The Big Wave Blog

Landing Pages and Multivariate Testing

The most important element of optimizing any landing page is understanding the client’s goals and intentions. Every page on every website needs a goal, and landing pages are no different. In fact, it is probably more important to clearly define your objective or goal for a landing page, because the goal of each landing page is to attract -> engage -> convert -> retain.

Many different types of landing pages are commonly used today, including:

• Static landing pages - coded in HTML
• Dynamic landing pages - coded in .js application
• Application landing pages: allow the user to refine their intentions without leaving the page

What Needs to Be Tested/Optimized:

• Headlines - emotional vs. direct
• Calls to action
• Buttons vs. links
• Hero image - photo vs. illustration
• Copy - emotional or direct
• Bulleted list vs. copy
• Tables, charts
• Lead generation forms

Remember to test only one thing at a time. In addition, the landing page must be kept consistent through all Ad Groups to ensure that it is the landing page, not the keyword set, that is resulting in higher or lower conversion.

Be careful which metric you use to determine which page is most successful. Some landing pages bring in a greater number of leads, but fewer sales. Be sure to track each customer from beginning to end.

There is a host of good products out that allow for multiple landing page testing. One of the best is Google’s free landing page optimizer: www.google.com/WebsiteOptimizer. It allows marketers to perform split A/B testing and multivariate testing on landing pages.

SEO & Social Media Marketing

I was not very impressed with this session. There was very little unique knowledge. Randy Fishkin gave a history of social media and the major social media sites. Neil Patel provided some case studies from his work with social media marketing for major brands. Barbara Boser provided some tips for getting started in social media marketing, and how to be come a top StumbleUpon user.

Top Social Media Tips:

• Use the same profile for each social media site you use. This allows users who use many different social media sites to easily remember you.
• Don’t continually Digg or Stumble your own site. This will easily get your buried, and will have a major negative affect.
• In order to be a great at social media, you have to interact with the community.
• Don’t just target the top users. They will notice this and bury your stories.

Michael Gray presented on Twitter. Major brands are using Twitter as an update for specials and packages on their products or services. It can also be a valuable reputation management tool.

Branding and Search

This was an informative session highlighting important aspects about Branding and Search and how they interact. A marketing program in which they work together has a very positive outcome on brand-building and ROI.

Here are some highlights:

1. Sheer Volume of Searches

• 60% of all in-store shoppers are researching the product online.
• 86% of online shoppers are researching the product online.

2. Brand Advocates

• Learn to embrace them. They talk about your brand without you having to pay them to do so. 50% of this group writes about their purchases online. They have major influence on others buying similar products and services.
• Search can be used to reach this group and harvest their marketing power.

4. Passionistas

• This was an interesting term for people who really love 1. Themselves and 2. Love the product that loves them back.
• Reaching Passionistas through search can result in building tremendous buzz and getting the marketing message across.

3. Awareness – Consideration – Purchase

It was pointed out that search marketers are heavily focused on the last stage of the cycle by going after people ready to buy. One explanation I can give on behalf of the search marketer is that short-term ROI is top priority for a lot of clients.

It is our job to convince our clients that they should be focusing on building the brand in conjunction with ROI.

Reporting from Santa Clara, where Big Wave Bloggers are having a radical time! We’ve attended some very education sessions, toured Yahoo, socialized with fellow searchers… and we’re just getting started. Here’s a recap of the official experience so far.

Keynote:
Search in the Past, Present and Future

The event was off to an exiting start with AC/DC blaring from the speakers. Danny Sullivan began SMX West 2008 by focusing the keynote on how search, searchers and SERP pages have evolved over time.

Here is the breakdown according to Danny:

Search 1.0 focused on keyword research and including targeted keyword phrases in meta tag and website content.

Search 2.0 introduced the importance of off-page factors, such as link analysis and user click-through rate (CTR).

Search 3.0 (which we are currently in) displays blended results on the SERP, meaning that search engines are now including images, video, blogs, and product search listings for every search.

Search 4.0 will be the era of personalized search, with results based on your past and present search history, as well as CTR history.

Session 1:
Blended Search Results

Blended Search was up next. Blended search results are a combination of video, images, blogs, and news listings displayed on the SERP. Traditional SERPs offered only traditional webpage listings. Blended search, together with local search, changes the scope of traditional SEO campaigns.

