Friday, May 4, 2012

How To Make Your Readers Trust You


In another usual chit chat session, I have found myself stumped when my fellow blogger blurted out that though his blog has over 5,000 fans in Facebook fan page, in reality none of them know in him person. This is a pathetic reduction of a blogger to a non-entity. What is the purpose of being a blogger when the people around you do not even know you or have little idea of what your day job? If you are in this vicious circle, you are sure to missing on opportunities galore that may befall on you when you least accept. So, if you wish to earn reorganization and have the limelight right on you, you need to follow the following tips


Introduce Yourself: You simply cannot expect that there will be some kind of divine intervention and your readers will be automatically informed about who you are and what you do. Well, God is still not that much benevolent and I fear, you might have to take the responsibility and make people aware about, who you are and what you do. And you would not have to do anything crazy for that. Just a simple About Us page will do that. All you need to do is to make it look with a good photo of yours and give detailed information about your professional and personal life and there you.

Answer Back to Emails and Comments: Do not rude and do not be evil either. You need to take some time out of your busy schedule and try to reply to comments people have left on your website. Take it this way, if visitors can take the pain of going through the entire post and then comment something nice or otherwise, it is your responsibility to reply back to them. By doing so, you will be able to encourage them and they may try to gather more information about who you are and what you do.

Publish Something About You: Do not make your post look like a self-promotion thing. No one is going to read that rather you can post something inspired from your personal experience. This will draws attention of the visitors and they will come to know who you are without coercing them or pushing them. Storytelling method is a proved effective way of grabbing the attention of the visitors and you give it a while writing in a conversational note.

Social Media Presence: Your social media presence has to be more than just impressive. An ordinary presence can undo the entire effort. Your blog needs to have links to your social media profiles and the other way round and try to gather as many Likes and retweet for your posts. This will increase exposure of your posts to a great extent and you will see more visitors coming to your website from all walks of life.

Attend Events: Attending an event is one of the most popular ways of making your presence felt in the blogosphere. It gives enormous scope to get in touch with bloggers coming from all walks of life and when you will take on the dais, you will all the eyes hooked on you. Prepare a fiery speech and there you go.

Try these small tips and believe me, you are going to see some dramatic difference

VIA AZBLOGTIPS

Get more traffic by Branded Keywords


More than likely, your readers are already using branded keywords to find you on Google, Bing, etc. As opposed to your generic, niche keywords that have been attached to your site via content, branded keywords are organically ranked high for your site. Taking advantage of these branded keywords can help increase your SERP’s and PPC traffic, as you begin to address an entirely new area of your keyword research and tracking.
“Many search marketers perceive branded keywords as the holy grail of a successful search campaign.” – Clickz.asia

What are Branded Keywords?

So what are these branded keywords I am talking about? Branded keywords are those used by visitors who already know you exist. This includes any version of your brand, URL or website name. For JoeSchmoe.com, this could be – joeschmoe.com, joeschmoe, Joe Schmoe, etc .

Branded keywords generally rank organically at a very high rate on search engines across the board because they are found all over your website; in your site name, URL, and other links within the site. There are ways to utilize this naturally searchable term to your benefit; whether that is to increase traffic to your site, heighten brand awareness, or start a successful PPC campaign.

How to Find Them

In order to use your branded keywords to their full potential, you have to find them. This can be done with the same analytics tool you’ve been using for basic SEO purposes; you’ll want to separate your branded keywords from the others. This allows you establish which will be best for in content use, PPC use and purchasing.

It’s important to recognize that although your branded keywords may be getting more searches than your non-branded, both are necessary to high traffic levels. While branded keywords may be used by someone already aware of your brand, the generic keywords will continue to be an important aspect in driving new traffic to the site. Google recommends, “Balance your use of generic and branded keywords to capture a wide range of customers and increase conversion opportunities.”

Using Them

Using branded keywords is a smart way to take advantage of search engines’ natural ability to gather information and present relevant results. Because these keywords are already ranking relatively high, you should take advantage of their place within results.

  • In Content – If customers are searching with branded keywords, but your site is too new to rank, use them in your content. This boosts Google’s awareness of them, helping you and your readers.
  • PPC – If you aren’t showing up in generic search results for your branded keywords, a PPC campaign utilizing these will boost customer confidence as you crawl to the top of the search engines. If you are, however, getting a significant amount of traffic with your brand keywords, it would be a smart way to kick-start your PPC campaign.
  • Buy them – In this social media marketing world, competitors will do anything to hold you down. If you purchase your branded keywords from Google, you can avoid losing them to someone else.

