Internet Marketing Specialist, SEO

Today, almost every webmaster knows the real value behind a link connecting to a commercial site is either avoided or nofollowed: alias “they have enough money either way”;
Internet store more often lack of “link” content (unless some store unique store of the hand or collection).
So what is the way (s)?

“Do what your competitors and just buy some links”
It has been said a lot about the advantages and disadvantages of buying a link already. So to summarize:

You have full control of the anchor text link acquisition rates, bond investment, which links and site link about power (toolbar PR for future links).

If the webmaster sold a link to you, how do you know he was smart enough to sell link in the past and not to be taken by Google? How do you know that the site is not red flag? You can test (judging by his rank, other sites, it is to link, etc.) but can never be sure.

Try other traditional link building tactics:
promote the company / founders personal history (through press releases and bloggers);
sponsor non-profit organizations;
launch a green initiative, etc.
These tactics can only work if it is managed by a person and creation. So you’ll either need to outsource or rent (and educate) specialist.

You’ll need much time to experiment with different tactics that work in your niche. Copying your competitors similar techniques are not safe to work: you will invent a way to make it work.

Be creative: Start of a link bait:
launch a widget bait;
develop (and fun) online tools or Firefox addons;
create a viral video;
start a contest or a gift;

A link bait well executed (and social media bait) will be not only more links, but will increase brand awareness, promotion of mouth and attract new customers;

Link bait is difficult to plan and predict. Attention peak in May negative feedback from the public and spread. Google take the bait on the link is not clear: you never know how he can react to a sudden increase in backlinks.

Establish an effective strategy marketing of Internet with a press release (SEO) optimized by Search Engine

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It is generally known it that the rows of Search Engine play a significant part for a Web site the ‘visibility of S. the majority of Net surfers want only glances with the enumerated sites first of a research. For this reason, to develop an effective strategy of SEO by incorporating an optimized press release is not only one need but essential while following competition and by gaining the play of Search Engine.
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Among the advantages of the press release 24-7 an optimized press release is:

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Original Copyright: Jyoti Johar & Purva Bhatia, ET Bureau http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3473850.cms

What triggers popularity with a search engine has always been elusive. You have to change how you market your website and even build it to make search engines rank it on their top page. For someone new on the scene, it can appear to be a daunting task. Here in this article we will look at the latest in SEO and SEM by starting with the site itself.

First thing is what not to do. Remember back when websites would have massive keyword lists at the bottom or top of the pages? These words were paragraphs long and didn’t make any sense at all! The human eye knew that it didn’t mean anything, but this text was designed for SEO and to trick the search engines. Sure, it worked for awhile, but now search engines are wise to our tricks. They know these paragraphs are designed only for SEO, which now will get you penalized.

Create Search Engine-Friendly Content

Simply said, make sure you put a good amount of text on your website talking to your audience, not the search engine. Search Engines can now detect if a sentence doesn’t make sense. For SEO make sure you write text for your site the same way you would speak. The trick is to make sure your keywords show up in your text about 2% of the time. If you do it too much, the search engine will know what you are up to and begin to penalize you again.

Do not use Flash or text embedded images either. Search engines ignore these things. They are very bad for SEO. For images that you do have on your sites, attaching alt image tags with a brief sentence that describes the image, using some keywords, will go far to get you points. Also use heading tags and do not try to hide keywords by making them the same color as your page. While this used to work for SEO, now it is the fastest way to get sunk to the bottom of the page. Sure, it might work for a week or two, but after that your ranking will begin to decline.

As you write your content you may notice that the longer your text gets, the harder it is to keep your keywords at the optimal amount. Some will be higher and others will be lower. Writing more only seems to lower the keywords that are having trouble!

You will want to make sure that your home page text is informative, but concise. Pick the keywords you want to target on your homepage wisely. If you have other keywords you want to focus on for SEO you may want to consider creating a landing page.

A landing page is in essence like another homepage that funnels traffic into your site. It will provide a fair bit of information with links to your main site. This way if people search for keywords not targeted on your homepage, they can still find you on the major search engines. Creating multiple landing pages for different sets of keywords is very hot right now with SEO, and it works. A good landing page doesn’t take long to generate as it should be just one page long and directly link to your site right away.

You will also want to generate a site map.

A site map, in case you’re new to this internet thing, is a page from your site that is strictly text links of your site. It is like a table of contents in a book that shows all the links that are presented on your site. Search Engines eat this up, especially the big ones. Each time you make a site map change, you can ping these search engines to re-index. That will keep your rankings fresh.

