Tips for Landing Pages - Internet Marketing Podcast Number 196

Hi, welcome to the SEO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebStyle. Charles Lewis, so Internet Marketing Specialist. Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of our podcast. This is podcast number 196. Our previous podcast was 195. Probably 195, I'm thinking. And the tip from that podcast is make sure your site map is complete and available to the Google bots. Yeah, you want to make sure that any time you update content, whether it's post, pages, or whatever it is on your site, if that change includes any URL changes or page structure changes or anything like that, navigation changes, make sure that your site map is updated and you've resubmitted that to Google Webmaster Tools. Frankly, the Bing Webmaster Tools as well. That way, you can make sure that the search engines have the proper and the most current version of your site map. Current version being good. Definitely. Well, assuming that you've been working with us or have been working properly on your... Let me drop this sprinkle in real quick. If you're using WordPress and you're using the site map plug-in, then guess what? It'll automatically do it for you. Automatically updates the site map and submits it. That's pretty awesome. If you have a device such as this, and I'm holding up a generic cell phone, go ahead and tweet now. What you should tweet is, if you'd be so kind. Hashtag SEO Podcast. This is number 196. Be sure to tag us in it, at eWebStyle. That way we can link up, follow you back, and do all this social stuff. That was a GS3 he was holding up to. Yeah. It's not generic. Well, does the G... You're telling me the G doesn't stand for generic? So, like, generic smart phones? Three? All right. Please remember, we are your friendly, local... Local? Lobal? Lobal? That's like werewolf. We are your friendly, local neighborhood top position snatchers. Yes. Where our mantra is... Don't be a douche. Don't be a douche. Maybe we should explain that. Yeah, so

being a douche is not a good look, right? Anytime somebody's spamming you or sending you unsolicited emails and posting, you know, crappy comments and all those other kind of stupid, using fake profile names and all of the stuff that happens on the internet, we call that being a douche. And so, for those who don't know that, that's what being a douche is. So, please don't be offended or... We'll cover that. We're going to cover that in a second. You know, that's what that is. Don't be a douche. So, one of the plugins that comes with WordPress, it still comes with it, I think, Ask Amit. Yep. Right? It comes with it. Well, no, you've got to pay for it. And, well, you have to pay for it to turn it on, etc. But it does, I think it comes in the initial install. The reason you need Ask Amit, it really should be called Anti-Douche. Don't be a douche. Anti-douche. Because if people weren't out there being douches, then... You wouldn't need Ask Amit. You wouldn't need Ask Amit. So, all right. We do have a referral program. Make sure you guys take advantage of that. If you have an account or you know of an SEO account that could use a little bit of help, send in our direction. We'll make sure that you get paid. Yes, sir. You can do us two favors. There's two favors you can do us. One of them has three steps. Get onto iTunes. Create an account. Write a review. We're going to cover one review here in just a second. If you do write a review on iTunes, go ahead and hit us up. Send us an email. Podcast at... E-WebStyle.com Let us know that you actually wrote a review on iTunes and we will give you a punch in the face. Call a patiff. A patiff. Next, you could go to our G Plus account. Our G Plus local account and write a review there. We've made it really easy. All you have to do is

go to E-WebStyle.com slash... G Plus. Or slash... Google Plus. And that's either one with Plus being spelled out or the symbol. Just hit us up. Leave a review. We so appreciate it. Cool. All right. We do have a review. Actually, we read this gentleman's review. He wrote one on G Plus, our G Plus local. Thank you. Cheers to that. Patiff. And then he also wrote one on iTunes. Here's the one on iTunes. It's all about value and great content. Five stars. Five stars. This is by Paul Hill. Every episode of this podcast leaves you thinking about different ways to improve the SEO and internet marketing strategies of your website. In terms of providing valuable information to people which will actively improve the performance of their site, this podcast delivers a must for any SEO, regardless of experience. Paul Hill. Punch in the face to you. Right cross. Top of the head. You know, good punch in the face. Hey, we do. We did an interview this week. We did an interview with Rachel Parker. Her podcast. Punch in the face to Rachel Parker, man. At Resonance Content, they do a fabulous job over there creating content, helping people strategize and figure out what they're going to do socially or on their site. Really cool lady. A woman on business. Check it out. Resonancecontent.com. And hit her up. So one of the reviews that we read last time was from her. From her. Yeah. I know. Parker. Yeah. Rachel Parker. So punch in the face to Rachel. She has such a nice voice. We need this to be podcasting. Yeah, exactly. At a minimum. It's a nice, soothing voice. She's probably really great on, like, national radio. Yeah. Yeah. It even matters the topic. Yeah. Yeah. And the whales were swimming across. I can hear Rachel now. And Spurs and Heat tied to the top. All right. I do have a little bit of news. We did mention Galaxy S4. The Galaxy S4 actually has a camera version. I don't know. 10, 10X. Check that puppy

