Conversion Funnel Optimization

When you first begin thinking about how to improve conversion rates, you'll probably start with landing page optimization through A/B or multivariate testing. Landing page optimization is the process of redesigning, testing, and analyzing the pages of your site that are used to receive traffic, the "landing pages."

What you may not realize, however, is that conversion funnel optimization is just as important, if not more important, than landing page optimization.

Conversion funnel optimization is the process of redesigning, testing, and analyzing the pages of your website after the landing page. This can include product detail pages (if category pages are used as landing pages), the shopping cart, and the checkout process.

Simple changes to your conversion funnel can lead to big improvements in your conversion rate. Here are some of the things you should do to improve your conversion funnel:

1. Decrease the number of steps required to complete the conversion. This is the first place to start. Simple but so often overlooked. Why does billing information need to be on a different page than shipping information? Some of the strongest converting sites use a one-page checkout process that has proven itself with higher conversion rates and lower cart abandonment.

2. Decrease the amount of information you ask the visitor for. Do you really need to know everything you're asking for? Think about what you're asking for. Is it realistic? Is it a turnoff to website visitors? This is especially relevant to lead gen conversions. Often our real estate clients want to know everything about a potential converter (age, income, size of house, timeline for moving, etc.). This is great info for the marketer to collect, but it's off-putting to the website visitor. Think about what you're asking for and question whether it's really necessary for the lead gen process, or whether it should be determined during the sales process instead.

3. Consider how information is presented to visitors. Is it easy to understand and does it move them through the funnel smoothly? Are visitors distracted by cluttered navigation and special offers? Use clean, simple navigation and good design to lead customers by the hand through the checkout process. Forms should be clean and above the fold. Don't expect visitors to go hunting for the conversion form. Use large text but avoid cluttering the form with too much of it. Use simple language and clearly label what's required and what isn't.

4. Seek external help from customers and employees. You cannot expect to improve conversion rates alone. You need input from outside sources, so talk with customer service agents and understand what problems customers face with the website that force them to call in to customer service. You may then want to bring in some potential customers for an in-person usability study, where you give them specific tasks to complete and observe how they go about doing it. You will be shocked!

5. Do not make assumptions. Often times, conversion funnel and landing page optimization data will shock you -- the element you thought was innocuous could turn out to be killing your conversion rates. Keep an open mind.

6. Test, test, test. Don't stop with one, keep testing. This is a dynamic world and your website should be too. You should allocate at least 10% of your yearly advertising budget to testing, and at least half of that should be spent on testing your landing pages and conversion funnels.

Affiliate Marketing Tips - E-marketing Tips

Affiliate Marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice or a referral marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts.

Affiliate programs can be a big source of revenue. The key to maximizing your earnings is engaging your readers. Unlike traditional ads where you are paid for impressions or clicks, affiliates are only paid when/if a specific action is performed. The action might be a purchase or signing up for a newsletter, but regardless, you are not paid until you've compelled your readers to act.

With that in mind, here are some affiliate marketing tips -

1. Know Your Audience

The most successful way to use affiliate programs is to anticipate and meet the needs of your readers. Consider why they are coming to your site. What are you providing that they are looking for? Make sure the affiliate products you are promoting provide a solution to your audience's problems.

If you are writing about sports, don't put up affiliate ads for printer toner just because everyone has a printer and those programs have a high payout. The people who are coming to read commentary or get states for their favourite teams aren't thinking about those things when they're on your site.

The more relevant the ads are to your readers, the more likely they will use them.

2. Be Trustworthy

Readers are savvy. They know an affiliate link when they see one. If you break their trust by promoting a product you don't believe in or take advantage of their visit with too many ads, they will leave and never come back.

It is your repeat visitors that will drive traffic. They are the ones who will give you linkbacks, spread the word, and recommend your site as the go-to place for valuable content. You need to build a relationship based on genuine content.

If your visitors don't think you're being honest, they won't read anything else you have to say.

3. Be Helpful

Think of affiliate ads as additional resources that complement your content. Give value to your content by making it helpful, useful, and informative.

Don't put up a list of your favourite books, hoping people will click on the affiliate link, purchase the books (just because you listed them), so you can cash in on a sale. Take some time to write a detailed review, and use affiliate ads to point them in the right direction if they decide to act on your information. That's what affiliate ads are for. If you write a great review recommending a book and readers buy the book because of it, you should get something for that.

