussions happening on Twitter and join in to provide some advice. Follow this up with your shortened link. Don’t lead with the link though, establish yourself in the conversation first.
9. Add to your email signature: Wisestamp for Gmail will pull your latest blog post headline into your email signature automatically.
10. Share your blog post with target customers: If you have an email list of customers, share the content with them in an effort to help them do their own jobs more successfully.
11. Add your blog post to your next newsletter: If you have a newsletter, add your best content to it – then check the analytics to learn which content is most successful – this will give you ideas for future content.
12. Ask other bloggers to mention your post: Don’t abuse this, but if you have an extra special post, reach out to your network and ask them to tweet it for you as a favour. (Remember to mention that you’ll do the same for them in return). Conversion tip: The most effective way to do this is to include a pre-written Tweet and a link built using TweetThis.com so that people don’t have to put much thought into it.

Your Blog Post Promotion Checklist from DivvyHQ.com – Click the Graphic for Printing Instructions

How do you promote your blog posts? Got any new tips to share?
– Oli Gardner

LinkedIn? Facebook? Which is better for B2B marketing? The infographic at the end of this post offers some suggestions, but we wanted to dig a bit deeper. To help you decide which platform is better for you, we’ve had a look at some of the latest thinking on B2B marketing on each platform. By the end, you’ll have a better idea which one to choose.

And don’t forget to tweet the stats at the end of the post…

B2B Marketing on LinkedIn

1. How to Use LinkedIn to Generate and Qualify B2B Leads

Is LinkedIn just for job seekers? Jason Miller from Marketo says it’s not. He points out that a LinkedIn profile contains a lot of useful information for B2B marketers and presents a table with eight types of data that you can use for lead generation and qualification.

Key stat: LinkedIn is most used during the workweek, with peak time between 12pm and 3pm each day.

2. Top 3 Reasons LinkedIn Was Made for B2B Marketers

Frank Isca says B2B marketers should use LinkedIn because it’s easy to gain credibility with your target market. Already, 58% of B2B marketers are using the network. LinkedIn rocks, he says, because of its pre-eminence as a network for business professionals, the ability to communicate to prospects via company pages and the chance to grab leads via LinkedIn groups.

Key stats: LinkedIn has more educated professionals than any other network. High tech, finance and manufacturing sectors have the biggest worldwide presence on LinkedIn.

3. B2B Marketing – 3 Powerful Ways To Get More Out Of LinkedIn

They say the best things in life are free and Dawn Westerberg is feeling the love for the free version of LinkedIn. She shows how you can achieve marketing success by choosing and joining appropriate groups and checking for common connections to build your network.

Takeaway: Use the ‘who’s viewed my profile’ as a starting point for building a relationship by finding out why the person viewed your profile.

4. Linkedin for B2B marketing – Social Media Week

Who’s on LinkedIn? According to Tasmsin Fox-Davies since the site has somewhere in excess of 150 million professionals as members, many of the people B2B marketers want to target are there. LinkedIn is particularly important because of the rich data it provides via people’s profiles. The site can be used to build community (especially through groups), attract influencers and carry out a content strategy, as well as for lead generation and sales.

Key stat: One in four professionals has a presence on LinkedIn and 15% of European businesses use it every day.

5. How to Be Social on LinkedIn for B2B Marketing

Ron Medlin gives tips on using LinkedIn effectively, including identifying active profiles to connect to, choosing groups by industry and location and making good use of LinkedIn Answers.

Takeaway: To get impact from LinkedIn you need to network strategically.

B2B Marketing on Facebook

6. Five Ways to Find Leads from Facebook

Ann Handley outlines how to succeed with B2B marketing on Facebook. She highlights the size of the audience (only China and India have more people) and the competition from other kinds of Facebook messaging. She suggests using a business page to generate leads and increase customer engagement. Tips include integrating contests, varying posting times and asking for interaction with open questions.

Takeway: understand how the Facebook algorithm penalizes less interesting content and stay on top with compelling, enticing, interactive content.

7. The New Facebook Ads: Game Changer for B2B Marketers?

Spark Marketing shows how the new Facebook ads can provide a way to connect directly with your target audience. They allow direct promotion to your market and allow you to link previously written content with the ad. This takes advantage of social content advertising and will allow people to respond to the ads directly.

Takeaway: this combination of advertising and content will enhance marketing potential.

8. 6 Ways That Facebook is Better Than LinkedIn for B2B Marketing

Glenn Glow points out that Facebook is a better B2B marketing platform than LinkedIn because more business people spend more time on it, something our infographic also points out. In addition, Facebook allows you to reach the friends of your key audience, expanding your reach.