Speaking of keeping it fresh, that is another thing that is great for SEO. Make sure to update your website once a week. The changes don’t have to be big. They could be very small like changing the homepage text or posting comments on your services page. Any change will be considered as keeping your site fresh which search engines love. One of the worst things you can do for SEO is to have a stale website. No one likes outdated information and neither do search engines.

1. Analyze the Source of Traffic

The first thing that I’d highly recommend you do when you realize that one post on your blog is attracting more traffic than others is to spend some time analyzing the source of the traffic. Where it’s coming from will determine what actions you need to take next.

• Is the traffic coming from search engines? If so, you’ll want to do some SEO on the post. You should also do some analysis of what keywords people are searching for that drives them to the post.
• Is the traffic coming from social media? If so, it’ll be more temporary so you’ll want to act fast and concentrate on converting visitors to subscribers.
• Is the traffic coming from another blog or site? If so you’ll need to act quickly, concentrate on getting subscribers but also build a relationship with the other site.
• Why does the post work? - this is an important question to ask yourself, particularly if you’re looking to write more posts like it. Is it the title of the post, is it the topic, is it the voice you wrote it in?

The more information you have on where the traffic is from and why it’s landing on your post the better equipped you’ll be to decide which of the following strategies you should take next.

2. On Page SEO

If point #1 shows you that traffic is coming to the post from search engines you are in luck. Search engine traffic is wonderful because it has the potential to send your post traffic every day for years to come. However don’t just sit back and feel good about yourself - ask yourself how you can take the traffic to the next level and drive even more search engine traffic to it!

One of the things you will want to do is optimize the post for search engines even more than it already is. Obviously you’ve done something right in terms of SEO - but how can you improve it even more?

Knowing the keywords that the post is doing well for in SE’s is important here. Once you know this you can highlight them to the search engine bots by bolding them, adding them to your post to increase keyword density, adding images that have those words as their name and in alt tags, adding them in headings etc. Don’t ’stuff’ your post with the words - but finding ways to naturally build them into your post can help it rank even higher for those words.

Again - don’t over do this. You’re already ranking well so just tweak the post a little.

Read more about on page SEO at Search Engine Optimization for Bloggers.

3. Off Page SEO

The other thing you can do to attempt to boost the search engine ranking of the post is to build a few incoming links to the post. Search engines see incoming links to a page as like a ‘vote’ - the more votes the higher it’ll rank (in general).

Note: The best type of incoming links are ‘relevant’ ones (ie from sites on a similar topic) and ones with the keywords that you’re trying to rank for in the link.

The first way to get some extra incoming links to the post is to link to it from your own blog/s. Find other posts on similar topics and link to this post from them. You don’t need to link to the post from every page on your blog - but do find at least a few other posts to link up to it from.

The second way to get extra incoming links is to submit the link to other bloggers. You might do this by pulling a few favors with other bloggers or by emailing them to suggest the post might be relevant to their readers. Don’t spam people and do keep the links relevant to the sites that you’re submitting them to - but any links you get can help give the post an extra boost.

Lastly - another source of links can be social media sites that you are active on. Even just tweeting the link in a relevant way to readers can add a little Google Juice. I’ll write more on social media sites in my next point.

4. Submit it to Social Media Sites

If the traffic to your post is coming from a social media site like Digg, StumbleUpon, Reddit or Delicious you’ll need to act a little faster to optimize the post. I’ll suggest some ways to do this below - but first you might want to see if there are some ways that you can ‘help’ the post become even more viral on social media sites.

For example - if the post is on the front page of Digg there’s a chance that it could also be growing on StumbleUpon or Delicious. Check this out and vote up the post on those services. Send the links over to others to give it their vote too.

You might also like to add a link or button to the post itself if it’s doing well on social media. For example - if I notice a post is starting to build momentum on Digg I’ll add a Digg button to it. This can often be enough to tip it over the edge and onto the front page.

5. Add Options to Subscribe

This one is important whether the source of traffic is search engines, another site or social media as it focusses upon converting your new visitors to the page into ongoing readers of your blog.

When I have a ‘hot post’ I’ll often add a link to the post that says something like ‘enjoying this post - get more like it via our newsletter’ and link to a page giving the blog’s subscriptions options. These links can do very well at the end of posts.

6. Add links to the post to other pages on your blog

Drive people deeper into your blog by adding links to other pages on your site. You can do this within the content of the post itself or at the end of the post as ‘further reading’.

The key is to make the link to your best posts and to posts that are relevant in terms of content to the hot post.

