My co-worker Luke forwarded a nice article.

Hey guys,

Here is a great article I came across that really has some great ideas for driving web traffic. Many of these are tried and true techniques but there are also a lot of other innovative ways included in this article as well….

http://seonoobs.com/104-ways-to-get-backlinks-mega-backlink-guide/

Some of the items on the list are questionable. But it does exemplify why it is hard to make your blog stand out in the mega-crowd of blogs on the Internet. Just posting blog posts won’t drive traffic; you have to do a lot of grassroots effort.

Chances are good that if you do even a small amount of online marketing you have come into contact with landing pages.

Landing pages are described in Wikipedia as “a specific web page that a visitor ultimately reaches after clicking a link or advertisement”. This could be anything from a search campaign in Google to a banner ad placed in a local business association. These are almost always transactional pages that exist to help fuel the customer conversion, whether it is to purchase a product, download information, or simply sign up for an email newsletter.

We place a lot of importance on these pages as they are the gateway to all customer interactivity with your company. Get it wrong and you could miss out on a lot of potential revenue. It is especially important in the B2B realm - where the value of the conversion is typically greater.

So in an effort to help you get off on the right foot I have compiled a list of tips that have served me well when creating successful B2B landing pages.

1. Carry the message through from the advertisement: Do everything you can to make sure that you aren’t pushing your traffic to a “one size fits all” landing page. If the ad that brought them was about a particular feature - then highlight that feature. If it was a discount that brought them to you…don’t waste time talking up the feature set. It may be more work to create multiple landing pages…but you will definitely get more conversions
2. Personalize the content: I’ve seen marketers spend hours segmenting a list and crafting a highly customized message that speaks directly to each recipient…only to forward them to a generic landing page once they decide to take action! If your email program allows for personalization of content… drive that personalization through the link in the email and into the landing page. If you want to see how you can do this through using simple javascript, see this earlier post.
3. Keep the form simple and above the fold: You can test this yourself, but I have ALWAYS gotten better response when the form is above the fold. And of course, its always better to limit the amount of information to only that which is necessary. Do you really need to know the state when you have the zip code? If possible its even better if you can…
4. Pre-populate the form: Want to know the easiest way to increase conversion? Pre-populate the form on the landing page. If you are driving traffic from an email campaign then you already have alot of this info…don’t ask them for it again! Again, you can do this using simple javascript.
5. Minimize outbound links: You spent alot of money to get the visitor to the landing page so it is perfectly acceptable to drive traffic to a landing page optimized for conversion. As long as you are giving the visitor exactly what the ad promises…you are not entitled to give them access to every page of your website. If you want to force a conversion or an exit…then that is acceptable. I will usually offer a few ancillary links if they aren’t ready to take action, however…the intent is obvious and I try to do everything I can to encourage the dominant call to action.
6. Optimize them for search: It makes a lot of sense to optimize each landing page for a few specific (usually long tail) keywords. Since you will be driving alot of traffic to these pages they will likely gain relevance and therefore prominence. A good way to encourage volume traffic is to link to these landing pages from your website, add them to your sitemap, andkeep them as close to the design and layout as your web site pages (while keeping in mind #5). There are too many SEO tips to cover here…I suggest reading up on any number of SEO blogs available.
7. Keep the messaging to the point: The tendency is to try to do too much with the landing page copy. Its perfectly understandable since we ask so much of this page. But the fact of the matter is that this is no time to beat around the bush or push a lot of marketing fluff. Get to the point, offer real benefits, and answer those last minute questions that may be that last barrier to taking action.
8. Use visual elements to peak interest: A picture is worth a thousand words. The more you can do with images (or even better…embed a presentation) the more likely you are going to pique the interest of your visitor and encourage them to take the desired action. Leave nothing to the imagination…because nobody buys that way.
9. Set a testing plan in place: Don’t just create the landing page and then hope that everything goes right…start testing some combinations of messages. With Google releasing Website Optimizer to the public for free you can immediately begin seeing what headlines and action calls your visitors are responding the best to.
10. Monitor your results closely: I single out my landing pages for special treatment in my Google Analytics…in the form of goals and campaign tracking. This will provide a lot of opportunity to understand campaign traffic segments in relation to goal conversion. I also like to use Crazy Egg’s heat map and confetti view to track specific click behavior. Mine the data…and you will be able to make key insights that help your conversion.
11. Survey them: The best thing you can get from #10 is quantitative data…thousands of reports that will tell you all of the activity that has taken place…but it will not give you the “why“. Why did they choose Product X over Product Y? Why did they decide to leave without converting? Why are people who come from email more likely to convert than from search? Surveying on exit or conversion can help fill in those gaps that analytics cannot.

