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Christmas In July: Part 3

Putting the SEO and LPO Together

Over the summer, we have been discussing how important it is to use Landing Page Optimization (LPO) and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) to get your websites ready for the oncoming holiday traffic. That traffic is now about a month and a half away from showing up. This final part of our Christmas in July series will show you how to put the finishing touches on your newly SEO and LPO-ready site, to bring them ost holiday shoppers with open wallets to your website. It’s kind of like putting the angel on the top of the Christmas tree!

These tips could mean a lot to your bottom line this year. A recent Marketing Sherpa Article and Poll states that even in the lousy economy we are having, experts are predicting a 9% increase in holiday sales over last year.

The article lists four final touches that can help you make or break the holiday season, which we have summarized below:

1. Add a Perpetual Shopping Cart to Your Site. The Marketing Sherpa poll revealed that 64% of businesses found perpetual carts to be an effective way to increase sales on a website. The reasoning goes that if you can always see the shopping cart as you go from page to page, you’re less likely to forget that you have things waiting for purchase. Shopping carts come in all shapes and sizes, from onscreen reminders to graphic representations of everything currently in the cart. The Sherpa poll also revealed that 38% of those questioned reported having a perpetual cart on their site. So should you.
2. Support Internal Searches.Research suggests that almost 50% of shoppers prefer to search websites internally, as opposed to other search methods. This is especially true when the shopper knows exactly what they’re looking for. Prepare for this by running some internal searches on your site. Search for specific items and make sure you get there easily.Next, make sure that how you do business online is helping you to optimize internal searches. For example, how do you sort inventory on your page? Do you randomly list items on your page, or do you “weight” them to increase sales on slower items? Do you use analytics to determine which products selling the fastest and feature those at the top of search results? Both procedures may be right in some cases. Which one is right for you?
3. It’s the Holidays. Get Out the Ornaments.People like to know what they’re buying. Pictures, as the saying goes, say a thousand words. And they could mean thousands of dollars to you this time of year! Give people all the info they need to know and see so they don’t have to leave your site before making a buying decision.Add holiday-centric keywords to your meta tags – just for the season. Create long tail keywords that you hear frequently when used with your product this time of year.Do you have a holiday budget? Many companies increase their online advertising spending in the fall. But wait –don’t spend it all at once. If you can hold off from spending your entire holiday budget in one swoop, you will have extra cash to go after more marketing opportunities as they come up.
4. A Word About LPOWhen it comes to the holidays, Landing Pages usually need some decorating, too. Alex Harris of Alex Designs recently listed his Hierarchy of Holiday Landing Page Design (although this is good LPO advice for any time of year):
   1. Engaging holiday photo with attractive tag line
   2. 5 Strongly-worded benefits
   3. Credible testimonial message from CEO (on the page, below the fold)
   4. User-friendly placement of products with special offer, expiration date, amount of savings and large, clickable button
   5. Additional sub-text and links if the user is looking for more information (under the fold)

So before Santa starts calling in a few weeks, make sure your websites are ready to go. If you need help getting there, one call to TextLinkBrokers.com will get the ball rolling!

Better Rankings Stem from Keyword Stemming

In the never-ending quest for better ranking position, we’ve all seen – and let’s face it, we’ve all written at one time or another –“keyword-rich” paragraphs that border on the insane.

You know what we mean. The writer is stuck with only one or two keywords, and needs to write 300-500 words. If your sole keyword phrase is “paint supply,” and your two designated keywords are “paint” and “supply,” you’re inevitably going to wind up with some tough-to-read copy.

One way to avoid this problem is by using keyword stemming. It’s a process where you “finesse” your keywords to assume the many ways a person might write those words when searching for your product. Add these variables to your keyword meta tags and watch how fast your rankings increase.

Plurals – It seems so easy but so many people forget to do it. Add an S! “Paint Supplies.” “Paints.” Mix them up and you get unique copy points: “Paints supply character to every room.” “Count on us for all your paint supplies.”

Modifiers – Versions of words help to get your message across: “Painting supplies.” “Paint supplier.”

Prefixes – Even prefixes can add pull to your keywords: “Rely on us for all of your pre-painting supplies, too: masking tape, splatter cloths, paint pans, etc.”

Qualifiers – Add words to your keyword phrases to really pinpoint your market: “Apartment painting supplies.” “Outdoor Painting Supplies.” “24-hour Paint Supply.”

As you might expect, there are actual places online where you can get instant, automatic help with keyword stemming. Columnist and SEO expert Shimon Sandler provides a link to an easy-to-use keyword stemming tool. Sandler reports that some of these tools can provide “the equivalent of long tail keywords.”

As you can see, there are all kinds of advantages to keyword stemming. First of all, the more keywords you have to choose from, the easier it is to write copy that’s compelling and selling. By having a greater keyword theme derivation, you’ll be better able to vary your copy and keep it interesting. This is especially true once you start adding regular, optimized content to your site.

