Internet Marketing Blog - WordStream

As ion interactive's online marketing manager, Megan Leap manages webinar, social media, search and email campaigns. She has extensive experience in conversion rate optimization and social media marketing, and when not championing high-ROI online marketing strategies, can be found running marathons across the U.S. She is also a frequent contributor to the Post-Click Marketing Blog. Follow Megan on Twitter: @MeganLeap.

What’s it like for an online marketer who’s marketing LiveBall, an online marketing software product, to other online marketers?

Marketing to marketers is a lot of fun. If I worked somewhere else, I would be our target audience. Plus, I use our software product every day in my job, so I know it inside and out. That gives me a unique perspective. Our audience knows marketing, we sell marketing software, so our marketing has to be top-notch. It definitely keeps me on my toes!

Given Ion Interactive's expertise in landing page management, can you provide a list of key ingredients for an effective landing page, and explain why these elements would lead to post-click marketing success? 

The most important element of successful landing pages is to think innovation, not iteration. So when you create new pages, don't get caught up in the weeds of headline colors, typefaces, button locations, etc. Those are factors, to be sure, but the most successful landing page programs start with a very macro-level strategy. Test a landing page against a conversion path. Test your overall messaging. Test your design. Then, once you find a champion, start refining the smaller elements within your champion.

On the flipside, what are some of the mistakes marketers make with poorly optimized landing pages that are lead generation killers?

The biggest mistake I see every day is complacency. Believe it or not, there are still marketers out there who are sending paid traffic to deep links within their site or poorly optimized pages. They're okay with it. And their conversion rates are disastrous. Aside from that, the most common mistake I see is product- and feature-driven copy, not benefit-driven copy.

Ion Interactive is heading an innovative approach to landing page design: incorporating social networking on landing pages through social widgets. Can you explain how turning a landing page into a peer-to-peer networking platform would benefit a company?

My friend Jessica, who has been blogging since at least 2006, warned me the other day that as my blog gets more popular, the comments will get progressively more annoying, truculent and even abusive. Though she is young and lovely, she said this with the tone of a knobby old seer. I chuckled nervously and tried to dismiss her prediction—I love my blog commenters—but I wasn't sure how to respond.

So my ears pricked up, or my eyes, or something, when shortly after this, Danny Sullivan tweeted that Engadget is turning off comments for a bit. In the announcement post, Joshua Topolsky wrote:

Hey guys, we know you like to have your fun, voice your opinions, and argue over your favorite gear, but over the past few days the tone in comments has really gotten out of hand. What is normally a charged – but fun – environment for our users and editors has become mean, ugly, pointless, and frankly threatening in some situations ... and that's just not acceptable. Some of you out there in the world of anonymous grandstanding have gotten the impression that you run the place, but that's simply not the case.

I immediately scrolled down to see how people were responding in the comments. D'oh! Nothing but white space.

Danny sphunn the post and added this comment (on Sphinn):

While I like them standing up in this way, i don't think a time out alone will "shake out" trolls and spammers. I think Engadget, like many publications, really will need to learn to police its comments. To me, it's like the "broken windows" theory of policing. That if an area has a lot of broken windows, people assume it's all's fair in crime and war. Mean, hateful or spammy comments are just bacteria that breed more of them. If your commenting activity sets a high bar, a good example, then I think that leads to better quality. Of course, that might mean less activity – and less page views that some publications seem to want more. And more work – you can't just sit back and let the Web 2.0 magic happen, because sometimes it ain't that magical.

Guest posting is a great way to promote and grow your blog. Websites are always looking for fresh content and love nothing better than good, free unique content. Glen Allsopp of ViperChill Viral Marketing is a great example of someone who's been able to build a very successful blog and a lot of "public success" by guest posting frequently on other websites. Glen was even able to earn 5 figures by guest blogging last year. So it's clear that guest posting can be a very effective strategy with lots of potential.

Also, we at WordStream frequently publish guest posts and have received some fantastic content from guest bloggers like Terry Van Horne of SEOPros and Blake Bowyer of EyeTraffic Media. So if you're interested in guest posting on WordStream, just shoot us an email.

That brings me to a great new opportunity for blog writers and publishers. Recently, Ann Smarty launched an awesome guest posting community, called My Blog Guest. Ann describes My Blog Guest as an exchange that "unites bloggers who are interested in connecting to other bloggers, journalists and other content creators in any niche and publish their high-quality articles on their blogs."

How does My Blog Guest work?

The concept is pretty simple: 

Search engine marketing (SEM) spend is expected to rise in the U.S. from $13 billion in 2009 to $26 billion by the year 2014. With more and more marketing dollars predicted to flow into paid and organic search marketing efforts, we wanted to poll our readers to see if their organizations are following the same trend.

We're conducting a brief, 10 question survey on search marketing budget trends in 2010. We want to know: will your spend on SEO, PPC and SEM-related activities in general rise, fall or remain the same in the coming year?

