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Landing Page Sticking Power

Posted 10/15/2010 by Lindsay Categories: Conversion, design, increasing traffic, Webiva |

Making great landing pages is important for two key reasons: one, your landing page is the first thing someone sees when they go to your site, so you’ll want it to be visually engaging, and two, an easily navigable and attractive page (with quality content, of course), will compel people to stay on your site.

As with any type of web design, you’ll want to follow some basic guidelines for making sure your website has the ever-elusive “sticking power” and that it serves to both engage and convert viewers. Here are some best practices from across the web:

  • Make your headline clear, interesting, and relevant
  • You have about 5 seconds to engage a visitor, so don’t crowd the page
  • Place your conversion form (sign up button, etc.) on the right side of the page, because people read left-to-right
  • Limit the fields in your conversion form to as few as possible-- people are intimidated by an excess of forms
  • Tell visitors what you are offering, why they should care, and what they have to do... succinctly
  • Keep text uncluttered, minimal, and easy to scan
  • Keep important information “above the fold”
  • Include multiple call to actions, both above and below the fold
  • Focus on your primary objective: conversion through good user experience
  • Good, clean graphics will help (as long as your page isn’t cluttered!)

All in all, focus on simplicity, directness, and quality of user experience. If you want to check out some real-life success stories of landing page redesigns, take a look at this Copyblogger post. And as a last result, remember to "Keep It Simple, Stupid!"

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About SEO (and then some)

Posted 10/11/2010 by Lindsay Categories: increasing traffic, SEO, Webiva |

SEO (search engine optimization) is one of those popular buzzwords that’s often thrown around across the net, but its usually accompanied by all sorts of confusing jargon or sales pitches to "make your SEO better!!" You don't --I repeat, don't-- need to know everything about SEO, but we've compiled a list of the most important essentials to help you get on your way! The goal of SEO is to make your site easier for people to find with search engines by getting your page higher on the results pages when people run a search for specific keywords.

The are thousands of different things people will recommend to improve your site, ranging from well-tested techniques to cargo cult Voodoo, but to get started with optimizing your site for Search Engines, you can follow a few relatively simple steps to maximize the value of the content of your site.

Here are some of the SEO basics that you can start to implement yourself:

  • Develop a list of keywords that your site will target on a regular basis. These are the words that you'd like your site to come up on when people run searches. "Boston Bakery" or "Discount Fabric" for example.
  • Write descriptive page titles! ("About our Award Wining Bakery" not "About Us")
  • Make sure each page has an H1 (Level 1 Header) that is equally descriptive
  • Make sure you have your image alt tags filled out in a way that matches your desired keywords
  • If your business is local, put your address somewhere on each page.
  • Make sure you site only appears on www.yoursite.com or yoursite.com, not both
  • If you must have your company name in a page title, have it at the end, not the beginning.
  • If your website copy isn’t updated regularly, create a blog and update that regularly. New and engaging content is key.
  • Quality incoming links drive SEO and the more you provide (quality) links to other people’s sites, the more they’ll link back to you.
  • Make sure you have a clear and engaging call to action.
  • Work on your keywords and SEO on a regular basis, just as you update content on a regular basis. It’s not a one-time-deal.
  • Use keyword-rich captions with your images.
  • Keyword-rich doesn’t mean nonsensical. Your content still has to be understandable; otherwise, it’s just a bunch of random keywords thrown together.
  • Use social marketing, like Digg, StumbleUpon, Facebook, and Twitter, to begin to drive traffic to your site.
  • Include titles for all of your links (keyword-rich, of course) - don't link to "Our Store," link to "Our Discount Fabric Store"
  • Submit your blog to blog directories
  • Leave thoughtful comments on blogs in the same niche/industry as your own
  • Include your blog/website URL in forums and email signatures
  • Create a sitemap to help “spiders” to crawl your site easier

For more explanations about how SEO works and how to best use it for your own site, check out these great SEO resources:

A/B Testing: Making it Work for You

Posted 10/04/2010 by Lindsay Categories: A/B Testing, increasing traffic, Webiva |

One of the unique features offered by Webiva is the ability to easily perform A/B tests and then easily implement the changes for all your viewers (or revert back to a more successful version). Although the advantages and disadvantages of A/B testing are hotly debated, everyone tends to agree that change can be beneficial, and sometimes necessary, for your business.