Takeaway: The ability to create closed groups on Facebook levels the playing field with LinkedIn.

9. Getting Facebook Right – Tips for B2B Marketing Success

Eloqua’s Joe Chernov suggests another way to look at Facebook – not focusing on fan count but on engagement. This includes trying out different techniques to see which ones bring in new fans, profiling the fans, and focusing on engaging rather than simply self serving content.

Takeaway: Manual publishing gets more eyeballs than automated publishing so a DIY approach is better. (Their stats show a 61% difference in visibility.)

10. A Guide To New Facebook For Busy Social Media Marketers

The big change for B2B marketers is the completion of the rollout of Timeline which changes how your pages work. Tips here include choosing a cover photo, getting visuals for the tabs or apps you want to feature, fixing your about content and considering how to use what’s already there in milestones.

Takeaway: check out the examples of Timeline in action as well as the additional resources.

Tweetable Facts:

So, have you made your mind up yet? Here are some stats for you to ponder and tweet:

• 61% of LinkedIn users use it for industry networking; 55% use it for networking with co-workers » tweet this «
• 55 million. Number of LinkedIn users in the US; 22.5 million are aged 35-64
  » tweet this «
• 326 million. Number of minutes spent on LinkedIn each month by US users
  » tweet this «
• 41% of people marketing on Facebook got a customer this way » tweet this «
• 155 million. Number of Facebook users in the US; 51 million aged 35-64
  » tweet this «
• Thought leadership is the top use for social media among B2B marketers
  » tweet this «

– Sharon Hurley Hall

In this post Carlos and myself (Oli) are going to analyze one of our customers – Vinoetic.com – landing pages (after they opted to allow us to get our opinionated hands on it). Our goal is for it to be an educational exercise that can hopefully help improve the page, but let’s have a little fun too, shall we? We’ll be scoring each point in our discussion with + or – points to arrive at a total score and we’ll be arguing on certain points to show that everyone has a different opinion – which shows the importance of testing.

Warning for the creator of the page: There are going to be some criticisms, but our goal is for this to be useful to you so that you can have a more successful campaign in the future.

Let the battle commence!

1. The Main Headline

2. The Call to Action (CTA)

3. Personas (who is this product/service for?)

4. Big Background Image

5. What is the purpose of this page?

6. Explain your benefits

7. What am signing up for?

8. Interaction

9. Privacy Policy

10. Is this a Landing Page or a Microsite?

Oli’s Final Score: -4 I guess I’m more of a hardass.
Carlos’ Final Score: -3

Sorry! We do genuinely hope that the discussion helps you and others when thinking about your landing pages.

Btw. If any readers think we missed something – it would be awesome if you added it to the comments.

– Oli Gardner & Carlos Del Rio

1994 was when banner ads first appeared? I bet they looked freakin’ awful.

Anyway, things haven’t necessarily improved much these days. A primary reason for their failure was “Banner Blindness” – a symptom of the predictable placement (and bloody ugly design) of the banners, making people blur them from their vision and focus solely on the content.

Marketers soon figured this out and started being even more annoying by putting them in the middle of blog post content (interruption marketing sucks!) so you tripped over them during your reading. Or more likely – hit the back button because you found it offensive.

Anyway, rant over. The point of this post is to examine who is looking at – and more importantly clicking – your banners. I think the most interesting stats in the infographic below are the ones about why people don’t click on your banners – you could learn something from that section.

I’ve also included a bunch of tweetable stats from the graphic at the bottom of the post so you can sound all knowledgeable ‘n’ such. You’re welcome.

This is my favourite:
“People are more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad”
[ tweet this ]

Oh and don’t forget that if you do manage to get a click on your banners that they should go to targeted landing pages to help you convert that valuable click into a customer.

Who Looks At Banner Ads Infographic

Tweetable Facts:

1. People are more likely to survive a plane crash than click a banner ad
   [ tweet this ]
2. The average click through rate from banner advertising is 2.1% [ tweet this ]
3. Facebook is girding for a $100 billion IPO and its business is mostly based on banner ads [ tweet this ]
4. The average amount earned per click on a banner ad is $0.25 to $0.55 cents
   [ tweet this ]
5. 31% of people don’t click banner ads because they’re worried they’re being tracked [ tweet this ]
6. 54% of people don’t click banner ads because they don’t trust the ad
   [ tweet this ]
7. 58% of people believe your banner ad is not relevant to them [ tweet this ]

Got any interesting stats or case studies about your own banner campaigns? Share them in the comments, I’d love to know how you’re doing.

