Users respond differently based on the time of day, offer, price point, demographic, education level, style preferences and past experience with your brand. Thankfully we can test and design for most of these variables.

Your landing page, or squeeze page is useless if the visitor can’t immediately find what they are looking for, and take appropriate action. The page needs to be scannable, use visual elements and be well organized.

There are several essential elements that make up a successful and effective landing page and increase your conversion rate.

Simplicity

The visitor must be able to understand the content of the page in less than 10 seconds, preferably 5. The longer s/he must try to comprehend your offer, the less likely they are to complete it. Your landing/squeeze page needs to be appealing to your visitors without distracting them from the goal.

Legibility

The text should be easy to read and the correct size for your audience. Text should be broken up and use lists. Some people prefer long sales pages, others prefer graphics and minimal text. Test this on your products to see which one works best for you.

Contrast

Create high contrast between background and text because to increase legibility, but be mindful of flashy backgrounds. A landing page is not a banner ad. It is a focused message encapsulated in a single page.

Links

Most landing pages have no navigation, and no extraneous links on the page. This gives the visitor only 2 options: complete your action or click the back button. You have a 50% chance of success.

Thanks for reading our web design and SEO blog. Get the full post online Landing Page Optimization Tips To Guarantee Your Success and tell us your thoughts. Netpaths Guide to SEO & Web Design - Simple Search Engine Optimization Steps

Search Engine Strategies Discount Code: SESF15

The training resources were a great experience, however the SES conference series has been declining for about a year and it is uncertain if they will rebound.

Suggestions For New Ideas

Search Engine Strategies needs to get into pay for performance marketing, PPC, affiliate marketing and lead generation if they want to stay relevant. SEO is still a good strategy, but it is not the latest technique. Most people know basic SEO but lead generation and specialized local advertising is the next frontier.

Just use coupon code: SESF15 and login here

If you are active in the search engine optimization industry, have a blog or site following the search industry, digital marketing, or SES then there is a good chance you’re already sending traffic our way.

We Want To Help You Make Money and the SES conference can help you do this.

Visit the area in the Search Engine Watch forums to help our affiliates with any questions and tips for gaining more traffic to your sites and learn about speaker updates. We will have some of the best online marketers available to answer your questions.

There has never been a better time to sign in and check out which new upcoming events we are currently promoting through our seminar network in New York, San Jose, Toronto and more.

SES New York, the year’s biggest show is open for registration and is expected to attract as many as 6,000 attendees this year.

New Events & Upcoming Sessions

• Introduction to Search Marketing
• Building a Search Friendly Site
• Search Around the World
• Search Advertising 101
• Universal & Blended Search
• Igniting Viral Campaigns
• Site Clinics
• Successful Tactics for Social
• Media Optimization (SMO)
• Advanced B2B Marketing
• Duplicate Content & Multiple Site Issues
• Black Hat, White Hat: Playing Dirty with SEO

Offer prospects a special 15% discount coupon when registering, good for any conference pass, or training session with the voucher SESF15.

Thanks for reading our web design and SEO blog. Get the full post online Search Engine Strategies Discount Coupon Codes and tell us your thoughts. Netpaths Guide to SEO & Web Design - Simple Search Engine Optimization Steps

Here is a coupon code for this seminar: MEETINGS

Yes, all you need to do to get into the Wealth Builders Summit for free is to use the code “MEETINGS”

This lets you attend this full weekend event for no risk.

I know a lot of successful people and they all seem to have one thing in common. What I’ve noticed from talking to them is that at some point in their life, everything seemed to just “click” for them – and that started a very rapid journey to becoming successful.

Once in a while it happens while talking with a business partner, or reading a book. Sometimes even watching a movie.

But in nearly all the cases, this “sudden realization” leading them down the path to success happens when they’re around a bunch of like-minded individuals. Hear a great interview with the speakers.

And that’s exactly what The Wealth Builders Summit Team has put together for us!

On January 29-31, 2009 in Los Angeles the Wealth Builders Summit Team is putting together an information- packed seminar and I hope it will benefit you.

Here is a sample of the amazing speakers that have been lined up for this business coaching event:

1. Mark Victor Hansen – Mark is the co-author what Time magazine called, “the publishing phenomenon of the decade,” with over 110 million Chicken Soup for the Soul books sold worldwide– one of the most successful publishing franchises of all time.
   