out. Is that real? That's real. Well, it looks similar to the iPhone deal that they did before. Right. The iPhone came with the lens you could put on there. So if you're watching the podcast, there's a picture of it. It is actually pretty cool. I shortly thereafter saw an article. Well, the number of S4s is confusing to consumers and will cause them to not be happy. I actually disagree with that. The number of what? The number of S4s. Because they have, like, an S4 that's Google-based, like, only Google, which I don't, like, so it doesn't have the Samsung interface on top of it. They've got the S4 like I have. They have the S4 with the camera. And then there's one other S4. And they're coming out with an S4 Mini. And so I think it's not a bad deal. So, you know, they don't make as much money as Apple because they have to make so many devices. And if they're making money and they're providing stuff that we like, like, I can kind of see this. If Sprint had a SIM card, it might be worth owning one of these. I'm heading out. I'm going on a vacation. I want my S4 camera phone with me instead of just my S4. So that's pretty good. So we did get an email this week. And the email was from a Mr. Lancaster. And, well, he wasn't very happy with this. It starts off, and I was kind of clued in early on because it started off with, damn it. That was my first clue that he wasn't happy with this. So he says, damn it. I have to say something. The podcast content is great. That's all caps. But you really diminish your credibility when you say your mantra is, don't be a douche. Let's do that again. Don't be a douche. We need to work on our harmonies. I almost sing it. Don't be a douche. That would be good in a commercial. I only come at this from a marketing standpoint. It

doesn't offend me, but I can see women being turned off by this phrase, and it just sounds juvenile. You own a business, so start acting like it. Not trying to offend you because I do like the podcast, because he did say the content was great. Just trying to give you some feedback. First off, Mr. Lancaster, punch in the face. Thank you for the feedback. Thank you for tuning in. Thank you for watching. Thank you for saying it's great. I'm glad you appreciate our content. Wow. And the first thing we did, because we had an interview with Rachel Parker this week, is we actually got her opinion on it. And she was like, I'm not offended by it. Yeah, frankly, she says the word douche frequently. Yeah. So I think maybe it's a little bit of weight that you're carrying to that particular phrase, as opposed to what the general population considers. And, you know, tit for tat, professionally, you own a business, you shouldn't start an email with dammit. I'm just saying. Just saying. I'm just saying. All right. A little more piece of news. They have officially proclaimed that you cannot patent parts of the human genome. I think that's good. There's a lot of implications to that. Both good and bad, actually. So if people are doing specific research on altering the genome to cure particular diseases, they're less likely to be able to protect that technology. So they're less likely to actually do research on it. So, pros and cons, there is an SOS initiative, and I can't remember what the acronym is for. Basically, you can, I think in the early days, if you lost your cell phone, you weren't too worried because nobody could really do anything with it. Now, you know, they're whatever. You just take a cell phone, and you go, and you get it signed up. Get it cracked, get it wiped, and now you have a new phone. So it really shouldn't be that hard for the carriers to know, you know, who owns it, and

