In organic, (natural) search engine optimization, there are several factors that contribute to the ranking for a search term. Each search engine provider has their own unique set of criteria that they use to determine which web site is most relevant for that specific term. The factors that are used to determine search engine rankings are then calculated by a complex search engine algorithm.

Due to the high amount of targeted customer traffic that stands to be gained by a web site that has a top-ranked position in the search engines, the search providers keep the details of the factors which make up their algorithm a closely guarded secret.

Even though the search providers are careful with the exact formula that they use to gauge the rankings of web sites, there have been several constants discovered that when applied, produce favorable results.

Keywords – Content without Keywords = Website without Traffic

Keywords are at the center of any effective search engine optimization campaign. The basic rule of thumb in search engine optimization is that content is king. So, it is important to base all the content of a web site on accurate and informative content.

The first thing to perform in an optimization campaign is keyword research. To find the search terms that are generating traffic for the topic that you want to rank for, you need to determine what the internet users are searching for. This may be accomplished by several different means however the most common way is to use a keyword selector tool.

There are several different keyword tools that may be used. The one tool that was the industry standard for quite a while was the Overture keyword selector tool which, as of January 07′, has been retired . The data in the Overture database still remains available for historical data, but is no longer being publicly updated by Yahoo!, the company that now owns the service.

There are however several other keyword tools that may be used. Some free and some available for purchase or subscription based service.

• Free: SEO Book keyword suggestion tool:
  
  (http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/)
• Free: Google AdWords keyword suggestion tool:
  (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)
• Various prices: Keyword Discovery:
  
  (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/)

You Have to do your Homework – Keyword Research

There are few things to keep in mind before starting keyword research. The fact is that you will probably not be able to rank for a very competitive single-word search term like “money” or “cars”. For that matter, there are many two-word search terms, like “real estate”, that you will not be able to rank for either. So, in order to achieve rankings for your site with a subject like real estate, you have to look for related terms that will allow you to obtain a high position and yet not be too obscure so that you will still be attracting relevant traffic. For instance, you might try ranking for the search term “South Florida Real Estate Agency”, or “South Florida Real Estate Brokers”.

In order to determine the best search terms to use on content pages, I generally make a spreadsheet based on the topics that I feel are of most relevance.

There is an instructional Video I Created on “Search Engine Optimization Keyword Research”, over in You Tube … (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lw1es477LI)

The research phase is generally considered a very crucial part of the campaign because if the keyword terms that you choose are not searched for by internet users or if there are too many pages indexed in the search engines for that specific search phrase, your chances of achieving decent ranking results are very low.

There are some SEO’s that suggest that every page on a web site should be based on a keyword. This strategy may produce a high amount of pages that rank well in the SERP’s. However, the other side to that is sacrificing quality and readability. It may be difficult for a potential customer to perceive a web site as an authority or as a respectable source of information, if that web site has a directory structure that appears to be nothing more than a group of phrases. Moreover, it is very important to maintain a level of simplicity in the navigation and layout of a web site so that when a visitor comes to the site they may quickly identify the areas that would be of interest to them.

If a visitor is trying to determine which link on the navigation is relevant to their search and is only provided a selection of keyword-driven entry page links, the site may elicit a response of being shallow, which could in turn damage the reputation of the site.

As a good rule of thumb, it is suggested to have at least three, and no more than ten, keyword-driven content pages for every topic that you are attempting to rank for.

More Keyword Stuff? Oh Yes! … Keyword and Keyword Phrase Usage

After you have performed your keyword research for the topics that you want to target, there are some considerations that need to be addressed before actually sitting down to start writing. One of the key concepts that many successful SEO’s tend to focus heavily on is keyword or keyword phrase density.

Keyword density is the measurement of how many times a given keyword or keyword phrase is used in the entire body of the page. For instance, if your web page contains 500 words on the page, and your keyword or keyword phrase is used 10 times, you would have a density of 2%.If the keyword density is too high, the search engine algorithm may consider the results to be search engine spamming which in worst case scenarios, can have your site banned from the search engines. If on the other hand, the keyword density is too low, the page will not rank for the search term. Seeing that there are fairly severe consequences for creating a web page with a keyword density that is too high, it is generally suggested to air on the side of caution and limit your density to “safe” levels.

Though keyword density is a very controversial subject, I have found that keyword densities are relatively safe between 3% and 6%. However, you should keep in mind that algorithms may also consider an overall density of keyword usage for the whole site as well as for individual pages. If you have ten pages that use the keyword “real estate” at a density rate of 5 %, and those pages comprise half the pages on the site, then the site ratio for that keyword just jumped to 12.5 % which is not good.* (5% x 10 pages = 50% / 2 (half the pages)) = 12.5%
Keyword density should be used primarily as a gauge to determine if you have your search term either enough, or not enough times on a page, and should only be used as a gauge.

There are many other factors that contribute to ranking and density is really just a useful tool that can assist you in creating a good balance of keyword rich content. Keyword density alone will not produce search engine rankings.

*There is no evidence which suggests that search engines are calculating results based on total web site keyword density. However, many SEO’s consider total density to be an important factor to measure.

In Real Estate – It’s Location, Location, Location – In SEO – It’s Content, Content, Content

In search engine optimization, content CAN determine your location in the search engine results pages. Web sites that have a high quantity of quality content, naturally appeal to internet users. But, it is not the quality of the content itself that contributes to rankings – it’s the keywords in the content.

Most internet users are searching for informative articles regarding the subject matter that they are searching for. So, it is only natural that if a web site contains information that the user finds authoritative and informative, they will be encouraged to have confidence in the views, opinions, and suggestions that may be implied from the content. However, if a web site has very little or poor quality content that does not express a level of confidence in the consumer, they are most likely going to return to the SERPs’ to search for information that they find confidence in.

Many people that are involved in the creation of web content have a misguided belief that if the content on the site is good, the site will rank well based solely on the quality of the content. This is simply not true. Though good content is paramount to a search engine optimization campaign, the quality of the content has little if any significance in search engine rankings. Again, the quality of the content is not what contributes to rankings – it’s the keywords in the content.

So, you may be wondering, “If content is king why doesn’t that equate to rankings?” The answer is quite simple – the search engine algorithm.
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

The search engines give relevance to content on a web site based on the factors in their algorithm, not the quality of the content. So to achieve rankings, it is necessary to understand what the search engine considers as relevant. Not what you or I consider as relevant.

To answer the question that’s on the fringes of your subconscious … it’s the keywords in the content.

How to Put it All Together – Web Pages for the Search Engines

In order to achieve search engine rankings for your web site, there are two things that are necessary.