– Oli Gardner

If you’re here at Unbounce reading this sexy blog, it means you’re probably already familiar with landing page optimization. Which is good, because it’s far too rich and important a topic to cover in one post. (But, just between you and me, if you’d like to know lots more about the fundamentals of making your landing pages the best they can possibly be, you could do worse than to check out 101 Landing Page Optimizations Tips.)

I want to take a few moments to discuss the little things that make your landing page sing. “The devil is in the details”, as they say, and once you’ve got your pretty little landing page up and running, and you’ve worked through some of the major improvements you needed to make, that’s what you’re left with: little details.

So what tiny tweaks can you make to your established landing page to squeeze that extra 2% out of your conversion rate? Specifically, what kinds of changes can you make in just a few minutes in order to keep your optimization and testing program moving forward?

1. Building a better headline

By tweaking the headline, you can actually see much more than a few percentage points of improvement. And it doesn’t need to be a huge headline overhaul, tweaking your headline is often enough.

Consider these theoretical examples:

Good

• 88% of Americans Will Be Getting a Larger Tax Refund Than Usual This Year! You Could Be One of Them!

This is the current control, and it’s doing fairly well: the landing page is gathering leads for a tax preparation software company by offering a free white paper about maximizing your tax refund based on tax law updates. This page is pulling a 25% conversion rate with this headline.

Better
There are some tiny tweaks that can be made without drastically changing the headline concept or any of the landing page copy:

• 88% of Americans Will Be Getting a Larger Tax Refund Than Usual This Year! Make Sure You’re One of Them!

The “make sure” adds urgency, and “you’re” makes it more personal.

• Are You One of the 88% of Americans Getting a Larger Tax Refund Than Usual This Year?

By rewording it as a question, this may spark the visitor’s curiosity.

• 12% of Americans Will Not Be Getting a Larger Tax Refund Than Usual This Year! You Could Be One of Them!

Taking the negative view of a positive statistic turns an exclamation into a warning or even an indictment.

The point is, ten minutes with a pen and paper to brainstorm different ways to phrase the headline can provide you with 20 options that might improve your landing page conversion.

Special Tip: If you’ve hired a pro to write the copy for your landing page, they’ve probably come up with far MORE than twenty headline options in the course of settling on the one you have. Why not ask for their brainstorming list?

2. Messing with colors

Your original design may or may not have taken all these factors into consideration. Studies have shown, though, that color has a powerful effect on website visitors.

For a nice overview of how various colors affect visitors, take a look at this great infographic, The Anatomy of a Perfect Landing Page, from KissMetrics (especially the bottom portion, although the whole thing rocks.)

Based on those general guidelines, you can make large or small adjustments to the color scheme on your page.

As an example, if your product is being presented as time-sensitive, urgent information that can save a visitor a lot of money, (like our tax refund example above,) you may find that a bright red “submit” button or a red headline may convey that sense of urgency better than another color.

Then again, green is subconsciously associated with wealth and is easier for the eye to process. Maybe that’s a better choice.

It’s likely worth taking the time to test several different color variations of the background, the navigation, any call outs, and the text to make sure your landing page is not just visually appealing, but is tuned to have the greatest subliminal impact.

3. Moving things around

Assuming you’re working on a user-friendly content system (like the super-dependable Unbounce landing page software I’m recommending in a totally unbiased way…) moving elements around on your landing page should be as simple as point, click and drag.

If so, you can make these tiny tweaks very easily and quickly, and test to your heart’s content:

• Try making your headline font a little bigger. Sometimes, especially if your landing page has several elements, a headline or Call to Action (CTA) can get be missed and lose its impact.
• If your landing page includes video (which it should), try situating it “above the fold” by making sure the full video frame is visible above the fold.
• Then again, if you have important call-to-action text currently below the video, it may work even better to move that above the fold and keep just a glimpse of your video at the bottom of the screen so curious video-lovers will scroll down for it, and text lovers will already have what they want.
• Don’t ignore the captions on any pictures on your page. Decades-worth of direct mail conversion tests have proven that captions are the third-most-read portion of any sales collateral after the headline and the subheads. The Internet equivalent of the old direct mail sales letter – the landing page – is no different.
• Keep your page as simple as possible. Some products and services require more detail, but as a rule a landing page should be as simple as possible to understand, skim through and act upon. One goal, with one link and one CTA.

Final word

The bottom line is simply this: You should never be finished testing your landing pages. As time goes on, your audience changes, the market changes, and a static landing page could lose its effectiveness. Or, there could be a better-performing variation you’ve yet to try.

