NMA's Search Agencies Guide 2007 (UK)
August 1, 2007
NMA has complied a top 35 Search Agencies Guide for 2007. The guide has been out for a couple of months and allows me the opportunity to introduce Netizen (8th place) as my new place of work as a senior search executive. This is my first week and so far I am very impressed with the setup - checkout the top 10 below:
Three Sure-Fire Steps every Search Marketer should take in Landing Page Optimisation - Step 2 Gain Permission and take the Visitor to the Next Desired Action
July 26, 2007
Once you have an idea of the type of visitor persona (step 1) that will be landing on your site/page, you will then be in a good shape to decide what action you would like for them to take next and more importantly ensuring their needs are sufficiently satisfied.
The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself Peter Drucker
This makes a lot of sense and follows on well, although for online marketing I think this quote needs to incorporate a well planned landing page to provide that extra nudge closer to the final goal 
Let's start by looking at the 5 actions that can be caused by a landing page (Seth Godin):
- Get a visitor to click (to go to another page, on your site or someone else’s)
- Get a visitor to buy
- Get a visitor to give permission for you to follow up (by email, phone, etc.). This includes registration of course.
- Get a visitor to tell a friend
- (and the more subtle) Get a visitor to learn something, which could even include posting a comment or giving you some sort of feedback
Ultimately you may want your visitor to do all 5, however your landing page as Seth describes should be optimised ideally for one and no more than two "“ otherwise things can start to become a little overwhelming and lack a clear call to action for the next desired step.
Optimisation of a stepping stone or path to conversion approach can often provide a preferred solution. It's important to define the desired conversion or better still, the conversion path to the desired end goal.
Fulfilling the Visitors' Needs & Your Own Marketing Goals
This requires not only a strong understanding for your visitors' persona, but also an appreciation of the stage in the buying process that the visitor/prospect is in.
If for example, a visitor is at the second stage of the buying process and is searching for information "“ then doesn't it make sense to provide this information and not a hard selling product page? Of course it does!
On top of this it can be a matter of seconds before your once curious visitor starts to get a little anxious and looks towards the back button "“ this is why it is particularly important to portray the page as being relevant, creditable and trustworthy:
Ensure Relevancy
- The headline is perhaps the single most important part in ensuring relevancy and should reiterate the copy from the campaign source creative, whether it's from a PPC ad, an email ad or sometimes even the description in an SEO listing. From the research in step1, this should match their needs and the message should be continued in the body of the landing page.
Ensure Credibility & Trust
- Is your company believable in its promise? Are there any obvious contradictions? Does it appear your site is deliberating hiding or making information hard to obtain? Is your company legitimate? Examples of factors that can reduce the buyer's trust anxieties are testimonials/case studies, assurances, guarantees, awards and credentials.
- The contact and about-us pages are important too. The about-us page provides a great opportunity to install trust and sell what you are all about. Make sure that both pages are prominent and well written.
Once your visitor sticks around for a while, it's time to think about using your negotiation and persuasive skills to progress them on to the next stage.
Negotiation
- Focusing on the benefits and not features of the products or services is a marketing classic, although so often forgotten. The title should offer a compelling benefit and/or promise and be backed up with a short opening paragraph.
- Provide prospects with a feeling of relief by answering their biggest question, reservation, objection or misunderstanding early on.
- List your Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) "“ what makes your product/service stand out from the crowd?
- Unleash the power of emotion by connecting with prospects - it is often said that the fear of loss is greater than the desire for gain. Fear and jealousy are powerful emotions that can express a real feeling of loss or to have missed out on an opportunity. If the use of fear and jealousy are a bit much for you, there are plenty more to explore.
Guide Visitors to the Next Stage
- A Clear call to action "“ e.g. an obvious big 'buy now' button or registration graphic should be shown above the fold.
- Provide a careful balance of persuasive information and a lack of distractions. Distractions should decrease as the sales funnel deepens towards the end goal.
- Ensure the best chance of getting your message read; landing pages should be scannable, with short sentences, engaging sub-headings and a modern look and feel that are also integrated with compelling images.
Of course, the buying process stage plays a big role in the exact implementation "“ and perhaps the most important step of all is to assume nothing and test everything:
Step 3: Test, Measure, Refine & Improve (arriving soon)
Three Sure-Fire Steps every Search Marketer should take in Landing Page Optimisation - Step 1 Understand Your Visitors' Persona
July 18, 2007
Targeted landing pages can be a great way in converting visitors into a pre-defined action. Persuasive on-page copywriting and page layout is a key part in landing page optimisation (LPO), although this alone is where many search marketers often run out of steam.
Use this opportunity to move ahead of your competitors with a simple three step approach:
1) Understand Your Visitors' Persona (off-page LPO)
2) Gain Permission and take Visitor to Next Desired Action (on-page LPO)
3) Test, Measure, Refine & Improve (off-page LPO)
Step 1 - Understand Your Visitors' Persona
This is the first landing page post in a series of three and concentrates on the understanding of your visitors' persona. This is a key piece of the jigsaw in defining the optimum user experience, customer journey and the most appropriate landing page.
