Stop trying to get more TO your website, start getting more FROM your website 

 

Raise your hand if you get excited when you hear the words “Multivariate testing”?  How about “A/B Split Testing”? Do these phrases ring true with excitement for you?

Probably not.

But do not worry, my guess is that by the end of this article you will be excited about the possibility of what these terms mean.  First and foremost, these words spell a certain relief for most website owners.  This article, unlike so many other articles that focus on bringing more and more traffic to your website from new and various sources, will focus on something quite simple. This article will ask the question: don’t you have enough already?

Let’s take a step back for a minute.  Most website owner’s share a common goal: to get more conversions.  A conversion may be a sale, it may be a newsletter signup, it may be lead, it may be a phone call, it may be a download, etc.  We put websites up to achieve a certain end, and when that end is achieved, a goal is reached.  So with that in mind, how do we increase the number of times our goals are reached? How do we increase our conversions?

There are two ways: 1) we can get more traffic, and 2) we can do more with the traffic we have.  Guess which one of these is usually ignored?

So this is where this article comes in: to discuss doing more with what we have.

A/B Split Testing – Even My Kids Can Do It

My kids do A/B split testing every day.  In fact, if you have kids, my guess is that they split test as well.  This morning my son came up to me and asked if he could have chocolate candy (I hadn’t fed him breakfast yet). Upon hearing my very tired “no”, he then went into the other room and asked his mother if he could have chocolate.  At just 2 years old, he is practicing the simple science of split testing. Unfortunately for him, he started with a losing proposition, so the result was the same.

Split testing is taking one element, creating a variation of it, and then testing the two variations against each other.  My son chose me as the element he would split test, chose my wife as the variation, then tested both parents to see if one created a better result than the other. For your website, you may not want to test your parents, but you may want to test your page titles, a picture, or a disclaimer.

Multivariate Testing – I’m Not So Sure My Kids Can Do It…

…but you can! Multivariate testing takes A/B split testing and puts it on steroids.  Rather than isolate just one element, multivariate testing encourages you to test multiple elements and multiple variations of those elements.  The reasoning here is important: multivariate testing recognizes that it is more than just a title or a picture or a disclaimer that drives conversions, rather, it is a combination of how all things work together on your pages that drive conversions.  Whereas a disclaimer on one page may reduce conversions, a disclaimer on a different page may actually increase conversions.

So how do you go about doing multivariate testing? Well, you don’t do it on your own – you need the help of software and tools.  Multivariate testing creates combinations which will all be tested against each other.  When testing multiple elements and multiple variations, the result is that you can generate a large number of variations rather quickly.  Keeping track of these variations, knowing when to stop testing one, etc, would be too much to realistically handle.

Knowing that multivariate testing is more complex and requires a bit more thought, it may be tempting to avoid it all together.  But to do so would be, in my opinion, a significant mistake.  Multivariate testing can uncover combinations of elements that you would never think to try on your own. When you are trying to get more out of what you already have, it is worthwhile to take the time to test, test, test.

Multivariate Testing Tools and A/B Split Testing Tools

Most multivariate testing tools are built for large organizations that have a staff of statisticians who throw around words like “standard deviation” and “multiple permutations” in their break room as if they were “normal” words (then again, they have a different definition of “normal” as that too is one of a statistician’s favorite terms).  My guess is that most website owner’s do not have the time to break out their statistician hats and start crunching numbers – most website owner’s want to know what works and then move on with their lives.