First, you have to have keywords that internet users are searching for which;

1. There are not too many pages in the search engine index for …
2. You need to have good keyword rich content that is created following your own keyword / phrase density levels.

The third part of the process is based on creating the content in a manner that will produce effective results. One of the first matters at hand is the amount of text that should be used. I recommend keeping the length smaller and adding more pages because search engine robots have been noted as only crawling to a depth of around the first 100 – 150 words.

Personally, I write my pages anywhere between 400 and 600 words in length and sometimes a bit longer. But the basic logic here is this: The more pages that you have, the more crawlable content you have. So, the answer is to simply create more small-sized pages. Furthermore, robots seem to crawl and index lightweight pages better. So, it might be wise to keep the page size rather low by limiting the amount of words, and especially the amount of images that you use on a web page.

Note however, that there really isn’t an ideal page size because different search engines index at a varying rate of depth and page weight. For instance, Yahoo! doesn’t typically index pages that are over 200KB. Google on the other hand, finds pages that are between 500 to 550 KB as “preferable” with regards to page weight.

When creating the content there are some very important guidelines that need to be considered as well. The placement of your keywords on your web page should be at the top of the page since the prime real estate for the robots are the first one hundred words or so. I generally like to follow a self-guided rule of writing the keyword or keyword phrase with in the first two opening sentences.

After that, I follow a formatting technique which tends to elicit excellent results for me, which is:

• Paragraph
• Call-to-action
• Intro-bullet list
• Paragraph
• Paragraph
• Call-to-action
• Closing

This simple format has several powerful elements that contribute to optimization here. The key to using this format successfully is the positioning of the first three elements; the paragraph, call-to-action, bullet list. The use of this combination supports:

1. The creation of keyword or keyword phrases in the first few sentences of the opening paragraph.
2. The ability to create keyword or keyword phrase based links in the Call-to-Action.
3. Many more keyword linking opportunities and supporting topics in the bullet list.

Web pages that are created with this format and use relevant search terms in the bullet list have a tendency to rank for the content in the bullet list as keyword stems on the main keyword.

Oh Boy! Let’s work on In-Page Optimization

So now we come to the point where we start to look at the implications of actual HTML – web page creation. There are several key areas that are important to proceed carefully at when creating an optimization based web site. The first matter is deal with how the Meta tags are used.

There are three main Meta tags that are relative to the creation of optimized web pages.
The first, and with out a doubt the most important is the Meta Title tag. The Title tag should contain the keyword or keyword phrase and any relevant stems provided that the quantity of the entire title is within an acceptable character count. As with many areas of SEO / SEM, there are many opinions on how many characters should or should not be included in the Title tag. I normally stay between 50 to 60 characters when I am performing optimization on a site for a client. However, I will sometimes push the envelope if I am working on a site for which I am the only liable party. In short, if you use too many characters / words – the site may be penalized for “spamming” the search engines.

The next tag which I believe to be equally as important in an antecedent and consequent sort of way, is the Meta description tag. I feel that this tag is highly underrated and requires some consideration. The Meta Description tag works very much as a support to the Meta title tag and if it is created properly, can offer several opportunities to add keyword relevance and / or stems that may promote a wider marketing saturation for the keyword or keyword phrase.

For instance, let’s take a look at this example of the Meta Title tag and the Meta Description tag “in agreement” with each other:

<meta name="description" content="Meta tag optimization services - To achieve high search engine ranking

it is important to understand there are many factors which contribute to the performance of an SEO campaign. "/>

At first look, it seems that this is nothing more than a simple title and description. Well, it should because it is really that simple. The Title has the keyword phrase and relevant stems trailing after it to promote a wider saturation for the main topic of the keyword phrase. Though in this example the character count is a little higher than I would recommend, the Title contains strong keyword phrase support and the description reaffirms the keywords and stems so that the phrase is stated twice and the stems are stated twice. This is a simple example of how the description tag offers a lot of opportunity to increase saturation for relevant search terms.

The next Meta tag is the center of much controversy and that is the Meta Keywords tag. The rule for this tag is quite simple – and should be closely adhered to. Only use between 10 and 12 words at the most, and the keywords that are used in the tag should be on the page that you are placing the tag on.

Lastly, but equally as important, do not use keyword stems like “keyword, keyword stuffed, keyword stuffed Meta tag”. The search engine will consider this spamming and the web site could suffer quality deductions for improper usage.

It Might Look Great – But What If Your Customers Can’t Find It?

The careful creation of web pages is a vital part in developing a web site to perform in the search engines. However, there too are other design & layout considerations that need to be followed as well. JavaScript, oversized images and Flash based templates may add a degree of dynamic presentation to a web site and be appealing to users. However, search engine spiders have difficulty indexing the code. To explain further, spiders are relatively simplistic in design and must be to be able to move swiftly through the web. A text link browser such as Lynx, portrays what a web site would look like to a search engine spider.

The most practical way to accomplish the problem with code and spiders is to place all of the files for JavaScript and images into directories and then import the files in to the page at run time.

In order to build sites that are geared toward the search engine spiders, images, JavaScript and Flash should be on pages that are either not “created for rankings” or be positioned in ways that will allow the spider to index the text-based content prior to “crawling through the code.”

Though it may be much more complicated to build a web site based on the requirements of the search engine spiders, the results can be the difference between being on the first of the search engine results pages, and being so far in the results, that the site is rarely if ever visited for the search query which the page is (presumably) attempting to rank for.

Links – The Holy Grail of SEO

One of the main factors that a search engine relies heavily upon is the density of internal and external links. The largest major search engine, Google, gauges to a large degree, the “position” of a web site based on the quality and quantity of links for the site.

Internal links should be created with keyword relevance in mind. Link text and internal links are considered to be of major importance when weighing a web site’s relevance for a keyword or keyword phrase. The basic idea here is that a keyword in a link should point to a destination URL that is relevant to the keyword or keyword phrase.

If the keyword phrase is “web developer”, the link should be pointing to a URL that has the keyword phrase “web developer” in it. If the link has “web developer” in it and is pointing to a URL that has “contact form”, your keyword strength is “draining” and the value of that keyword is thereby reduced. I feel that an analogy using electrical current explains this type of scenario quite well. If the continuity is not consistent from end to end the power is either lost, or drained out of the connection.

Another important matter regarding internal linking is the amount of links on a page. My advice is to keep links to no more than one hundred per page. If a web page contains more than one hundred links, the search engines may consider the site to be part of a link-farm or a link-exchange which may result in obtaining negative consequences for having a “bad character”, and the site may receive penalties for being in a “bad neighborhood.”

A large part of search engine optimization is based on the quality of inbound links to a web site. The relevance of the links that point to a site, and the PageRank of the site that is pointing to that site, have a great deal of importance regarding the “class” of the site that is receiving the inbound link.

