Saturday, December 30, 2006

Don't Confuse The Landing Page With The Order Form Page

A landing page, as we all know, is one high selling point in your online business . It is the page that makes people take action to buy your products or services . Though many a times the landing page has the order form incorporated inside it, it is not the case always. The thing to remember and take care of here is that the landing page and order form page are two different entites, even though they work in cooperation with each other.

The order page is a separate page in the website linking to other parts of your site. And generally people reach this page after navigating through other pages on your site. So they are aware of the products/services being offered by you and the benefits as well as description of those products or services. In such a scenario, the order page does not need to go into much selling details before making the visitors fill the form.

But the other half of the story has another twist. There may be visitors who land on your site after reading some literature about your company, products or services through your marketing material or email or even offline marketing campaign. These are the people who might not digest going directly to an order form page without some sell and benefits information given on the landing page. They will not be prepared or ready to buy so soon and will need some more information about your company to feel secure enough to make a purchase.

So here in lies the difference between a landing page and order form page. You should decide whether the landing page should have order form page within it or separately depending upon the marketing communications the visitors came from and the complexity of your product/service.

Also keep in mind the consistency between the content of your landing page and the marketing document after reading which the visitors come to your site. If there is a lot of disparity between the two, you not only lose your credibility, but also lose a prospective client. The visitors must be able to relate and connect with both the contents and should not feel totally confused by the gulf of difference between what you said in the landing page and now are saying in the order form page.

The question whether you should have the order form page on the landing page itself depends upon the kind of prospects you are dealing with. There will be cases where it will be more beneficial to have it on the landing page itself and there may be other cases where having a separate order form page would be more advantageous.

SO your landing page should be designed depending upon the marketing communication after reading which the prospects have come to your site.

http://www.segnant.com/

Monday, December 25, 2006

A Web Copy is Different From a Web Page

Are you also one of those people who think that web copy is the same as web page? Well, if you do think so, you are little far away from the truth. A web copy is used to sell anything on the web page and a web page is actually the content written on the pages of the website.So in a way, a web copy is something similar to the traditional sales copy, but with a lot of difference in its presentation and structure.

The difference arises as a result of the different mediums of selling something. In direct mail copywriting, one could indulge in exaggeration, hyperbole,and great pomp and show kind of thing. But when the medium is Internet, the web or sales copy has to be more engaging, friendly, relaxed, and down to earth.

The web demands that you offer your products and services in a subtle and soft manner. Instead of indulging in self-praise for your products and services, provide more information to the visitors. This is because people are more tension free and relaxed on the web and expect a friendly and personal touch to everything you offer. You cannot just give a 'buy my product' kind of a message to the users on net. You have to sound like a friend, well wisher, and talk to them on an individual level. Writing in an editorial style helps the best. And if you have a testimonial section, all the better.

Realize the fact that people on the net are looking for INFORMATION. And if they don't get it the right way, they will leave your website as soon as they entered it. Neither are they in the mood to read any advertisement kind of messages. So you need to be smart enough to advertise in an informational manner. The goal of your web copy should be to inspire and egg the visitors to take instant action.

Write like you are providing a review of the product or service concerned to the people. Don't try to sell your idea, product or service. Your aim should be to give the visitors all the information that you deem important from marketing or selling point of view in such a way that you kill two birds with stone- provide useful information and activate people to take action (buy, in this case).

http://www.segnant.com/

Friday, December 22, 2006

E-Mail Marketing: A useful profit making strategy

Although webmasters rely a lot on their websites' design and construction for improving their business prospects, yet there is still need for keeping the online traffic-flow steady and the people to keep coming back to your site. E-mail marketing seems to be one effective way of retaining old customers and build new ones in a cost effective and easy to track and measure way.

Opt-in List of customers

The first and foremost thing to do while launching an aggresive E-Mail marketing campaign is to create an opt-in list of all your customers and clients. This list will consist of all those people who have consented to be contacted by you via e-mail after visiting your site. You begin by putting a sign-in option on the home page leading to a detailed form related to customers' demographic and other information when he/she clicks this button. This list will aid you in putting the information related to the clients in your database for contacting these people.

Hit your target Audience with the right words

If you fail to deliver the right message to the audience through your email, you have lost the battle before you began fighting.You can use newsletters that provide relevant information regarding your products, services, any new or latest developments in your company to the audience. This will help build a rapport between you and the clients and also establish you as an expert in your field. You can also send other promotional material like coupons, invitation to events, client reward information, as this also helps develop a bond with your clients. Conveying the right message not only leads to sharing of information with clients, but also helps you gather feedback from them that is very important for you.

