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How Google segments the contents of a web page

Last week, Google was granted a patent that describes how Google might segment the content of a web page. Depending on the location of the content, a web page will get higher or lower rankings. Why is it important to segment a web page into different parts? The average web page consists of several parts: a header, a footer, the website navigation, the main content, ads, etc. Not all parts of the page are equally important. To determine the position of a web page in the search results, text that appears in the main content of a web page is more important than text that appears in the footer or in ads. How does Google analyze the content of a web page? According to the patent text, Google looks at the HTML of the page. Google also tries to simulate the display of a web page in a web browser to understand the location and the purpose of different parts of the page. What exactly does Google analyze in the different parts of a web page? The patent lists several "modules" that are used to analyze a web page: 1. Link analysis Links found in different semantically distinct regions may be assigned different weights. That means that the influence of a link in the main part of a web page is probably higher than the influence of a link in the footer. 2. Text analysis The importance of text on a web page is rated by location. For example, if a keyword appears in the main content area of a web page or in the title, then this page will rank higher than a page that has the keyword in the footer. 3. Image captioning Text found near an image is more relevant to the image than text further away from it. This module can be used to rank a picture in image search. 4. Snippet construction Google usually does not use the meta description tag for the snippet that is displayed on the search result page. According to the patent, Google creates the snippet based on the text in the web page section that is the most relevant to the keyword. If you want to get high rankings on Google, you must make sure that your web pages contain the right keywords in the right elements of your web pages. IBP's Top 10 Optimizer analyzes all elements of your web page and it will tell you how you have to change them so that your website gets top 10 rankings for your keywords. Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com

Yahoo introduces Search Direct "Search Direct predicts search results as fast as a person types, character by character, and presents those results dynamically, generating a fast, simple search experience that goes beyond a list of blue links. [...] Yahoo! content is combined with information from the Web to provide rich answers, not just links, and to give people the option to immediately engage or continue to a traditional search results page." Video: how should I handle localized content? Google's Matt Cutts answers how webmasters should handle local content of a website. Is it better to use all languages on the same domain or should you use local domains for each language (example.de, example.it, example.nl, etc.)? If possible, you should put local content on separate domains. It is a lot easier for Google to determine the language of a website if it has a dedicated domain. The content will also be seen as local content than instead of a simple translation. You should not use auto-translation to generate local websites because Google might treat that as spam. Bing feature update: Bing News with real-time Twitter feed "Now alongside the latest headlines on Bing News, you will find a real-time feed with the latest updates from Twitter highlighting hot news topics. [...] Bing news now lets you compare and assess authoritative news analysis alongside real-time citizen journalists so you can decide which content sources you want to use." Google's Panda update: eCommerce sites at risk "The update is definitely not sitewide ? there are a number of sites we looked at where the update had only hit pages of a certain type. For example ecommerce sites where the category pages were fine but product pages were hit hard. [...] This update is going to cause major issues for anybody that has a large site with product descriptions that are duplicated across lots of other sites. If you have a few of these it?s not an issue to rewrite them but a lot of big ecommerce sites have 10,000+ products and to rewrite those is going to be a major headache." Related: Google Panda update hits the UK (discussion) Search Trends: Japan earthquake 2011 "Online focus shifted quickly to recovery, relief, and the ongoing potential nuclear disaster. Concerns about its effect on the world at large have been trending high, as well as other country?s own power plants.[...] Inevitably, such calamities trigger a search for meaning in superstitions as well as science, as people try to grapple with the meaning of why such disasters occur. In addition to lookups for 'nostradamus predictions' and 'apocalypse,' people have been doing research on the Supermoon phenomena." Search engine newslets Google: a new tool for U.S. intelligence? Facebook not testing web search box at top of site. Facebook test mines real-time conversations for ad targeting. Google News de-indexing Berkleyside: Bug, not snub. Google's Larry Page almost skipped web search for automated cars. Googlers buy more junk food than Microsofties. Back to table of contents - Visit Axandra.com

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Google Instant Previews now in Sponsored Links

Google Instant Previews feature in sponsored links

In the field of Internet Marketing, we can market and promote our business, products either by paying or at free of cost. Search Engine Marketing a.k.a SEM is called as paid advertising and Search Engine Optimization a.k.a SEO is a free advertising service. SEM can be used only on the particular occasions in order to earn more money and make more profit within a short span of time but it has to be noted that the keywords may get downturn at any instant as few others might be willing to pay more for the same keywords. Hence, there is no guarantee for this marketing and nowadays people choose SEO more than SEM as SEO will stand for long time if processed in an ethical manner.

As known by all, Google search engine results page a.k.a SERP is a webpage where it displays the list of websites from the search engine database with the corresponding snippet information based on the keyword queried in the search box. You can view the results in two different section in SERP. The left section is called as Organic results which are based on SEO and the right side results are called as Sponsored links listed by means of SEM. You can also identify the Sponsored links in left side available at the top of organic results where it has different background color in the snippet itself.

Instant Preview is an awesome feature provided by Google couple of months back which enables us to view the preview of a website in SERP just by clicking on the snippet. Initially they have put this option for the organic links alone, but today I noticed this feature in Sponsored links too. Yup, you can now view the instant preview for sponsored links as well.

Tags: Google Instant previews, Google Sponsored links, sponsored links instant preview

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 at 6:37 pm and is filed under Google, Internet Updates, Search Engines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: Google Instant previews, Google Sponsored links, sponsored links instant preview
Posted in Google, Internet Updates, Search Engines | No Comments »

Source: http://www.cogzidel.com/blog/2011/04/google-instant-previews-now-in-sponsored-links/

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The Link ? SEO.com Launches Search for New Location

SEO.com is searching for a new location near its current office in Bluffdale, Utah. The company may have a new office by fall.

In its fifth year and with about 85 employees, SEO.com has outgrown its space in Bluffdale, Utah. The search engine optimization firm may move into a new building by fall.

?We?ve started searching for an ideal location for our current and future employees,? SEO.com President Ash Buckles said.

Buckles said he hopes to keep the company as close to its current location as possible. Most SEO.com employees live in Salt Lake and Utah counties.

?We?re really happy with our current location so we want to stay close,? Buckles said.

SEO.com started in about 1,100 square feet in Lehi. The company has been in its current 12,000-square-foot office since 2009. The new building should be more than 20,000 square feet, Buckles explained.

?It?s difficult to plan space requirements three to five years out for such a fast-growing company,? he said. ?We?re hoping this space will accommodate us for 200 people.?

The space will include conference rooms and collaborative offices. SEO.com had only 45 employees two years ago.

According to Rod Lee, vice president of finance for SEO.com, the company is working with Coldwell Banker to find a new location. ?We just did a space analysis, which takes a look at our current need,? Lee said.

SEO.com?s current location is located along the Wasatch Front, which allows the company to recruit employees in Salt Lake and Utah counties.

?Which I think is the best talent in the state,? Lee said.

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Healthy employees are happier, perform better

SEO.com employees stay healthy playing soccer on the company team.

With soccer season in full swing, SEO.com employees on the company team are already banding together to form a softball squad for the summer league.

?Before soccer, we had two teams playing basketball,? said Rod Lee, vice president of finance for SEO.com. ?They?re still licking their wounds from that.?

SEO.com works hard to provide opportunities for employees to stay healthy.

?It?s well worth the effort. I?ve seen the results,? Lee said. ?The flipside is a tired employee. A sick employee missing a lot of work is not as productive ? Healthy employees are more productive. They?re happier. If you feel good you are able to focus and it?s a stress reliever.?

The company even organized a ?biggest-loser contest? for employees to tone up, he said.

?The winner won an iPad,? Lee added. ?We do different incentives like that.?

With SEO.com planning to move into a new office, Lee said he hopes the next location has showers for employees.

?That means I could ride my bike to work,? he said. ?I could go on a run from there.?

Lee said he is always looking to enact other measures to keep employees healthy. Fitness memberships are offered to SEO.com employees at no charge.

?We like to keep a healthy environment,? SEO.com President Ash Buckles said.

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SEO.com hires new director

SEO.com recently hired Claye Stokes as a director of SEO.

People seldom guess right when picking Claye Stokes? age. Most do not expect the 26-year-old to already have a resume that rivals some of the search-marketing industry?s heaviest

hitters. SEO.com has tapped Stokes as its newest director of search engine optimization.

?I?ve always been into websites. Just growing up I had a natural passion for figuring out how websites work,? Stokes said.

He built his first website when he was just 13 years old.

?It kind of stuck,? Stokes said.

Now Stokes helps oversee search engine optimization for a firm focused on driving traffic to its clients? websites through aggressive Internet marketing.

Without effectively promoting their websites online, businesses will get lost on the Internet as the web becomes more cluttered, Stokes said.

?SEO is a part of a strong presence on the web,? he explained. ?Even when I picked up on web design over a decade ago, people were saying that if you want to build a website right, you have to build it with te search engines in mind.?

Through search engine optimization, business owners find their websites ranked higher online, which allows them to reach consumers who are in the mood to buy.