Branded keywords are a great organic tool to drive traffic and money to your site. Using lower ranked, branded keywords in your content can give you a boost in search engines. However, taking advantage of your naturally high ranked branded keywords can help push traffic to your PPC campaign. Branded keywords are a great tool in creating brand awareness and traffic, so be sure to account for them in your next site analysis.

Without Your Knowledge How Google Can Transform Your Search into Multiple Related Searches


Google’s search tools are always evolving. If you want to stay ahead of the game and high in the rankings for your target keywords, then you will need to keep up with developments. The only alternative is to employ the services of a search engine optimisation company to achieve the same goals. Last year, Google applied to patent a new approach to searching which could break down individual searches into multiple related searchessimultaneously, without alerting the user. Here is a look at the implications of this for site owners and typical users.

It is best to start with an example. If you were looking for some new garden furniture and you wanted something affordable made of plastic, you might reasonably enter ‘garden furniture plastic’ into Google or any other search engine and anticipate that a search for each of the three keywords would be performed across the index of sites. What might actually occur is that the search engine will first search for sites containing the term ‘garden furniture’ and then perform a second search from within this narrower grouping to look for ‘plastic’. This would understandably result in a different set of ranked sites than if a single search had been carried out. And more importantly, you would have little way of knowing which method had been used.


This matter is further complicated by Google’s plans to offer users a further search option from within the top 10 ranked sites if they simply enter ‘garden furniture’. It will add a secondary bar which actively encourages them to search for related pages which more closely match their required type of item. This method would directly indicate that a two-tiered search is being used to find related pages from within a smaller sample of sites, although the average user may still not be aware of this even if site owners and those working for a search engine optimisation company have caught wind of the changes.

The real issue here is that by compartmentalising the search to a greater degree and focusing on looking for related pages within a more limited sample, could Google and its peers end up reducing the number of users who look at the second page of results? There is not currently anypublicly available data on this point, but it is not difficult to conceive of a world in which the top ten sites become even more dominant as a consequence of a change in Google’s search methods and interface.

In essence, the sites which rank highly for the more competitive terms, whether that is ‘garden furniture’ or ‘London hotels’, will become more prominent, while smaller, more specialist sites are relegated. If you are targeting users looking for ‘garden furniture rustic’, then you could be eliminated from the equation if a search engine first scans for the top ‘garden furniture’ sites and then looks within the group for the term ‘rustic’.

The long-term impact of this change has yet to be felt. Indeed, the fast-moving world of search engines means that small alterations may be implemented and then retracted before anyone has been able to truly measure their impact. Perhaps the best lesson to take from this is that learning about the complex nature of SEO will give you a great advantage in a highly competitive marketplace.

Why Breadcrumbs Can Help Improve the Popularity of Your Blog


As your blog continues to become more advanced, you will likely begin having more and more webpages to manage. Many blogs create different categories (fashion advice, fashion news, fashion opinions), archives (June 2011, October 2010, 2077), author pages (Betty Bob’s articles), or a combination of all three to help keep their content organized. Not only will this help you keep your blog organized, but it will help your blog readers navigate your homepage easier and quicker.

However, once a reader gets past the homepage all of these different categories and subsections of the blog can start to do the opposite of help navigate. People can easily get lost looking around a blog; so many blog owners install breadcrumbs.


Breadcrumbs are little links at the top of a page that help let someone know where they are and where they have been while on the blog. Consider the screenshot below:


The arrows illustrate the four breadcrumbs that I found while navigating this particular website. I first clicked a link about education, and then clicked a link about IT training, and so on and so forth. This makes it simple for a reader to hop back to a previous page if they find that they are getting lost. Breadcrumbs not only make it much easier for a reader to navigation, but they also have several other advantages:

Why Your Blog Needs Breadcrumbs

The stickiness of your site will improve.
Visitors will likely stay on your page longer because it is easy to navigate. They will visit more pages without worrying about losing their place. Many people come to a blog to read something specific, and then want to jump around (hopefully!). Breadcrumbs will make people more apt to do so.

Breadcrumbs are small and easy on the eyes.
Breadcrumbs take up little space on a webpage, so they won’t affect the look of a blog. Some even say breadcrumbs enhance the overall design.