Dave Chaffey provides a neat overview of web design personas and there is also an interesting seroundtable discussion on the subject.
Personas give a summary of the characteristics, needs, motivations and environment of typical web site users"¦
"¦A customer scenario (journey) is a set of tasks that a particular customer wants or needs to do in order to accomplish his or her desired outcome. Dave Chaffey
As a search marketer it is our job to identify the various types of visitor personas and their desired search journeys.
As part of the customer journey visitors are likely to pass through one or all of following buying decision processes:
- Want or Need recognition "“ prerequisite of further action;
- Search of information on products that could satisfy the needs of the buyer;
- Alternative selection "“ identification and evaluation;
- Decision-making on buying the product "“ choice made;
- Actual Purchase;
- Post-purchase behaviour.
Once you have a handle on the goals of your visitors, the customer journey and the buying decision process - you will be in a stronger position to concentrate on delivering relevant results to your visitors that are aligned to your marketing goals and will help in shaping the most optimal sales funnel.
For a textbook explanation of 'Understanding your Visitors/Customers', Adrian Palmer offers a free chapter Buyer's Behaviour and Relationship Development, kindly supplied by Oxford University Press.
Step 2: Gain Permission and take Visitor to Next Desired Action (arriving in the next couple of days)
PPC & SEO Services in the UK
June 30, 2007
Last week, I had several interviews for some rather tasty PPC & SEO jobs in London, UK. It really does appear that the demand for skilled SEM employees is incredibly high at the moment. A common and unsurprising question often asked by recruiters and potential employers was to give a brief concise definition of SEO.
The simple answer that I gave is that it is the practise of optimising a web site both internally and externally to increase the volume of targeted traffic. With search engines especially looking at two key factors, results that are both relevant and popular to its users.
Relevance (on-page SEO) - the actual content on the page; this can be the text that a visitor can see and also the source code that search engines (& visitors) can read. The relevance of a page relates to the keyphrase that a user queries in a search engine and the search engine matching that with key elements on a page such as the title tag, header tags and the actual content of the page.
Popularity (off-page SEO) "“ every time another site references/links to your site, search engines perceive this as a vote that your site is important. The more links, the more votes "“ the more popularity search engines credit the site as having. The popularity increases every time your site acquires a new link, although not all links pass equal value (it depends on how much popularity/authority the linking web page has, as well as to how much relevance it has in relation to the page receiving the link).
Off-page SEO can also impact relevancy "“ with the keywords in the anchor text and surrounding area of the inbound link playing a major role.
Here is a very simple ranking formula:
Increased Relevance + Increased Popularity = Search Engine Trust + Higher Rankings
A more thorough ranking formula was discussed last year.
White Hat Vs Black Hat SEO
Another common question asked was to give my view on white & black hat SEO. This is a tricky question in an interview scenario "“ for those of you who are new to the terms white hate SEO is following practises that are accepted and encouraged by search engines, whereas black haters spam & manipulate the content (both on-page and off page) to achieve higher rankings.
Dave Chaffery notes that there are many shades of grey of SEO:
Its really about the combination of how proactive and how ethical you aim to be with SEO.
It can be very difficult to compete by being an 100% white hat SEO for very competitive keywords. You need to be aggressive and also appear natural in your link acquisition, but at the same time have a significant degree of ethical best practises.
In the 'shades of grey SEO' article I would not feel at all comfortable trying on hats 1 to 4, and explaining which hats I would try on in an interview scenario is not easy as many agencies perceive and publicise themselves as being 100% white hat - although I think most SEOs are neither one extreme or the other and fall somewhere in between. What colour hat are you?
Interesting SEM Posts You May Have Missed
June 16, 2007
I am feeling a little guilty of late as I haven’t made many posts for a while, so I thought I would post an arrangement of links that you may find useful and have recently found their way on my bookmark list (not all new):
- Stepping Stones of User Conversions.
- 6 Steps to Creating a Perfect Landing Page.
- 10 Tips for Product Landing Pages.
- If You Build it, Links will Come.
- SEO, Meets SMM.
- Web Broswer Stats - I.E. 6 is still top dog (just), although you will see F.F. is snapping at its heels.
- Web Developer’s Handbook - lots of cool tools.
- Google Hot Trends - only for the US at the moment - it is kind of a mashup of Google Zeitgeist and Google Trends.
SEM Link Love for Charities
June 5, 2007
Kevin Gibbons recently tagged me in sharing some link juice with a few worthy courses. Who can doubt the value of passing on a little link love to some great charities?
So without further ado, here are a few:
- Nature Charity - www.wildlifetrusts.org: Local wildlife trusts across the whole of the UK.
- Children's Charity - www.nspcc.org.uk: Stop cruelty to children.
- Cancer Research UK - www.cancerresearchuk.org: The UK’s leading cancer research charity.
- Sponsor a Child - www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk: The world’s largest orphan charity.