But just throwing out links to products with no rhyme or reason will result in a quick exit by visitors.

4. Be Transparent

Always disclose your affiliations. Your readers will appreciate your honesty, and will feel better about contributing to your earnings. If they sense that you are being less than honest about your affiliations, they are savvy enough to bypass your link and go directly to the vendor just to avoid giving you referral credit.

Honesty and full disclosure is a necessary part to building a loyal reader base. They know they are supporting you by using your referral links. Make them happy and eager to do so.

5. Select Carefully

Take the time to go through all the different options for products or services available through the programs. Put some thought into which products or services your readers may need or like. Also, change the ads around often, try different ones, and use different graphics and text to see which are the most effective.

It may take some time before you figure out the best formula, and you may also find that you need to continually rotate ads to attract more attention.

6. Try Different Programs

If one particular program doesn't seem to be working for you, try another one.

Affiliate programs don't look the same. They offer different products, services, and payment structures. Some programs will have a lifetime payout on sales while others will limit it to 30-90 days. Some programs allow much more flexibility in the types of ad units available, as well as colors and design so it fits better on your site's layout.

Also, check your favorite vendors to see if they run their own affiliate program. Sometimes you can go directly to the source. You're not limited to big affiliate networks.

Integrate systematic ad testing into your strategy to maximize your profits.

7. Write Timeless Content

Your old content can still be valuable even though it's no longer on your front page. Take advantage of the long term opportunities by making sure you provide timeless content.

If visitors come across your older content first, and find that it offers dated information, they will leave right away. Of course, information moves forward, so relevant content changes quickly. You can make your content timeless simply by adding links to your updated articles on your old ones.

Many platforms allow you to show "most recent" or "most popular" or "related articles" on every page, so no matter how old the article is, it will always show access to your new ones. Your old content can make money for you indefinitely.

8. Be Patient

Affiliate revenue grows and builds up with time. Remember that some programs offer lifetime payouts. If you refer a visitor, you may continue to make money from that one visitor even if he doesn't come back to your site. Also, as long as you have referral links still active in your old posts, they may still payout for you.

Affiliate programs aren't a get rich quick plan, but it provides opportunity to make passive income in the future.

9. Stay Relevant

Keep up to date on the latest offerings of your affiliate programs. New ad units, advertisers, and tools are constantly being added to improve usability and be more visually appealing. Small changes go a long way in motivating action by readers. You may be left out in the dust by being complacent with your strategy.

Don't get lazy about monitoring trends and exploring new opportunities.

10. Content Comes First

Above all else, your content must be your highest priority.

Your content is your foundation, the life blood on which the site exists. Without valuable and helpful content, readers won't come. Focus on providing excellent content, and the monetizing strategies will work out.

Once you start compromising your content to cater to the affiliate programs or any other money making venture, you will lose your readers. Once that happens, you will lose the opportunity to receive any earnings from any of your ads, be they CPM, CPC, or referral based.

Multivariate Testing - E-Marketing Tips

Do you really want to revenue from site, or your site getting good traffic but your visitors isn't converting into your customer?.

Here I am Going to discuss most effective e-marketing tips called Multivariate Testing that helps you to increase your ROI and convert your audience (Visitor or Traffic) into your real customer. In this technique your small changes on variables and on call to actions provide fine tune to your website and convert into big results.

Are you looking to...

* Increase the number of customers from your existing traffic?
* Improve the appeal of your website to your visitors?
* Improve your online Return on Investment?

Did you know there’s a precise way to learn how to make your website more effective? To identify a more compelling combination of layout, design, copy, calls to action and headlines? A method that involves no guesswork, no surveys and no focus groups?

It’s called Multivariate Testing (MVT), and it should be at the heart of your online continuous improvement strategy

What is Multivariate Testing (MVT)?

Every day, thousands of real customers and prospects use your website to try to achieve real-life objectives. Multivariate Testing test site changes on the live audience. It's a proven effective way to test the real impact of multiple changes to a page.

Is your logo in the right spot? Is your call to action prominent enough? Is the headline engaging? Is the body copy clear enough? Would another background colour be more effective? Or a different font? Or different pictures? Or... or... or...