Navigation will not only stay organized, but will be faster for readers.
Your readers will be able to navigate your page faster. Not only will they be organized, but they will be able to click one link as opposed to the “back” button several times. This will help move things along, further increasing the popularity of your blog.

Although navigation comes first, breadcrumbs can help your SEO.
Breadcrumbs can help your SEO ranking. Although this is minimal and certainly a long shot, it’s something to keep in mind.

Once you’ve decided that your readers can benefit from breadcrumbs, it’s time to put them into action. The process can seem complicated at first, but it’s generally something most blog owners can figure out. You can follow the Spice up Your Blog article for step by step instructions that will give you the codes needed to help people navigate your blog.

Landing Page Conversion Tips for Affiliate Marketers


Affiliate marketers are always looking for the best ways to optimize their landing page conversions. Sometimes is can seem like an uphill battle. However, there are trends that can help affiliate marketers know what is working and what isn’t. The following is a list of best practices – and what to avoid.

Landing Pages: A Quick Primer

Landing pages have many names – sales page, money page, opt-in page and squeeze page – but no matter what it might be called, a landing page has one main purpose: to create conversions. But what is a landing page exactly? Simply put, a landing page is the page your web traffic is driven to. When someone clicks on a link, they end up at your landing page.


Landing pages are critical because the more conversions you get – that is, the more traffic that turns into sales – the more money you make as an affiliate marketer.

Simple Steps

There are five simple steps affiliate marketers can take to improve landing page optimization.

  1. Be compatible. Does your landing page work with Firefox, Chrome and Internet Explorer? If it doesn’t, you’re losing conversions. Always check to see how your landing page looks with each browser and make sure it’s compatible.
  2. Be quick. In addition to compatibility, make sure you page loads in eight seconds or less. If a page takes too long to load, no one is going to stick around and wait.
  3. Utilize social media. No one likes filling out forms. It takes time and is a hassle. Social media signups have changed that, making signing up and opting in a quick and easy, one-click process. Make it easy for visitors to register at your landing page by enabling social media signups.
  4. Be interactive. Images and text or interactive video – which is more interesting and engaging? Interactive video makes it fun and easy to navigate a landing page. This technique is enjoying success, particularly with dating websites.
  5. Be clear. While this can be applied to just about every aspect of an effective landing page, there are two extremely important places to have clarity. First, be sure that visitors to your site know where they are. Have a clear headline announcing your landing page. Second, have a clear call to action on your landing page so visitors know exactly what you want them to do – whether that’s completing a signup or purchasing a product.


Testing 1, 2, 3…

Once you’ve made changes to your landing page, how do you know if they are working? There are two main ways to check the effectiveness of your changes. The first is called multivariate testing, or MVT. MVT is done by testing multiple variations of different elements on your landing page. These tests are run simultaneously. This type of testing works best with high-traffic sites and for those marketers who have a thorough understanding of MVT interpretation. In these cases, MVT can provide clear results of what’s working on your landing page and what isn’t.

However, if you have a low-traffic site or are not familiar with MVT, there is another, much simpler way to test your landing page. This technique is called A/B split testing. Start with page A as the control page, then make a change to a single element on the page. The page with the change is now page B. Split your traffic between the two sites and see which gets more conversions. Once you have a clear winner, take down the losing page. You can then replace it with a new page with another change to test. In this way, you can experiment with everything from headlines to ad copy and get quick, reliable feedback.

Elements to test include the headline, sales copy, colors, fonts, images, their placement and just about anything else on your landing page.

What to Avoid

Not only is landing page optimization about doing what’s best to create conversions; it’s also about avoiding costly mistakes. There are fourcommon pitfalls that successful affiliate marketers avoid.

  1. Inconsistency. When testing your landing pages, be sure to only change one element at a time. Changing multiple elements at the same time will render the test completely inaccurate.
  2. Redundancy. To avoid wasting valuable time and repeating tests, be sure to record each change you test and track the results. Otherwise, you will find yourself needlessly repeating tests and never making progress.
  3. Ineffective software. If you find yourself spending more time dealing with your landing page optimization software than actually optimizing your landing page, it’s time to make a change. Your software should be working for you, not the other way around.
  4. Information overload. Only provide information that is absolutely necessary for a visitor to your landing page to make a decision and take action. Anything else is a distraction and will lower conversion rates.

The time you invest in landing page optimization now will pay off with high conversion rates later.