Each engine has unique elements associated with its blended search results. Here are the tips given by each search engine on what to do to gain maximum exposure:

Google:

• Caption website images
• Submit sitemap to Google video
• Create a local business listing
• Upload inventory into Google Product Search
• Use Google Blog Search

Yahoo:

• Create Local Business Listings
• Use Yelp.com to boost local search rankings
• Upload inventory into Yahoo Shopping, Travel, etc.
• Caption website images

MSN/Live:

• Create a local business listing
• Upload product catalog

Session 2
Pay Per Click: Decrypting Quality Score

PPC has matured beyond setting up an AdWords account and getting clicks. Google is not only controlling spam in web results, but also is serious about cleaning up PPC spam.

Here are some of the Quality Score highlights we picked up from this session:

• Reasons for low quality score are page factors, such as misleading content or irrelevant pages.
• Placement and CPC are based on quality score.
• Your minimum bids are determined by your ad quality and relevance.
• Google can “kill” your campaign by increasing your CPC to unbearable levels.
• AdWords sandbox is here! Your campaign is not going to take off if it is not set up and maintained properly.

Google is serious about its SERP quality on both the organic (SEO) and paid (PPC) sides. Ways to game the system using PPC are getting fewer by the day.

Google has to defend their online revenue and keep search results healthy. Shareholders want results, dammit! What would you do in a situation like that?

Session 3:
Creating Personas to Better Target Clients

This session concentrated on creating personas for paid search and website conversion.

Since emotions are the major driving force behind human search patterns, creating personas is increasingly important in determining the psychographics of a client’s target market. Personas include detailed information about your potential customers. The following is a simple example.

Persona Code Name: Jane
Jane is middle-aged mother of 2 living in the Midwest. She works full-time as an Account Executive for a medium-sized ad agency. She makes $55,000/year and needs to find balance between family and work. Her children attend public school and are very active in after-school extracurricular activites, which include basketball, music lessons and church groups.

Here is a list of sites that will help you create client personas:

• compete.com
• quantcast.com
• adlab.msn.com
• prizm: charitas.com

Reporting from San Francisco, I have an update for our readers on Evision’s first speaking engagement of 2008. Our partners at CHLA invited me to speak to a group of California Bed and Breakfast owners this afternoon.

First of all, arriving in California from 10-degree Chicago weather feels great. Add to that a packed session that was very well received and raised some interesting points. I will summarize the important ones for you:

• Let there be light! From corporate boardrooms to independent business owners, there is still a lot of education that needs to be delivered. Having worked in the industry for several years, I sometimes feel that everyone must know the basics by now. But it’s never true! It may be 2008, but there are many people who have not been educated about the web in the right way. Educational sessions are always needed on search engines and website marketing.
• Count your chickens every day. There needs to be a major emphasis on analytics. Nothing great ever comes out of making an assumption. It is shocking to hear people discuss how they made decisions about their website based on some story they heard. You will never know what is really happening until you get analytics on your website. Good analytics are the key to making the right marketing decisions… and some of the best analytic software is FREE.
• Web reputation management is key. Keep an eye on what people are saying about you on the web. Message control is gone. It is now your job to keep tabs on what is being said about you and your business. It pays to be reasonable with people you do business with. Good actions will be duly noted, but bad ones will circulate much faster than you think!
• Weigh price vs. value. In 2008, an election year, it is time for your business to make a critical decision. Are you going to be the cheapest option with more sales, or the prestigious one with few? It’s up to you to become either Wal-Mart or Nordstrom. The most successful businesses online have a clear idea of who they want to do business with.

At the end of the session, there were a lot of questions from the audience. (Quite an accomplishment for an after-lunch session!)  It was a pleasure to be there, and I would like to thank Lynn, Jennifer, Sherri, Guy, Heidi, Jim & Bernice for their wonderful compliments.

Reputation Monitoring and Management
December 4, 2007

This panel provided some excellent points on taking charge of your online reputation by using tools to monitor, manage, and influence what is said about you online.

Andy Beal was on this panel; he writes one of my favorite blogs, Marketing Pilgrim. It was great to see him in person and hear him deliver a power-packed presentation.

Here are the top 10 reputation monitoring tools mentioned in the session:

1. Moreover
2. Yahoo News: Industry-Specific Feeds
3. Google News: Mainstream Media, By Company Name
4. Digg: Newsfeed by URL, Feed, Keyword
5. Technorati: Crucial for Blogs
6. Co.mments: Keyword and URL tracking
7. Blog Pulse
8. Del.icio.us
9. Flickr
10. Blogtrends

Here is an interesting point to consider when practicing reputation monitoring and management online. Message control is gone! The word will get out there faster than you can think. I would like to add here that good news will travel, and bad news will travel at warp speed (any star trek fans?)