for you to actually destroy your phone once it's gone. Yeah, I wish my phone had a, just, you know, a remote that I could just explode. Yeah, explode. Just make this phone blow up. First, you want it to ring, and then you want to hear hello, and then you want it to explode. Oh, so then you know who stole your phone. And then this last little piece of news, it's actually a pretty cool commercial, comparing the Dell tablet to the iPad, and they did a really good job on this. So the first thing is, is there's a little zoom in feature, and that one wasn't very impressive. But the other one is, in the commercial, they stick an SD card into the Dell tablet, and then, as they go to put the SD card into the iPad, Siri says, you can't put an SD card there. Or there. Or there. Or there. I just thought it was a great use of using Siri's voice in a commercial. Then, of course, they pull the tablets away, $5.99 versus $3.99. Oh, okay, I saw that commercial. Yeah. Yeah, I saw that commercial. Oh, and then the defaults says, well, is that the word where it says, well, do you want to play, ding, ding, ding, and it goes to the little piano? No. That must be a different video. Because this was real short, because it just, it was one pinch feature that Apple, that the iPad didn't have. Yeah, that wasn't Dell, that was Android. Android. Android Voices iPad. Cool. So, that's the news for today. That's all of our reviews and everything. And let's, that's what's called the potatoes. Let's get to the meat. Yeah, so, so we've been, I found an interesting article. This one was on Search Engine Journal. Seven Killer Landing Page Design Tips to Maximize Your Conversion Ratio. Punch in the face to Manish for putting out the article a couple days ago. I read it. So, so, seven killer landing page design tips. Landing page design tips. Yeah, killer landing

page design tips. Stood out because we create landing pages, and we drive traffic, and we're always looking to make sure that whatever page we land people on converts. You know what, maybe Mr. Lancaster's right. Maybe our mantra should be, every page is a landing page. Well, we're definitely going to get into that here. Okay. Because he addressed that. He talked about that. And so, we'll get into it. Some of the things, like you know me now, some of the things I agree with, some of the things I don't, and I'll leave it up to you guys. So, number one, tip number one is navigation. He goes on to say that nothing is more important than making it easy for a user to find what they're looking for. Most advertisers send clicks straight to the homepage. You shouldn't do that. Now, I have a hard time thinking there's a few cases. I just have a hard time thinking of what they are. Well, there's a few cases where sending to the homepage is okay. Right. And then there are most cases, depending on the type of campaign, where you should have a, well, let me say this. When possible, you should create a custom landing page for whatever market you're targeting, whatever product, whatever that action is. If you're doing roofing and you're doing an ad campaign for a roof replacement, you should have a roof replacement landing page. However, if the only thing you do is roof, and let's say, and let me take this a step further, let's say you do roofing, siding, and windows, then you should not land people on your homepage with a paid campaign. Yeah. You should land people on that roofing campaign. However, if you only do roofing, that's all you do, then your homepage is probably designed extremely well to convert a roofing click. And at that point, I think it's okay to land somebody on your homepage because that's all you offer. So I think it really depends on your industry, what exactly you do, and how

you need to, the best way for you to convert those clients. Number two, images. I like what he put here on images. He lists out four different things about images, and we'll breeze through these. Number one, make sure your images are meaningful. I totally agree. I hate going to a site that has, this was all I was saying earlier, I hate going to a site that just has images, placeholders, basically. They're purdy. Yeah. Like, make sure this image means something. I like custom. Wait till you guys see the new eWeb website coming. We took some images, some pictures, and Javier, our graphic artist and IT director, he really hooked them up. Custom images. I think they'll have a greater impact. And people recognize that they're not stock and that they have an actual purpose. Logical. Make sure your images make sense. Right? Again, if we're using that same example from earlier, if I'm landing you on a roofing page, I shouldn't have my siding images on that page. I should have my roofing maybe before and after pictures or examples of damaged roofs and things like that. Those would be the images you see. Lastly, make sure those images are clean. Right? You don't want any blurry or pixelated images and things like that. So, you know, images speak volumes. Tip number three, content. A few steps about content. Number one, make sure unique isn't enough. I totally agree with that. These days, it takes more than just having unique content. You know, everyone can take some time and write some creative content and make sure it's original, but that's not enough. I think your unique content needs to serve a purpose. Like, why is this content here? How is it going to help the reader? Answer those questions when you're writing that content. Now, here's one I disagree with. He put, forget SEO for now. And he's talking about content. And I understand the logic behind that statement. Like, you don't want you to think about keywords when you're writing the content because you're