Take the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/sem-budget-trend-survey

Once this survey is completed, we'll publish the results on our blog next week.

Thanks!

This is a guest post by Blake Bowyer. Blake is a social media marketing enthusiast and Media Program Analyst at D.C.-based EyeTraffic Media, a digital marketing firm specializing in top-notch online campaign execution and measurement. You can find them at eyetraffic.com and follow them on Twitter at @EyeTraffic.

Join the conversation, but don’t try to dominate it for search’s sake.

The beauty of Twitter is that a 140-character limit allows anyone to chime in. You don’t have to be composing bi-weekly novellas with flowery prose to get heard on the Web. All you need is a half-coherent thought and some shorthand at your disposal.

Of course, that ease is also a curse for the many netizens who end up listening to people who have nothing to say. And now that social media messages have sprung up in search right alongside big-budget news and scholarly journals, the ramifications for SEO and visibility are obvious, leaving our SERPs pregnable to the fleeting thoughts and dubious whims of online marketers near and far.

As always, those with nothing to say will eventually be ignored. But is having too much to say equally problematic? Will your timely tweeting turn tiresome? Maybe. So here’s my thought: know the benefits of search and social media, and don’t be that annoying guy at the party who just wants to talk about himself (or ask others leading questions he already has the answers to). Here are three pearls you might not know about how that little birdy may decide where you show up on Google, Bing, and other search engines:

Start with a bang. Much prevailing thought among SEO specialists is that the first 42 characters of the < 140 may be the most relevant in search results. It’s a bit odd to think that way – especially because many posts start with “RT @wasteoftweetspace” – but it’s something to consider when composing your tweets for search indexing. Does this mean you need to agonize over the first 30% of each and every tweet? No, but keep it in mind when publishing the content you want to be seen and shared. Just posted a new blog article? Mind those characters. Have something particular groundbreaking to say? Mind those characters. Letting us know where you’re getting a cavity filled? Tweet without concern, because we don’t care. (Unless this is a sponsored tweet from your dentist, then we really don’t care.) But above all, please don’t use those characters for an RT attribution. That’s the biggest waste of space and goes against the ephemeral nature of Twitter you want to work for you. Use the “(via @notawasteofspace)” style we recommend at EyeTraffic.

One of the best ways to save money on your AdWords campaign is by improving your click-through rate (CTR), or the percentage of viewers who actually click on your ad.

1. Include promotional offers, attractive adjectives, and calls to action in your ads. People are more likely to click on your ad if you tout a special promotion, like free shipping. Also, words like “save,” “easy,” and “new,” and calls to action like “buy now,” “reserve today” and “call now,” can prompt a click.

2. Put your keywords into the body and title of your ad. The keywords people type into Google appear in bold when found in search results. People are more likely to click on ads that contain the keywords they have just typed than ads without them.

3. Include your price in your ad if you are selling a product or service for a good value. Not only may it incite more people to click on the ad for more information, but it also could lead to more conversions down the line.

4. Make sure your keywords are highly relevant to your product or service. If they aren’t, people won’t click on your ad. For example, if you sell red wine vinegar but your keywords are just “buy” “red” and “wine,” don’t expect many landing page hits. People searching for “buy,” “red” and “wine” are more focused on finding that perfect bottle than your vinegar.

5. Use negative keywords to limit untargeted impressions. Say you sell brand new cell phones. You don’t want your ad to appear when people search for refurbished cell phones. Thus, by setting “refurbished” as a negative keyword you can keep that from happening.

6. Simplify your ad. If your ad is too wordy people won’t want to read it. Try to pare down the copy in a way that doesn’t compromise a sufficient description of your product. Get rid of words like “Click Here” and “See (a specific link).”

7. Capitalize the words in your display URL to make them more readable. If you are a distributor of Swiss chocolate, for example, and your website is wesellswisschocolate.com, write the URL as WeSellSwissChocolate.com. People are more likely to click on your ad if they immediately know what you’re selling.

8. Test out different types of ads (text, banner, local business), different keywords, and different layouts, to see which features generate the highest click-through rates. Once you have this information you can focus on using those ad characteristics.

9. Get rid of abbreviations, unless they are obvious. Advertisers may shorten words so they can fit more of them into an ad. But in doing so they compromise users’ ability to easily understand the ad, and their desire to click on it.

10. Try using a seasonal headline in your ad, even if you offer your product or service year-round. That may give customers a sense of urgency and newness, prompting them to click the ad. If your company sells wrought iron furniture, for example, your headline could be “Thanksgiving Wrought Iron Furniture Sale.”

 Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/amagill/3366720659/

My favorite way to find quality blogs (and books and movies, for that matter) is via recommendation. Towards that end, I thought I'd share a PPC Blog you might not be reading (every so often we share a list of our favorite search and online marketing blogs).

Aaron and Giovanna Wall of SEO Book fame (see our SEO Book review here) have started collaborating on a sister site that focuses on PPC. The content is really strong, offering a very similar level of high quality how-to and industry trend material. They recently launched a very clever AdWords tax calculator that can help give you an indication of how much you might be wasting on paid search.