For simplicity, Google has categorized web sites into “classes”, much like the model that society or Object Oriented Programming where each web site (Object or Person) holds a certain degree or position based on their attributes, and characteristics.

This somewhat describes how Google considers the character of a site. Quite simply, web site links are much like that of neighborhoods. If you have neighbors (inbound links) that hold a position of status (respectable neighbors), then Google gives your web site credit as being of status based on the company you keep. (In a good neighborhood)

If however a site has low ranking inbound links that are of little or no relevance to a web site then Google considers the links as being of a poor quality and does not give credit to the site for those links.

That Should Get You … Started

Though this is no where near everything that should go in to a comprehensive search engine optimization campaign, you should be able to get a good start from here and build up enough information to get you on your way towards ranking in the SERP’s.

For a really great resource of “FREE” stuff on SEO, check out the resources in Google’s Webmaster tools … there is a wealth of information in there that should really help you get up to speed with search engine optimization. If that doesn’t have what your looking for … just Google it!

Author: Edward Beckett
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital TV, HDTV, Satellite TV

So lets start at the beginning. What is Social Media Marketing? Essentially, its another marketing strategy – which ,bottom line, is why you should be interested in it, if you’re interested in marketing your voiceover business. Its a marketing strategy that’s developed out of an intense dislike of hard sell marketing tactics. Instead of banging people over the head with marketing methods that could be considered bullying ,hard sell , in your face selling. Social media marketing is about creating and maintaining relationships with potential customers so that when they are in a position to buy what you’re selling, they automatically think of you and the service you provide. And your name springs to mind because of they way you have presented yourself in your social media marketing activities, as an expert in your field, a trustworthy and interesting person, who can deliver on what they promise, and someone that people would like to do business with. People like to do business with people they like. So through your communications through social media marketing you have positioned yourself as that person.

In marketing speak, Social Media Marketing is what’s known as Permission marketing, or inbound marketing. Its developed as a reaction to the traditional forms of marketing. Traditional marketing approaches have been things like seminars, tradeshows, telemarketing, print ads, direct mail. The problem has been that more and more people have found methods to block out these marketing messages, making these approaches less and less effective. Some people don’t answer their phones unless they recognise the number calling them, many email newsletters and correspondence can get caught in the ever efficient spam filters, people are able to fast forward their way through the TV adverts, and some ‘watch again facilities’ delete all the adverts for you anyway. As information has become more and more accessible through the Internet, customers really don’t need this type of marketing as they can get all their information they need from other sources. So social media marketing is way of marketing that avoids all these problems as it encourages customers to find you once they’re ready to make their purchase.

So how do you do this Social media marketing malarkey?

The key is to get Social!! And you can do this in three ways – publish, share & network. Social media marketing sites can be roughly divided into these 3 categories although when you do investigate them you’ll soon realise that a lot of these do overlap within themselves. The general rule for all these sites is to join in, become a member and DON’T TRY AND SELL. If you make blatant self-serving sales messages, people will quickly turn off and you won’t get too far. But if you join the community, and add value to it then you will achieve higher levels of success with social media marketing.

Category 1 – Publishing. The joy and the horror of the Internet is that anyone can publish anything, anytime, anywhere, available for anyone & everyone to view. For no cash you can publish something that could potentially be seen by millions. So which are the publishing sites? These include sites like – flickr, twitter youtube, squidoo, podcast.net, wikipedia to name but a few. Publish everything , everywhere : videos, podcasts, articles, thoughts and opinions – anything relevant. Also monitor what other people are publishing and promote it. If people are writing flattering things about you and your business, make sure you know about it and direct your clients towards it And empower and make it easy for your customers to publish your content on their social media sites. The more people that see it the better.

Category 2 – Sharing. These are sites like : stumble upon, digg, delicous, mixx, propellor, reddit etc … also known as social bookmarking sites.

These are the sites where you can share and promote yours and others content. Find out where your audience hangs out and share content that will appeal to them – whether its articles, blogs, webinars, whatever.

Category 3 – is networking. These site are : facebook, bebo, linked in , myspace, friendster etc. These are places where you can connect with fellow Voiceover artists and existing and potential clients. This may actually be the best place to start your social media marketing plan. Firstly, have a look at each of them and see which ones you want to join. You may already have ideas as to which you think will work best for you – maybe you’ve seen other voiceover artists on particular sites and have heard good reports back about certain sites more than others – some sites, such as bebo for example may be better for personal networking whereas places like Linked in and Ecademy lean more towards the business side of networking. Once you join, make sure you set up your profile and fill in all the relevant bits. Make sure you add links to your website, blogs and other contact media. And also put these links into your email signature. Once the profile and signature is completed you can start networking. Start with existing friends and clients and then broaden your network as you get more confident. But remember to add value to your interactions. Share useful content, answer questions where you can. Don’t be promotional, be helpful.

In conclusion there are four key points to remember when you embark on your social media marketing campaign:

1. At the end of the day it is a tool. It is so easy to become overwhelmed by the shear scope of possibilities that social media marketing presents, but set your goal and always keep in mind your reasons for using it.

2. Get involved – discuss, share , become a part of the community.

3. Don’t overly sell or broadcast – people will run a mile. Be helpful.

4. Enjoy it !- you meet interesting people and come across interesting information which could help you and your business and your personal interests.

Author: Alison Pitman
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Cellphone news

Before you hire a web designer to create your website or start making your own website, and even before you register a name for your website, here are a few important things to consider. If you want your future website to rank high in the search engines Google, Yahoo and MSN you should read on.

Why Having A Website Is Just The First Step
While having a website today is as important today as being in the phone book and advertising in the local newspaper used to be, you need to understand that every website without visitors is useless. Generating traffic and consistently appearing in the top ranks of the search engines for your targeted keywords is crucial if you want your website to be successful.

This means, in addition to getting a website with a pleasing design and your desired content you need to make sure that your web designer knows how to optimize your website so Search Engines will potentially list it at the first positions for your targeted search terms. Ask them to show you past projects of high ranking websites, or you will probably end up with a nice looking website which is exclusively visited by you and your friends and family!

In order to rank high in the search results of Google, Yahoo and MSN a website needs a to be optimized ‘on-site’ and ‘off-site’.

On-Site Search Engine Optimization
On-site search engine optimization needs to be done while your website is being created. This means, you have to decide about the ‘keywords’ you are targeting (e.g. when you are a dog walker in San Diego County, California, you would want your website to show up on the first page of the search results every time somebody searches on Google for ‘dog walker San Marcos’ or ‘dog walking Vista, CA’), and your web designer has to optimize the ‘invisible elements’ and the content of your website for these search terms. This is very important to potentially rank high in the search engines, but unfortunately not very many web designers are experts in search engine optimization. If you can find a web designer whose own website is already on the Google or Yahoo front page you can be certain that they know about Search Engine Optimization. If they are not – don’t expect to get much traffic to your website.