Below, we’ve rounded up a few posts discussing A/B testing to help you decide how to test changes on your website, and added some testing dos and don’ts to help you make the most out of your own A/B tests!

Pros and Cons of A/B Testing for Startups (via ReadWriteWeb)
Don’t Fall into the Trap of A/B Testing Minutiae (via Seomoz.org)
How to Improve Your Website with A/B Testing (via onextrapixel)
The Ultimate Guide to A/B Testing (via Smashing Magazine)

Some things to do (or not to do) in A/B testing:

* Do test Call to Action’s

* Don’t focus on minutiae

* Do test both versions at the same time (variable and control)

* Don’t jump to conclusions too quickly

* Do follow your gut feelings

* Do closely monitor your statistics/analytics

* Don’t focus just on big changes; small changes can make an impact too

* Don’t show the same users a different variation every time they visit

* Do your research; read about successful (and unsuccessful) tests

* Don’t be discouraged easily!

Perfect Post Titles

Posted 10/01/2010 by Lindsay Categories: blogging, increasing traffic, Webiva |

You’ve written a snazzy new blog post, complete with pictures, keywords, and lots of links. Now all that’s left is to post it, right? Wrong.

Don’t forget about your title!

All too often, titles come as an afterthought to the content-writing itself, when bloggers have exhausted their stores of creativity for the day. Unfortunately for the neglected titles, this results in post names like “Something That Happened Today” or “Baseball Game.” Do those titles make you want to click through and read the post? Didn’t think so.

Not only can a creative and descriptive title entice people to actually read your blog post (which is generally the point, right?), but titles are also key in helping search engines find your post. To best optimize your title so that it will be found by search engines, here’s a couple helpful tricks:

Use specific keywords. This doesn’t mean that you should name your blog “Gas propane charcoal grill barbecue favorites.” At the same time, something like “Barbecue” won’t work either. By using keywords as part of your title, you can craft a post title such as “My Backyard Barbecue Fiasco” that’s both search engine-friendly and intriguing. To spice things up a bit, you could even say “Gas Grills- My Backyard BBQ Fiasco.”

Remember that your title will be read from left to right, both by readers and by search engines. If you want to include your blog’s name in your post titles, that’s your prerogative, but by having that be the first thing in your title, you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Instead of getting traffic from searches like “backyard” and “barbecue,” you’ll only be showing up in search results for “(Insert your blog title here).”

Your Website Isn't a Brochure, Damnit!

Posted 09/10/2010 by Lindsay Goldner Categories: building your brand, increasing traffic |

Remember back to your last vacation: sandy beaches, icy drinks with pink umbrellas, sun-filled days...and tourist brochures? Inevitably, those racks filled with glossy pamphlets lined the hotel walls and every tourist destination you travelled to. Even the most appealing ones brochures would garner just a single read and maybe a phone call before being relegated to the stack with the rest of its discarded trifold kin.

Sure, you might have an uber-sexy, shiny site with professional product photos and fancy animations. But with purely static content? It’s the Web 2.0 version of those brochures, and goes straight to the virtual equivalent of that discard pile.

Gone are the days of unchanging, talk–straight–at–your–customer websites. The internet is interactive and dynamic—your site should be as well! Not only is it important to help your company draw in potential new customers, but it’s also crucial in getting established customers and viewers to return. Having a shiny website is great, but it’s the content that will bring people back time after time. Create new, interesting, engaging content, be it in the form of blog posts, social media interactions, videos, or even silly office photos. This allows your site’s viewers to feel more invested in you as an overall brand, and helps compel them to return on a regular basis if they know that you will continue posting exciting new content. Obviously, you don’t want to lose sight of your true goal, which is to successfully grow your business. But at the same time, it’s crucial that you increase interaction with your target demographic before you lose them to the vast wilds of the internet!