7. Optimize Page Loading

Hopefully you won’t need to do this because your page will already be well optimized - but if you’re getting ALOT of traffic (for example from Digg or some other large site) your loading times might slow down - particularly if you have a lot of large files that need to load.

I learned this the first time I got on the front page of Digg on a photography related post where I had 20 large images that needed to load. The page didn’t crash but I burned through a heap of bandwidth that day and probably lost a lot of readers who got frustrated with the slow loading images.

8. Monetize the Post

Personally this is not something I do straight away as I like to work first upon converting readers into subscribers - however if you have one post with a lot of traffic it could be wise to add monetization streams to that post.

For example - if the post is doing a lot of impressions you might want to add some CPM ads to the page.

Another technique is to add relevant affiliate products to such ‘hot posts’.

I would avoid adding too many of these to hot posts as you could end up putting readers off. My personal approach is to monetize sites by converting people into regular readers and letting their continued visits to my blog make money over a longer period. Sure you might be able to earn a few extra dollars by stuffing such pages with CPM ads - but those visitors will be less likely to return in future.

9. Improve the Post

Some bloggers resist updating their blog posts - but I think it makes a lot of sense to not only add new posts to a blog but to improve old ones. I’m not just talking about editing posts for SEO benefits - but editing and adding to posts so that they become more valuable to readers.

Here’s the thing - if you’ve got a post that is attracting thousands of readers to it but it’s and ‘average’ quality post - you’ll have a lot better chance of converting readers to be loyal if the post is of an ‘excellent’ standard. So look over such hot posts and see if there are ways you can improve them.

10. Write More Posts Like it

Finally - we’re onto Keith’s question and the idea of writing more posts like the one that is ‘hot’.

I think that this is a good idea - on a number of levels.

• Extend Ideas - write an update to the post, or another one that takes the ideas to a new level.
• Related Topics - if there are other topics of a similar nature write posts on these.
• Target Other Related Keywords - write posts that target related keywords to those being searched for to find the first one.
• Similar Voice - sometimes it’s not the topic that you write that attracts people but the way you write it. For example I chatted to a blogger recently who had an avalanche of traffic to a humorous post that they’d written (the first time they’d ever written in that style). They began to write more of these types of posts and saw continued success with it.

If you write a followup or related post to the first - make sure you add a link to it on your hot post.

What Have I Missed?

In this post I’ve shared 10 things that I do to popular posts (I should say that I rarely do all of them to the one post - each will be more important in different situations) but what have I missed? What else do you to to popular posts on your blog?

1.      Increasing Conversion Rates for Landing Pages

2.      Effective Landing Pages

3.      Features and Benefits

4.      Converting Organic Leads

5.      AdWords Landing Pages

6.      Landing Page Design

7.      Value Proposition

8.      Call to Action

9.      Trust and Credibility

10. Competitors

11. Conversion and Landing Page Optimization Resources

Increasing Conversion Rates for Landing Pages

Landing pages are the first thing visitors see when they arrive yet most business web site owners put little effort into ensuring these pages generate sales leads or to understand why they aren’t generating results. Since it’s become more difficult to convert visitors this year, and because Google is adding page relevance to their AdWords quality score algorithm, more people are getting the message that landing pages need to be effective and that means a laser sharp presentation of your unique value proposition.

High rankings may be the holy grail of search engine optimization specialists however after achieving those rankings and generating significant exposure and traffic, managers still find conversion rates low. If this is your site’s problem, it represents a huge loss to your company. Customer conversion is a serious matter regardless of your traffic levels.

Too often it’s assumed that the corporate web designer or web marketing manager would have developed web pages that convert visitors to customers. Even if these people were that competent, it is very competitive today. Visitors see your competitor’s unique value offers and well-strategized conversion efforts. Your value proposition on the landing page needs to be presented well, tested, and constantly improved until you can say it is perfect.

Effective Landing Pages

A landing page is the page a visitor sees first when they visit your site. It could be your homepage via organic clickthroughs or a special page designed for Google AdWords ad clickthroughs. To go about increasing conversion rates for landing pages, you need to do a number of things. A plan of action doesn’t need to be that complicated, but you do need to be aware of the variables and test them. Anything in your landing page is a variable including:

1.      Price

2.      Slogans

3.      Sales hook line

4.      Copy

5.      Headings

6.      Bolded copy

7.      Link color

8.      Flash or video

9.      Unique benefits

10. Contrasts/comparisons with competitors’ products/services

11. Discounts

12. Availability

13. Delivery

14. Technical information

15. Testimonials

16. Guarantees

17. Free giveaways

18. Call to action

19. Graphics and buttons

20. Branding

Each variable by itself or in combination with others may influence a customer’s perception and decision. It’s important to note that the page must act as one voice – so the integration of your page is important. The wrong combination of elements or too many may kill the sale. You need to create enough ad versions and landing pages to test each one. You can do your own multivariate testing but when it gets this complicated, you may want to have someone who can devote the time to setting it up and track results.