Off-Site Search Engine Optimization
If your website is optimized ‘on-site’ chances are good that it will be positioned high in the search engines with consistent and strategical ‘off-site’ optimization. This means, you or somebody you pay to do it, needs to steadily ‘promote’ your website online by building ‘backlinks’ from other websites to your site. The more backlinks from high ranking websites your own site will have, the higher it will rank in the search engines. Off-site search engine optimization can be done without any costs for advertising, but it is very time consuming and needs to be done on a consistent basis, so you need to set up a strategic plan to follow, either yourself or by outsourcing it. Instead of off-site website optimization you can also just pay ‘per click’ to Google, Yahoo or MSN advertising programs and your website will instantly show up on the first page of the search results if you pay for it. Depending from your business, the price you have to pay when somebody clicks on the link to your site varies, starting from $.01 all the way up to $15 and more for very competitive fields. A click for ‘health insurance quote’ e.g. costs an advertising company about $8.00. If that person clicking on your link leaves your website without action you just lost eight dollars.

Unfortunately not many web designers are familiar with off-site search engine optimization. They don’t know how to effectively build backlinks to your website, or how paid website advertising is done most effectively and how to reach high conversion rates.

How To Optimize Your Website
Hopefully by now you have a better understanding what it takes to rank high in the search engines – actually, we dare to say that you now know even more than 90% of all persons already having a website and more than 60% of all web designers. Search Engine Optimization is a complicated mystery in many website owners minds, but if it’s done correctly and continuously, it is a sure-fire way of getting positioned within the first search results – and you can imagine what this will do to your business!

So please keep the importance of ‘on-site’ and ‘off-site’ website optimization in mind when you start your new website!

Author: Claudia Schulze
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Latest trends in mobile phone

However, it is your ability on the landing page to convince your prospects to take action that decides the conversion rate of your website.

A large percentage of your visitors leave your website when they don’t find the landing page to be compelling, or relevant to what they want.

Hence, optimizing your landing page is the key to maximize your conversion rate.

Here are some components that can be improved to boost the conversion rate.

1. The headline of your landing page is the most useful part of your page that can offer you the opportunity to improve your conversion rate. Since, the headline of a webpage is the first text that attracts the attention of the visitors, make your headline speak about the biggest benefit offered by your products.
2. Images on the landing page play a vital role in increasing your conversion rate. Use images that are relevant to your service and products, and that describe the best feature of your product. The best practice is to place the images at the left side of the page against the product description. The captions under the images are as important as the headlines.
3. Most of the online shoppers bail a site when the website doesn’t have a professional look. Sometimes, the look of your website adds credibility to your business which is essential to increase your conversion rate. As far as possible use trust building logos on your website to make it appear trustworthy.
4. One of the most effective ways of improving the sales on your website is “call to action”. With the call to action on the landing page you can clearly mention your visitors exactly what you want them to do on your website. A compelling ‘Call-to-action’ can significantly boost the conversion rate of your website.
5. Develop the text of your landing page that describes the strong benefits of your products and the way your products can solve the problems of the users. Introduce the most striking features of the products from the very first paragraph that can capture the attention of the readers.
6. Highlight the most important points to draw the attention of the readers. You can list the benefits of the product using bullets, you can use a different color to highlight the important part of a text and the hyperlinks, or you can write the offers and discounts with bold letters.

Optimizing your landing page can definitely increase the chances of conversions.

Author: Emily Alex Moore
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera Information

Having a reliable direct email marketing software to manage all of your email campaigns can be frustrating if you do not have certain profit building tools built within the software. Frustration can occur if you setup email promotions that fail one after the other, without knowing the real reasons of the failure. The great thing about these required tools is that they let you know the reasons why your email campaigned failed. These tools are mandatory if you expect to reap excellent returns from your email promotions.

But before I begin describing what is needed in direct email marketing software, let me first explain what this software is.

Direct email marketing software is software that allows you to manage and control your very own bulk email marketing campaign. The great thing about having your own direct email marketing software is that you do not have to pay to send an email to each subscriber on your list. Having this type of software can greatly reduce your business expenses because not only do you not have to pay for your mailings, but you do not have to pay and hire a marketing firm to manage your email marketing campaign as well. This type of software can create large business efficiency.

Right now, there are multiple direct marketing software packages that are available online. Some of these packages are even shareware software programs that do not even require an initial investment in order to use the software.

But if you expect to have direct email marketing software that is full of the rich features that are needed to create profitable email promotions, then you will have to dig deep within your pocket book but not very deep.

From my experience using direct email marketing software, there are only 3 mandatory tools that are needed in order to ensure email marketing success. Finding direct email marketing software, that at least utilizes these 3 tools, will greatly reduce the cost of this software.

Therefore, listed below are the 3 tools that should be included in any direct email marketing software that you use now or in the future.

Tool #1 Open Rate Measurement

An excellent way to measure the effectiveness of your email subject line is to have software that tracks the number of subscribers that open up your email to read it. With this powerful tool, you can select and archive which email subject lines provided the highest open rate response. You can then tailor all of future your email campaign subject lines around the proven subject lines that provided the highest email open rate.

Tool #2 Tracking Capability

Good direct email marketing software will track the number of subscribers that actually respond to your advertisement and click on a link within your email. In other words, this tracking capability monitors the amount of subscribers who are turned into responsive visitors due to your email promotion. The awesome thing about this tool is that it lets you know how responsive and loyal your email readership is.

Tool #3 Anti Spam Filter

Another important tool to have in direct email marketing software is an anti spam filter. An anti spam filter is highly recommended because it will let you know whether or not your email will be considered as spam. It will be a tragedy if you spent the whole day compiling an email promotion that never entered into the recipients email inbox due to it being caught by the spam filters. Therefore, in order to guarantee that the email bypasses the spam filters of various internet service providers, you must make sure that a spam detector is included in your direct email marketing software.

I hope that these 3 required tools helped you discover what you need to look for in direct email marketing software. Just focus all of your efforts into finding software that contain these 3 important requirements, and you should be able to get this software at a decent price. In my free report, I include information about an affordable direct email marketing software that I recommend. You can access this report at http://www.list-building-videos.com. But if you are searching for direct email marketing software, you have to make sure it includes all of these 3 requirements. I can not stress this enough. You will reap incredible rewards in your business and with your email promotions if all of these components were included in the software.