– Justin P Lambert

When it comes to sharing and promoting your stuff online, fragmentation seems to be the name of the game. Every day it seems there’s a new site that becomes the hottest destination for online marketers. Google+, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Quora – how’s a poor web marketer supposed to cope? And does this mean that blogging is dead?

Uh, no… the demise of the blog has been greatly exaggerated (thank you, Mark Twain).

There are significant benefits to maintaining your own blog – and there’s a lot you can do with your blog content to amplify your marketing. Let’s look at the benefits.

Control

Not being in control of your own content strategy is like driving a car without a steering wheel. (Image source)

Owning your own blog puts you in control of your content which is important when it comes to web marketing. How many people do you know of who have built a following on Facebook or Twitter and then had to start again because of some supposed violation of the terms of service? If it hasn’t yet happened on Google+, that’s only because it’s new, but it will.

Social Hubs

Using any social platform you don’t own to house your content holds an inherent level of risk. Examples include: Tumblr, Facebook Notes, Posterous and now even Pinterest.

By doing this, you are at the mercy of the people who own those sites.

All they have to do is THINK (not prove) that you have violated their terms of service and they can yank your content offline in a millisecond. With your own hosted blog, as long as you don’t do anything really silly and your hosting fees are all paid up, you own that space and control what’s there.

And you aren’t relying on the success of another. While it’s hard to imagine the demise of Facebook, imagine the poor marketing team that made MySpace the primary Web presence for their brand.

You need all of these sites to extend the reach of your content, just don’t use them exclusively as the source.

Good SEO

Original, well written blog content is the purest form of white hat SEO. (Image source)

Nothing gets indexed as quickly as your blog’s content, making it by far the best way to broadcast word of your products, services and initiatives. Yes, Twitter and Facebook also perform well in search engine results, but if the SEO of those sites suffers, so does that of the content you’ve posted there. With your blog, a regular publishing schedule means more entries next to your name in Google.

With Google’s recent emphasis on verified authorship, that could be important in your search engine rankings in the near future.

Your best bet is to make sure you are identified as the publisher of your site and the author of your posts by implementing Google authorship and publishing markup. This iBlogZone tutorial on setting up authorship markup is a good starting point.

Boost Your Authority

Authority helps you market successfully on the web. It is the perception by your audience that you know what you are talking about and a blog can be a key tool in enhancing that perception. Since you own it, you get the chance to tell your story your way. You can pull together useful resources for your customers (even those that you haven’t created), comment on the trends of the day and show them that you are to be trusted.

Check out Chris Brogan’s Trust Agents for more on this and see the strategy in action on the Hubspot blog. Hubspot gives away free reports and great information like there’s no tomorrow and the result is an authoritative position in the inbound marketing niche. And you’d better believe they are making money too!

An Online Home

ProBlogger suggests developing a Twitter landing page

Every business needs a place where their customers can find them. For your small business or your professional persona, that place is probably your blog. Because you own (or at least have a long term rental on) the virtual space where it’s hosted, it’s the best place to point people to when they need to interact with you.

Sure, your blog won’t be the only place you interact online, but it can be the place you send all your social media contacts back to. There are lots of ways to do this. One good example is the creation of specific landing pages for visitors from different networks. Track these landing pages in your analytics program and you will soon be able to see where your messages are having the most impact – and that info is priceless if you’re a web marketer!

Five Ways To Syndicate/Re-Purpose Your Blog Content

By now you should be convinced of the need for your own blog, but there’s more to having a blog than a couple of updates. You need to get active to get even more web marketing and authority juice out of your blog. We’re not just talking about pushing your updates to Twitter – pretty much anyone can do that now. It’s about getting more bang for your buck with the content you already have.

Here are five examples:

1. Write a series of posts on a topic and then turn the series into a free ebook which you give to people who join your email list. Not only does this build trust, but it will encourage people to return to your site (remember it’s your hub) for more information. Don’t forget to put links to your key resources within the ebook.
2. Use your blog content as the basis for a podcast. Pick the posts that people have received the most comments, record a reading of them and look for places to add value. Put links to those podcasts in the original posts and publish new posts saying that they are available. That’s two more chances to reach your audience.
3. Have some fun making a video related to a topic you are an expert on. Many people respond well to people they can see and hear, don’t be afraid to take a lighthearted approach–if you have fun with it, so will your audience–and it might even go viral.
4. Publish your blog on Kindle via the Kindle publishing for blogs program. E-readers and tablets are big and you can’t afford to miss out on this audience.
5. Syndicate your expertise via content curation. There are dozens of tools for this, but some of the most popular include Paper.li and Scoop.it. Be sure to go beyond self promotion and share useful resources originated by others – your customers will thank you.

See how useful your blog can be?

– Sharon Hurley Hall