?Search-engine marketing is so much more dialed in than any billboard you could place or any television as you could put in front of consumers,? Stokes said. ?A very, very small percentage of those viewers are in that buying mindset at that moment in time. With search-engine marketing, 100 percent of the people who see it are actively searching for your product or service.?

Using a search engine like Google or Yahoo is the most common way consumers shop for products online, and businesses not engaged in search engine optimization will get left behind, he added.

?If someone is looking to buy something, they research it online. If you?re not at the top of the search engines, they?re not seeing you,? Stokes said. ?They?re seeing competitors.?

Stokes came to SEO.com having worked as an account executive at an advertising agency.

?SEO is very new,? Stokes said. ?Executives didn?t learn about it in business school.?

Stokes is married with two children. He lives in Lehi, Utah

Meanwhile, among the SEO.com employees who were recently promoted to management were Ty Kilgore, Nate Blair, Dustin Williams, Brian Jensen and Tyson Hymas. Albert Mitchell, a former SEO manager, was promoted to director.

?We attract smart, educated people and we prefer to promote from within,? said Ash Buckles, president of SEO.com. ?We?re constantly looking for strong talent in marketing analysis and project management.?

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SEO.com signs big clients

The list of newest SEO.com clients includes recognizable names like Hitachi, Hotels.com and the Amazon Web Store.

?We?re thrilled to work with so many clients that provide top quality products and services,? SEO.com President Ash Buckles said.

Other new clients include Web Concepts, BrightFuture.com and AccountingMatters.com.

Rod Lee, vice president of finance for SEO.com, is also president of BrightFuture.com and AccountingMatters.com.

?It?s the same thing I?ve been doing at SEO.com. I?ve been running the [human resources] and accounting since I have been here ? The idea is that as SEO.com has grown and the needs have grown, those same services that we have provided to SEO.com for some time is now something we can apply to other companies,? Lee said. ?There is a sister company relationship.?

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Top salespeople recognized

SEO.com has recognized its top salesman for January, February and March 2011.

Matson Tolman was the top sales representative in March. Dale Nguyen was on top in February and the highest-performing SEO.com sales representative in January was Chris Merrill.

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SEO.com now an American Marketing Association sponsor

SEO.com has signed on as a sponsor for the American Marketing Association in Utah.

?It?s a new chapter in Utah and we?re excited to be part of the brightest minds,? SEO.com president Ash Buckles explained. ?We?re here to learn and grow together. We look forward to engaging with Utah businesses and supporting the community.?

The AMA is the largest marketing association in North America. It is a professional association for people involved in the practice, teaching and study of marketing worldwide.

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Conference news

Two key conferences this spring were attended by SEO.com employees.

In April, Jon Reese, SEO.com?s director of business development attended the 2011 Mirren New Business Conference, which brought the biggest names in advertising together in New York City for a three-day powwow.

Reese explained that many of these agencies have clients who are demanding SEO work.

Meanwhile, Boyd Norwood, a director of SEO at SEO.com attended Distilled?s link-building conference in New Orleans in March. In June, SEO.com plans to attend the SMX Advanced conference in Seattle.

?We strive to send a couple people to several notable conferences each year,? SEO.com President Ash Buckles said.

That way employees stay aware of the latest trends in an industry that is constantly changing, he explained.

Reese said his main goal in New York City was developing partnerships between SEO.com and other marketing firms.

?We partner with advertising agencies to bring the breadth of marketing capacity to our clients,? Reese said. ?It?s all collaboration and networking. Every lunch, every break I was talking to people.?

Many clients today ?want to integrate their traditional and Internet marketing into one,? he added.

?There was not one discussion that I had that they weren?t interested in what SEO had to offer their firm,? Reese said.

Companies are realizing the importance of their websites ranking highly in search engine results.

?There were massive agencies there,? Reese said.

At the conference in New Orleans, Norwood said a presentation by SEOmoz chief Rand Fishkin was one of the highlights.

Fishkin emphasized the importance of keeping your website packed with quality content.

?He?s a big name in the industry,? Norwood said. ?One question he stressed was: Does your content deserve to rank first??

Norwood said companies must ?focus on the visitors to our site rather than just the search engines.?

?It?s just a good reminder,? he said. ?It?s a lot easier to rank a site that deserves to rank ? We?re going to get links easier because it is quality content.?

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SEO director smiles as he finishes grueling bike ride

Albert Mitchell represented SEO.com in a 62-mile bicycle ride in Utah.

Despite the rain and snow, SEO.com was well represented at Utah?s FRONT RUNNER Metric Century Bicycle Ride on April 9.

?The weather was hellacious,? said SEO.com employee Matt Storms, the organizer of the event.

Albert Mitchell, an SEO.com search engine optimization director, rode in the metric century ride.

?I got up in the morning, looked out the window, saw the snowy weather and I thought, man, that looks cold and miserable,? Mitchell said.

The ride was 62 miles through Salt Lake, Davis and Weber counties.

?Our guy finished early with a smile on his face,? SEO.com President Ash Buckles said about Mitchell?s performance. ?We love to see our employees accomplishing things outside of work and we try to encourage that.?

After promising to participate, Mitchell said he wanted to finish the ride.

?Snow was not going to stop me,? he said.

Several SEO.com employees were volunteers at the event.

Mitchell praised a group of his coworkers who cheered him on.

Teamwork is paramount at SEO.com, Mitchell explained.

?When we commit to something, we do our best to try to fulfill that,? he added.

Tags: newsletter, search marketing, SEO.com

Source: http://www.seo.com/blog/the-link-seo-com-launches-search-for-new-location/

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Great Content for SEO: Simpler than You Ever Imagined

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Posted by randfish

Today I want to share an incredibly simple yet massively powerful process for building search-optimized, "great content." There's no fancy tricks and nothing propetiary about the approach, but it is rare indeed to find an organization that follows these steps and hence, it's a way to potentially differentiate and build a competitive advantage.

Step 1: Build a Survey

No one knows what searchers want better than the searchers themselves, so let's hear what they have to say. To find out, we'll start with a short series of questions asking the survey taker to imagine they've just performed the desired query. Here's an example:

See the full form in action here

The basic structure is simple - request the top 3 content pieces your audience desires, then ask specifically about features that would make the page worthy of sharing (this is important, because it often differs substantively from what makes a page merely answer the user's query). Finally, you can ask them to actually do the search (you don't want them to do it until the end, because what they find might bias their responses) and report any results they liked (which can provide additional insight).

Step 2: Send it to Your Customers / Potential Customers

I cheated and used a tweet:

You can find customers or potential customers virtually anywhere - your friends, neighbors, co-workers, friends on social networks, etc. Anyone who fits your customer demographic or is creative enough to imagine themselves as that demographic will work. A link in the bottom of your email newsletter or a share on Facebook/LinkedIn/Twitter can often do the job, too. You might even try posting a link in a relevant industry forum or discussion group (so long as you're sure it won't be perceived as spammy).

Step 3: Record Responses + Leverage them to Build What the People Want

My Twitter followers are clearly office chair experts because I got some fantastic responses:

There are some fantastic suggestions in there - enough to form a serious roadmap for content generation and to steer me clear of crafting a landing page missing these features (which would likely increase bounce rate, earn less links/shares and, probably, have a lower conversion rate).

It gets even more fleshed-out with the next section:

You can see all the responses to my Tweet here

Simply amazing. I really believe that by following the recommendations of these few, late-night, Twitter-obsessed, good web-samaritans, I could build a page of content better than anything the top 20 at Google or Bing have to offer right now.

When you're doing this formally, collect as many responses as you reasonably can (before all the answers start to look the same) and use your intuition plus the aggregates of the data to make the best page possible. Any feature/content mentioned by 3+ respondents should definitely make the cut. From there, you can learn from what they liked/didn't in the current SERPs and bolster it with any remarkable suggestions they gave for making the page "share-worthy."

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That's all there is to it.

And while you're thinking, "He's right! It's so easy... I can do this in 15 minutes tomorrow and have the perfect roadmap to build something searchers will love," you're probably busy and might put this on the back burner for another time. Don't do it! Implement now - even for just one keyword and one page. Even if you only get 2 responses! Heck, you can just fill it out yourself 4 or 5 times with how you think others might respond and it will still give you a better plan than 90% of what's in the top 10 results for most queries.

If you follow this process and have examples to share, I'd love to see them in the comments. Feel free to use live links to your pages, feedback forms or responses. You might even be able to recruit some Moz readers to take your survey :-)

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/y0YNAhUjAcA/great-content-for-seo-simpler-than-you-ever-imagined

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What are Link Spikes?

April 28th, 2011 by admin

In relation to website optimization, SEO link building is essential to every campaign. Within the internet world, high quality links are a much debated and extremely significant element to web marketing. It is true that gradually the number of links that point to a website will rise and develop. As with all marketing results it is sensible to monitor the level of links as they grow. This can help you to identify quickly anything that look unusual such as a link spike.

