Creating a good landing page

Building a great landing page should be on top of your priority list if you want your website visitors transformed into customers.

While a great looking website can grab the attention of your visitors, a strong landing page will keep them involved and get them to buy your products/services.

Wikipedia defines a landing page as:

The page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines.

Wikipedia’s definition sums it up nicely but there is certainly more to a great landing page then relevant and keyword rich content. Here are 10 things that you should be looking at when optimizing a landing page:

- Relevant Content

A landing page’s content should be directly related to organic search results, PPC campaign, anchor text in inbound links and any other targeted inbound advertising, online and offline. If people don’t get what they expect, they will be more likely to leave.

- Multiple Landing Pages

A landing page shouldn’t necessarily be your homepage. In many instances a homepage is a good landing page. However, for more targeted traffíc and better results, you want a landing page to be focused on a specific offering and specific call for action. To accomplish this, a given website should have multiple landing pages. Create some deep link landing pages that will focus on a specific proposition and your conversion rate will be higher.

- Focus on Functionality

More and more visitors seem to judge the professionalism and credibility of a site by its design. To satisfy this, many website owners concentrate on the design aspect instead of focusing on its functionality. A well-designed landing page is essentially worthless if the prospect can’t accomplish anything. While I wouldn’t suggest skimping on the design, it shouldn’t be your priority. Focus on the exact steps you want your visitor to take and design a page with that in mind.

- Call To Action

You got visitors to your landing page, now direct them to take action. Make it clear and highly noticeable without overwhelming your audience. Whether it’s a sign-up form or a “buy now” button, make it the focus of your page.

- Send a Clear Message

Keep your landing page clean and clutter free so your visitors stay focused on your message. Emphasize the biggest reasons that they should carry out the applicable call to action with larger text, contrasting colors, images. Make it easier for them to scan the content by using lists and getting right to the point.

- Provide Incentive

Bribing your visitors with freebies and samples is a proven method of enticing them to sign up. Provide more than your competition but don’t sell yourself short either. Provide a list of reasons why your offering is better and what exactly the visitor can expect. Provide references and testimonials.

- Make Visitors Stay

Avoid sending your visitors to another page unless it is absolutely necessary. That includes any internal navigation as well as external banners. If you eliminate all distractions and limit navigation options, you stand a better chance of keeping your visitors around.

- Simple is Better

Make it easy for your visitors to complete the action you want them to. Less confusion and decision making for your visitor means better conversions rate for your landing page. Don’t provide multiple choices and throw in optional extras. Focus on the pitch the page was created for.

- Power of Freebies

Everyone likes free offers. They are hard to resist and can be a powerful conversion tool. Whether a call to action is free or something free is receíved as a result of carrying out a call to action, it certainly doesn’t hurt. If your competition charges for something and you provide it for free, you’ll win the customer. Remember, just because you make a free offer doesn’t mean that it shouldn’t be quality.

- Testing

I’ve stressed how important testing is in finding out what your visitors like. Testing various text, call to action forms, layouts will give you a true idea what produces the best results as far as conversion.

Using a tool like Google’s Website Optimizer you can easily monitor the conversion rate, bounce rate, and tons of other useful metrics found in most modern day web analytics apps. Using these metrics you can easily figure out which version will be your optimal page, one that maximizes the results.

Creating a successful and effective landing page takes a lot of work but should be the focus for anyone involved with a website. Whether you are a website owner, web designer, web developer or a web marketing specialist you must be aware of the components that comprise a solid landing page. After all this can mean a website’s success or failure.

About The Author
Joanna Colek is the owner of Joanna Ciolek Web Design Studio, based in North Denver, Colorado. She offers affordable, custom and effective web design services to small business owners.

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New internet Illness spreads around the world!

I’ve had my suspicions that a rather nasty disease has been floating around, under the radar, for many years.

Well, now it has finally been unmasked and its impact on the world, across all continents, has been huge and deadly serious.8-X

It has been logged by Scientists and given an official name of DN-NE1 but the Media have taken hold of this epidemic and tagged it “Domainers Disease”.