With that in mind, here are a few tools that you may want to look at to help you start a multivariate test:

• Google Website Optimizer.  No list on multivariate testing would be complete without including Google Website Optimizer.  Why? Because its free, its useful, and its fairly thorough.  Google added its website optimizer in their Adwords center to help advertisers get more from their advertising spend.  However, you do not need to be spending money with Adwords to use this fantastic tool.Google multivariate testing can be a bit tricky to setup and you may want the help of a developer when it comes to integrating the code into your website.  If you use WordPress, you may want to check out this plugin.
• WordPress Split Testing Plugin. Speaking of WordPress, if you would like to run simple A/B Split tests, take a look at this plugin.
• Visual Website Optimizer.  This tool has received plenty of good reviews.  Unlike Google Website Optimizer, it is not free, but unlike Google, it is easy to setup and allows quick changes of tests on your site.  In addition, because it is a paid version, you will get very good support if you need it.
• Unbounce.  For those of you who just want to create and manage landing pages, Unbounce is a nice solution. Unbounce is limited to A/B testing only, however, it is extremely easy to use and perfect for anyone who runs PPC campaigns for lead generation campaigns.

Finding a good tool for your Internet business and needs can take some time, but once you settle in with a tool, you will likely grow addicted to testing.

Don’t Limit Yourself – What Can Be Tested

Testing isn’t just about headlines.  Testing can be anything at all on your website!  Try testing the following:

• Test multipage checkout forms against a single page checkout form
• Test including privacy notices vs. no privacy notices
• Test email subject titles
• Test showing one set of products on your front page vs. no products
• Test having a large “slider” on your front page vs. no slider
• Test signing your name personally to your site against not including it
• Test colors
• Test fonts

You may be surprised at what causes people to continue looking at your site and what causes people to leave.  Being successful on the Internet is not about having good instincts, its about learning to trust metrics and hard data.

I’m Not Excited Yet…In Fact, I’m Kind of Sleepy

At the beginning of this article I promised that talking about A/B Split Testing and Multivariate testing would get you excited about your website.  If you have read this far and are thinking I am a liar, then I would ask that you give me just one more chance.

Let’s talk about results.  Just how effective is testing and what can it do for your business?

To answer this, let’s take a look at a real life example.  At Quiet Light Brokerage, we invite website owner’s like yourself to submit their web businesses for a complimentary valuation.  Our form is simple and straightforward, but our goal is to start conversations with as many qualified people as possible.  As such, we setup Google Optimizer to run a multivariate test on our valuation form to see just how much we could improve our conversion rate.

What would you do if you could double your sales after just one month? What would be willing to do in order to triple your sales after one month?  Would you consider it worth your time?  Most people would agree that it is worthwhile.

Most website owner’s are overworked and are not specialists in enough areas to take the time to track and test conversion rates.  This is rather unfortunate.  While most of us go around chasing more traffic, new social networks, and the like, well organized and successful marketers make sure that their websites are functioning at their top levels.

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Everyone knows that SEO (search engine optimization) is a necessary component of driving traffic to your site. Likewise, most site owners understand that CO (conversion optimization) is how you ensure more visitors become buyers. Unfortunately, very few understand how the two work together, or what happens when they don’t.

Think about it this way. Your website has two purposes:

1. Create awareness of your business by attracting lots of visitors.
2. Convert as many visitors as possible into buyers.

Here’s the problem: Standard “best practices” in SEO, have little or nothing to say about getting people to buy. And most conversion optimization techniques don’t leave room for good SEO. That means, depending on your focus, you gain a lot of new visitors who don’t ever pay you money, or you manage to convert a high percentage of your visitors, but you have too few to turn a profit.

It seems like a straightforward process, and common sense ought to help you figure it out. Well, good luck with that. Maybe me and my crew are slower than most online business people, but we took about a year and tens of thousands of dollars to connect some very important dots that NONE of our highly paid and highly respected consultants could connect for us.

Depending on who you’re talking to, you get the impression that THEIR results are the most important to consider. Ask an SEO person what you need to do and (if they’re any good) they want to talk about key word focus, title tags, content-specific pages, internal linking and inbound links from reputable sites. Tackle all that, and you’ll have a site that ranks well in search results, and gets more visitors.

OK, so we did all that, scored a Page Rank 5 with Google and got up to about 200 visitors a day. Impressive? Yes. Sales? Tiny. One or two a week. Hmmm. That can’t be right, can it?
Taking a completely different tack, we focused on conversions and launched a separate brand with a new site and a new approach where CO came first. Our CO consultant had great ideas about buyer behavior, page layout, what sorts of things decrease bounce rate, what should be above the fold and what below, what are the specific goals of each page, etc.

