Archive for the ‘content’ category
Internet Marketing: Conversion Strategies for Turning Visitors into Customers
You put a lot of work into getting people to your web site – search engine optimization, pay-per-click, content creation – but it doesn’t mean much if you are not able to convert traffic into customers. Following are a few tips for improving your conversions.
Make it easy for the visitor to convert
Make it very easy to do whatever it is you want your web site visitor to do. If you want her to fill out a form, make the form easy to find and don’t ask for too much information. This is another area where testing can help you find the best way to do things. For example, you could create two different landing pages with different forms, and then use pay-per-click ads to drive traffic to those two pages. Your analytics (discussed later) will then tell you which one converted better. You will then know with great confidence which of the two forms works better.
Get the visitor involved
You want to draw visitor into your web site and get him involved. Get them clicking, selecting and typing. Devices such as text boxes, radio buttons, check boxes and dropdown lists cause your visitors to interact with your web site. The more they interact, the more likely they are to engage in some kind of conversion event. Even if it’s simply getting their email address, that is far, far better than their leaving with no conversion event at all.
Tell the visitor exactly what to do
Don’t assume anything! Give your visitors specific instructions on how to go about ordering, subscribing, contacting you, or whatever action you want them to perform. If they need to click the big red button, tell them to click the big red button. And despite what you may have heard, there is nothing wrong with a link that says “Click here”. Research has shown that those types of links actually have higher click-through rates. Don’t worry about insulting your visitors’ intelligence. You won’t. It is much safer to design for the lowest common denominator – those with little web surfing experience who need specific, step-by-step instructions.
If you need some help converting your web site visitors into customers, contact Work Media at 888-299-4837 or info@workmedia.net.
Internet Marketing Advice: Market Every Day
Dan Kennedy has a piece of marketing advice that I really like, and that I try to adhere to every day (actually, Kennedy has many pearls of wisdom), that goes something like this:
Do something every day to put prospects in the pipeline.
In other words, do some kind of promotion every day to bring business. It could be:
- Make a blog post
- Send an email
- Write an article
- Send a newsletter
These are just a few examples. Unless it’s a day where you are determined not to do any kind of work, don’t rest your head at night until you have done SOMETHING to bring in business. Work Media really likes the approach of blogging every day. It creates lots of original content, helps our search engine rankings, and helps get our name out to the world. If we at least make a blog post, then we have made some kind of little effort in the name of marketing.
Which is why, as on many nights, this post is being made at just a little before 11:00 PM. It might be bed time…but we’re still promoting.
Eyeballing Your Web Site for Search Engine Optimization
Even if you don’t know a thing about HTML, you can at least partially optimize the pages of your Web site by “eyeballing” them and passing the suggestions along to your web designer (or doing them yourself if you have that ability). Here are some tips to get you started (these tips assume you already have some idea of keywords you need to target):
- Does the web page have a keyword-loaded title?
- Does the keyword have a keyword-loaded header? A lot of un-optimized web sites have a header that says something like “Welcome to my web site!”. Scrap that and replace it with a header that instead uses your keywords.
- Does your web page copy use your keywords and are the keywords used near the top of the page?
- Is the web site copy easy on the eyes? Copy on a web page is much more difficult to read than words on paper, so you should break the copy up into short paragraphs and use lots of bullet points, along with occasional bold text, italics, etc. And use dark text on a light background.
- Does your front page have some kind of call to action? You should try to get the Web reader to read more, sign up for your newsletter, read your blog, or whatever would further your objective.
- Is the web design clean and uncluttered? Is the site easy to navigate?
- Think from your customers’ perspective. Are you giving them what they need? If you don’t know what they need, you should find out by asking or doing surveys.
These suggestions have nothing to do with keyword density or anything like that. They simply relate to making sure your web site is easy to read, easy to use, and tries to get your visitors to perform some specific action.
For help optimizing your web site, contact Work Media at info@workmedia.net or 888-299-4837.
Online Press Releases – Immediate Traffic Generators
Unlike the real world, where doing press releases is a slow, laborious process, in the on-line world, sending a single press release can result in extremely wide distribution and almost immediate feedback. The first key is to use a press release distribution service such as PRWeb. PRWeb already has a huge network of writers, editors, webmasters, bloggers, etc. who voluntarily receive press releases. You can also have the press release injected directly into search engine news results.
One powerful aspect of online press releases is how fast your information is distributed. Upon sending a press release, your information could appear on news-oriented web sites in 48 hours or less. These sites will now link back to your site. Also, if you use keywords in your press release, you could quickly achieve high search engine rankings for those keywords. In a 48 hour period you could create hundreds of new, keyword-loaded links pointing back to your site.
You need to take great care when composing your press release. You need to think in terms of both compelling, interesting copy, and of search engine optimization. Use your keywords as near to the top of your copy as possible, and use them as often as possible without sounding spammy. If your press release contains a strong call to action, that is even better. You want to compell readers of the press release to visit your web site for more information.
We will be talking more about using online press releases in future blogs. For help implementing an online PR campaign for your business, contact Work Media at workmedia.net or 888-299-4837.
Integrating Your Blog Into Your Web Site
The whole point of your Internet marketing campaign is to drive people to your web site and then get them to do something: buy your product, fill out a form, call you, whatever. The more traffic you can drive to your site, the better your chances of achieving your web site goal. So everything you do should be for the purpose of driving traffic to your site.
If you have a blog that is separate from your web site, you are splitting your efforts. Your blog should be part of your web site. Your blog can be used to feed content throughout your site. This can be accomplished by specifically tagging your posts and then using your own RSS feed to feed content to different sections of your web site. Using the Work Media web site as an example, our page about Pay-Per-Click Marketing features snippets of blog posts that have been tagged “pay-per-click”. As a result, every time we update our blog, we create new content that gets spread throughout our web site. And you know search engines love content that changes often.
The same effect could be achieved with a blog that was hosted with your blogging service (such as blogger.com) or at a separate domain, but you weaken your branding effort. Readers of your blog won’t see your domain name in the browser window. They may not even see the connection between your blog and your web site. You should set your blog template to look as much like the rest of your web site as possible. Think “branding”.
Contact Work Media for help implementing your blog marketing campaign at info@workmedia.net or 888-299-4837.