Keep updating your e-mail marketing program

The story doesn't end with the sending of the e-mails. You have to keep track of all your emails so that you can constantly compare and improve on the basis of your observation. The "subject" line and "from" line should make the receivers read your message instantly.Always mention your company's name and physical address in the body of the message so that the clients know of your existence and reliability. It also helps to have an "unsubscribe" option in the email giving the clients a feeling of freedom to put an end all correspondence, if they wish to.

Employing a e-mail marketing service

It wouldn't hurt your financial position much if you use a professional e-mail marketing service that reduces your time investment in template designing for newsletters, and other promotional material. These service providers will help you measure the level of success or failure achieved in your marketing campaign by providing you all the campaign metrics. Better so, you will be able to identify the clickers to your emails and site links, thus aiding you to improve upon the email strategies for maximum ROI, and better business prospects.

http://www.segnant.com/

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

New And Fresh Content is What Search Engines are Looking For

Ways of Adding Fresh Content Regularly to Your Website

We all know how much the search engine spiders love new and updated content, provided it is relevant to your website's purpose. You must be wondering how to add new and fresh content regularly or on a daily basis to your website. But let me assure you it is not at all difficult or impossible. You can add new content quite often and even on daily basis by following the methods given below:

Article Writing- Writing articles related to the main theme or focus of your website is an excellent way of adding content everyday to your website. And there is an abundance of information on the web. All you have to do is search for relevant information, read it carefully and write it in your own words in the form of an article and put it on your website.

Hired content writers are a great alternative to those who don't feel inclined, or excited enough to write themselves. Search for writers who are ready to write for you full time or as freelancers and leave the rest on them. You can search on the net or give an advertisement in the newspaper for such writers.

You can also request other webmasters to submit their articles in exchange of sending them a link to your site. Be cautious in not displaying a duplicate of the same article by putting additional information on the page along with the article. You can add different header, footer, and navigational links on the article page.

Another way of getting content is to visit the free content websites that offer articles for free. All the writer asks in return for using his/her content is a link back to his/her website.

Following these simple yet very effective methods will make posting fresh and new content in your website regularly a child's play for you.

http://www.segnant.com/

Friday, December 15, 2006

All About Viral Marketing

When you make your visitors, users and viewers like you enough to start spreading word about you and your company to others, it is a classic example of Viral Marketing. You are not to spend a single penny in it. You don't need to advertise madly for it to take shape. All it asks in terms of investment is your creativity and become likeable in the eyes of the visitors. It is a unique kind of marketing that depends upon the faith that you are successful in fostering in your audiences.

The elements of a successful viral marketing strategy are:

Giving not selling products and services
Easy and fast transfer of products or services
Begins humbly from small to very large
Works upon the common emotions, motivations, and temperaments of people
Making people take charge of the whole popularising thing
Making adequate use of communication systems

Basically any idea, be it emailing, free subscription, free downloading, or free membership of a newsletter or ezine, that leads to free publicity of your products and services to millions of others through word of mouth, is called viral marketing. And if you are not taking advantage of the power and benefits of this free of cost, amazing way of marketing, you are missing out on a major chunk of prospective clients and customers. The concept is simple. Offer a free subscriber email and let subscribers tell their friends about it by providing a sign-up link. Or offer anything for free and see how people start talking about it to others. Let's be honest to ourselves in agreeing that it is human nature to get attracted to anything that is offered for free, or at a flat low rate. Viral marketing too works on this principle. It is all about making a goodwill among visitors by your generous offers. And that doesn't cost much in comparison to the profits you will make.

http://www.segnant.com/

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Making An Impression On Your Online Clients

Years ago when internet was not an integral part of our lives, print advertising and advertising by word of mouth was the only solution for the small business enterprises to make people aware of their products and services. But it is not so today. Internet has come as a blessing for all small, medium or large business houses and is proving to be a boon for advertising and exposing your brand, company name to more and more prospective clients online.

Every business person today can not only think but can actually execute his/her dreams of making business flourish with the power of internet marketing. In fact, the buyers and customers are as much hooked to the internet as the companies. The clients can very easily browse on the net what they want and if you don't make that first positive impression on them, you won't get a second chance.

You have to keep in mind the fact that if internet has made it easy and fast to reach a wider population, it has also increased the competiton manyfolds. And if in this horde for reaching the targeted audience first, you don't establish a good reputation, your competitors will. And the first impression only will be the deciding factor whether you will win a client or lose your reputation. Keep in mind that online surfers are the people who have not seen you and will deal with you only if your web presence impress them.