Scientists now believe it was actualy created in the 1980s but only had its first outbreak of note in the 1990s. It seems to have then diminished in the late 1990s but then took a stranglehold in and around 2002. It was previously thought of as just being a mutated strain of Capitalismiosis but Scientists now believe it can be classed as a deadly disease in it’s own right.

The exact numbers of infected people is not known but it is now widely believed to have taken a grip on hundreds of thousands of individuals, perhaps millions across the globe. Its growth was most prevalent in the Western World and particular the USA, Germany and UK.
We now understand that in recent years, there have been massive outbreaks in India and China and indeed, some small areas such as Monte Negro, Tuvalu and Western Samoa have been decimated by “Domainers Disease”

Have you got “Domainers Desease”?  What to look out for.

Its all starts when you come into contact with a carrier, otherwise known as a Registrar and purchase your first domain name.

Once this has happened you have effectively got the disease for life and it will be almost impossible to shake off.

You will find yourself completely unable to stop registering more domain names no matter how awful they are.

You ignore the advice of colleagues, friends, family and other “Domainers Disease” sufferers by continuing to renew domain names despite being told it is absolutely futile.

You spend all day thinking about domain names and just about everything you see or do makes you unable to stop thoughts of “Umm, I wonder if that is available in .com”

You spend more time on domain name forums than talking with your family.

Your friends dare not mention domain names or websites in case you go off on a 30 minute rant.

How to avoid catching or spreading  the Domainers Disease

Do not EVER register a single domain name. Otherwise your life will never be the same again.

Avoid contact with anybody who has a website or worse, actualy bought a domain name with absolutely no intention of developing it.

Should you contract DN-NE1, you should hide yourself in your room or study and never mention to people what do you for a living or as a hobby.

Moving Forward

There are various support groups for people with this disease, commonly known as Domain Forums.

Although, the damage has already been done, the impact around the globe is total and devastating, and it continues to get worse every day, you should not be dismayed. Live every Non-Domainer day as your last and enjoy every second until the dreaded disease gets you, for it will get you, it is just a matter of time.

Below is an image of a person , before and after the Disease has hit them.

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How to optimize your website

Website Optimization is a complex issue, but it must be known to any employer wishing to succeed online.

According to the dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy, optimizing is to find the best way to carry out an activity. Therefore, optimization of your website would make it comply best with each of its functions.

Recall that if a site is intended only for success in the Search Engines, better known as search engines will not be successful with users and the machines do not buy, not sell it. If, however, is intended only for individuals, difficult to achieve a good positioning in search engines and users do not find, therefore, not sell. In conclusion, a successful web site must comply with its duties unfailingly related to Search Engines such as those related to usability from site visitors.

We have said that anyone wishing to succeed in the Internet market, you should make a website that is a true “virtual branch.” Ie, it must be an extension of your company and function as a local online. For this, the site must achieve the objectives for which it was created, it must be compatible with the principles and policies of the Company, be functional and actually convey useful information to its users.

To specify a site that complies with the characteristics listed above, you must be using a Web Optimizer know how the site should work and how to achieve it.
While we know what we need, we do not know how. The optimization process is not fully structured, but could result in the following steps:

1) Analysis of the competition.

A competitive analysis will help us to know what strategies people are using “quarrel” with our company to win the segment. Through this research we can understand their keywords, their advantages and weaknesses. This copy does not mean that all its attributes, but watching you learn. Learn about our competitors will be very useful to know where we can fight and how we should improve.

2) Survey of Keywords.

Through a detailed study we can know the keywords in place and mostly used by the audience that his company will target. Getting on keywords is a vital step for the success of its “virtual office” as they carried their visitors from search engines or search engines to your website.

3) Development of a database for the site.

We must improve the site pages, and starting from scratch, create them. This step optimizes both HTML coding (headings, metatags, etc..) And “site architecture” (internal structure of links to Web pages that compose your site) as the graphical interface of the website (content and design). Recall that a site that has a great design but not the content it offers its visitors need is a sterile site.

4) Incorporation of keywords.

Once you choose the most effective keywords, we must place on our website. These should appear in the most important pages (Home Page and Services page) and in the measure. A repetition of the excessive lead in some Search Engines to erase from their site.