   

2. Robert G. Allen – Robert has appeared on hundreds of programs, including “Good Morning America” and “Larry King Live.” He has also been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, Barron’s, Money Magazine, and Reader’s Digest. He’s also published some of the most popular books in history… including “No Money Down” and “Multiple Streams Of Income”.
   
   

3. Stephen Pierce – Stephen Pierce is the world’s #1 internet wealth advocate and travels the world speaking to tens of thousands of people about the enormous power of the internet and how to leverage the internet for staggering financial success.
   
   

4. Joel Bauer – Author of three books on Wealth, Marketing & Influence, mentor to Mark Victor Hansen & Francis Ford Coppola, advisor to Motorola, IBM & General Motors, seen regularly on ABC, NBC, CBS & CNN, retired at 43 Joel Bauer teaches you how to persuade by making your messages entertaining.
   
   

5. Than Merrill – Than, the star of A&E’s “Flip This House” and former NFL player, is one of the most successful real estate investors in the nation. In the past 5 years he has bought and sold over 350 homes personally!
   
   

6. Bill Walsh – as a renowned professional speaker, Marketing Expert and International Entrepreneur, Bill has risen to national prominence by delivering a high energy message which tells people how to change their lives by focusing on the ability to obtain greatness from within and live up to their potential.
   
   

7. “Aussie” Rob Wilson – “Aussie Rob” is a trading mastermind from Australia. He has developed easy, effective and simple ways to maximize your success in trading. The key to Aussie Rob’s is being able to visualize within three seconds or less when to get in and when to get out, so an investor can make consistent profitable trades.
   
   

8. Kelly O’Neil – Award winning Speaker, Author and Marketing to the Affluent Expert, Kelly O’Neil, is passionate about helping entrepreneurs think big and play bigger to build thriving six and seven figure businesses.
   
   

9. James Malinchak – James Malinchak has delivered over 2,200 motivational presentations at conferences and meetings worldwide, and was named Consummate Speaker of the Year by Sharing Ideas professional speakers’ magazine. He has appeared in USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and several hundred other publications.
   
   
10. Brian Tracy – Brian has written and produced more than 300 audio and video learning programs, including the worldwide, best-selling “Psychology of Achievement”. His exciting seminars on Leadership, Selling, Self-Esteem, Goals, Strategy, Creativity and Success Psychology have brought about immediate changes and long-term results for many people worldwide.
    
    

And many, many more outstanding mentors at www.wealthbuildersevent.com in Los Angeles – please pass this message on to others who would benefit from this event.

Thanks for reading our web design and SEO blog. Get the full post online Los Angeles Wealth Builders Summit: Free Admission Coupon and tell us your thoughts. Netpaths Guide to SEO & Web Design - Simple Search Engine Optimization Steps

Search engine optimization professionals enjoy competitive advantages for ranking in the search engine results pages due to years of hands on experience, but experience, grit and force of will cannot always match giant budgets when corporations throw their hats into the SEO arena. There will always be opportunities for those grass roots marketers who do things faster and smarter, and future startups such as the Twitter.com in 5 years will contribute to disrupting the online marketplace, but the average company trying to make money with their web property will be up against daunting odds.

The Algorithm is a capitalist and is heavily reliant (currently) on back links.

Current Ranking Signals

• 24% Trust/Authority of the Host Domain
• 22% Link Popularity of the Specific Page
• 20% Anchor Text of External Links
• 15% On-Page Keyword Usage
• 7% Traffic and Click-Through Data
• 6% Social Graph Metrics
• 5% Registration and Hosting Data

Search engine algorithms change yearly, and have improved markedly since the 1990’s. Search engines have gotten so much more efficient at discarding low quality websites that most spammers have switched to ethical white hat online marketing tactics. In the near future, the distribution of ranking importance will change to favor larger, established, trusted brand name websites.

Future Ranking Signals

• 25% Trust/Authority of the Host Domain
• 24% Traffic and Click-Through Data
• 20% Social Graph Metrics
• 12% Link Popularity of the Specific Page
• 10% Anchor Text of External Links
• 7% On-Page Keyword Usage
• 2% Registration and Hosting Data

These ranking variables involved are getting more difficult for small companies, and small operators will have a larger challenge creating search relevance. It’s more difficult to create a successful viral marketing campaign to get mentioned on heavily read blogs for improving your social graph metrics. Brokering text links with carefully crafted anchor text will not only be more difficult but less effective.