Making an online impression is a tactful thing that you can learn with time. You have to share inside knowledge with the target audience as well as participate, listen, and offer thoughtful responses. The idea is to appear as a authority figure in your industry and provide the users as much useful information as you can.

There is nothing like writing online articles when it comes to making sales online. People like to buy from high traffic web sites that have good credibility in the market. This means that every article that you write and publish online and that links to your web site helps improve your ranking and reputation. Building an online relationship with the users is as good as actually selling your products and services. Only if your relationship with the users is favourable, can you think of making a sale.

So the tip for online business success is to make that first impression on the audience in such a way that they just can not stop thinking or talking about you even after leaving your site. The rest will be taken care of by your astute selling sense.

http://www.segnant.com/

Saturday, December 09, 2006

Web Page Analyzer: Updated and More Powerful

To keep all SEO enthusiasts posted about any new innovation, development, or discovery, this news is really going to refresh and cheer up you guys. Andy King has recently announced the update to his free page analysis tool that takes a URL from you and then returns you a beautifully and immaculately formatted report on the over-all efficiency of the page. In other words, it kind of scans and scrutinizes the page on all parameters and gives out a report card of the over all performance of the page like happens in schools or colleges when at the end of the academic year, the students get a report card detailing their all round performance for a particular year.

The beauty of this updated tool is the kind of help it will provide SEO experts while dealing with clients who have outdated, older table-based structure sites. All you have to do is to first generate a report on the older, unrevised site and then another one on the new one after it is revised or constructed again.

What's different and good about this report than others is that it gives the clients a simple, clear and plain English, the improvements they have made after re-constructing the pages. This makes them feel good about themselves and their achievements.

The newer and updated Web page analysis tool has the facility for support to frames, iframes, CSS based images, more realistic CSS and JS size thresholds.

Isn't it great news?!!


http://www.segnant.com/

Monday, December 04, 2006

Corporate Blogs And Their Usefulness

Those who know about blogging, also know what an amazing technique it is from search engine optimization point of view. According to a study conducted on business blogging, when blogs are written keeping in mind the ideas and suggestions of the customers, the customers themselves tend to propogate your brand and help increase the search engine rankings.

Business tycoons and bigshots have agreed time and again that publishing relevant, fresh, new, and updated content does help bring more targeted traffic and backlinks. So from SEO point of view, corporate blogging can help build a successful company by just the power of its content. Corporate blogging not only provides the business organisations the power and ability to connect and interact with their customers on a more personal level, but also helps build the audiences' trust, confidence in you as a business enterprise, and receive valuable feedback from them. To top it all, these blogs help further solidify the relations between your company and the clients.

Every new initiative, discovery, tool, and idea takes some time to show its results and corporate blogging is no exception to this rule. In order to be able to reap benefits from corporate blogging, a company needs to practice patience and give the customers or audience what they want in their blogs. In other words, giving the audience information regarding what they love most in your blogs will go a long way in furnishing a strong base for a long term interaction with your audiences.

http://www.segnant.com/

Friday, December 01, 2006

Indexing is Different From Ranking

People who are conversant with Search Engine optimization (SEO) are well aware of two important components in it-Indexing and Ranking.But it is surprising to find out how people still mistake the two terms as meaning the same. It is not so. Indexing is a completely separate concept from ranking. No doubt both form important components of SEO and web marketing, but both have exclusive and separate identities. One of the biggest myths that some people still have is that indexing means your site will automatically rank well too. Those who think so are very far from the truth.

Indexing is a search engine phenomenon where the search engine spiders search for keys to their content and then indexes them according to the keywords that it considers most important, relevant, updated, fresh, in your website.And if they find the content to match all their requirements and pre-requisites, technical or content related, the site is indexed. And in order to find out whether your site is indexed or not, all you have to do is select two or three words in a unique phrase from the webpages concerned and search for that phrase by putting it in quotation marks and placing it in Google's index. If your page(s) are indexed, they will appear in the search results.

Ranking on the other hand is the process where the search engines decide what position the site should be allocated once it is indexed. The ranking of your website depends upon the clear and focused approach of the content on your website and the number of relevant and quality links coming to your site. For example, the press releases and online magazines rank better than other normal sites as a result of the great number of incoming links to them.

Thus both indexing and ranking are different concepts. Your website may be indexed a long time back, but it is not necessary that if it is indexed it will be ranked well too. Ranking follows a different criteria than indexing and does not have anything to do with indexing.

http://www.segnant.com/