The most important thing to consider when crafting a landing page is to never sacrifice your message for short sighted gains in SEO or web analysis. Keep your primary focus on the customer and being as thorough as possible in describing the benefits or your product and/or service. Do only those things that make sense for your customer and watch the conversions come in!

There are alot of tools out there to help you with SEO. Some of the best tools are extensions for Firefox. You can see some of them here. They are a must have in any optimizers arsenal.

But a cool SEO tool I have used previously is SEO Doc by Instant Position.

This is a great little tool especially if you are new to search optimization and need some guidance when getting started in SEO. It evaluates everything for you based on what keywords you want to target - and lets you know in simple terms how well you score on individual areas of search optimization (meta, title tags, keyword frequency, inbound link popularity, body content, ect.)

I have used SEO Doc to do search optimization for clients and had great results. It helped me target the keyword phrases that I wanted to use for my most important pages and proved extremely helpful in helping me get them to the top of the search listings in all of the major search engines.

But that doesnt mean that I used it once and then sat back and waited for the results to come in. I still had to research and tweak my keyword content even after getting optimized in SEO Doc. This is true of any SEO tool, even the more costly tools like Web Position. Search optimization is an ongoing process - but very worthwhile once you are successful. SEO Doc is great tool to propel you in the right direction if you arent sure how to get started.

A members costs very little at $80 a year and you can get a feel for how it works by testing out the simplified free version. You can also sign up for a free one day trial if you want to see how the full version works - which I definitely suggest. By doing so you will gain access to a plethora of other online marketing tools in addition to SEO Doc.

Take a test drive and let me know your thoughts!

I was told once that there are “no new ideas, only new ways of presenting old ones”. And the more I surf around the more that holds true…especially with blogging.

That doesn’t discourage me because I take away much more from individual perspectives and experiences, as do most bloggers. I actually love the smaller blogs that are “finding their voice” much as I am doing here…they have some great perspectives that you wont find anywhere else.

But that being said, there are 3 that I visit every day - and you should too. These are the best blogs on marketing and provide plenty of info for the small business marketer.

1.GrokDotCom
If you are serious about web analytics (and you should be…) this is one of the best blogs on the internet. This is the home of Bryan and Jeffery Eisenberg - they are web analytics gurus and founders of the Web Analytics Association. I also highly recommend their book “Call to Action” it is a must read. If you visit this site only once in awhile you will come away a 10x smarter marketer.

2.SEO Moz
I am a junkie for all things search marketing and read many blogs on the topic - but this one is the standard bearer. If you are looking for ways to increase search traffic there are few things that these folks haven’t tried and have all documented them here. If this isn’t in your reader…it should be.

3.Marketing Sherpa
This is where serious marketers go. This blog is filled with success stories, case studies, whitepapers, manuals, surveys, studies, and analysis on every marketing topic and tactic that ever existed. Smart people learn from successful people - and this is where they go.

Honorable mention:

Forrester
I almost included it and made this a top 4 list - but decided against it. Some of us only have so much time in the day. So if your finding that you have a little extra time to devote swing by here for some of the best insight on marketing trends and analysis.