Moving a website from nothing to top ten rankings for highly competitive phrases will less of a reality – If Ford.com can spend 1 million dollars on a social media marketing campaign, there is no way a smaller car operator can match them.

Google claims to be a champion of democracy, but their future search engine may send 75% of all query traffic to big brands.

This post was inspired by Stuntdubl.

Thanks for reading our web design and SEO blog. Get the full post online The Future of Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Algorithms and tell us your thoughts. Netpaths Guide to SEO & Web Design - Simple Search Engine Optimization Steps

DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com was created by Alex Payne and recently purchased by Bweeb, Inc. Site5 as a social media marketing tool and this is a great business move. For a very low cost, this web hosting company gets a new stream of quality traffic to their site through a highly viral site.

This represents social media at its finest, and this small website turned from a hobby into a nice payout for the developer. Traffic was up to 80,000 unique daily visitors.

View this simple but effective service www.DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com

I have a suspicion that Twitter.com is one of the most searched for websites, as the site went down back in November when it was experiencing uptime issues.

Think of a similar widget you could build to naturally drive traffic to your site, or download the source code and create your own uptime checker.

Thanks for reading our web design and SEO blog. Get the full post online Web Hosting Social Marketing Site DownForEveryoneOrJustMe.com and tell us your thoughts. Netpaths Guide to SEO & Web Design - Simple Search Engine Optimization Steps

Google has been operating in China since 2006 and censoring their search engine for the Chinese government. In December Google.cn gmail accounts were hacked by government affiliated organizations targeting free speech activists.

This quote is particularly relevant to this international issue “Do you want to be right or do you want to be effective?” I support Google for standing up for its ethics, but withdrawing from China may not be an effective long term strategy.

Below is an excerpt from their corporate blog:

First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.

They are serious about operating in a world of open systems, free speech, and doing business in a non evil manner and this is encouraging to all entrepreneurs and individuals who are trying to fight the good fight.

Google is also trying to help their local Chinese workers be safe from government retribution and protect them from the consequences of the decision to open their search engine.

We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today.

Read the full post on blogspot.

http://www.susiewee.com/blog/2010/01/13/the-impact-of-googles-bold-move/

Also see reactions from around the blogosphere.

Update

This is a great post by web2asia and some of his points are summarized below:

Google should have stuck to their do no evil policy from the beginning, not now after 4 years of China engagements when things start to turn sour on a business level. If the findings of Googles research on the hacker attacks against Google and 30+ other foreign companies are true and were indeed initiated by the Chinese government it is not a matter that you have a corporate lawyer brazenly announce overnight on a company blog, but a political incident that should be dealt with by the State Department.

If there is one thing I’ve learned during my 4 years in China is that you don’t win in China/or in dealing with Chinese if you threaten them. You can only win if you outsmart them (just like they will try to outsmart you). By outsmart I mean that you give them an option to “save face”, a path that will lead to consensus and allow all parties to win somehow or walk away from the table without having the feeling that they’ve lost or been disrespected.

W what Google did with their unannounced blog post (and the implied ultimatum/threat) does not leave any option for the Chinese Government to save face, and paves the way for a government mandated shut down of Google.cn .

This is very unwise, unless it is indeed the goal of Google to close its doors and permanently exit the Chinese market. One unintended consequence of this action is that by going rogue Google may drag other companies into the unwelcome abyss of the Chinese government’s wrath.

I cannot imagine that anyone with experience in Chinese business culture would have issued such a statement and this will likely have a chilling effect on US Chinese political relationships.

Thanks for reading our web design and SEO blog. Get the full post online Google Following The Right Path With Don’t Be Evil and tell us your thoughts. Netpaths Guide to SEO & Web Design - Simple Search Engine Optimization Steps

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Enter the Promo Code: “NEWYR” during the sign up process and you will instantly save 20% on ALL Best of the Web products and services. The promo code may be used multiple times for multiple products and services during the month of January. Jumpstart your online marketing efforts and take advantage of the 20% discount before it’s too late! go to www.botw.org

Thanks for reading our web design and SEO blog. Get the full post online BOTW Link Directory Promo Code and tell us your thoughts. Netpaths Guide to SEO & Web Design - Simple Search Engine Optimization Steps

I received these Adwords coupon codes a while ago but unfortunately my Google Professional certification expired and now I cannot use them for existing clients.