5) Review and building links.

Acquire high-quality links pointing to your website generates 95% success to get high rankings in Search Engines. Although rated to increase in the search engines is also important to have a large number of links pointing to your pages, we see that the truly important is the quality and degree of the same relationship with your site.

6) Measure the results.

Through various methods you can tell if your site traffic has increased after the optimization. Also, obviously if you will notice the presence on the Internet is giving better results in terms of sales since the Optimizer “he threw hand” to your website. If properly complied with their professional work, you will notice the good results.

7) Maintenance of the site and its contents.

Remember that the last step is the longest and perhaps most important. Once your website is ready and positioned in the search engines to be maintained. If not fed by updated and interesting content for its users and does not make the necessary changes so that they like, the previous optimization has been a waste of time and money.

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The Importance of the Right Domain Name

Just how important is the actual Domain Name in your decision process when building your website?

The average man on the street never really understood domain names in the early 2000’s. However,  I now feel that most people I speak to, when they ask what I do for a living, now strongly grasp the concept of domain names and websites. They now realise that they are indeed valuable and are as important as the company name above a shop window.

Still, small business owners, the bread and butter of the commerical world, will not spend enough time and attention on developing the best domain for their needs.

Common Mistakes

Let’s use the example of a fictional Double Glazing window company, based in Berkshire, England run by James Smith and his brother, Peter.

The worst mistake of all is when they simply take the company name, register the nearest domain to it and then do absolutely nothing in the way of promoting it. They would register jandpsmithwindows.co.uk

Now, thats great as a company name but as a domain, with no further promotion or SEO work, it really won’t get them a great deal of extra business. Sure, if they fill it with some great unique content then it should attract some visitors via some search engine interrogation.

Surely, in their case, where they particularly wish to attract local visitors, they should be thnking of a domain like BerkshireWindows.co.uk . This has 2 major keywords and may well replicate what their potential customers are typing into their browser. They should then follow this up by having clear references to ‘Berkshire Windows’ and ‘Berkshire Double Glazed Windows’ througout the site to really get their site high up in the natural search results and lessen their need to spend a fortune on local Google Adwords targetting.

The other route

Strong keywords is one way, an easy way, of helping your natural search engine rankings. The alternative domain name registering policy is pretty much the opposite and go for Branding over keywords.

Strong Brand examples are Yahoo, Google, Bing, Twitter, etc. Clearly, these will do absolutely nothing on their own, all other things being equal, in the search engines. However, the clarity and shortness of the domain name offers it’s very own benefits, such as a super strong identity and ease of recall. This will lead to moew visitors typing that domain name back in their browser for a return visit. It is also fairly obvious that you either have a massive budget, with which to promote your brand, which will then bring in backlinks to the site, as the word gets round, or that a very strong SEO strategy needs to be implemented.

Which solution one goes for therefore really comes down to company size, contacts and budget.

Best of both worlds?

Perhaps a good middle ground is merging the two concepts together and going for a combination of brand and keyword solution.

The brand part of it can in fact be a strong adjective, such as CheapWindows.com, PremierWindows or AxisDoubleGlazing.com (remember the A for local direcory searches!)

These domain will offer decent natural search engine results are only require some reasonable SEO work to make sure the other keywords like ‘Berkshire’ are placed in and around the pages.

Summary

A domain name represents your showcase to the world. It is a very important decision on so many levels. It is also potentially disastrous to change your mind on the domain name down the line and lose a lot of the goodwill built up over time.

Keywords or Brand is up to the small business owner as is how much time and money they feel they should be spending on the usual SEO factors.

Personally, I find the Brand option a lot ’sexier’ but without proper marketing, having a domain name on your business card called ‘Vindar.com’ really does not get accross what your actual business is. This is the crux of the decision so take your time and really focus on which one would work for you.

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PODcasting as a Marketing Tool

Here is another fantastic way to get your name “out-there” and get people visiting your website.

PodCasting!

Podcasting is Audio (and/or Video) that you create on your computer (or via other means, and then load into your computer) that you then share and allow other people to listen and/or view.