Link spikes are exactly that ? it demonstrates a huge rise in the level of backlinks to a website within a short timeframe. If you were to chart the amount of links acquired over time a link spike would be represented by a physical spike on the chart. Link spikes will show up on the search engine radar like a beacon. This type of SEO link building can indicate black hat techniques as it is unusual in website optimization to get this level of link influx. However, there are instances where the link spike is genuine. Seasonal trends can create link spikes ? for example a company selling Christmas hampers will see a huge rise in links relating to this product line in the run up to Christmas. Handling these types of issues are best done by SEO link building experts as they can lead to penalties from search engines which can affect your future rankings and website?s success.

At www.searchengineoptimization.co.uk we provide SEO link building expertise throughout the UK.

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Source: http://www.searchengineoptimization.co.uk/seo-blog/seo-tips/what-are-link-spikes.html

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101 Landing Page Optimization Tips

According to Unbounce; 101 Landing Page Optimization Tips

An Opinionated Guide to Conversion

Do you have abandonment issues because your landing page bounce rate is through the roof? Wasting precious time and money on ineffective PPC campaigns? Tired of your boss complaining about how the industry average conversion rate is double what ?you? achieved last month? Don?t know how to ?x the problem?

Never fear. With our authoritative, definitive, essential and ultimate collection of 101 Landing Page Optimization tips, we?ll have you testing, reporting, increasing ROI, and unbouncing your online marketing campaigns in no time.

The tips are broken up into 14 chapters:

• Chapter 1: The Fundamentals
• Chapter 2: Trust & Security
• Chapter 3: Landing Page SEO
• Chapter 4: Before Creating a Landing Page You Should KNOW?
• Chapter 5: Before Creating a Landing Page You Should DO?
• Chapter 6: Before you push the ?Go Live? Button
• Chapter 7: At Campaign End
• Chapter 8: Testing, Testing, Testing
• Chapter 9: Corporate Tips
• Chapter 10: Forms on Landing Pages
• Chapter 11: Optimizing your Landing Page Call to Action (CTA)
• Chapter 12: What NOT to do ? things that can Piss off Your Customers
• Chapter 13: Reporting, Metrics & Analytics for Landing Pages
• Chapter 14: When to Use a Landing Page

You can also download the original 101 Tips as a PDF or view it as a Slideshare presentation.

Chapter 1: The Fundamentals

Sticking to the fundamentals can take you from having a terrible landing page to having one that people ?nd hard to poke holes in. Apply them vigorously as you get started, then enhance your pages by digging into the areas we discuss later on.

1. Send people to a relevant and targeted page
   Your homepage is a mish-mash of goal oriented communication ? and usually for good reason. With that in mind, resist the urge to send people there as it?s better targeted at the curious explorer type rather than the person clicking through from a banner or AdWords link. Think one goal, one message, one action. And hence one page ? generally a new one ? a landing page.
2. Provide a consistent experience
   From ad through landing page and onto the destination site, design, messaging and tone should be consistent with the expectations your user had at the time they clicked the link/banner. Your upstream ad is the source, and using a river analogy, you should be drinking from the same stream at the end of the journey as you were at the start.
3. ?Don?t Bore Us? Get to the Chorus? (Roxette)
   The title of this tip comes from the Greatest Hits album by Swedish pop duo Roxette. As one of the masters of bubblegum pop, they knew how to highlight the most important element of each song ? the chorus.

   No one likes a babbler, and we only put up with it for the most part because it?s our friend that?s chewing on our ear.

   When dealing with online prospects, you need to get right to the point with no muss and no fuss.

   The astute among you will recognize that in providing an analogy prior to my point, I am essentially countering my own argument. But on closer examination, what this shows is that sometimes you have to provide some editorial or instructional introduction to your subject.

   If this is the case, like Roxette, just make sure the juicy bits stand out signi?cantly.

4. Focus the visitors attention with a clear and concise headline
   Imagine yourself walking in a busy downtown street. You glance at the newspaper vending machine to see a big black headline. If it captures your attention, you might stop, bend over and read it for a while. If it?s really good, you might ?sh a dollar out of your pocket and actually pay for it.

   Conversely, if it?s just a big page of small type with no visible purpose, you wouldn?t even break your stride.

   Make the headline clear, easily noticeable, and in a relevant position on the page.

5. User and traffic segmentation
   If you have multiple user types, create a landing page for each segment and drive traf?c via separate sources. This will enable you to measure your most effective market segmentation. If your landing page has extended logic or geo-targeting capabilities you may be able to create a single page with changing content based on visitor. If this is the case, ensure your tracking can handle these complexities.
6. Remove the clutter
   Remember that ad campaign that had a single button proclaiming ?Don?t click me?? Nobody could resist that. Not only was it tempting, but it didn?t have any competing information. As you create your landing page, step back from time to time, look at it from a distance and see how many things are vying for your attention.

   Re?ne your landing page until the answer is 1.

   Observe ? Remove ? Repeat

7. Remove the navigation
   Similarly, don?t give people a full-scale website experience. You often paid to get them there, so keep ?em focused and on track. If they really want to know your favorite color or look you up on Google maps, they can go to your website another time. Each navigation option you provide dilutes their attention.
8. Keep reading to a minimum
   Ensure visitors get a chance to read your most important copy right off the bat. If it?s buried amongst 5 paragraphs of text, it?ll be missed.

   An exception to this rule would be a page designed to provide a high level of detail (such as a Book page on Amazon), but this is usually best utilized as the deep-linked ?product detail? page on the target website and not on a landing page.

9. Above the fold
   As much as this statement ?lls me with chagrin and isn?t relevant for certain types of web page, it still holds true for the landing page.

   Your primary messaging and call to action must be above the fold (the bottom of the screen for the average browser resolution of your target market).

   Does it really matter anymore?
   Despite the existence of very successful long pages such as a product detail page on Amazon.com, you still need to ensure that the CTA is present above the fold (and repeated at regular intervals further down the page). This allows people to read on being comfortable that they know what to do when the urge to buy arrives. Some examples of long pages are:

   • Amazon ? with some of the most important information (user reviews) 2-5 screens down the page people have developed an understanding that not all of the gold is buried close to the surface.
   • MySpace ? when millions of today?s youth started creating their own web pages using MySpace, they learned to value this long form approach.
   • The Wheel Mouse ? providing a big helping hand along the way was the introduction of an improved interaction mechanism. The scroll wheel on the PC mouse essentially removed the need to use scrollbars. Thankfully Apple have since conceded to this superior rarity in interaction design and included it on their mice too.

   Repeating your CTA on long pages
   If you are obligated to produce a long landing page (perhaps as one of the standard long-form lead capture sites), try to repeat your core message and/or CTA at comfortable intervals throughout. This helps to reinforce your purpose. Note also that different people react to different content, so they may be 2/3 of the way through before they believe what you are saying. If there is a button right there, you may ?nd them more likely to convert when this matches their time of emotional connection to your message.

10. Congruence
    Congruence refers to the concept of ensuring that every element on your landing page refers to, or supports, your core value proposition. Look over your design and copy, if it?s not directly supporting your goals ditch it or re-write/re-design it.
11. Experiment with different media types
    Video has become so prevalent in the broadband world that it?s no longer a barrier (a few years ago, and in a minority of markets today, the delay involved in loading video makes it an impediment). Visitors are likely to spend more time on your site engaged in passive activities such as watching a video as it?s easier than reading. This extra time can be the difference between someone ?hearing? your message and not. With everything, quality is king here, say something important and say it well. If you can?t afford to build something with a high production value, then aim for a screencast ? an on-screen walkthrough of your product or concept.

    These are intended and expected to be lo-? and this quality can enhance the realism and authenticity of you and your approach ? where the message now resides in what you say and what you show, rather than in the production value of the video.

12. Enable sharing on viral landing pages
    If your goal is to create buzz with a landing page ? such as a ?ash game or humor piece, ensure that it is easily sharable with the common social networks.

    The most obvious choices for social media buzz creation are Twitter and Facebook. They can help to spread your message quickly and in an exponential fashion if what you are doing is tweet or like worthy.

    The key to success lies in the fact that it?s not 100% altruistic ? sharing via Twitter or Facebook adds the content into your own personal timeline extending your online persona by showing content that represents your personality and beliefs.

    It?s reminiscent of the psychology surrounding ones CD, vinyl or book collection, where you gain pleasure from the reaction of others to your taste.

13. Provide extra value on your con?rmation or thank you page
    If you are asking your visitors for personal data on your landing page (such as an email address for lead capture), take it one step further and give them a bonus on the thank you page. This could just be something useful such as a link to related content on your site, or it could be an extra free report. Giving something away for free (or for an email address) is good. Surprising someone and giving them a bonus is great.

Chapter 2: Trust & Security

With the proliferation of spam, pyramid and get-rich-quick schemes found in online marketing, becoming a leader with regard to trust can give your pages an instant leg up. The first key to success here is simply to care. Don?t pay lip service to this area as it?s more important to people than you may think.