Author: Melvin Perry
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera News

Generally affiliate programs are either one-tier or two-tier
programs which means if you participate in a one-tier program,
you get paid for referrals that you send to the company for which
you are an internet marketing company affiliate. If you
participate in a two-tier program, you also get paid for
referring other affiliates to the program.

In most affiliate programs, an internet marketing company
affiliate gets paid either a percentage of sales that result from
their referrals, or a flat fee per lead or click-through that
result from their internet marketing efforts.

The defective line of thinking that leads an internet marketing
company affiliate to failure and disappointment is the thought
that being an internet marketing company affiliate is an easy,
get-rich-quick business opportunity. Unsuccessful internet
marketing company affiliates are those who don’t realize that in
order to make money with affiliate programs you have to actively
market them.

The error that is common to a new internet marketing company
affiliate is that they launch a website to display links, or even
pages, for the purpose of promoting various affiliate programs
for which they are an internet marketing company affiliate for,
but they don’t actively market their website or their affiliate
products. As a result, their website doesn’t generate any revenue
or generates very little revenue.

To be a successful internet marketing company affiliate you
absolutely have to market your affiliate products and services.
You can actually make loads of money as an internet marketing
company affiliate, but affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-
quick scheme. It is a business opportunity that must be taken
seriously and it does require work, some internet marketing
knowledge, and some funding for launching an aggressive internet
marketing campaign.

Because you don’t have to put out money for product development
or inventory, starting an internet business as an internet
marketing company affiliate may not require as much of an
investment as other types of internet businesses, but assuming
that it is a zero-investment venture is flawed thinking.

For most programs, as an internet marketing company affiliate you
have to have a website through which you market your affiliate
programs because some affiliate programs view your website as
part of their approval process and some only allow you to use
affiliate links to them on a website. In addition to the
investment involved with website development an internet
marketing company affiliate also needs funding for internet
marketing of the affiliate programs.

Common internet marketing methods used by an internet marketing
company affiliate to promote affiliate programs include search
engine marketing, email marketing, linking campaigns,
distribution of expert articles, viral marketing, and
participation in online newsgroups and forums.

Purchasing advertising through pay-per-click search engines,
ezines, directories and so forth is also a method of internet
marketing that is conducive to promoting affiliate products and
services as an internet marketing company affiliate.

One thing is for certain. In order to make serious money as an
internet marketing company affiliate, you simply have to market
the products and services of your affiliate programs.

Some website operators join affiliate programs and become an
internet marketing company affiliates for the purpose of
supplementing their income a little while providing their website
visitors with easy access to products and services that may be
beneficial to them. For them, actively marketing affiliate
programs may not be a necessity because the affiliate programs
are not their primary source of income.

However, if you desire to be an internet marketing company
affiliate who generates revenue solely from affiliate programs,
you must be an active internet marketer.

Author: Christopher J Enders
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera Times

In organic, (natural) search engine optimization, there are several factors that contribute to the ranking for a search term. Each search engine provider has their own unique set of criteria that they use to determine which web site is most relevant for that specific term. The factors that are used to determine search engine rankings are then calculated by a complex search engine algorithm.

Due to the high amount of targeted customer traffic that stands to be gained by a web site that has a top-ranked position in the search engines, the search providers keep the details of the factors which make up their algorithm a closely guarded secret.

Even though the search providers are careful with the exact formula that they use to gauge the rankings of web sites, there have been several constants discovered that when applied, produce favorable results.

Keywords – Content without Keywords = Website without Traffic

Keywords are at the center of any effective search engine optimization campaign. The basic rule of thumb in search engine optimization is that content is king. So, it is important to base all the content of a web site on accurate and informative content.

The first thing to perform in an optimization campaign is keyword research. To find the search terms that are generating traffic for the topic that you want to rank for, you need to determine what the internet users are searching for. This may be accomplished by several different means however the most common way is to use a keyword selector tool.

There are several different keyword tools that may be used. The one tool that was the industry standard for quite a while was the Overture keyword selector tool which, as of January 07′, has been retired . The data in the Overture database still remains available for historical data, but is no longer being publicly updated by Yahoo!, the company that now owns the service.

There are however several other keyword tools that may be used. Some free and some available for purchase or subscription based service.

• Free: SEO Book keyword suggestion tool:
  
  (http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/)
• Free: Google AdWords keyword suggestion tool:
  (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)
• Various prices: Keyword Discovery:
  
  (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/)

You Have to do your Homework – Keyword Research

There are few things to keep in mind before starting keyword research. The fact is that you will probably not be able to rank for a very competitive single-word search term like “money” or “cars”. For that matter, there are many two-word search terms, like “real estate”, that you will not be able to rank for either. So, in order to achieve rankings for your site with a subject like real estate, you have to look for related terms that will allow you to obtain a high position and yet not be too obscure so that you will still be attracting relevant traffic. For instance, you might try ranking for the search term “South Florida Real Estate Agency”, or “South Florida Real Estate Brokers”.

In order to determine the best search terms to use on content pages, I generally make a spreadsheet based on the topics that I feel are of most relevance.

There is an instructional Video I Created on “Search Engine Optimization Keyword Research”, over in You Tube … (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lw1es477LI)

The research phase is generally considered a very crucial part of the campaign because if the keyword terms that you choose are not searched for by internet users or if there are too many pages indexed in the search engines for that specific search phrase, your chances of achieving decent ranking results are very low.

There are some SEO’s that suggest that every page on a web site should be based on a keyword. This strategy may produce a high amount of pages that rank well in the SERP’s. However, the other side to that is sacrificing quality and readability. It may be difficult for a potential customer to perceive a web site as an authority or as a respectable source of information, if that web site has a directory structure that appears to be nothing more than a group of phrases. Moreover, it is very important to maintain a level of simplicity in the navigation and layout of a web site so that when a visitor comes to the site they may quickly identify the areas that would be of interest to them.

If a visitor is trying to determine which link on the navigation is relevant to their search and is only provided a selection of keyword-driven entry page links, the site may elicit a response of being shallow, which could in turn damage the reputation of the site.

As a good rule of thumb, it is suggested to have at least three, and no more than ten, keyword-driven content pages for every topic that you are attempting to rank for.

More Keyword Stuff? Oh Yes! … Keyword and Keyword Phrase Usage

After you have performed your keyword research for the topics that you want to target, there are some considerations that need to be addressed before actually sitting down to start writing. One of the key concepts that many successful SEO’s tend to focus heavily on is keyword or keyword phrase density.

