Mediative recently published the results of their latest eye-tracking study where they zeroed in on how users interact with Google search results pages (SERPs) in an effort to identify real opportunities for SEO, PPC and branding especially as it relates to click-through rates. What they found is enlightening and corresponds to what I’m seeing with some of my clients.
Some of you remember the 2005 study known as the Golden Triangle heat map displaying how users interacted with Google SERPs, but people don’t interact with SERPs in the same way today.
Conversion is the fervent goal of every web marketer. Anyone who claims otherwise has either gotten his job description wrong or has too much money to burn.
While working hard towards improving conversion rates of existing websites and landing pages is one thing, it’s a lot better to get things right the first time. Build it right and the results will follow.
This is especially true in the case of a landing page – a single page that carries the responsibility of converting all your advertising dollars into actual revenue – the last runner in the marketing relay race.
Believe it or not, all of these figures were named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year at some time or another. In 2006, the publication named YOU as its annual choice, to reflect the rise of individual content creator on the internet.
In my last post I went into some detail about the SEO problem businesses slip into when using outsourced copywriters for much of their web content. I call them inorganic copywriters because they often have no idea what makes the business really valuable simply because they are not on the inside.
Organic search results are unpaid – the kind everyone craves – and organic SEO means the practice of gaining rank in the natural search results. But today I am suggesting that there is a deeper meaning to organic SEO that is much closer to organic growth – growth from within the organization that results in more productivity and sales.
In an ideal business, effective SEO and online marketing takes place when the people within the organization take ownership of the project. You may have heard of those companies whose people enjoy their jobs, work well together and when they decide to do something together, it gets done!
In the vein of Jeff Foxworthy’s “You might be a redneck,” – you might be a Business owner who hates marketing (Bowhm). Ok, maybe I’m being a bit extreme and you’re really a business leader who is uncomfortable with marketing (bowiuwm), but that acronym doesn’t roll off the tongue like Bowhm does (pronounced boyeem).
If you are cold, calculated and don’t have an empathetic bone in your body, you might be a Bowhm…
Ever had an anti-computer or anti-technology moment? I had one recently when a program I was using “hijacked” my computer and stalled my progress for a few seconds – very annoying!
But some people are in a perpetual anti-technology moment when it comes to marketing their business online. They feel like it is a necessary thing to do today but seem to be annoyed by it all.
Last year a colleague of mine and I put on a SEO Bootcamp where we covered many different topics from beginner level to pro. One of my topics was optimizing content for conversions. Here’s a video snippet of that piece (the audio isn’t great but adequate):
People love to be wowed perhaps because it catches us by surprise or because it’s rare to behold one totally dedicated to the skill of his/her craft or because we are overwhelmed by the raw passion displayed or because it inspires us to pursue one’s dreams because they are worth the hard work and long wait despite all the naysayers and resistance.
Are you leaving money on the table with your current thank you page? By the end of this post, you should have at least one way to immediately improve your thank you page.
Every Spring for the past three years Google has rolled out a big algo change that “washes” away the unnatural search results from their index. Spring of 2013 brought Penguin 2.0 and a summer full of updates. Spring of ‘12 brought Penguin. Spring of ‘11 brought Panda (technically that was late February but it nearly fits my scheme here). What does Google have for us this Spring?
If you were enjoying good search rankings before any of these updates, but then noticed a big drop afterward, it’s likely that you have not fully recovered yet. And I hate to say this, it’s also unlikely that your site will ever get back to where it was in terms of rankings and traffic from Google.
Transformation can come to a business when their content goes up a level. This is especially true for businesses who must be viewed as authoritative by their prospects or possess expertise during the sales cycle.
You know what happens when a prospect starts asking good questions; it’s like the hunt to get all the details before putting any money down. Here are some ways to evoke the hunt in your prospects.
Credibility should be the pursuit of every business not only for its monetary rewards but also because it is good to pursue and the mark of being the best. The problem is that some businesses do not pursue such high qualities or standards and therefore may not enjoy the same rewards. This post is for those who want to pursue genuine online credibility. Continue reading “Four Secrets To Online Credibility”
Use this content marketing guide to visualize how your ideal prospect wants to engage with your business through content that naturally leads her to take action.
There are a number of ways to conceptualize how content marketing captures the attention of your ideal prospect, builds interest in your business and converts them into a customer: AIDA (attention, interest, desire, action), New Marketing Funnel (awareness, consideration, conversion, loyalty, advocacy). Chose a marketing funnel concept that works for you.
KPIs come from asking the right questions before looking at the data or analytics. Otherwise, you can get overwhelmed with all of the interesting pie charts, graphs and tables and waste time. So, before delving in consider a good business question.
Btw, these questions came from Avinash Kaushik years ago. I use them to quickly evaluate the performance of a website over any given period of time (not just at year end). And I’m going to interpret these time tested questions as we know the world today.
For most businesses there are two types of content to focus on: content that gets a decision (service and product pages) and content that gets shared (blog posts, white papers, etc.) It’s the latter type that I’ll be focusing on in this post.
This type of content is designed to intrigue your target audience (prospects) so that they want to share it with their friends and followers.
Organic search results are unpaid – the kind everyone craves – and organic SEO means the practice of gaining rank in the natural search results. But today I am suggesting that there is a deeper meaning to organic SEO that is much closer to organic growth – growth from within the organization that results in more productivity and sales.
Ever had an anti-computer or anti-technology moment? I had one recently when a program I was using “hijacked” my computer and stalled my progress for a few seconds – very annoying!
Every Spring for the past three years Google has rolled out a big algo change that “washes” away the unnatural search results from their index. Spring of 2013 brought Penguin 2.0 and a summer full of updates. Spring of ‘12 brought Penguin. Spring of ‘11 brought Panda (technically that was late February but it nearly fits my scheme here). What does Google have for us this Spring?
Transformation can come to a business when their content goes up a level. This is especially true for businesses who must be viewed as authoritative by their prospects or possess expertise during the sales cycle.
For most businesses there are two types of content to focus on: content that gets a decision (service and product pages) and content that gets shared (blog posts, white papers, etc.) It’s the latter type that I’ll be focusing on in this post.