1. Show a phone number
   By having a phone number present, it tells people you are legitimate and that there are real people at the end of the line. It can also be a good fallback for
   people who aren?t comfortable with online transactions, but who like your offer.
2. Remove barriers to valuable content
   If you are giving something away for free, but asking for personal details in exchange, offer something that really is for free in advance, such as a small portion of the materials you are providing (a chapter 1 preview etc.). This piques interest and lets people know you are not going to send them something worthless in exchange for their personal information. People like the try-before-you-buy option. A real world example would be the unwritten rule that it?s OK to eat a grape in the supermarket. Really this is theft, but everyone likes to do it to check that the goods are in fact good. You might be thinking, yeah but if the grapes are bad, people will find out and not buy them. Exactly! If you have a great product you shouldn?t be scared to share a little up front.
3. Brand consistency
   If your banner, landing page and destination site don?t feel part of the same family you will lose business. The landing page falls right in the middle of the acquisition process and should extend the minimal capabilities of banners/AdWords into a real sense of brand values ? while not providing the complete experience of the destination (or mothership) website.

   Extending the brand messaging
   Ensure that your visual design is the same from banner to landing page. Don?t change color palette and typography from one to the other. Repeat the original core message on the landing page for instant recognition and increased con?dence that you are in the right place.

4. Refrain from using gimmicky sales tactics
   The web is littered with so much crap that waders should be the preferred footwear of today?s surfer. No matter how much you feel the need to use the BUY NOW, BEST DEAL EVER type guff that pro?igates the sad lower end of our industry, just remember one thing? authenticity rules. People are starting to learn to see through the hype and understand when you are telling the truth.
5. Popups/pop-unders
   Do you really need advice about this? Ok, here goes. If you use them, you should hang your head in shame and go wait in line for when your entire customer base leaves you for a company with more integrity. Sure, you may notice a slight improvement in conversion in the short term, but if you?re attracting the types of customer that click on popups either because they are suckers or simply to get the ad out of the way, then they will exhibit the same ADD and bad judgement when they get through to your site.

   You may be in a position where you just want to present higher numbers at the weekly meeting a few times to ful?ll your contract, but if you are an entrepreneur, stay away. Just remember, if it makes your stomach feel even a little uneasy, it probably doesn?t make good business sense. And NEVER EVER use those javascript dialogs that ask whether you really want to leave the page.

   ?Are you sure you want to leave this page?? Press OK to leave, and Cancel to stay. Or is it OK to stay and Cancel to leave?

   ?How about now??

6. Use veri?able facts
   In an age of comparison shopping and online research, bold claims about your product or service may elicit a modicum of trepidation on the part of the consumer). If what you are promising isn?t really true don?t say it, because you will get caught out. Perhaps by only a few individuals, but if they turn out to be social connectors, you could quickly ?nd yourself plastered all over the blogosphere with devastating consequences.
7. Endorsements
   If you have af?liations with well known people or businesses, use their endorsements to build credibility. I?m pretty sure that Proactiv isn?t some miracle cure for acne, but I?m willing to suspend that doubt purely because the celebrities promoting it are placing their reputation on the line.
8. Don?t ask for information you don?t really need
   Sure, there are 5 people in your of?ce beating down your door asking for an extra phone number or age or bra size, but if it?s not critical to the information or product being requested on your landing page, then don?t risk scaring people away. Chances are that the extra information will be scantily used anyway.
9. Terms and Conditions in Layman?s Terms
   If you need to have a terms and conditions page or section, try to put the important stuff in layman?s terms. Better yet, make it entertaining, by separating it into two segments ? t&c for lawyers, and t&c for the rest of us.
10. Testimonials
    Testimonials work to create trust on your landing pages. But resist the urge to use false or made up ones. If you invent over enthusiastic statements by caricatures of stereotypical personas, and position them with images grabbed from stock photo sites you will look disingenuous.

    Authentic Business Practices Produce Authentic Testimonials
    If you have a great product or service and you treat your customers well, testimonials will either come to you or you?ll have established the relationships where you can go and ask for them.

    Wait for that great personal story that could be the tipping point in making people believe your landing page message, something that shows you have affected someone?s life or business.

    If you don?t have one yet, increase the feedback mechanisms on your website to allow your customers to provide the information you need.

    Perform A/B Testing on Your Landing Page
    To measure the effect testimonials have on your landing page conversion rate, consider running an A/B split test. You could run tests to compare the following things:

    • With and without testimonials
    • With and without photos
    • With short or full quotes
    • With few or many testimonials

    If you ?nd that less testimonials work better, you could then try using only 1, but test each testimonial in turn to see which people respond best to.

11. Certi?cation and brand logos
    This is a classic technique to garner trust. If you have an association with a company such as Verisign, wear it proudly on your sleeve. However, it?s important to use relevant and well known brands in your alignment strategy. Saying you are part of the Viagra sellers alliance probably won?t help you convert women into paying customers for a trek in the Andes.
12. Professional design
    Often, the more expensive you look, the more believable your story will appear. In this case money talks. You still need the right call to action and
    landing page copy, but as single folks know, a beautiful apartment with picture perfect interior design and seductive Feng Shui can make the difference between second base and a home run.
13. Don?t exaggerate!
    Following on from the last point, if you oversell yourself in the living room, you may very well attract your guest into the bedroom, only to ?nd that they leave at the sight of the real thing.
14. Privacy
    Provide links to a privacy statement and/or terms and conditions to quell fears of email abuse. A good technique is to write ?We?ll never sell your email address? in close proximity to your lead gen form.
15. Co-branding
    Partners drive traf?c to your business, often to a landing page. Using a co-branded landing page can enhance the ad message momentum and improve your conversion rate.

    To clarify, what this does is provide the customer with the con?dence that their intended goal is being maintained. For example, if an affiliate is be offering a discount coupon (something they have arranged with you so that they can attract customers based on this special deal), the customer needs to know that when they click from the initiating site over to your landing page, the offer hasn?t been ?digitally disregarded?.

    Maintain Ad Message Momentum
    The best way to maintain momentum is:

    • Include the partner/affiliate logo on the landing page alongside your own, showing that you have an established relationship.
    • Repeat the offer. Show that clicking through to your landing page didn?t cause the promise to be forgotten.

Chapter 3: Landing Page SEO

For short term marketing campaigns, SEO isn?t a factor, but for longer terms projects, especially lead-generation or ebook sales, it?s a critical aspect of your business model.

1. Your website has more landing pages than you think
   Whether you think you?ve ever created a landing page before, you need to recognize that landing pages are not just standalone campaign-based entities.

   As the search economy grows, every deep-linked product detail page on your site is essentially a landing page.

   With this in mind, take a look over your site and re-apply the tips in this eBook to those pages to help improve your conversions and revenue from your long tail of content.

2. Care about SEO
   For pages that will be live for any extended period of time, ensure the content is optimized for maximum value. What does that mean? Well, most importantly it means simply giving a s**t. That?s the tip here. Realize the importance of SEO. Read on for more speci?c actions to take.
3. Text headlines
   Consider the impact of using a text headline for your primary messaging/statement instead of having it inside an image. Placing it into an H1 could give you some bonus points. Yes, you might sacri?ce visual quality, but there are ways around that with ?ash replacement etc. and if the goal of your page is to attract organic traffic you need to be willing to make some trade offs. Pick your priority and make your decision.
4. Setting expectations
   It?s important to recognize that a single page that doesn?t sit within an architecture of internal linking is going to struggle a bit when it comes to ranking well. Focus on long tail terms for your content.
5. Pure optimized HTML
   Single landing pages are good candidates for producing clean focused content as you don?t have to include the bloated common structural elements of a full website.
6. Provide a valuable resource to gain links
   Most evergreen landing pages (ones that are in place for the long haul ? year round as opposed to seasonal) exist for the purpose of lead gen. If you give away something (a whitepaper or eBook) that contains excellent content you are more likely to attract inbound links.
7. Reduced PPC costs
   The closer the content on your landing page can match the copy and link title from your AdWords campaigns, the more relevancy (and Quality Score) Google attributes to your intentions which results in a lower cost for your chosen PPC keywords.

Chapter 4: Before Creating a Landing Page you should KNOW?

For architects or designers and developers responsible for creating a landing page, the following list of information will help facilitate the creation of a page that addresses genuine needs. A marketing or campaign manager should be providing this type of information.

1. Business Objectives
   The business objective of the campaign and in particular the page. What problem are you trying to solve?
2. Know Your Audience
   Understand the goals and motivations of the users who will be arriving at your landing page. What are the main questions that a potential visitor will have? Knowing this will allow you to design an experience that answers these questions in priority sequence on the page.
3. Visitor Action
   The desired action of the visitor (primary CTA). Sounds simple, but if you don?t have a very specific idea in mind, your page can lose focus.
4. Entry Points
   Take note of all campaign entry points (email, organic, PPC, social media) and any existing collateral materials to ensure you maintain a consistent brand experience and design. If your landing page doesn?t match the aesthetic of the banner ad then people will often rightfully assume they are in the wrong place and leave.
5. Technical limitations of your target audience
   Are they iPhone users? Are they business people with laptops that still view everything on 1024×780? Or are they designers with big 24? iMacs?
6. Creative brief
   Ideally there will be a well de?ned concept that ties business and user goals together into a simple and implementable idea. This will help you to design something that doesn?t stray from the core goals of the campaign. If you are a small business or entrepreneur then this might seem like a bit of a luxury (or an extreme waste of time). If you?ve never used a brief before, try searching for some examples or templates ? it can be really useful to go through the process of creating a simple half page brief just to get the idea down on paper before you commit it to digital realm.