Keyword density is the measurement of how many times a given keyword or keyword phrase is used in the entire body of the page. For instance, if your web page contains 500 words on the page, and your keyword or keyword phrase is used 10 times, you would have a density of 2%.If the keyword density is too high, the search engine algorithm may consider the results to be search engine spamming which in worst case scenarios, can have your site banned from the search engines. If on the other hand, the keyword density is too low, the page will not rank for the search term. Seeing that there are fairly severe consequences for creating a web page with a keyword density that is too high, it is generally suggested to air on the side of caution and limit your density to “safe” levels.

Though keyword density is a very controversial subject, I have found that keyword densities are relatively safe between 3% and 6%. However, you should keep in mind that algorithms may also consider an overall density of keyword usage for the whole site as well as for individual pages. If you have ten pages that use the keyword “real estate” at a density rate of 5 %, and those pages comprise half the pages on the site, then the site ratio for that keyword just jumped to 12.5 % which is not good.* (5% x 10 pages = 50% / 2 (half the pages)) = 12.5%
Keyword density should be used primarily as a gauge to determine if you have your search term either enough, or not enough times on a page, and should only be used as a gauge.

There are many other factors that contribute to ranking and density is really just a useful tool that can assist you in creating a good balance of keyword rich content. Keyword density alone will not produce search engine rankings.

*There is no evidence which suggests that search engines are calculating results based on total web site keyword density. However, many SEO’s consider total density to be an important factor to measure.

In Real Estate – It’s Location, Location, Location – In SEO – It’s Content, Content, Content

In search engine optimization, content CAN determine your location in the search engine results pages. Web sites that have a high quantity of quality content, naturally appeal to internet users. But, it is not the quality of the content itself that contributes to rankings – it’s the keywords in the content.

Most internet users are searching for informative articles regarding the subject matter that they are searching for. So, it is only natural that if a web site contains information that the user finds authoritative and informative, they will be encouraged to have confidence in the views, opinions, and suggestions that may be implied from the content. However, if a web site has very little or poor quality content that does not express a level of confidence in the consumer, they are most likely going to return to the SERPs’ to search for information that they find confidence in.

Many people that are involved in the creation of web content have a misguided belief that if the content on the site is good, the site will rank well based solely on the quality of the content. This is simply not true. Though good content is paramount to a search engine optimization campaign, the quality of the content has little if any significance in search engine rankings. Again, the quality of the content is not what contributes to rankings – it’s the keywords in the content.

So, you may be wondering, “If content is king why doesn’t that equate to rankings?” The answer is quite simple – the search engine algorithm.
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

The search engines give relevance to content on a web site based on the factors in their algorithm, not the quality of the content. So to achieve rankings, it is necessary to understand what the search engine considers as relevant. Not what you or I consider as relevant.

To answer the question that’s on the fringes of your subconscious … it’s the keywords in the content.

How to Put it All Together – Web Pages for the Search Engines

In order to achieve search engine rankings for your web site, there are two things that are necessary.

First, you have to have keywords that internet users are searching for which;

1. There are not too many pages in the search engine index for …
2. You need to have good keyword rich content that is created following your own keyword / phrase density levels.

The third part of the process is based on creating the content in a manner that will produce effective results. One of the first matters at hand is the amount of text that should be used. I recommend keeping the length smaller and adding more pages because search engine robots have been noted as only crawling to a depth of around the first 100 – 150 words.

Personally, I write my pages anywhere between 400 and 600 words in length and sometimes a bit longer. But the basic logic here is this: The more pages that you have, the more crawlable content you have. So, the answer is to simply create more small-sized pages. Furthermore, robots seem to crawl and index lightweight pages better. So, it might be wise to keep the page size rather low by limiting the amount of words, and especially the amount of images that you use on a web page.

Note however, that there really isn’t an ideal page size because different search engines index at a varying rate of depth and page weight. For instance, Yahoo! doesn’t typically index pages that are over 200KB. Google on the other hand, finds pages that are between 500 to 550 KB as “preferable” with regards to page weight.

When creating the content there are some very important guidelines that need to be considered as well. The placement of your keywords on your web page should be at the top of the page since the prime real estate for the robots are the first one hundred words or so. I generally like to follow a self-guided rule of writing the keyword or keyword phrase with in the first two opening sentences.

After that, I follow a formatting technique which tends to elicit excellent results for me, which is:

• Paragraph
• Call-to-action
• Intro-bullet list
• Paragraph
• Paragraph
• Call-to-action
• Closing

This simple format has several powerful elements that contribute to optimization here. The key to using this format successfully is the positioning of the first three elements; the paragraph, call-to-action, bullet list. The use of this combination supports:

1. The creation of keyword or keyword phrases in the first few sentences of the opening paragraph.
2. The ability to create keyword or keyword phrase based links in the Call-to-Action.
3. Many more keyword linking opportunities and supporting topics in the bullet list.

Web pages that are created with this format and use relevant search terms in the bullet list have a tendency to rank for the content in the bullet list as keyword stems on the main keyword.

Oh Boy! Let’s work on In-Page Optimization

So now we come to the point where we start to look at the implications of actual HTML – web page creation. There are several key areas that are important to proceed carefully at when creating an optimization based web site. The first matter is deal with how the Meta tags are used.

There are three main Meta tags that are relative to the creation of optimized web pages.
The first, and with out a doubt the most important is the Meta Title tag. The Title tag should contain the keyword or keyword phrase and any relevant stems provided that the quantity of the entire title is within an acceptable character count. As with many areas of SEO / SEM, there are many opinions on how many characters should or should not be included in the Title tag. I normally stay between 50 to 60 characters when I am performing optimization on a site for a client. However, I will sometimes push the envelope if I am working on a site for which I am the only liable party. In short, if you use too many characters / words – the site may be penalized for “spamming” the search engines.

The next tag which I believe to be equally as important in an antecedent and consequent sort of way, is the Meta description tag. I feel that this tag is highly underrated and requires some consideration. The Meta Description tag works very much as a support to the Meta title tag and if it is created properly, can offer several opportunities to add keyword relevance and / or stems that may promote a wider marketing saturation for the keyword or keyword phrase.

For instance, let’s take a look at this example of the Meta Title tag and the Meta Description tag “in agreement” with each other:

<meta name="description" content="Meta tag optimization services - To achieve high search engine ranking

it is important to understand there are many factors which contribute to the performance of an SEO campaign. "/>

At first look, it seems that this is nothing more than a simple title and description. Well, it should because it is really that simple. The Title has the keyword phrase and relevant stems trailing after it to promote a wider saturation for the main topic of the keyword phrase. Though in this example the character count is a little higher than I would recommend, the Title contains strong keyword phrase support and the description reaffirms the keywords and stems so that the phrase is stated twice and the stems are stated twice. This is a simple example of how the description tag offers a lot of opportunity to increase saturation for relevant search terms.