Multivariate Testing gives you the power to test changes to these sorts of factors. To identify which combination of changes will drive the most sales or enquiries. It tells you - quickly and unambiguously - how your customers and prospects actually respond to your changes. You'll have precise statistics identifying the changes that improve your site, and those that damage it.

Why Should I Test My Website?

In business no one likes to make assumptions but unfortunately for many website owners that is all they have to work off when it comes to improving website performance. By testing your website with a tool like Google Website Optimizer you no longer have to make assumptions about what works on your site and what doesn't. Even the smallest changes to your website can have a profound impact on your bottom line, uninformed change is risky.

In other words, it puts actual users in charge of your continuous improvement strategy. Who better to dictate the evolution of your website than the people who actually use it? They are, after all, the real experts...

How Does It Work?

With multivariate testing you can develop a series of alternatives for each of those areas and then present different combinations of those alternatives to your visitors and track which combinations produced the best result. It doesn’t matter if you are trying to sell something online or simply get someone to contact you, multivariate testing helps you find the best website presentation to achieve that end.

SEO Blogging Tips - Internet Marketing Tips

As the site goes beyond more traditional means to get traffic by search engine optimization and paid advertising, social networks and data management services should become an important part of your strategy marketing research online. Learning to use blogs can help you create the links with your clients and raise your visibility in search engines.

We know that search engines are making changes to reflect changes in the market, as well as Internet gifted community. We can see this by how the major search engines modify the test results of these changes on the user community. Google organic search layout, for example, integrate data from video, news and podcasts in the natural results of search engine. Additional services such as personalized search, are available that can influence search engine results further towards the user's preferences or behaviors.

Organic search results represent an issue for search engine optimization since less screen real estate is available for text ads. May you find your listing pushed off the first page if you are not watching and executing better than the competition. Social media optimization is something you should consider now, if you have not already.

Blogs are an excellent first step. WordPress is an option that has an open source development and several cool and powerful plugins. You get an RSS feed and an infrastructure for integration, not only the content of the text, but also streaming video and audio podcasts.

To take full advantage of social media optimization, Here are six things you need to do:

1. Set up your WordPress blog.
If you are running a business and want to start creating your own blog authority, I recommend using a trusted partner like GoDaddy.com. It takes about 10 minutes to establish. Request an account hosted on Linux, because WordPress is not compatible with Windows. Unless you have a unique domain set up for this, I suggest adding the blog as a directory of your domain: your-site.com/name-of-blog-with-keywords. TypePad and Movable Type blog system are other free services. Blogger.com--Google 's platform - is free, and Yahoo! Small businesses have a variety of options to select as well.

2. Add contents.
Add a blog once a week or more to start. The frequency is important for search engines, and users expect to receive regular updates. When you add content, make sure to add the tags and category. Tags Directory support structures and show that the search engine on your computer. To get ideas for content, see the article directories EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com. If you copy the entire text, the author of the bio box and be aware that you catch Google in May for duplication of content. A better solution is to start with story ideas, edit content and make comments about the article, while referencing the original author.

If you have more money than time, ask someone to RentACoder.com, Elance.com or Guru.com write for you. You can also search articles private label rights, but look for duplicate content, too. eBay has a large number of these types of articles, but try to do it yourself. If you're in the B2B space, we hope you have a good marketing and information-based materials, you can boost your blog.

3. Manage RSS feeds.
RSS is an easily monitored and managed based on XML that enables the structure of Web-compatible file system to read data. Get an account with Technorati.com and update your site feeds - also known as ping. You can also use FeedBurner.com OnlyWire.com and to help distribute content and PingOMatic.com Pingoat.com and alert systems that you have created a new position.

4. Promote your blog.
Always draw the search engines when you can. Perform keyword search firm to find out what people are searching for your niche. Use the keyword search and search for keyword phrases rather than starting with keywords the most competitive. Include these keywords in the titles of your posts.

If you are active in the online community, visit the other blogs and forums for dialogue and exchange links. Be sure to tag everywhere and try to get a listing on Digg.com and del.icio.us, reddit.com and MySpace.com. The educational content, such as "how to" articles, tend to be very popular.