Chapter 5: Before Designing a Landing Page you should DO?

Preparation is always nice but not always practical. Here are a few tips that can ease your planning process and ensure you start heading down a path of recursive good behavior.

1. Check domain name availability
   Did you remember to buy the domain for the campaign? This will normally have been checked and purchased by someone in IT, but it?s a good idea to verify it. Strongly branded domain names can place a heavy in?uence on design direction, and having to patch something up at the last minute because someone forgot to get the domain, will affect your time to market (which can be critical for event based marketing).
2. DON?T repeat errors of the past
   Sounds simple, but unless you make the effort to track and record problems in old campaigns you will never learn from them. Put a big poster on the wall with the Top 10 things to avoid doing.
3. DO repeat your successes
   Likewise, if something has worked in the past, repeat it in your new campaigns. This can become your own personal best practices list.
4. Competitive analysis
   Check out what your competitors are doing. This can serve 2 purposes; if you need inspiration it can give you some ideas, or if you are trying to innovate and differentiate, you will be in a position to zag away from the competition.

Chapter 6: Before you push the ?Go Live? Button

It?s tempting to be impatient and ?get it out the door? as soon as you can, but it pays to take a few deep breaths and do some ?nal checks and balances before you publish your landing pages.

1. Have a checklist
   This is a tip in itself, and the next few items will explain some of the tasks you should perform as part of this checklist. If you can establish a checklist and incorporate it into your process, you will soon start to develop good habits that produce better, more effective landing pages.
2. The 5-second rule
   Do some simple usability and page goal testing using people in your of?ce (or friends & family). A good rule of thumb is to follow the 5-second rule. Sit your subject in front of a computer screen and show them the page for 5 seconds. Then hide it and ask them what the purpose of the page was. If they are unclear, you may need to re-address the communication of the primary message and call to action. You can also crowdsource this activity through a service like Five Second Test.
3. Many sets of eyes
   Print your landing page out and pin it to the wall so that people can see it. This will open up discussion about your design. Often, an objective set of eyeballs will spot simple things that can help re?ne the page before you push it live. This is also a good way to increase collaboration and you?ll be surprised at some of the skills or insights your co-workers can provide.
4. QA
   Some companies have this built into their process, others are too small and rely on the owner/creator to do everything. Even in large companies, small marketing campaigns often get the short end of the stick and don?t have a dedicated person for quality assurance. To be viewed as professional you cannot afford to have any typos or errors on your landing pages. With such a short time to convince a visitor that you have something of value, even minor slip-ups can cost you a sale. Make sure it looks good in the major web browsers your target market uses. Fortunately, most landing pages are relatively simple, but don?t forget to check.

Chapter 7: At Campaign End

Diligent attention to the success or failure of your campaigns will help you learn and grow as an internet marketer. Try to study what you?ve done after it?s ?nished.

1. Postmortem
   After each landing page campaign, hold a postmortem session to collectively analyze and agree on what worked and what didn?t. This can then be fed back into your best practices lists.
2. Evergreen campaigns
   If you don?t need to take it down, don?t. You can gain trickle traf?c and SEO value by leaving a page in place, even if you are not directly sending traf?c to it. And if you decide to reactivate the campaign in the future, having a live page that Google has been aware of for 6-12 months is a major bene?t. If the campaign was time sensitive, consider a quick change to make it more generic so that you can leave it up.

Chapter 8: Testing, Testing, Testing

Many a marketing department relies solely on gut instinct and personal opinion. Be prepared to throw that out the window and start achieving real insight into what works and what doesn?t.

1. A/B Test to validate your decisions
   This allows you to perform simple comparative campaign studies, allowing you to produce alternate designs and messaging and see which performs the best. Having a testing infrastructure in place is critical to being able to measure your success.
2. Test the primary graphical image(s) or photography
   Most campaigns are intended for a speci?c segment or user demographic. As such, it?s a good idea to try different images that provide varied emotional responses. The smiling happy old ?y-?sherman may well evoke a happy retirement, but some people can be thrown off by generic stock imagery.
3. Primary message
   Write multiple variations on your main message and run tests on each. Also try varying the size and color of the text.
4. Call to action
   We go into more depth regarding CTAs later, but for testing purposes, you?ll want to try varying the message in your main CTA. Ensure it?s an accurate description of what the user will get when they act on it to avoid trust and annoyance issues.
5. Button color
   There are many viewpoints out there regarding button color. Some say that red is the best color to use as it evokes such strong emotional reactions, however it?s also a negative ?stop? type color, so be sure to test it with others like green for ?go? and blue as a familiar web standard link/action color. Wider Funnel suggest trying a big orange button.
6. Form threshold
   For lead capture and other form usage, you will want to minimize the amount of ?elds that visitors are required to complete. However, if you have a particularly strong need for data, try running an A/B/C/D/E test with varying amounts of information gathering. This way you can make an informed decision about what abandonment rate is acceptable when weighed against the extra data produced.
7. Re?ne constantly
   If you have new ideas, test them, immediately! The more information you glean the better your landing pages will become. Don?t stop at the ?rst A/B test. Brainstorm areas of the page that should be tested and throw up 2,3,4 or 5 different versions.
8. Multivariate testing (MVT)
   A/B?s big brother is a much more complicated affair that requires you to send a lot more traffic before you can get statistically accurate results (due to the large number of page combinations an MVT test generates). It involves testing for changes in multiple variables at one time with a focus on scienti?c interpretation of results. For more detailed information, I?d recommend a book by Tim Ash ? ?Landing Page Optimization? that does a great ? albeit very technical ? job of explaining the purpose and use of multivariate testing.

Chapter 9: Corporate Tips

How to get ahead as an internet marketer.

1. Become the landing page expert in your company
   If you follow the guidelines presented in this list and can report accurately on your results, you will be seen as the person to go to for improved marketing ROI.
2. Don?t be smug
   Assuming that you know everything and that your landing pages are infallible is naive. A humble approach to testing, validation and experimentation is the best way to become a better practitioner. The fact that we are listing 101 tips in here illustrates the complexities involved in such a seemingly simple concept.

Chapter 10: Forms on Landing Pages

Nothing strikes fear into the heart of a web visitor more than the dreaded form. Follow these simple landing page form tips to reduce your bounce rate.

1. Remove unnecessary ?elds
   Every Jack and Jill in your company will want some extra data from your lead capture or subscription forms. It?s your job as chief landing page optimizing of?cer to cut this down to a minimum. The previously mentioned form threshold level can be more easily determined through testing and veri?cation, allowing you to play a savvy political game while keeping your visitors happier. And really, who needs to know a visitors fax number these days?
2. Use directional cues to draw attention to the form
   If you primary goal is to have someone complete a form, then visually direct them to it so they know what they are supposed to do. Read this post on designing for conversion for an in-depth look at the use of directional cues.
3. Whitespace
   Don?t crowd your form, make it inviting, clean and simple by surrounding it with a decent margin of clear space.
4. Use oversized buttons
   We?re not trying to create a snotty online banking application, it?s a one shot deal (which may still be to do with banking). As such, don?t be afraid to design big shiny buttons that really stand out. They don?t need to be grey or be the same height as a standard text ?eld. Go big to stop your visitors going home.
5. Make form labels and ?eld text easy to read
   Use a large enough font that anyone can read it easily. Web 2.0 design standards are moving in the direction of form ?elds and text that are 2x-3x the previous norm, so follow suit and make your forms feel friendlier and happier.
6. Why should I ?ll out the form?
   Make the bene?ts and reward very clear and position them in context with the form so that people are constantly reminded why they are bothering.

Chapter 11: Optimizing your Landing Page Call to Action (CTA)

If your visitors don?t know what to do, then you are up poop creek without a paddle, a boat or any moist towelettes. Your call to action, or CTA, is the primary conversion goal of a visitor to your landing page. Examples of common actions that need to be called out are: purchasing a product, subscribing to a newsletter, calling you on the phone, downloading an ebook or whitepaper, watching a demo or requesting information.