Features and Benefits

Don’t guess or stick with your preconceptions. Begin without prejudice and let customers tell you what they like and don’t like through their clickthrough and purchase actions.

I would advise against offering freebies and discounts as an alternative to improving your value proposition. If people want a product or service, they’ll pay the going rate if they believe they’ll get the value they’re seeking. If you’re too eager to offer the discount, it sends the wrong message to your customer. Brick and mortar retailers don’t throw their top product on the bargain table. 

In seeking a service for instance, they want information and to feel confident in your company and the services you offer. There are plenty of ways to demonstrate your capabilities, authority, experience, reliability and overall value. Writing about your successes or showing successful results on your site is one way. Showing how you improved bottom line results (B2B buyers are looking for bottom line revenue results) either in terms of ROI, total revenue, or increased loyalty and usage is good too. Product consumers like to see reviews, specs, compatibility info, testimonials citing detailed product use, and brand names and logos.

Not many corporations take the time to experiment with different value offers on their sites. The climate in most businesses is conservative so running different ads to test for effects is difficult. There are legal and marketing reasons why certain things can’t be stated in isolation or a part of an offer emphasized. However, if there is no testing of an ad or landing page, there is no way you can know what is working and what is causing problems. You need to isolate these factors in a variety of pages and see which pages and advertisements work best.

Converting Organic Leads

Those visitors landing on your homepage or deeper into your site, arrive with different expectations. You should be aware of what they’re seeing on the search engine listings and then what they see on your landing page. If that page isn’t successful at converting, then try to distract or divert them to another page (specially designed) that can better portray your value offer and get them to take action.

The content on your usual web pages may be geared more to search engine optimization needs. That’s fine. Rankings are critical and should never be taken for granted. A good designer knows SEO copy has its limitations and that graphics can save the day. Simply insert graphics, perhaps Flash or video in that page, and that will take the visitor to the place you want them - to your order page. Your job is to make your visitors feel good. So move them to page where that can be done. Go over the path or conversion funnel and examine where you might be losing them.

AdWords Landing Pages

Besides testing different ad copy on your AdWords ads, you need to test different landing pages. Few advertisers put effort into testing different landing pages, but that page is essential to success.  When you’re paying $2 to $20 a click, you’d better find out what works before you’ve lost your whole year’s budget. And don’t think that doesn’t happen with regularity. Google is a trillion dollar company, probably because advertisers don’t conduct conversion improvement practices.

Landing Page Design

You must ensure there are no distractions when visitors arrive. The value proposition needs to be clear whether it’s stated directly or implied through your headings, copy and graphics. If they’re looking for a particular product, let’s say an MP4 player or cell phone accessory, make sure there’s a quality picture of it along with a heading. Keywords attract visitors so don’t be shy of using them on the landing page. If it’s your homepage ensure your top producing keywords are there. What should the heading say? I’d advise key feature + keyword phrase. The heading’s purpose is to get them to read the copy, and the copy moves them to some product information and that leads them to the order page or contact page.

If you have menus all over the page, get rid of them. Strip that page down so there are no distractions or things might lead them to doubts or information that dilutes your value proposition. At this point, they are looking for reasons to doubt their own judgment and needs. They’re testing their purchase resolve and dealing with something called dissonance. Keep their doubts at bay and they’ll follow through with contact or a purchase.

If a person wants to dig through your content, then let them. Those people may not be the best prospects since they’re too uncertain or analytical. However, after they drill down and find the detail they need, they may come back to your original landing page or homepage to get a final feel for your company, before making contact or buying.

Use of white space is a psychological factor that helps visitors focus on your important statements and product/service benefits. Use white space to frame your key funnel cues. Good use of white space relaxes the visitor and keeps them focused on the key parts of your value proposition. The conversion funnel includes graphics, buttons, text links, paragraphs and placement on the page. So see them as the skeleton that everything else revolves around. Don’t use too much white space and have links within the copy. This is more sincere and flows well. Too much white space can generate distrust or uncertainty.

Eye tracking studies have shown most people look to the upper left first on a page, so it makes sense to have your important product pictures and selling proposition there, and then next to it to the right, your call to action. Those prospects coming from an AdWords clickthrough are more likely to buy right away. Those from organic clickthroughs may be in early stages of the purchase cycle and need a little more information. Try to keep these two types of visitors on separate tracks.