- International Wildlife Conservation Trust - www.worldlandtrust.org: Help save rainforests and other biologically important lands.
This is where I tag some fellow SEM bloggers "“ Karl Ribas, Keith Bond, Lisa Ditlefsen, Rob Kerry & Todd Malicoat. Hope you guys at SMX are having fun, all the pictures are great "“ keep 'em coming!
Google (Analytics) wakes up and smells the coffee
May 28, 2007
For me, the new facelift that GA 2.0 is colourfully parading is a very smart move. It has a simple and yet elegant web 2.0 look and feel - so be it a little belated!
It has been a little over a year since GA offered web analytics solutions for all, and although early adopters were keen to register and wait for its release "“ these adopters were often quite tech focused, or partial to a bit of geek activity.
For the not so geeky, a lot of newbies to web-mastering/analytics have been intimated by GA's interface and found it to be far too complex. In many cases this was true, as finding simple things often required rummaging around through data that was unnecessary for their needs.
The Second Wave of Google Analytics is Now
If you who have been hesitant or have colleagues that have been out of the analytics loop, now is a great time to step into the ring and flex your analytics biceps and discover just what you have been missing. It now really does has a nice homely feel.
The next wave of GA adopters are likely catch a second wind for the mighty 'G' and one that has the potential to be stronger than the first "“ unleashing Google further and deeper into the homes and offices of wanna be web marketers.
And what about the New Features?
The most useful features seem to be the customisable dashboards and the ability to email reports. Although I think the focus on this release, has been to make GA easier to use and less so on offering new features "“ a job well done!
If you are new to GA or want to see how some of the new visuals look in GA 2.0, a visit to mashable will land you with 27 jammed packed Google Analytics features . Avinash probes a little deeper and highlights 5 key areas you should spend some time on.
To finish off, Dave Cafferey suggests why perhaps you too should you use Google Analytics.
Green Tech Living
May 22, 2007
Over the last couple of months I have tried to live my life a little greener and also boost my overall involvement in social media sites. So I thought why not share a wee bit of green? Surely there is nothing wrong with that and here are a couple of green social networking sites that to do just that:
If you find an urge to mix up a 'bit of green' with a 'bit of tech' "“ be sure to check out CNET's Green Tech Living.
Simple Online Shortcuts
May 13, 2007
We are all pretty familiar with shortcuts for our beloved Windows or Macs "“ but how savvy are you with online shortcuts? You've heard the saying every penny counts, well how about every second counts; and after all, time is money "“ so lets have a look at how we can knock off a few seconds from our daily surfing sessions.
FireFox, Internet Explorer & Opera Shortcuts
There are plenty of handy shortcuts for your browser of choice. Here is a fairly extensive list of such shortcuts. If you are after a snapshot, chekout the low-down that have worked well for me:
- Type the domain name into the address bar + ctr + ent - no need to type www. or .com "“ e.g. 'semconsultancy' + ctr + ent and you’re away
- ctr + j "“ opens downloader inspector
- ctr + t "“ opens a new tab
- ctr + tab (ctr + shift +tab) "“ toggle between browser tabs
- ctrl + l "“ jumps to address bar (F.F. and Opera only)
- / - find "“ same as ctr + f (F.F. and Opera only)
Integrate Del.icio.us and FireFox
I am a big fan of all things FireFox and all things Del.icio.us "“ and the recent integration of the two has made searching, browsing and editing of your bookmarks from FireFox rather simple. Here are a couple of useful keyboard shortcuts:
- ctr + d "“ allows quick-fire bookmarking
- ctr + b "“ giving easy access to your tags and bookmarks
Google Apps Shortcuts
If like me, you spend a fair amount of time with Google Apps such as GMAIL "“ be sure to checkout the Google keyboard shortcuts. You may also be interested in shortcuts for Google Reader "“ all of these need to be enabled within the settings.
Speed Up your Google Searching
You may wish to install Greasemonkey for FireFox, and add a script that sets some keyboard shortcuts for Google search. I spotted this over at the Google Operating System Blog.
This numbers the search results and allows for some neat shortcuts:
"¦you can also go to the next page of search results by tying n and go back to the previous page by typing p. To edit the query you have two options: either type e to select the query, so when you type something the query will be replaced, or type a to append something to the query"¦
Drop the Quotes for Phase Searching
Save an hour a year like Steve Rubel by avoiding the use of the shift button in phrase searching. Instead of "online shortcuts" try online-shortcuts.
Social Media Marketing Blog
May 12, 2007
Last week saw the launch of a new Social Media Marketing Blog "“ www.socialmediamarketing.co.uk, which is co-authored by Kevin Gibbons of SEOptimise and yours truly!
You may be interested in a little more detail about the launch of the SMM blog or how the SMM Pipe has been put together to aggregate social media marketing news.
The SMM Pipe has been created with the use of Yahoo Pipes, which was both a fun and frustrating experience. For those who would like a look under the bonnet of the SMM Pipe, with a Yahoo login, you can view and even clone there Pipe here.