The next Meta tag is the center of much controversy and that is the Meta Keywords tag. The rule for this tag is quite simple – and should be closely adhered to. Only use between 10 and 12 words at the most, and the keywords that are used in the tag should be on the page that you are placing the tag on.

Lastly, but equally as important, do not use keyword stems like “keyword, keyword stuffed, keyword stuffed Meta tag”. The search engine will consider this spamming and the web site could suffer quality deductions for improper usage.

It Might Look Great – But What If Your Customers Can’t Find It?

The careful creation of web pages is a vital part in developing a web site to perform in the search engines. However, there too are other design & layout considerations that need to be followed as well. JavaScript, oversized images and Flash based templates may add a degree of dynamic presentation to a web site and be appealing to users. However, search engine spiders have difficulty indexing the code. To explain further, spiders are relatively simplistic in design and must be to be able to move swiftly through the web. A text link browser such as Lynx, portrays what a web site would look like to a search engine spider.

The most practical way to accomplish the problem with code and spiders is to place all of the files for JavaScript and images into directories and then import the files in to the page at run time.

In order to build sites that are geared toward the search engine spiders, images, JavaScript and Flash should be on pages that are either not “created for rankings” or be positioned in ways that will allow the spider to index the text-based content prior to “crawling through the code.”

Though it may be much more complicated to build a web site based on the requirements of the search engine spiders, the results can be the difference between being on the first of the search engine results pages, and being so far in the results, that the site is rarely if ever visited for the search query which the page is (presumably) attempting to rank for.

Links – The Holy Grail of SEO

One of the main factors that a search engine relies heavily upon is the density of internal and external links. The largest major search engine, Google, gauges to a large degree, the “position” of a web site based on the quality and quantity of links for the site.

Internal links should be created with keyword relevance in mind. Link text and internal links are considered to be of major importance when weighing a web site’s relevance for a keyword or keyword phrase. The basic idea here is that a keyword in a link should point to a destination URL that is relevant to the keyword or keyword phrase.

If the keyword phrase is “web developer”, the link should be pointing to a URL that has the keyword phrase “web developer” in it. If the link has “web developer” in it and is pointing to a URL that has “contact form”, your keyword strength is “draining” and the value of that keyword is thereby reduced. I feel that an analogy using electrical current explains this type of scenario quite well. If the continuity is not consistent from end to end the power is either lost, or drained out of the connection.

Another important matter regarding internal linking is the amount of links on a page. My advice is to keep links to no more than one hundred per page. If a web page contains more than one hundred links, the search engines may consider the site to be part of a link-farm or a link-exchange which may result in obtaining negative consequences for having a “bad character”, and the site may receive penalties for being in a “bad neighborhood.”

A large part of search engine optimization is based on the quality of inbound links to a web site. The relevance of the links that point to a site, and the PageRank of the site that is pointing to that site, have a great deal of importance regarding the “class” of the site that is receiving the inbound link.

For simplicity, Google has categorized web sites into “classes”, much like the model that society or Object Oriented Programming where each web site (Object or Person) holds a certain degree or position based on their attributes, and characteristics.

This somewhat describes how Google considers the character of a site. Quite simply, web site links are much like that of neighborhoods. If you have neighbors (inbound links) that hold a position of status (respectable neighbors), then Google gives your web site credit as being of status based on the company you keep. (In a good neighborhood)

If however a site has low ranking inbound links that are of little or no relevance to a web site then Google considers the links as being of a poor quality and does not give credit to the site for those links.

That Should Get You … Started

Though this is no where near everything that should go in to a comprehensive search engine optimization campaign, you should be able to get a good start from here and build up enough information to get you on your way towards ranking in the SERP’s.

For a really great resource of “FREE” stuff on SEO, check out the resources in Google’s Webmaster tools … there is a wealth of information in there that should really help you get up to speed with search engine optimization. If that doesn’t have what your looking for … just Google it!

Author: Edward Beckett
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Beading Necklace

Social media websites and networking web sites offer the website owner a straightforward approach to bond with another community of people who have related points of views or interests like you. Some of these websites group people with common interests, but some websites are “traditional networking sites” and allow you to search for friends based on your own interests.

So now how do these websites really operate? In websites like MySpace, users share music which was what helped rocket MySpace into the well renown place it is today and in Facebook, users create their personal information that they want shared and use pictures, software programs and audio, videos to display or depict their business environment. In other websites the users create product and sale pitches and work with each other. Promoting your website using these new tools is termed social media marketing.

How can you benefit and improve your search engine optimization ranking by using these websites? When you use these sites you have the opportunity to expose your website to a much larger group of people. When your site becomes popular in a social media site, people talk about your site and the post you make that become popular. This is a form of viral marketing that is word of mouth. These social media sites give additional links that means that as you grow these natural links from a large number of relevant websites, your personal rankings improve in the search engine due to increased organic search traffic.

Another advantage is that search engines programs that roam the web are keen on these websites and typically go after links on these websites. This means that if you have your site linked on networking and bookmarking websites, your search engine optimization ranking is better and your website site will be indexed quickly. Getting bookmarked from different users and different social media websites will definitely help your site rank better on search engines.

Like it or not, social websites have become an integral part of the internet because social marketing is easy to do, search engines love social links and hence your business by default will benefit. So if you are engaged in operating a website, and search engine optimization is important then you must realign your site to exploit the popular social media websites for increased traffic. To take advantage of this new method of building business you need to know what steps to perform? You must learn to market and brand yourself with social media websites.

Author: Gregory L Burrus
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty rates

There are two different kinds of search engine marketing, paid inclusion or you can optimize your website for organic search inclusion and get indexed for free. Getting indexed is one thing but ranking high for your specific keywords is a matter of optimization. How you are ranked for the keywords related to your site depends on your Search Engine Optimization strategies and essentially how popular your site is. One easy way to know the popularity of your site is to know your Google page rank which is indicated on Google’s toolbar in web browsers. Google is one of it not the most popular search engine online and their rank for a website’s popularity is a very accurate way of judging the popularity of any site. There are two ways you can optimize your site for search engines; there is on site optimization or off site optimization, on site optimization includes use of keywords, inclusion of keywords in website content, inclusion of keywords in your website title, inclusion of keywords in your actual domain name or inclusion of keywords in meta tags and site description and off site optimization simply has to do with building link popularity. On-site optimization is a big factor in your Search Engine Optimization strategy and the most important aspect of on site optimization which can’t be left out is content. Your site’s content being relative to your keywords is essential because that’s what makes your site relative to your keywords. Off-site optimization is also extremely important as your website has to have link popularity to rank high in the search engines and there are various ways to build link popularity online.