probably going to write for the user and all of this here. I get that. But you can't forget SEO. It's extremely important that you keep in mind the keywords you're looking for. Let me ask this. Go ahead. But you are doing SEO even when you're forgetting it. Yeah. But when you're forgetting it, you're just probably doing it really poorly. Yeah. You are always doing SEO because you're always writing things that the search engines are going to be looking for. So you might as well do it consciously, accurately, and in a manner that's going to help you get your site on the first page. I totally agree with the direction you're going in. You definitely don't want to write for the search. You want to write for the user. I get that, and that's extremely important, but never forget that. Yeah. You can't forget. You have to make sure you have the right keywords and the right content in there, or that search will never find you, no matter how good your content is. So, you know, keep SEO in mind. Right here, he says, be neutral. You don't want to go for the hard sell. Man, I disagree with that as well. I think it depends on the industry. It depends on your site. If you have a quick sale, like if I'm trying to get you to my site to, let's say, download a mixtape or something like that, I don't have time to schmooze you. And, you know, I may give you one sales page that you hear one song, and the next option is download the mixtape. And the only next option is download the mixtape, you know. But I think in a different case where maybe you have a longer sales process or it requires some back and forth or a lot of information gathering from the client, then yeah, that would be stupid to go for a hard sell. You should go for soft pitches to capture information, which will turn into a lead that you can follow up with

and go through your sales process. But if you're selling a product, this is an e-commerce site or something like that, there's no such thing as not going for the hard sale, especially from a PPC version. It does not compute. Yeah. It does not compute. I paid for this click. I need you to buy now. And so the faster you buy, the more likely I am to pay for another click. Exactly. I like this one. It's all about the user. I totally agree with that. At the end of the day, the users are the ones who's clicking. Those are the ones who are paying. Those are the ones who are hopefully converting on your site. So always keep the user in mind when working with your content. I really like this one. Address concerns before the user has them. Definitely. That's sales 101. If you know what the first question is going to be when people, when you approach somebody, go ahead and answer that question before they exit. I mean, that's why we talk about unique selling propositions, right? And some of them are BBB. Why is BBB valuable? Because the general consumer assumes that that means you're in a credible business. The other thing to have is we've been in business for 40 years. There's a reasonable assumption that if you've been in business for 40 years. So those are some of the initial concerns that you have right away. And that's what that's addressing. Definitely. Tip number four, a call to action. Everyone knows you need a call to action. I think it's key to make sure your call to action is well thought out. Make sure it's well thought out. Yeah, you seen him getting it? You want to split that one? Make sure your CTA is well thought out. For example, using the previous example, if you're doing roof replacement, make sure, do some competitive analysis. What are your competitors charging for roof analysis? How long does it take? What can you offer? Take all of that in consideration when developing

this call to action. So that way when you put something out there, that visitor or that user who sees it can have a more educated decision in regards to choosing you to replace their roof or whatever your service is. Number five, credentials and featured badges. I like this because this kind of goes towards credibility, kind of what Chris was speaking about earlier, BBB and things like that, you know, especially online. People purchasing online, if they're not, you know, like me or savvy internet users who always purchase online. They're nervous as hell. They're nervous. Yeah, extremely nervous. And so you need to get them over that hump. And the way you do that is build your credibility, especially what he mentioned a good way. Like if your work or your products have been purchased by, you know, popular people or big names that users may be aware of, list that information on the site. Get permission. Yeah, get permission, definitely. Get listed on your site. If possible, link to it so they could even see or feature it on your site somehow. So that way people are like, oh, okay. Well, they used it and it worked for them. It must be okay. And then you see your BBB and your other things and you're more likely to get that conversion. Number six, and this is a huge for me, loading time. We talked about this last week when we were talking about site metrics and things like that. When your site just loads slow, your credibility is dwindling fast. That's assuming we stay. Exactly. Exactly. I find myself waiting just to see what is this site, this slow site going to look like when it comes up. How bad is the site going to be? Oh, it's really bad. Back, you know, and Mr. Bounce. Number seven, and this is the last one. Roughly, he says, number seven, responsive design. He's recommending responsive design. And he goes on to say, roughly 15% of web traffic is on a tablet or a smartphone. 15%, so that's