Stemming also keeps you from being accused of “keyword stuffing,” which can definitely hurt your search rankings. In addition, you can analyze which of your keywords and longtail phrases are working the most over time to bring people to your site. This allows you to improve your copy to bring in even more of your target audience. Stemming also gives you the capability to capture a wider net of daily searches.

As easy as keyword stemming sounds, there’s actually quite a science to it. This article provides you with some handy lessons on how to improve your keyword stemming techniques. Check it out!

LPO Personas: “See” Your Audience Before Designing What They See

Learning the basics to good Landing Page Optimization (LPO) is easy. It’s how you employ those basics to keep people on your site that sets you apart from your competition.

So before you write a single call to action (CTA), or design a sign-up form, ask yourself this question: Whom are you trying to attract?

It’s not that easy to answer. How many audiences for your product or service do you have? One product can easily have multiple audiences for just as many reasons.

Pretend for a minute that you sell bikinis. Predictably, your audience will be predominantly female. These customers will want to buy the bikini to wear it. However, your site may also be attracting men who want to buy a bikini for their girlfriends. If you send the men and women to the same landing page on your site, you may have problems getting one of those audiences to buy, since you have to play to one or the other.

Distinct audiences demand distinct landing pages. Such is the beauty of LPO – you can build as many microsites as you need and design them to convert each audience separately.

Separating your audiences is the easy part. Truly “knowing” your customers is something else. Getting to know who’s buying your product is accomplished by creating personas. Personas are what you envision as your dream customers. Are they male or female? How old are they? How do they shop? Why do they use your product? Do you have several audiences who buy for different reasons? When you envision someone buying your product at the computer, what do they look like?

Creating personas is easy. Let’s say you sell GPS systems for automobiles. Start by listing the major selling points of your product:

• It tells people where they are, and helps people get where they’re going.
• It’s easy to program.
• It’s easy to buy additional info software bundles so that people can take their GPS to foreign countries and use it there.
• A variety of voices are available for download at your company’s website, including several celebrities and cartoon characters.

Your target audiences for this exercise are:

• People of all ages who get lost easily;
• Older people who like to travel
• People who are buying the GPS as a gift for someone else.

Now, turn each of these targets into the ideal customer in your brain. Give them names. Come up with every consumer and behavioral factor you can. Think about them until you can truly “see” these people.

With this information, we have three personas:

People who get lost: Janice is in her early 50s. She has long depended upon her husband to take her places because she simply has no ability for remembering how to get somewhere. Until she’s been someplace 20-30 times, she will invariably get lost and then just try to figure out how to get home. She needs an easy-to-use device that she can use quickly, constantly and efficiently.

Older Travelers: Keith and Carrie are in their mid 60s and retired early. Long-time travelers, they enjoy doing things on their own. They’re planning a driving tour through Germany and wish to avoid the Autobahn if at all possible. They are looking for add-on software for their GPS that can take them anywhere in Europe that they wish to go.

Gift Buyers: Marie, 46, heard her daughter Joanie mention that she wanted a GPS for Christmas. Marie has no idea what a GPS is, or even what GPS stands for. She has no idea what it does or why her daughter wants one, but she likes to keep her daughter happy. The only clue Marie has is that the GPS she buys should have “multiple voices,” whatever that means.

Now that you know who these people “are” and what they “look” like, use your website to talk to them!

When designing your landing page, it might be wise to include buttons that call out to each of your customers.

Find pictures of what you think Janice, Keith and Carrie and Marie look like. Then, write calls to action for each that single them out as customers:

Janice: “Buying for yourself or your family? Click here!”

Keith and Carrie: “Add cities and expand your GPS’s capabilities! Click here!”

Marie: “Buying a gift? Click here for help choosing the right GPS!”

Create buttons for each of these CTAs and place them in your LPO layout where everybody will see them.

What we’ve done here is make all three target markets feel comfortable. The “Janices” know they’ve come to a site where they can find the GPS that’s right for them. The “Keiths and Carries” know that they will go to a page where GPS accessories and additions are offered. And good old Marie doesn’t have to worry about not knowing what she’s buying, because you’re about to help her make the right choice.

This approach also allows you to design a very attractive landing page for each audience. Its sole purpose is to take your target audiences to the pages where you can do them the most good. A hero shot, a positive CTA for your <H1> (or perhaps a plug for your GPS product with a link to your main product page) and your three target buttons should do the trick.

If you want to figure out exactly how this is all going to look before you hand it off to your graphic designer and cross your fingers, lay it out in a wireframe! The nice thing about wireframes is you don’t really need any colors, photos, etc. to see how the page will look. It’s like a blueprint of a house. Draw the picture and show what will go in every “room.”

Each of these steps will help you design the best, most results-getting LPO design possible. Not surprisingly, we employ these practices every time we design a Landing Page for you! We’ll be happy to put those practices to work!

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Coming in Our October Issue:

5 Best Practices for Affiliate Landing Pages

Find out the best ways to help your Affiliate Landing Pages drive leads straight to your site! The more they work in tandem, the better the results for you! Get the details next month in our October issue!