Graphics are important, from color to clarity. I’ve advised clients numerous times to make their graphics sharp. No jpeg blurs allowed. Graphics should reflect positive associations with the product. For a hotel, it should be outdoor shots that reflect what travelers are really excited about for their trip. I’ve advised this on a hotel site and the improvements have been dramatic - a real brand improvement.

If you’re selling mountain bikes for instance, nice clear photos of the bike itself, a shot of riders on a mountain trail, and one of the bike strapped on an SUV or car, will say everything most mountain bikers want to see. All mountain bikers aren’t the same however. Trail riders should get one special page for their interests, extreme downhill riders another, and trick bikers should have yet another unique landing page.

Don’t be too slick with your landing page. If it doesn’t come across as natural, they won’t trust it, particularly when you’re selling a high involvement product/service. The human element needs to be integrated.

There’s no rule on bounce rates. The more search engine traffic you’re generating, the higher your bounce rates will be. When you cast a wider net, you’re attracting unqualified visitors. If your bounce rate is above 50% for most of your pages, then you’re not targeting the right traffic and your SEO keyword strategy may need an overhaul.

Value Proposition

Your value proposition is your communication, however you choose to express it. It‘s about what differentiates you and your product from competitor’s offerings. You may want to list the key benefits the visitors want, and then emphasize those benefits where yours is superior or that the competition doesn’t possess. Although your value proposition here short and direct, it is how you write it that makes it appear saturated with value. Yes, the key features are critical, but all your benefits may need to be touched on somewhere in the page. After reading your copy, they should be thinking “this is a great offer.”

Call to Action

What is it specifically you want your visitors to do? Your call to action is the encouragement and impetus for them to do it. Buy now isn’t much of a call to action anymore than “click here” is. The action is supported by a good reason for doing it.

Your call to action should use verbs and compel them to contact you or buy the product right now. Statements such as; Try it risk free for 30 days and you’ll see the difference, or Call us now for a risk free trial offer, or, Order right now and receive a 20% discount and free shipping may work, however each site has its own circumstances. Don’t go overboard on the direct sales ad copy, but definitely spur them to take action. An order button should be a comfortable size and color. Huge buttons are a turn off that makes the customer feel foolish and impulsive.  A lack of buttons for buying products suggests you’re not even willing to sell the product. Choose your buttons wisely by seeing what successful web sites are using.

Trust and Credibility

Trust and credibility are important to consumers who want to know that your products and services are top notch. Your brand should always project a leadership position that suggests that success is guaranteed. Listing satisfied customers and their testimonial may help, but consumers know these are often made up or are not objective contributions. They may actually backfire if you use the wrong kind of testimonial. The overall brand you project comes from everything they see.

Your web site design, copy, and the presence of reviews of your site and products will help to make consumers more comfortable about your business. Being an authorized supplier or service operator for a major manufacturer can register credibility. Most times, trust comes from the quality of your copy and the integrity of your communications. That will at least generate a lead or phone call if you’re a service business. If you have very limited copy and information on your site, that is red flag for customers. With no transparency, only gamblers will buy your product.

If you’ve been using regular web pages to act as important landing pages for specific types of customers or inquiries, you’re likely not converting well. Visualize a typical visitor and what they need. Work on your landing pages until they resonate with what that specific customer is looking for, and position your unique value proposition so that there is no doubt that you are the best supplier.

Competitors

Examine your competition and evaluate their value proposition. It may be emotional or intellectual, and although their value offer may have better individual elements such as brand power, price, credibility, and after sales support, you can still beat them by capturing the customer with your well-crafted and synchronized landing page. If brand power is the most important element, then consider your brand image and how your landing page gets that brand message across. If their price is better, tell a story about a customer who used the lower price service/product and didn’t get the results they were looking for. If they can beat you in the moment with a better offer, then project your value offer over a greater time period, and respond quicker to their request.

Whatever your competitor’s strengths, assess them accurately and build a believable value proposition to gain the advantage. Every product or company has a downside to exploit therefore your product/service can shine in comparison. Your landing page may be your saving grace in an ultra-competitive online marketplace. Start making improvements right now.

Conversion and Landing Page Optimization Resources

There are a number of good reading resources and although some may be confusing and cluttered with technical jargon, they will give you ideas on assessing your site’s conversion funnel, and on how to improve your conversion rates. They can’t do your thinking and strategy for you, but it can increase your awareness of what needs to be done.