5. Leverage videos and podcasts.
Podcasts are a simple way to provide more information and customizing your business or service. The MP3 format can be listened to easily listen on the web and your blog. You can podcast your files and to manage them via iTunes. You can also stream video of your visitors in homes and let them watch on their Apple TV, it recently announced a product.

6. Optimize your WordPress blog.
A blog should be optimized for users, search engines and income, in that order. A blog looking professional is important. Look for specific sites - a white background works well - at the WordPress Theme Viewer site. Some of the themes are less SEO-friendly than others. Add a form to capture names and e-mails to create your e-mail list. For SEO, change your permalinks to this custom option: /% year% /% monthnum% /% day% /%% postname / and allow customization of permalinks. This is a search engine friendly site that is commonly used.

As I mentioned earlier, WordPress has a number of powerful plug-ins to take into account. Here are a few to start with:

* Google Analytics - all tracks on all pages
* Chicklet - an array of social media tags for your users, including icons RSS reader
* AdSense Deluxe - publish ads on your site
* Google Sitemap Generator for WordPress - creates a sitemap for your site
* Akismet filtering - filter link spam from blog comments, WordPress API key required
* SEO Title Tag - simple optimization title tags in your WordPress blog
* Ultimate Tag Warrior - incorporates the tag name in the title pages to tagged pages
* PodPress - everything you need for podcasting

More plugins are available on the WordPress plugins directory.

After you've created, follow the basic rules for long-term success:

* Do not use Black Hat SEO - techniques unethical - to stuff keywords and duplicate content in your blogs.
* Providing value through quality of content. If you sell something, not be moved. Try to provide constructive feedback and education on products, services and competitors.
* Use the Chicklet you see on many blogs, including a large button for your RSS, so visitors and search engines can easily access your data.
* Place AdSense strategic components to generate the money for yourself, while still providing value. Do not big companies, including media like CNN. Match the text and color, with the presentation of your site. Over time, May you get a check from Google.

Social Media Optimization Tips - E-marketing Tricks

If you are not comfortable using Facebook to promote your blog, out there many social media that you can use as your blog promotion tools.

Tools and social media platform itself mostly use by internet users to share opinions, ideas, experiences and views with other internet users.

Social media platforms can be a social networking site (Facebook, MySpace), social Bookmarking (Digg, Delicious), microblogging (Twitter, Plurk), content-sharing (Feedburner, Wikipedia), image-sharing (Flickr), audio-sharing (Last,fm) and video-sharing (YouTube).

Today many internet users use Social media platform tools and social media applications so it mean SMO (Social Media Optimization) strategy have equal important role in blog promotion activity as SEO (Search Engine Optimization) application.

As a blogger, did you have SMO strategy for your blog? And how we can do the social media optimization for our blog? So here the Social Media Optimization tips for your blog :

1. Create your high value blog content.
SMO first important key of success will be on your blog content. Make sure your content have a high value to your reader, so they are willing to spread your blog content to share it with other Social Media user.

2. Make sure sharing or bookmark activity are easier to do
After writing quality content, the next step is make it easier for your readers to share or bookmark your content by providing bookmarking and sharing widget.

3. Be the first !
You're the blogger. Do not wait for others to distribute your content through the social media site. Make time to submit your own blog content to social bookmarking (Digg, StumbleUpon) or tag it to your social networking sites (Facebook, MySpace). Update the information of your blog via microblogging site Twitter or Plurk kind.

4. Build your own community
Start to build your own blog community readers. You can take advantage Facebook, MyBlogLog, or Google Friends Connect to start building your own blog community readers. With having your own blog community, you are building your own network with those who actually have the same interest with you, those who want to deal with you, and want to have the benefit from the community that you build.

5. Be participating!
Social media is about socializing. Social media is a matter of socializing so it is about two-ways relationship. Therefore, you must be involved and participate in the discussion made by the readers of your blog or those who follow you (for example, via Twitter, Facebook, or Google Friends Connect). By participating create the message that you want to submit spread faster.

6. Be polite and honest
Similar with building relationship in real world, interact in the virtual world through social media is also governed by the same etiquette. Be polite and be honest. Respect anyone who has communication with you. Your positive attitudes in turn will increase people trust in you.

7. Always want and brave to try new things
Social media is changing by the minute. Therefore, do not stop learning something new and do not be afraid to try new things.