like one and a half out of 10 people actually visit your site from a mobile device. And he recommends responsive design to take advantage of that. I'm on the fence with responsive design. I don't know if it's absolutely necessary. I mean, we've done plenty of tests. We've looked at phones. We've put up sites on iPads, on mobile phones, and on laptops and desktops. And the drawback to responsive design is... You have a little less control. Yes, and especially on a mobile device, everything kind of squishes and shifts, and now you end up with a really long page that kind of loses focus. Anybody searching from a mobile device is probably looking to take an action really, really quick. And so, rather than do a responsive design, I would rather just have a mobile layout that's more suitable for that. Click the call, contact us here, or here's a map that opens up your navigation, because if they're on the phone, then they're trying to find you. And then maybe a link to a full version or something like that, where they could see all the other information that's on the site. But I think the responsive design kind of deal is... It's okay in some cases, but I don't think it's necessary all the time. I struggle with just design specifically for mobile. If they're... I mean, most devices now have a big enough screen, and the zoom in and out feature is easy enough to use, and actually the double click will bring the paragraph... Make it bigger, and automatically align it, and everything. All of that makes it so easy. You typically still want to have that navigation. You don't know what the user is looking for, and I just don't like the menus that show up on mobile. Our thought process is your mobile page should be call here, get directions, view full website. Maybe a couple other things. Yeah, maybe some other information. Get the newsletter, or whatever. Submit a question if it's like our podcast page. Definitely. Again, I think

this is all industry-based. If you're in an industry, let's say medical or something like that, where people are probably researching information, and they're probably researching it on a mobile device because they're sitting in a doctor's office, waiting in line or something like that. Then you may want to do some responsive to help present some content better. But if you're looking for a quick sale, if your call to action or your main service is call or fill out a quote form... Or directions. Directions. Yeah, you have a brick and mortar building, and you need people to come. Yeah. Yeah. Design something for that to accomplish those goals. Call, directions. Call, click, or come. List, and the other one is reviews. Yeah, exactly. Link to your G-plus local review. I mean, if you just do that, and you're a brick and mortar restaurant, or almost, you know, most brick and mortar businesses, that's the information that I need to see. That's the information I want. I found you already somehow, right? From a search or whatever. So I have the general understanding that you do what I want. Now, get me to your business, or get me the short pieces of information that I probably want to convince myself to do business with you. It could be a phone number, it could be directions, it could be reviews. Exactly. At the end of the day, I think it's crucial that you take advantage of your landing pages, especially if you're paying to drop traffic to them. And just, you have to be aware of your industry and what your clients are doing. If you notice, most of your clients come to your site and convert really quickly, then you should take that in consideration when working on a mobile layout or things like that. If they don't, then, you know, you'd have that information, and you'd know how to go back and restructure what you need to work on. So, that's the meat. Cool. All right. I think we got a little blank stare. Got a little

blank stare. Got a little blank stare. Maybe we should just call this section like, what? If we do that, you're going to have to say it, though. You should go, what? Yeah, we probably shouldn't do it. You'll have to say it twice. Change that. All right. Well, that's the segment. Today, it's going to be called, what? Yeah, blank stare with a grin. Yeah, this blank stare goes to Facebook. Punching the face to Facebook for finally adopting hashtags. Really? Finally adopting hashtags. Like, I've been using hashtags on Facebook for the past two years. Yeah. It just becomes habit, right? Like, oh, hashtag. Yeah. So, thank you, but come on. Really? You should have been did it. Jump on that. Quit working on messing up our layout. And, sir, I think searching is still a monster. Like, if you sent me a book six months ago, I can't find it. You know what I'm saying? Like, in Facebook, I've got to scroll through six months of your feed or my wall or something somehow. Really, that should be pretty easy. Let me tell you what else sucks about Facebook, since I'm on that soapbox. I hate looking at my home screen and seeing a post from you from one hour ago, a post that I made 17 hours ago, a post from Javier three weeks ago, and then the next post from somebody five seconds ago. So, like, that's out of order. First off, I saw Javier's post three weeks ago. I saw your post already. I ignored it for a reason. I already liked that post. Like, why are you showing this to me again? Yeah. So, yeah. All right. Need a little work. Okay, so don't work on the layout. Work on the actual implementation, how it actually works, the usability. All right. You have been listening to the most popular internet and SEO podcast on iTunes. That is because of all you all. Thank you so much for tuning in. Please go write a review on iTunes or on a G Plus local page.

Otherwise, I'm going to have a tattoo here, right here, next time. Until next time, my name is Chris Burris. Charles Lewis. Bye-bye for now. Slightly raised up eyebrow, high brow, headed my way.