1. Make your CTA(s) clear and unambiguous
   If you are offering a free ebook then make the button say ?Get your free ebook?, and not ?go?, ?submit? or ?subscribe?.
2. The bait and switch
   Related to the previous tip, don?t promise one thing and then deliver something else, or even worse nothing at all. To follow the same example, if you are giving
   away an ebook, and your CTA says ?Get your free ebook?, don?t provide a paypal form on the next screen asking for $2.95 for the product you said would be free, or merely say ?thanks for registering? without a link to the product you are offering. Yes, you will have gained a lead, but the customer is now worthless, and will tell others about your unscrupulous tactics.
3. Amazing! Awesome! Kick-Ass!!!!
   Resist the temptation to include bloated adjectives. Such claims are likely to make people think you are overselling and trying too hard.
4. Breathing room
   Allow the CTA room to breath visually. Expansive use of whitespace will allow your button or statement to stand out on the page. Color choice is important here also; create a high contrast between the CTA and surrounding elements to assert it?s dominance.
5. Keep it where it can be seen
   Don?t let it fall below the fold, and if you have a long page, repeat the call to action at the bottom of the page or once in every page length to remind the user and provide them with a mechanism to act, regardless of where they are.
6. Personalize/localize the call to action
   For example, if the desired action is for the customer to call a phone number, don?t make them work. Provide a toll free number, or geo-targeted local codes as required.
7. Utilize a safety net
   Not all customers are ready to engage right away and might need some supporting information to ease their worries or answer their questions. If you are asking someone to buy something, a sensible secondary CTA would be do download a product brochure. This keeps them in your realm of in?uence (as opposed to leaving to do research elsewhere) and builds con?dence. Ensure that the safety net CTA doesn?t compete in size and visual dominance ? often a simple text link is adequate, beneath the main big action button. If you are asking someone to purchase online, offering a phone number for phone orders can make a potential customer more likely to convert if that?s their preferred contact method.
8. Continuity
   Carry your primary call to action throughout the entire acquisition and conversion experience, from upstream ad (PPC, email, banner, social media link) through your landing page and on to the ?nal destination page (if there is one).
9. Reduce the available options
   If you have only one message and action, you should be able to look at the page and have your eye immediately drawn to the action area. Don?t place extraneous offers or navigation on the page that could draw the user into doing something else. In the case where you have several choices (such as 4 cable TV package options), there is still a single goal (choose a package), so ensure that each action area is consistent and they are grouped in a region that can be considered the action area.
10. Be audience appropriate
    If you are selling spa getaways, then don?t be aggressive with your tone and language. If you?re offering funeral services, don?t use !!!!!! at the end of the call to action.

Chapter 12: What NOT to do ? things that can offend your customers

We?ve all had horrible online experiences. Follow these tips to avoid re-creating them.

1. That?s way too much for me to read!
   To paraphrase Steve Krug (author of ?Don?t Make Me Think?), cut your copy in half and then throw away half of what?s left.
2. Don?t lie to your customers
   To be an effective marketer you simply must deliver on your promises. Treat people well and they?ll tell their friends.
3. Don?t include a form if you don?t need it
   If you can honestly get away without a form, don?t be greedy and throw one in there because it would be nice to be able to capture some data, keep it out and reap the bene?ts of a slimmed down landing page. If you are trying to extend your brand exposure and expertise with a free white paper, consider giving it away without the email capture ? but make sure each page is branded with your identity and contact information. If it?s worth it?s salt people will share it and you?ll get more visitors as a result. You?ll also get plenty of karma points.
4. Pop off!
   I said this earlier and I?ll repeat it here. NO POPUPS.
5. Turn down the music
   If your page requires sound or music to function; for example, a viral ?ash campaign or video-centric page, then ensure that you provide the facility to control the volume, including a prominent mute button. If someone is viewing your page during a quiet time or at the of?ce, sudden sounds can be a sure?re way to drive them to the close button.
6. Don?t do lead-gen with the intention to spam
   Keep your communication with your leads on topic. If they are completing a form to get your whitepaper on gardening, don?t start sending them emails about motorbikes. Read ?Permission Marketing? by Seth Godin for more good behavior ideas.
7. Don?t use photos you found on the internet
   Especially the one that appears ?rst in a search of Google images. You?ll appear generic and untrustworthy.
8. Assumptions
   Don?t make assumptions about your visitors knowledge. Put yourself in their shoes and anticipate their questions. Then make sure you answer them on the page. This will help prevent people going elsewhere to ?nd their answers and potentially ?nding a better offer.
9. Opt-out
   If someone is registering with you for a newsletter or ongoing communication, make it clear that they will be able to easily opt-out at any time. Saying this up front is often the tipping point between someone saying ?ok, sure? and ?no way?.

Chapter 13: Reporting, Metrics & Analytics for Landing Pages

Marketing campaigns without metrics and reporting and like a runaway train. Yes, they make you more accountable, but if you?re good at what you do ? or at least desire to become better, accountability can make you a rock star. Here are some tips to get you started:

1. Use analytics
   If you don?t have internal analytics software (Site Catalyst etc.), you can get set up quickly and for free by using Google Analytics, or several inexpensive paid options such as KISSMetrics.com, GetClicky.com or HaveAMint.com (works great on an iPhone). By adding simple code snippets to your landing pages you?ll be tracking results immediately and can prove/disprove theories (sorry boss, making the logo bigger killed our conversion rate) and start to produce professional reports.
2. Basic metrics
   You should ensure you are recording the fundamental performance metrics for each campaign. These are campaign speci?c, but can include: conversion rate (broad term), bounce/abandonment rate, form completion rate. Store these results so that you have a basis for showing how your re?nement process (via A/B testing) is working, and to allow comparative reporting against previous campaigns that had the same goals.
3. Getting granular
   Using an analytics or campaign reporting programs can help you determine whether different time/day segments are more successful than others. If you have an increased conversion rate on friday nights and weekends, and little to no success during midweek, you can either focus your efforts purely on the best days, or start A/B testing different messaging on the lower days to see if an altered communication strategy will lift the metrics at those times. You will undoubtedly learn something about your user behavior by dong this.
4. Be transparent at all times
   Compile frequent and regular reports and make them accessible to as many people as your internal bureaucracy will allow. Success can inspire an entire team/company, and failure can elicit useful feedback from people able to spot issues you might have become blind to.
5. Beware the industry average
   Industry averages are often bandied around to show comparative results for your particular vertical. While somewhat skewed by virtue of the fact that their campaign/goals/timing/budget/product is different to yours, they can play an important role in showing where you stand in the competitive landscape. Particularly if you are above average. In other words, use with discretion.
6. Customer feedback
   If you are gathering consumer feedback via a landing page, collating this serves 2 purposes. Firstly, it gives you great presentation materials for internal meetings. Secondly, you can start to use them on your next campaign as testimonials to boost credibility and trust. Just remember to ask permission before quoting somebody publicly.
7. Eye tracking
   If you have some budget available, eye tracking reports can give you valuable insight into where people are looking and help you increase the positioning of key elements.
8. Heat maps
   Similar to eye tracking, there is software available (like CrazyEgg.com) that can show heat map overlays showing where people are clicking most. Use this information to manipulate and test copy in the most popular areas to see if you can increase conversions.
9. Assumed attention hotspots
   Other systems can produce a virtual heat map based on assumed attention areas based on graphical contrast and basic design patterns (like Attention Wizard). All of these tools can add to your understanding of landing page behavior.

Chapter 14: When to Use a Landing Page

You probably don?t have the time, money or resources to use a landing page for every little brain fart or campaign initiative that you come up with, so here are our recommendations for when they are a relevant option.

1. For every campaign
   Ok, so we just said you probably can?t do this, but the truth is you should at least try to use them all the time. If you?ve begun to grasp the fundamental purpose of the landing page you?ll know that sending visitors to non campaign speci?c pages such as your homepage is just wasting money. The best way to ensure that you can do it for every campaign? Develop a painless process and some standard templates for the types of campaign you do and be ruthless about reporting on your success. If you can demonstrate that you can A ? build them quickly and B ? achieve improved ROI via reporting and testing, you?re well on your way to convincing any smart business person.
2. Multiple inbound traf?c sources
   If you are expecting traf?c from multiple sources (AdWords, banners, af?liates, organic search, Google images), you may want to create separate landing pages for each source to simplify the funnel and enable more distinct testing.
3. Special promotions
   These typically come in at the last minute and if your website isn?t architected to allow for random or short-term event based promotions, you?ll need somewhere to communicate your campaigns. Standalone landing pages are great for this as they can exist outside of your existing infrastructure.
4. The dreaded deploy schedule
   Sometimes you just need to get a web page up and live. But you work for a big company that has a rigid deployment schedule. Sometimes they have the ?exibility to break the rules, but not always. Well it?s Easter, you have to get a critical message out regarding a promotion you?re running, and you forgot to update the promotions page on the website. What to do? Build a simple, focussed landing page and ftp the whole shebang to a new folder on the web server, bypassing IT (they?ll forgive you when you show the conversion report) and getting the job done. Not ideal, but sometimes you have to think on your feet.
5. When your Marketing Manager or CEO has one of his/her ?brainwaves?
   We?ve all been there. Some creative type (I can?t be too harsh here as I?m one myself) comes up with a great idea that must be dealt with immediately. The simplest way to do this is in a disconnected landing page that can break code conventions, brand guidelines and can be ef?ciently measured to provide instant feedback on it?s ridiculousness. Or maybe perhaps it?ll work like a charm in which case you?re going to be re-designing the whole site according to the new direction.

And Finally?

1. Overcon?dence
   Don?t be complacent. Remember that there?s always another percentage point of conversion waiting around the corner to be squeezed out of your customers. If you?re lacking inspiration, try rating your landing page with the Conversion Scorecard to give you a to do list of things to optimize.

Optimize on?

Square One, a Dallas Digital Agency, are experts in conversion optimization and analysis.

Tags: landing page optimization

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This entry was posted on Monday, May 2nd, 2011 at 8:00 am and is filed under A/B Testing, Conversion Optimization, User Experience Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

Source: http://www.sq1agency.com/blog/?p=2783

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Block Sites from Your Search Results

Written on March 15, 2011 ? 10:54 am | by Shell Harris |

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Google has added a wonderful new feature: the ablity to block sites from your search results. You can read all about it on their blog post. Here is a snippet.

