Every landing page should be a reflection of what you know about your customer and provide what they need to know to make a buying decision. Landing pages are companion pages to your ads but they are also valuable little tools that can make or break your online advertising success. This post presents the 6 rules of creating powerful landing pages (more…)
Landing pages are a VITAL part of your Online Marketing strategy. They are mostly used for PPC – and if you’re really savvy you’ll have a Landing Page for every ad group.
In 2008, Eric Schmidt let slip that Google would use brands as a signal to clean up the “internet cesspool.
SEOs ears twitched.
Quoted by CNET at the time:
Web crawlers aren’t particularly good at making judgments about the truthfulness of digital matter, and the wisdom of the crowd can’t keep up with the river of data streaming online. Schmidt gave the magazine publishers hope for their future. Brands, he said, are the way to rise above the cesspool…
Schmidt was talking to magazine executives who were concerned about competition they faced from low-cost publishers, like you and me 🙂
Whilst we can’t know exactly what aspects Google’s algorithms will reward, it’s not difficult to see brand factors becoming increasingly influential in search results, both directly and indirectly. Schmidt may be talking about a level of authority that the brand possesses, so is therefore trusted as an “editor”, but there may be something else going on, too.
It might also be a question of clear subject/topic focus.
If your site has a very clear focus, in terms of brand identity, a number of search and social media benefits naturally follow. On-topic linking, context, and more. I’ll discuss this shortly.
A brand is more than a name, graphic or logo. A brand is everything you do, from the way your position yourself in the market, to how you answer your emails. Brand is the total sum experience you offer.
It’s also a collection of keyword terms people naturally associate with you and your site.
Whilst it is expensive to create a national or international brand, you can create well-known brands in niches. Consider Amazon, WSI and SEOMoz. Those brand identities are clear, and I’m sure that a number of unique qualities for each brand springs to mind when those names are mentioned.
Philip Kotler, Professor of International Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management, identified the steps to developing a brand. Amongst those steps were:
This sounds like marketing guff, but what does it mean in practice?
The Value Proposition
No one can be good at everything – there isn’t enough time and resources – so what is the one thing you are really good at? Is this a value people are willing to pay for?
Broad Positioning
Kotler identifies three alternatives:
Which one are you?
It’s possible that a business can be all three, but such generalist businesses tend to be outgunned by businesses that are superior in one way. For example, Versace *could* do cheap items, but it would compromise their focus and confuse their brand identity, which equates to luxury.
Here’s how to translate these brand ideas into an SEO advantage.
The business owner would be suited to providing “SEO services in Johannesburg”, presumably by virtue of their location, contacts, focus and experience.
The broad positioning would be “niche”.
A catchphrase/byline may emphasize regionalism, locality and accessibility for clients located in Johannesburg. The terminology used in the copy should reflect this niche approach – again, use words and phrases associated with both the service and the locality.
When people link to such a site, they would naturally use terms that reflect locality, because it’s an intrinsic part of the brand identity the owner has established. When people talk about this business on Twitter/Facebook etc, they will hopefully use the terms consistent with the brand identity. Whenever people talk about your site in a certain way, Google will surely follow.
All the ducks are lined up. Business focus, keyword text, link text and the frame of reference in which people can talk about the business. Simple, right? But how many sites lack this type of focus, and thus miss out on keyword associations?
Brand can also be about personality.
When brands get keyword-rich links, without having to ask. It’s hard to not link to Amazon without using the term SEO. Whenever people talk about them, people will naturally use search terminology in the same breath – in their keyword copy, link text and so on, which all flows through into SEO advantages. This benefits flows from having a tight brand identity.
The alternative is to be all things to all people, and this doesn’t work so well in 2010, either online or off. There’s just too much noise.
Building a brand is about building a a clear and established identity, and in terms of SEO, it’s about being associated with a specific list of keyword terms relating to that identity.
Could you sum up your brand identity as a list of keyword terms?
The online world has changed our methods of doing things in the last couple of years. What most likely took a phone call a few years ago, can now be done on the web instantly as a wealth of information is available to everyone.
The internet is the greatest and biggest marketplace in the world. Businesses starting out as well as large global businesses needs to have a presence on the web.
Internet marketing is much more effective cost wise than traditional marketing. Don’t get me wrong, traditional marketing is still a great way for brand publishing. Internet marketing can provide so much more than just letting people know about your business. With internet marketing you can get targeted visitors, sales leads, etc. And the power of it is that you can track every penny that you spend on it directly.