There are large numbers of Podcasting sites that allow you to upload your audio or video presentation, and then attach a description and information about the presentation. Once this is done, people who visit these podcast sites can “find” your podcast and hopefully if it is interesting enough to them, they will subscribe to your “feed” (similar to a mailing list, but for audio/video) and then be automatically notified whenever you release a new audio or video.

Now generally the “feed” is not controlled by you (unlike a regular mailing list) but rather is controlled by the podcast directory and a podcast “reader” which is software (often free) that you can use to automatically check whether new content is available for your selected “feeds” and to then get downloaded automatically.

You can then watch or listen to the downloaded presentation at your leisure, copy to your iPod, etc. It’s really quite cool.

One of the biggest names in PodCasting is iTunes. No doubt you’ve heard of iTunes and maybe wonder what it is. iTunes is software that is supplied by Apple (the Mac people) that you can download for free and it will manage all your podcast “feeds” as well as your music and video collection on your computer, and even allow you to buy music (and podcasts) via it’s iTunes store.

Apple have versions of iTunes for both Windows and Mac and it is completely free to download.

Now iTunes is big business, ten of thousands of people download from it every day, so this is probably the first site you should try and get your podcast listed on.

Many people claim to be experts in the area of targeted website traffic. We suggest you do some careful research yourself first before jumping in.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, first things first, lets discuss what you could be putting into the audio / video.

If your like me, and have a great face for radio, don’t despair. You don’t necessarily need to produce video content, audio is perfectly acceptable for many subscribers, as it’s something you can do (listen to) anywhere (although with video iPods available these days this is also true for Video).

First and foremost you presentation should be adding value to your listeners/viewers. A hard sell sales presentation won’t be worth much to listeners/viewers (at least probably not to those who’s first experience of you is via the audio/video), rather it should be quality relevant content that will appeal to listeners with an interest in your niche market.

Bear in mind that it’s highly likely that when you upload a presentation for inclusion in iTunes, it will be reviewed manually by a human, and if it’s just a hyped up call to action to buy something chances are they may not approve it for inclusion. And even if they did approve it, listeners are going to be turned off when they hear it especially if you have not previously built up a relationship with them.

I suggest an interview is a great idea for a podcast. Put together a set of questions and answers to common problems that you “solve” on your website, and have some one interview you. Save the audio and upload to iTunes!

Another idea (once you get a few podcasts completed) is an overview of your product or services, but again not a hard sell, but a detailed list of what you can do or case studies on how you have helped other customers previously.

Just remember it needs to be interesting to listen to, so make sure you target it to your customers needs and to be solving problems that your potential customers may be facing.

You may find iTunes will want a series of podcasts before adding you to their directory, so it would be a good idea to do 2 or 3 podcasts if possible and then submit them to be included as a group.

If you plan to host your podcasts yourself, be very careful and consider if you have another bandwidth to do so, particularly if your feeds get picked up by lots of people.

Because of the nature of podcasts (audio or video) the files can end up being huge, so It’s very important that you plan this out in advance as you may find once you get successful and have a reasonable number of people listening to your podcasts, that you will be putting your server in meltdown and be running out of quota. This may mean your ISP closes down your website!

Don’t be victim to this, plan for growth on day 1, and assume you are going to be a success and put the right steps in place so you have sufficient bandwidth when things do take off.

Either put all your efforts into getting listed in iTunes or other large Podcast sites, or if your going to do it yourself, invest in a reasonable PodCast hosting company who specializes in Podcasts.

A decent alternative to iTunes for hosting your iTunes (especially if your have trouble getting iTunes to actually accept your podcasts is a company called Liberated Syndication. I would suggest you check their website out, they are one of the best out there, and give great value for money and in some cases it’s free.

Remember all podcasters had to start somewhere, and some of the bigger ones actually have paid advertising now (where sponsors pay the podcaster for an advertisement to be placed in the podcast). This could end up to be a really nice little money earner for you as well as provide great value for your listeners.

For more information on website promotion, please visit Anthony & Tim Buchalka today. Their detailed and helpful information and free traffic courses will help you begin dramatically building your web traffic.

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