You?ve probably had the experience where you?ve clicked a result and it wasn?t quite what you were looking for. Many times you?ll head right back to Google. Perhaps the result just wasn?t quite right, but sometimes you may dislike the site in general, whether it?s offensive, pornographic or of generally low quality. For times like these, you?ll start seeing a new option to block particular domains from your future search results. Now when you click a result and then return to Google, you?ll find a new link next to ?Cached? that reads ?Block all example.com results.?

But this does make me wonder. If you block a site, we can safely assume Google will track that. And if a site gets blocked too much will it drop in rankings where it hasn?t been blocked. I still believe this is a great tool and will be used by power users more than casual searchers, but it may have a more positive affect on overall search rankings than we realize. And that is probably a good thing.

Related articles

• Why Your Business Needs to Utilize Search Marketing in 2011 (bsfreemarketing.com)

Related posts:

1. Google Alerts for Link Building ? SEO Tip Week 39
2. Embed a searchable Google Map without writing any code
3. Ranked Hard, SEO Comic ? June 2008
4. Pay-Per-Click Fraud ? SEO Can Help
5. Create Content Rich Web Pages

Source: http://www.bigoakinc.com/blog/block-sites-from-your-search-results/

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How to find out the number of visits for a particular web page in Google Analytics?

The search giant Google has developed lot of internet tools for various purposes. For example, Google Analytics is a web analytics tool where the user can view the complete statistical report of a website like total number of visits, unique visitors, where the visitors from, whether they land through referrals or search engines, how much time they spend on website and so on. They have updating new features in Google Analytics day by day in order to provide user-friendly and meaningful. One among them is the ?Custom Reporting?. I don?t know how many of you webmaster guys aware of this feature, but this would be helpful to find out the necessary statistics alone which it helped me too.

A couple of days back, a question raised in my mind how to check the total number of visits for a particular web page in a website. For example, if I want to check the visits for the page (/products/beatz) in the website http://www.cogzidel.com/, is it possible to check in an ordinary web analytics feature? Of course, we can check it through Top Content section, but the report would provide metrics like Pageviews, Avg. Time on site, Bounce rate alone and not visits where Visits and Pageviews are entirely different.

Google Analytics Top Content Report

No problem at all. That?s why the search giant introduced the feature called Custom Reporting where you can find out the visits too for a particular web page in the website.

Google Analytics Custom Reporting: An overview

How it works?

The purpose of this feature is to customize your analytics report according to your needs. In the left pane of the Google Analytics, you will notice a link on Custom Reporting. You can proceed custom reporting just by click on the link ?Create New Custom Report?. After that you will be landed on a web page where it contains two set of frames: (i) Metrics and Dimensions (ii) Statistical view of customized metrics and dimensions. In the Metrics pane, you can find lot of division like content, site usage, etc. Similarly in Dimension pane parameters like Visitors, Traffic Sources, Content and so on. You can drag the necessary metrics and dimensions from left frame and drop in the appropriate section of the right side frame. For example, I have created a custom report for the metrics like Visits, Unique visitors, Pageviews, Avg. time on site, Bounce rate for the web pages in the website http://www.cogzidel.com/. Finally save the custom report once finishing the drag and drop of necessary metrics and dimensions in the right pane. Now you can be able to view the statistics like visits, unique visitors, bounce rate, etc. for the web pages present in the website. I have given below the corresponding screenshots of custom reporting of our website,

Create a New Custom Report:

Create a New Custom Report in Google Analytics

Statistical view of Customized Report in Google Analytics:

Statistical view of Custom Reporting in Google Analytics

Tags: creating new custom report, Custom reporting feature, google analytics, Google Analytics custom reporting

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 20th, 2011 at 6:13 pm and is filed under Google, Internet Updates, Search Engines, Web Applications. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Tags: creating new custom report, Custom reporting feature, google analytics, Google Analytics custom reporting
Posted in Google, Internet Updates, Search Engines, Web Applications | No Comments »

Source: http://www.cogzidel.com/blog/2011/04/how-to-find-out-the-number-of-visits-for-a-particular-web-page-in-google-analytics/

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iFrames for Facebook Part 2: How to Track

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Jonathan Weber

In Part 1: How to Implement, Brian told you all about how to get an iFrame app or tab set up in Facebook. Now I want to talk about how we can track it.

In the past, there were a number of methods for trying to track Facebook using Google Analytics. None of them worked particularly well (for a bunch of boring technical reasons like image caching and cookie domains). Now, however, since we?re putting our very own pages on Facebook via iFrames, the situation is much improved.

Before I go any further with the How, let me be clear about the What:

• We can track iFrame applications on canvas pages or on tab pages in our Facebook profile. This includes any interaction people take within the iFrame, as well as information our app can get from Facebook through its SDK (such as whether they ?like? us already or not). We?ll get the same tracking on the iFrame pages as any other page on our own website.
• We cannot track behavior on non-iFrame pages on Facebook ? even something on our profile if it?s not an iFrame, like your Wall or Info page, for example. And if someone gets to our pages simply by browsing from elsewhere on Facebook, we don?t know where exactly they came from (Facebook obscures this for privacy reasons).

Tracking Code

Put the regular Google Analytics tracking code on the pages you?re including in your iFrame. Here are some guidelines about additional things you may want to keep in mind:

• You may want to create a filtered profile that includes just the pages that are on Facebook, so that you can easily track their traffic separately.
• If the pages for your app are on your regular site?s domain, they share the same cookies that your regular site does. This means GA already recognizes a returning visitor, uniques get counted correctly, etc. Basically, the Facebook app functions as an extension of your site, even though folks are seeing it on Facebook.
• If there are interesting things people can do with your app (and there should be!) set up goals, events, or other GA methods to measure them as appropriate. You could, for example, set a custom variable for all the people who?ve ?liked? your page, or even just visited your Facebook tab before, so that you can connect that fact to all the conversions that happen over on your site.
• You may want to make an alteration to the tracking code as described below.

Traffic Sources

One tactic that?s becoming more common is to use social media as landing pages for advertising and marketing campaigns. For example, you might run promotions that link to your app or tab saying ?Try our app and enter for a chance to win X? or ?Like us on Facebook and get a free shipping coupon? or whatever.

What we commonly do in Google Analytics is use campaign-tagged URLs to measure these kinds of sources of traffic. We can do this with Facebook, too, but we may need to be a little tricky.

If you are sending people to an app directly (that is, to a canvas page with a URL like apps.facebook.com/my-app-name), you can include campaign tags in the landing page URL and they are passed through to the iFrame page. No problems there.

If you are sending people to a tab page (that is, to a tab within your profile with a URL like www.facebook.com/my-page-name?sk=something, for example), Facebook obscures the referrer to the iFrame page. It?s always something like static.ak.facebook.com/platform/page_proxy.php, and the campaign parameters don?t get passed through. (Facebook does these things, not to make your analysis difficult, but for privacy reasons.)

However, there is a solution for tracking campaigns linking to tab pages, and it?s a pretty simple one. There are two parts to making it work:

1. Create a page on your site that redirects to the Facebook tab, and link to this page from your ads with the appropriate campaign URLs. On this page, run the GA tracking code before the redirect.
2. Add _addIgnoredRef(?static.ak.facebook.com?) to the tracking code on your iFrame page(s) in your Facebook tab.

In step 1, when a user lands on this page, the GA tracking code runs, sees the campaign tags, and records the campaign values into your cookies. Then we send them along to the Facebook tab.

In step 2, when the user gets to the Facebook tab with the iFrame, the cookies already exist with the right values (and since the iFrame pages are on the same site as the original redirect page, there?s no problem with sharing those cookies). However, what we don?t want to happen is for GA to see the referrer for the iFrame page and say ?Oh, this is a referral from Facebook? and overwrite the campaign information that?s already in that cookie.

So, we use _addIgnoredRef, which is a function in Google Analytics that just ignores a certain referrer. By including this, referrals from static.ak.facebook.com (that is, to all our iFrame pages) will simply be treated as direct and not overwrite any information that?s already in the campaign cookie.

Here?s what the code should look like, depending on which flavor of the Google Analytics tracking code you?re using:

// asynchrounous version _gaq.push(['_addIgnoredRef', 'static.ak.facebook.com']);  // standard version pageTracker._addIgnoredRef('static.ak.facebook.com'); 

This should come after you specify your account number but before the _trackPageview (because that?s the point at which the cookies get written, so we have to tell it to ignore the referrer before that).

Then, all our campaign parameters work out, and we don?t get static.ac.facebook.com overwriting any of the campaign info.

The Data

You get all the same data in GA you?d get for any page on your site, because the iFrame pages are pages on your site. You can also include them in goal funnels, use them to define advanced segments, etc. Your Facebook app or tab basically becomes just like any other page in your GA data.