Building link popularity is extremely important to your off-site search engine optimization campaign and you build link popularity by getting backlinks to your website from other websites and there are two types of backlinks your website can get; one-way links and two-way links. One-way links are deemed more important than two-links seeing that a one-way link means that you don’t have to link back to that website unlike two-links which are usually a reciprocal link exchange. It is also a factor the relevancy of the site that is linking to your site and the page rank of the site is also a factor. It is said that if you have just a couple high Google PR ranking sites link to you then that can increase your PR quicker than anything else.

There are simple ways to obtain backlinks to your website and there are tedious ways to do it and unfortunately the tedious ways happen to be the free ways. I want to share with you some of the simplest ways to generate back links to your site and also build extreme traffic to your site at the same time. Two simple tactics you can use to build your backlinks is forum marketing and article marketing. Forum marketing consists of leaving your signature file after every post which leaves a link to your website and every time you make a post that is a backlink to your site right there. Any forum you join you are usually allowed to leave a signature file with your url links and it is a great way to advertise because after you make some informative posts users tend to see your signature and follow the link which generates traffic to your site just simply because you are participating on the forum. If you want to target your traffic you can join forums related to your website and ensure that you participate and give rational answers to questions and actually be an informative member of the forum and you will quickly find that you build trust that way and eventually will come tons of traffic. Article marketing can work in the same way because when you write articles on a certain topic you build trust in your readers that you are knowledgeable about the topic at hand. Building that trust is important because when you publish articles readers will republish your article because they like it or because they trust you and when they republish your articles they must ensure that they also republish your author resource box as well and your author resource box should contain your information and url link to your website and this produces a backlink everytime your article is republished. I know you are seeing the power of this because it’s truly an extremely powerful way to market a website online. Also you can target your traffic by optimizing your content within the article to relate to similar content on your website. You are also allowed to publish the same articles on any network that will allow you to publish articles and this will increase the chances of others republishing your articles and republishing your author resource box.

These two tactics will definitely aid in your Search Engine Optimization strategies and build backlinks to your website but like everything else it’s a process but with time and hard work you can achieve great success online with these tactics. If you find it a bit tedious to be doing these tactics then you can always join networks or find backlink solutions that will aid in your search engine optimization campaign that would definitely be quicker than building your link popularity yourself. I hope you found this information useful and I wish you good luck with your search engine optimization strategies and your link popularity campaign.

Author: Alexander Day
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: US Dollar credit card

Use these 10 easy steps to tweak your landing pages and boost conversion rates:

Tip #1 – Headlines count. One of the first places your prospect’s eyes focus on is the headline. A prospect scans the headline for particular words that grab his or her attention. Put the headline at the top of the page. Make your headline a benefit-oriented headline that integrates keywords.

Tip #2 – Use caution with images. There is nothing wrong with using images to add some interest to your pages, but use caution. Don’t just throw up an image for the sake of putting something up. Use images that are relevant because images can distract the prospect away from the message you are trying to communicate. Product shots draw attention. Stock photos usually don’t perform as well as a “real-life” photo. Images should have a real purpose; otherwise, you only distract the prospect from reading the message. Copy near an image seems to get special attention, such as captions. Take advantage of this and write captions that relay information with a purpose.

Tip #3 – Layout of landing page elements. Keep the landing page layout simple. Try to keep your landing pages to a one-column, no more than two-column style. Having more than one column increases the chance of distracting the prospect and moving them away from your primary selling message. Don’t place any other elements to the left or right of your sales copy message. This will encourage the prospect to move away from the sales message and pay more attention to the distracting elements.

According to a webinar on eye-tracking in relation to landing pages, Marketing Sherpa publisher, Anne Holland, said that her team increased conversion rates by 64% simply by tweaking elements on a product landing page. (No sales copy was changed.)

Place the following elements in this “simple” format, (one element right after the next) to improve your conversion rates:

headline
subhead
image
copy

Tip #4 – Make pages that are easy to read. Remember the average prospect only stays an average of 8 seconds. You need to keep their attention with pages that are easy on the eyes. Prospects will not stay around to try and figure out how to read a difficult page.

Follow these rules for easy readability:

Don’t use too small a font size. Use at least a 10pt font. Using a 9pt or smaller is too difficult to read.

Don’t use serif fonts (this is used for print). Use sans-serif fonts for online copy.

Use black text on a white background. Don’t use white text on a black or dark background (even though pale gray text is fashionable, it is difficult to read).

Keep your copy flush left. Don’t center the headline, subheads or the copy. This is a common practice on the web, but it makes it difficult to read. Try to keep the headline to one line, but if a headline is more than one line, keep it justified left-don’t center long headlines. Centering a headline confuses the brain.

Tip #5 – Ditch navigation from the page. The landing page should be used primarily to sell your product or service. Don’t take the precious time you have to capture the prospect’s attention and divide it with yet another distraction-a navigation bar. Remember the landing page is to try and sell the prospect.

Tip #6 – Make sure the primary search keywords are in your headline, subheads and copy. You should do keyword research to find out what keywords your prospects are using in their search for your product or service. Integrate these keywords into your headline, subheads and copy.

Tip #7 – Match the exact keywords from the originating sales page or email copy to the landing page copy. This re-emphasizes that the prospect is in the right place. Don’t just mimic the theme of the originating page, but also the keywords and copy. Conversion rates are 25% higher when the exact keywords are repeated on the landing page.

Tip #8 – Maximize your form buttons. Here are a few recommendations when using form buttons:

- Don’t use “reset” buttons. They can be clicked accidentally, clear the form information and cause frustration so that the user abandons the page.

- An “Add to cart” button is better than a “Buy Now” button. It gives the user the perception that he or she has more control over the sale. “Buy Now” seems more intimidating.

- Use action-oriented copy on your submit buttons, they outperform the plain, “Submit” button. For example: “Click here to get your Top 10 Landing Page Tips report” may get more clicks than, “Submit”. It is best to try and match the original headline copy or offer in the submit button copy.

- Test button copy. Different copy on buttons may do better on different landing page offers. One size doesn’t necessarily fit all in this case.

Tip #9 – Avoid lengthy forms. Do you enjoy filling out those long-winded forms online? Your prospects are no different. Avoid fields that are unnecessary. Every question or form field you put on a form lowers the conversion rate. Dump the fax number field. Only put form fields for data that you really need to collect; otherwise, you risk having the prospect abandon your page.

Tip #10 – Give the user a more secure feeling on landing /checkout pages. Place an extremely short “privacy” statement by the last form field or close to the submit button to give the prospect confidence that their information is secure. Don’t make a lengthy statement, this can cause panic and give the opposite impression. An example of a short privacy statement would be something like the following: (i.e. We value your privacy and don’t give any of your information to other parties.)

Author: Angeline Plesek
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Hybrid and Electric Cars