Many businesses have reduced their marketing budgets and used the remaining dollars to invest into new websites, ppc (pay-per-click), blogging and social media marketing. They do this so that they can track their money spent into sales money.
Online marketing is expected to grow by 21% annually through to 2012. Compare this to traditional marketing where advertising revenues are expected to decrease by 1.4% annually over the same period. This indicates that more and more businesses are realising the potential of internet marketing.
The internet is all about information. A successful website gives the visitor exactly what they are looking for. It answers their questions right away and gives them a means to take action.
A website is a powerful marketing tool that allows you to present your message to targeted customers. Your customers will judge your company on the strength of your message and the uniqueness of your content. It should build credibility and trust to encourage action.
Internet marketing is where a business is putting their focus for the future. The internet is ever evolving so it is a right choice staying ahead of the competition. We are in a digital age transitioning from traditional marketing.
Much has been written about online marketing, whether it is search engine marketing, content marketing, PPC, social media or viral videos. Much of it is also written about on-site factors — design, usability, conversion optimisation and so on.
But, maybe more should be written about the journey that a user must make from the marketing channel they interact with to the final destination: the conversion page on the website.
This journey must be as seamless as possible, lubricated with carefully strategised copy and design. The more seamless the journey, the higher the conversion rates.
Step 1: The Arena
Marketing materials have to exist somewhere. When online, they must exist, for example, on a search engine results page, on a Google ad, on Face book and Twitter, or in a viral video. Every arena has different qualities, and the people in the arenas are in different frames of mind.
A person using a search engine is actively looking for something specific and searches using specific key words. Someone viewing a viral video or slide share is in recreational mode, expecting to be amused, and happy to flit from site-to-site.
Advertising needs to fit well with the arena it is being displayed in. The act of viewing and absorbing a certain marketing message must be seamless for users in any given arena.
Step 2: The Marketing Message
Why does a specific bit of online marketing appeal to someone? In the first place it grabs attention somehow. It might be the use of copy, colour, or animation, but it has to make someone focus on it at the expense of all the other things going on in the web browser.
Once the attention is grabbed, the marketing message is delivered. The message is usually a promise. It might not be explicit, but at least implicitly, marketing of all kinds promises the viewer something – a product, a price, a service – some specific result that will now be expected. .
You need to be absolutely clear about what you are promising, because if your message is compelling enough then next up comes…
Step 3: The Click
It really often is one click from marketing message to website (e.g. in the case of Search Engine Marketing), but of course sometimes there is a slightly longer process. With social media and viral strategies the marketing message is usually contained in another website or service, such as Twitter, Facebook or YouTube.
Your potential customer might need to browse around a Facebook fan page a little before following a link to your website, or navigate from Tweet to Tweet, honing in on one of your URLs.
This is perhaps the most important step as far as this article is concerned. The point at which the user transitions from having just absorbed your marketing message, to landing at some page on your website.
This landing page may be under your control (with paid search for example) or not (an organic search result). It is crucial to ensure that no matter what the landing page, the promise made in the marketing message is delivered upon.
If the actual promise cannot be delivered upon in every page, it must be completely obvious to the user that the delivery of that promise is just a click or two away.
We know that recognition is a brain function that can be worked with successfully in online marketing, and it is no different here. If possible, the exact wording of the marketing message should be echoed on the landing page, and the same goes for any graphics, design elements and colour schemes too.
This seamlessness signals to the user that she is getting just what she is looking for — there is no need to stop and wonder if she is on the right track.
The Final Destination
So hopefully by now your user is sliding effortlessly into your shopping cart, lead-generation page, or whatever it might be. Even at this stage it is still important to pay attention to the seamlessness of the user’s journey.
From one page to the next, it must be clear that your marketing promise is being fulfilled.
It doesn’t hurt to even remind your users on the confirmation page that you have made good on your marketing promise, using the same language, phrases and graphics.
It is just like the old preachers used to say: “Tell them what you are going to tell them… tell them… then tell them that you’ve told them”.
To get a constant stream of unique visitors to a website is the ultimate goal in any internet marketing strategy. No matter how professional the design of the website is or how well it converts visitors into buyers, it is useless if no one finds your website.
Before you start with the designing and development of your website, you must also decide on the best strategy to bring visitors to your new website.