Related Posts

1. iFrames for Facebook Part 1: How to Implement
2. GA Campaign Tracking Parameters: What's Really Required?
3. So do you have a Facebook strategy?
4. Tracking links within your site with Google Analytics
5. Using Different Cookies when Tracking to Multiple Accounts in GA

by Jonathan Weber | Categories: Google Analytics, Social Media

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iFrames for Facebook Part 1: How to Implement

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Brian Honigman

Customizing your company?s or client?s Facebook Page is vital in terms of branding and encouraging engagement across your network. Until recently, developers created tabs within a Facebook Page using FBML (Facebook Markup Language) to customize a user experience with the brand. As of now FBML is being deprecated, which is a fancy way of saying it will be removed in the future. Facebook Pages already using FBML will not need to worry about updating their customizations because they will remain unaffected if already in use, at least for a few years. Pages that haven?t installed the FBML application before its deprecation must now develop custom applications using IFrames.

 

 

IFrames allow designers to use HTML, CSS, ASP, JavaScript, Flash and more to create custom Facebook content for their Pages. With IFrames your web content is maintained on an external server, which is then accessible and viewable on Facebook. This is a helpful improvement for designers and developers because it allows for greater freedom in the design and implementation of the content than FBML would have previously allowed. It?s also a wonderful asset to marketers because of the ability to add tracking code to install analytics, thus being able to monitor traffic and conversions. With frequent updates to the way in which information is presented on a Facebook Page, it?s essential to understand how to implement custom content using IFrames.

How to implement IFrames on a Facebook Page

Using LunaMetric?s Facebook Page as the example, log in as the admin of your Page and start by clicking the Edit Page button at the top of the page.

Now that you?re in the back-end admin section of your Facebook Page, click on the side navigation button called Apps. Scroll down to the bottom of this page and click Browse more applications.

Once in the Facebook application directory, search developer in the top left hand side search bar. After the search results come up, choose the Developer application at the top of your results.

After you?ve reached the Developer application page, click Go To App. Now click + Set Up New App. For users who have not verified their account, a dialogue box will popup asking for further verification of your account by adding your mobile phone number or credit card. This is for security purposes since you?ll be developing and accessing platforms within the Facebook API. I suggest supplying your mobile number, which can be hidden from your profile and only used internally.

From here, select a name for your application to help delineate it from other applications your company develops. Review Facebook?s terms of service, before clicking Agree to proceed. Finally choose Create App to begin the actual creation of your custom application. The next page will prompt you to enter a captcha before you?re able to proceed. Enter the text into the box and click submit.

You?re now looking at the dashboard from which your entire application can be customized and implemented. There are 6 different sections within the dashboard to implement the various settings of your application. We?ll start with the first section of the dashboard, the About section.

About ? Dashboard

The About section of the Facebook application development dashboard is where basic information about your app can be entered as a means of identification. In this section you can enter, upload, alter and manage:

• the name of your application.
• a brief description of your application for display in the app directory.
• a 16×16 application icon that appears next to your app?s name throughout Facebook.
• the larger logo for your app which appears in authorization dialogs, search results, and the app directory.
• the language of your application, which depends on your target audience for the app.
• a user support address, which can be either an email address or a page on your website where users can contact you about your application.
• the email address where Facebook can reach you about your application.
• the URL of your Privacy Policy, which all applications are required to have and display on their website.
• which users have access to the application, as well as their level of access whether it be as an Administrator, Developer, Tester or Insights User.
• the URL of your app?s Terms of Service, which is used in the permissions dialogue. The permissions dialogue is that box that pops up for users asking them to grant an application access to their individual account.

Web Site ? Facebook Application Dashboard

The Web Site section allows for authentication of your website, linking the content you developed on your own server to the application within Facebook. This section highlights your Application ID, which is your OAuth client_id, and your Application Secret, which is your OAuth client_secret. This is merely the login for the open protocol that allows a user to authorize a third-party application access to their data. Lastly, enter your Site URL and Site Domain to allow Facebook to authenticate your domain.

Facebook Integration ? Dashboard

The main purpose of this dashboard is to allow for your IFrame app to be successfully used within Facebook. This section is the most important because it tells Facebook where to query your application on your server. Here you enter:

• The Canvas Page URL allows you to choose the URL of your application, customizing it to be recognizable to users.
• The Secure Canvas URL, which is the same as the regular canvas URL, is what Facebook uses when a user accesses the URL over a secure connection using https.
• The IFrame Size field allows the administrator of the application to show scroll bars within the application viewed in Facebook or the option to have it auto-resize. You would choose auto-resize if you wish the IFrame app to alter its size based upon the height of the application?s content.
• The Bookmark URL is the URL the administrator chooses for a Facebook user when they click on the app?s bookmark button. This field can be kept blank because it will default to the URL of your application.
• Social Discovery can either be disabled or enabled. It?s suggested this feature be enabled because it allows for your application to be highlighted in a user?s News Feed and elsewhere. This is essential because it allows for more users to discover your app.
• The last few fields within the Facebook Integration section deal with customizing the Page Tabs. You can choose the Tab Name, which is displayed on the left hand side menu of a Facebook Page that adds your application. Next, enter the Tab URL that Facebook pulls content from for your tab, a Secure Tab URL for the secure version of the regular TAB URL. Finally, the last field gives you the ability to set a URL from which Page administrators can edit app settings.

Mobile and Devices ? Dashboard

This section allows you to enter login information for your application on mobile and other non-desktop devices. Simply entering an iOS Bundle ID enables use of the application on Apple products, dependent on the design of your application. Entering the iTunes App Store ID allows for the purchase and download of the application on the iTunes App Store, while entering a Key Hash allows for the use of your application on an Android mobile phone. This section is also vital for the success of your customized page due to the fact mobile internet browsing is growing exponentially.

Credits ? Dashboard

The Credits area of the dashboard is one of Facebook?s latest ways of leveraging profit from users using this social network. Integration of Facebook Credits into your Facebook Page certainly isn?t necessary but if you choose to add it, here is the place to do so. Here you can register your company as a member of the Facebook Credits program to be eligible to add this feature to your Page.

Once you?ve been verified as a member company of the Credits program, you can enter a Credits Callback URL, which pings the URL after a user initiates or updates an order, an email for payment communications and lastly a field to enter Credits Test Users. Credit Test Users have regular access to the application for testing purposes, but won?t be charged by Facebook Credits once added to the list.

Advanced ? Dashboard

The Advanced tab deals with higher level setting changes than the other sections of the dashboard. You can track when a user deauthorizes an application from having access to their profile by entering a URL for tracking purposes in the Deauthorize Callback field. As an administrator you can also enable or disable Sandbox Mode allowing only your developers the ability to sign in to the app as it?s being developed.

The Migrations subdivision gives an administrator the option to disable or enable the following functions:

• Deprecated Auth Methods according to the deprecation roadmap set by Facebook.
• Stream post URL security, which means that links in a stream post must go the app?s canvas or connect URL.
• OAuth 2.0 for Canvas, which adds a signed request parameter for canvas applications.
• Timezone-less events are when Facebook events take the time of the event from the graph API not the timezone information that it would normally pull the data from. This is for corporate Pages representing a brand?s various physical locations.
• Upgrade to Requests 2.0, which is the bookmark count representing all the number of outstanding requests from the app.
• Develop using Deprecated FBML Canvas, which allows sandbox development of FBML apps. These FBML Canvas apps cannot be taken live and are only available for testing purposes.

The Security subdivision helps protect an application from unverified server requests and illegitimate updates to the application. An administrator can block server requests from IP addresses not entered into the Server Whitelist and app setting changes from IP addresses not entered into the Update Setting IP Whitelist field. There is also the option to receive emails from Facebook whenever applications settings are changed.

Connecting your account to other Facebook advertising accounts is also an option simply by entering the email addresses used to create those accounts.

Lastly, the Advanced Canvas Features allows an administrator to Preload FQL queries as JSON-encoded post parameters directly to your app?s URL or through multiquery parameter requests. The Early Flush function serves as a place for Facebook to preload static resources for your application.

Installing the Application on your Facebook Page

Now that you know how the various functions of the dashboard work, you can begin designing customizations for your Facebook Page using HTML, CSS or whatever you find most beneficial to work with and upload them using the IFrame dashboard.

After you?ve developed, tested and finally uploaded your application now it?s time to add it to your client or company?s Facebook Page.

1. Go to your app and click Add to My Page on the left hand side navigation menu.



2. A window will pop up that lets you choose which Facebook Page you wish to add this application to by clicking Add to Page.
3. Your custom tab/application should now appear on your Facebook Page. Double-check the left hand side navigation to see if it?s visible. If not, change the order of icons visible on the menu by clicking More, then Edit and finally dragging the desired Tab to where it can be seen and accessed by users.
4. Look through your application/tab for any usability issues or errors, and correct them by editing the style sheet of your application on your website.

Related Posts

1. iFrames for Facebook Part 2: How to Track
2. The Pros and Cons of Merging Your Facebook Page and Place
3. So do you have a Facebook strategy?

by Brian Honigman | Categories: Social Media

One Response to ?iFrames for Facebook Part 1: How to Implement?

How to change parent frame title on facebook.

My example application page:
http://apps.facebook.com/autocarquotes/auto-insurance.html

How to change the window title into the last word on the url above (Auto Insurance).

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