8. Focus
Indeed, you have to dare to try new things, but focus on 1 or 3 social media is far more effective. The fact are you don`t have many time so you may not be able to concentrate on all social media site.

If you apply to the 8-key SMO (Social Media Optimization) above, here's what you'll get:

1. Increasing your personal profile
The more people discuss and deal with you will increase your personal profile as a blogger who skillfully to interact in the virtual world. This appreciation in return will make you easily to build your social networking.

2. Increasing people trust in you
Trust is the currency in the virtual world. Once you dismiss the importance of belief, then your career in the virtual world soon will end. With the size of the network you have, the larger the levels of people trust in you. Reference of others who become members of your network is very important in the virtual world.

3. Increasing your revenue
The end result: the more you are trusted is easier for you to make more money through your blog.

Hopefully use full

5 Popular Search Engine Optimization Myths.

Search Engine Optimization is a widely used and known term among Webmasters. There are however many misconceptions and therefore five of these popular myths are addresses below.

1. Content is King
Fresh, original and relevant content is very important however is by no means a guarantee for getting Search Engine derived visitors. Bing, Google, Yahoo and others use several hundred factors when ranking each Site (and content comprises an important however small proportion of these factors). Good SEO focuses on many factors of a Website and not just content; for example, if two Websites are identical save for the high level domain where one is a .com and another a .edu then the .edu will be ranked as more important by the Search Engines.

2. All links are equal
Getting links to a website is very time consuming. Backlinks are however critical to getting favourable Search Engine rankings. The anchor text of a link, the relevancy of the linking Site, the rank of the linking Site and other factors all add up to how beneficial the link is for your Site. In general a link is better than no link at all however it is more valuable to have fewer high ranked sites linking to yours rather than many low ranked sites with poor linking (e.g. anchor text such as 'click here').

3. The World is Global
And just when we thought that the Internet made the world a smaller place, along came Search Engine Algorithms which love single countries, languages and so on. Targeting an Australian audience but love the cheaper hosting in the U.S.A? You may just be harming how Search Engines target your site! Want U.K. visitors but your Site language is English (U.S.)? Again the Search Engines may 'see' your site as a U.S.A. targeted site. Make sure that all aspects of your site are consistent in relation to your targeted geographic region.

4. SEO results are Guaranteed!
SEO is very much an art with a small part being science. Google, Bing, Yahoo and others don't publish their ranking algorithms and protect them fiercely. Hence it isn't possible to know exactly what will and won't work in relation to SEO. The basics of the algorithms are however widely known therefore getting these factors correct in Sites are important (e.g. inserting a relevant title meta-tag on each page).

Getting the basics right will improve the chance of a good ranking however there are no guarantees in regards to Search Engine Optimization!

5. SEO is a quick solution
SEO takes a long and determined effort and results are often not seen for very many months. Whether linking, changing to 'human friendly' URLs or any other SEO activity, do not expect to see results in a short time-frame. An aligned and common misconception is also that once the essentials of SEO are in place, the work is over and the visitors will come streaming in. SEO needs to be ongoing and improved with time.

Search Engine Optimization takes repeated and deliberate actions to be successful. Taking a long term view as well as careful planning will assist in getting the best from Search Engine Optimization.

Email Marketing - A small piece of E-Marketing

Many companies consider that to be successful with e-marketing (marketing), you have to target search engines only. There are a number of different views of how to conduct marketing through the Internet. Email is an excellent way to reach 1000 to 1000 of your target audience with a specific theme that you want on the market.

On average, the rate of click of a campaign by e-mail in May only be about 2%, but if you imagine you can send as many emails you have saved, for a low cost, then it could be extremely beneficial for any business. Many companies have email stored in a database and have no idea what to do with them, it may be a waste if they are sitting there and never get used. When you consider that most of the emails you have stored are clients who have already visited your site or products purchased. May this bring the responsiveness of the entire email campaign in a 4 or 5% response. This response is measured by the number of people who click through to your website from e-mail.

There are myths that people believe that you do not see much by way of statistics, it is inaccurate as the massive amount of statistics, you can see, this is absolutely unbelievable. With the possibility of:

• Number of emails opened
• Number of times clicked
• If they bought from you
• And many more ...

Do not leave your e-mails stored waste without goto content or to send them information, we consider an email marketing campaign. mi4gt2zn97