Here is some of the content they've churned out so far:

• A PPC Copywriting Guide
• A Post on Leveraging Search Query Reports (Though of course we all know the best way to leverage search query data)
• A Guest Post on Our Free Tools Around the Time of Their Launch
• A Cool Post on Leveraging the Wonder Wheel for Campaign Structure

If you haven't already it's definitely worth checking out and subscribing.

I was lucky enough to win a SEMMY for best 2010 PPC article. Many thanks to Matt McGee and David Mihm for taking the time to highlight various contributions within the search space, and thanks also to the PPC Hero blog for letting me put the post up there. I wanted to highlight some of the other winners:

• The link building category was stacked with three strong articles. Our friend Garrett French churns out a ton of great stuff with staggering consistency, and anyone with any serious level of familiarity with the industry is familiar with Weip, who's similarly impressive in terms of consistently high-quality content creation.
• The blogs and blogging category is another deep one, with the Guide to Guest Blogging being a really great overview on how to effectively execute on external posting opportunities.
• We have a lot of SMB clients, so I thought the Small Business category was really interesting.
• The Google category was a great one featuring three think-pieces by some of the industry's best minds.
• And of course the Search Tech category had some great stuff, and a well-deserved win for our friend David Harry of the Huomah SEO Blog.

I'd highly recommend taking a few minutes to check out all of the articles: http://www.semmys.org/ and thanks very much to anyone who voted for my article!

Chris Brogan is President of New Marketing Labs, a new media marketing agency, and home of the Inbound Marketing Summit conferences and Inbound Marketing Bootcamp educational events. He works with large and mid-sized companies to improve online business communications like marketing and PR through the use of social software, community platforms, and other emerging web and mobile technologies. Chris is also co-author of the book Trust Agents, with Julien Smith. For more information, read his blog or follow him on Twitter.

What are the first three things someone should do if they have little to no social presence and want to change that?

Start by listening. Use social media listening tools (google "Grow Bigger Ears" for starter advice), and start seeing what people are saying. Where are they saying it? Are they talking about you on Twitter, on Facebook, on blogs? Once you've listened, build some accounts and profiles so you can join in the conversation. At some point, consider setting up a place for your social media conversations, like a blog or Twitter, or whatever makes most sense for your business. 

Can you share some tips for managing a large number of followers on Twitter? How do you keep engagement levels high?

Comment and reply as often as you can to what people are talking about. Give full replies instead of simple "@person 'yes'" types of replies. Make sure that you're using tools like Seesmic Desktop or Tweetdeck to manage your information flow. The web-based tool doesn't cut it, and you need power tools once you get to a certain volume. Stay human. No matter how many people are following you, using robot tweets isn't okay. 

What are some ways to measure return on investment from social media marketing?

It depends what one is investing and how. Are you investing in resources? Are you talking about time investments? Look for how revenue yield changes once you build conversational channels. Look for how many more mentions/posts you get after starting blogger outreach. This is one of those "it depends" questions, and it starts with what kind of investment one means. 

What social community do you find most valuable for business?

I find the communities vary. If I'm selling fashion, I might want to be big on YouTube or Flickr, for instance. If I'm looking to sell cars, I might find some great value in Twitter. If I'm pushing professional poker, Twitter's a great place, too. It depends on where and for what. There are great B2B conversations happening on Facebook and LinkedIn. It goes back to listening. Where will you find them?

This is a guest post by Terry Van Horne. Terry is the founder of SeoPros and a 15-year veteran of Web development, currently working out of his consulting and development firm International Website Builders. Terry's interests are primarily the socialization of search and analysis of social Web traffic and applications like Twitter.

I discovered the term "disruptive technology" while dabbling in day trading. Basically it's a technology or business that enters a space and disrupts the current sales and business model -- these days, almost always using technology as a catalyst. I actually did some trading in these stocks, and here's a tip: When it seems the price is stupid ... it is!

The Interwebs have proven be a very disruptive technology. The Web changed the travel industry, in fact, knocked it on its backside -- driving the costs for travelers down and almost entirely removing the "travel agency" from the model.

Currently another biz model is facing a pretty rough row to hoe. Newspapers are facing a "perfect storm" with advertisers moving to the Internet, in particular search, and to a lesser extent social media and social networking sites. Traditional media like television (a story in and of itself), radio and newspapers are watching the Internet take market share away, to the point that some are putting paywalls back up.

Free dailies are taking box revenue and subscribers from the newspapers. I used to buy a newspaper to read on the subway. Not anymore -- I just grab the Metro (a local Toronto daily that just announced a deal with Foursquare), and I get the real news on the Web.

Over the years, as the Internet has become ingrained into the fabric of society, it's natural that it become the central distribution system for news. Now AP (the Associated Press) has possibly left/been dropped from Google ... the plot thickens.