These Adwords promo codes also only work on new accounts, so it may be worth creating a new account to utilize these free clicks. These are my gift to you for the new year.

Adwords coupon codes are below:

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Expires on 12-31 Terms and Conditions apply – see our FAQ for more details, including instructions on how to apply the credits.

Thanks for reading our web design and SEO blog. Get the full post online Google Adwords Promotional Codes for $100 Free PPC Credit and tell us your thoughts. Netpaths Guide to SEO & Web Design - Simple Search Engine Optimization Steps

Seeding articles, graphs, PDF documents, research, charts, images, videos and quotes to other websites is an excellent way to increase awareness of your website. You will be inserting your brand into a natural source of information and can reach users at a critical point in their decision making process.

When seeding your content the key is to get links back to your site from half a dozen sites. Without this quantity your efforts could be lost.

Doing Content Wrong

1. Find trending keywords
2. Get low paid writers to mashup content and rewrite words
3. Semi automated process – publications still need writers and editors like McDonalds needs cows
4. You may find articles written by Mr. Al Gorithm
5. Machines can’t differentiate between “time flies like an arrow” & “fruit flies like a banana” but some people can overlook this
6. Automated baseball sports writing program exists – developed by Northwestern University. It gets the facts but not meaning of games.

Doing Content Right

1. Create a great article
2. Find trusted, high quality, relevant sites to share it with
   • Ezines
   • Blogs
   • Niche websites
   • Small publications
   • Industry specific websites
3. Share with at least 5 sites and have them all link back to your website. If you only share content with 3 sites there is a chance they will outrank you for it.

Read the official Google policy on cross-site duplication:

If you syndicate your content on other sites, Google will always show the version we think is most appropriate for users in each given search, which may or may not be the version you’d prefer. However, it is helpful to ensure that each site on which your content is syndicated includes a link back to your original article. You can also ask those who use your syndicated material to use the noindex meta tag to prevent search engines from indexing their version of the content.

With this strategy you will never have to worry about other people stealing your content again, as you will always rank #1 for your work.

Thanks for reading our web design and SEO blog. Get the full post online Sharing Your Work Increases Exposure – Avoiding Duplicate Content Problems Increases Your Rankings and tell us your thoughts. Netpaths Guide to SEO & Web Design - Simple Search Engine Optimization Steps

I’m looking to compile a great list of conversion elements that can be included in a website. This is not for landing pages (although it could be used for them) but regular site pages, with emphasis on the homepage.

I approach every site design with conversion in mind – your design should help the visitor take desired action on your site. Keep out the fluff that will distract or alter the focus of your visitor.

Actions

• phone call
• completing a contact form
• subscribing to newsletter
• buying product
• tweeting/sharing page with friend
• downloading free ebook/whitepaper
• anything that captures an email address

I am defining conversion elements as anything that will strongly persuade a visitor to remain on your site and want to learn more about you.

Conversion Elements

• testimonials
• 3rd party logos: BBB, truste, D&B, chamber of commerce
• logos of good sized companies you have worked with or places you have been quoted: latimes, any inc5000, hollywood reporter etc.
• stats showing success: client sales increases, new orders, new engagements
• large and clear contact button – can be tastefully animated
• photos – (founder, real staff, highly targeted to your niche)
• short sales video
• phone number/address

For shopping sites that sell products directly, the required elements to gain users trust are more specific. Below are elements that increase online sales in descending order of importance.

E-commerce Elements

• product overview
• merchant guarantee
• availability
• image quality
• customer service available
• product specific description
• long description
• size chart
• toll free phone
• ratings & reviews

The above list is from the e-tailing group/ARS ecommerce

Thanks for reading our web design and SEO blog. Get the full post online Finding The Best Web Design Conversion Elements and tell us your thoughts. Netpaths Guide to SEO & Web Design - Simple Search Engine Optimization Steps