First off - I am a rabid Firefox fan…not because its open source (I love that too) but because its a very thin application that you can build out and customize.

Being a marketer, I find that I have rapidly accumulated a ton of tools to help me with everything from search marketing, web design, usability, social networking, and competitive research. I have way too many to list in one article - and some are more of a personal preference than practical, but I thought it would be a good place to share my favorites… and more specifically those integrated with Firefox.

Web Developer 1.1.3

Its safe to say that I use this application daily. It is the ultimate companion for any website designer/developer. This tool is so versatile that covering everything it does would be impossible to do here -it could be its own article. If I had to sum up what I use it for mostly would be for its validation ability, real time style sheet editing, visual guides, and document control. Go here to see everything this awesome tool can do…

IE Tab

I no longer open up separate explorer windows for websites and applications that only support IE (i cant believe they still exist either…) Its also great for doing some quick browser testing. A must have if you are still forced to use IE every once in awhile.

FireFTP

I have grown very close to this add on. I used to use any number of free-ware applications to ftp files into my sites, but since integrating it into my browser - I have not gone back. Its a simple yet powerful tool for those people who have a handful of websites that they want to ftp files into and don’t want to leave their browser to do it.

Rankquest SEO Toolbar and Search Status

The combination of these two add-ons are perfect for keeping track of your website and competitor websites in search engines. They offer pagerank and alexa rank in the status bar and one click access to an array of traffic details. If you want to get serious about SEO, these tools are absolutely required.

Colorzilla and Measure It

These little add-ons come in really handy when I am designing. I can click a small eyedropper or ruler in the status bar to easily get everything from website color values to pixel measurements of anything online.

Dictionary Search

If you are anything like me you probably aren’t a walking resource library and come across words every day that you don’t know their meaning. The cool thing about this little tool is that you can double click any word in a web page and instantly pull up its dictionary meanings in a small pop up window. Efficient!

Google Preview

This is a great little feature that adds a web page thumbnail to Google search listings. Its especially helpful for when you are doing multiple searches and need a quick visual to help guide your clicks.

Like I said, there are alot of others that I use - but these are the cool little ones that make my day a little easier. If you have some that you love share them here!

I was reading a small but cool article that sums up the future of SEO…

If you haven’t checked out this blog its pretty cool - I run over and catch up with them every once and while…

Web Analytics World

What I believe will continue to play a huge part of SEO will be inbound links and relevancy. With the rise of social media I believe that individuals will play an even bigger part in determining the SERP of particular keywords and topics.

What are your thoughts?

So you updated your meta tags a few years ago, maybe some title tags and content updates for good measure. As a result you saw some good results to your search engine positions - and a nice uptick in revenue to go with it. You have been riding the wave of good fortune and basking in the adoration of your superiors - eating up the praise and promotions that have come along with it.

Then one day a friend asks you about your company and you tell them confidently “just do a search in google for x, we’ll pull right up…”. After a brief pause your friend asks you again what company you work for - you tell him and he tells you that someone else is showing up.

You frantically open up google and do a search for your company…and like a horror movie where the young woman is about to realize her fate - you belt out a horrific scream, startling your coworkers and the poor friend on the other end of the line…

“What happened to my rankings?” you say as you grab you composure.

What happened was that you got too comfortable.

SEO is no longer a simple process of updating tags and building up your inbound links. Your competitors are actively watching your SEO movements - the better rankings you have the more of a target you become.

Think of SEO as a game of “smear” where the person holding the ball is singled out by everyone else for getting tackled. If you have a sweet search ranking for a highly sought after keyword, congratulations…you got the ball.

The key to holding onto your search ranking is to always be paying attention to others on the field - get lazy and your bound to have your back end handed to you…and your search term stripped away.

So the game has changed. You can either come suited up ready to play or get in the stands with the other wannabes. The glory belongs to those on the field.