We created an extremely streamlined buying process that started on the first page with a handy wizard showing visitors their best options, leading them straight into the checkout process. Page design was all about encouraging clicks on the big ol’ call to action button and nothing else. Our decisions were governed by statistics. Period. We did make some essential content available for visitors who wanted to look for it, but otherwise, we made it all about solving the problem for consumers right now. So pay up, people!
Now that conversion-optimized site is showing promise, but since we haven’t built out pages and pages of content, nor had the time to amass the necessary inbound links, it doesn’t rank all that well organically. Also, we drive traffic to it primarily through Google Adwords, making a higher topline gross but a tighter margin than the first site.

What to do?

Well, in the process of working on those two sites, we noticed that an old, poorly designed site of ours had suddenly made the first page of Google for it’s most important keyword phrase. Not being a great site, it wasn’t converting particularly well, but it was generating business almost in spite of itself! What was different here? And then it hit us, like a DoS Attack… or a ton of bricks. Whatever. Pick your cliche. It was a big deal!
For consumers, websites aren’t the solution any more than the phone book was. The phone book (you do know what I’m talking about, right?) was just a step in the process. If you want help from a business, you open it up and find it. Then you go get what you want.

The trouble with online businesses is that we treat a website like an end in and of itself. We feel proud of it. We opine about how it should operate, how the user experience should reflect our brand. We puzzle and fiddle and “iterate” because smart people iterate– at least it sounds smarter than “guessing” or “changing your mind.” Websites too often get in the way. Sure, they make your business visible to hundreds, thousands or even millions of people who couldn’t otherwise find you, but so what? Who are those millions, and do they care that they found YOU?

There is a constant in sales that is as true now as it was a generation before the internet existed:
People do business with other people who they know, like and trust.
There is a second constant that I would argue was true for a long time, but has been made more obvious and essential with so much business initiated online:

Don’t make me think.

Thanks, Mike. Great insight. What the heck are you saying?

While your efforts to grow a business online must capture a wide audience, your business only really exists in the mind of one prospect at a time. No matter the wide array of content and links you’ve gained to dominate the search engines… no matter the beautiful pages you’ve built to close sales… no matter the work you’ve done satisfying real customers… your business only succeeds one person at a time. Speak directly to your prospect, as if you built your entire business for that one person, right now. Here are 7 ways you can do exactly that:

1. Know the most profitable keyword phrases in your market space and find a set of those that you can dominate. It doesn’t do you any good to shoot for the top of a keyword category. Nail your niche and both Google and web surfers will like you more because they will see you stand for something specific. Google won’t rank you for everything, and no prospect wants to buy everything– just one thing.
2. In addition to the most profitable keywords in your market space, find longtail variants that’ll help you serve up exactly what a visitor was thinking of, and send the visitor to the exact spot on your site that caters to that phrase so he knows he’s in the right place. You can’t beat Wordtracker.com for helping you do that.
3. While search engines want clear navigation through your content, prospective buyers want to do something, not be lead through endless articles and links. So, while you need navigation to be easy and information to be well-organized, you must make buying easy from every single page on your site. Use smart design to allow search engine spiders to quickly and easily index all your content, while also allowing research-happy prospects to find small but clear links in subtle locations across the header, side column and footer. Let buyers see obvious calls to action on every page view, with every piece of content assumed to be that prospect’s last step before heading into the checkout.
4. Use landing pages that can be dynamically generated from things like keyword phrases, local search information and time-sensitive purchases. They work like mini-sites that tell consumers they are in the exact right place, without disrupting the overall structure and SEO of your larger site. Services like Optimizely.com help you test what works and to do more of it.
5. Whenever possible, go local. Google rewards real businesses in real locations that consumers can actually find on the street, and of course, consumers reward them, too! While they don’t need to be able to walk into your location, use local phone numbers and addresses, get registered with every directory you can at www.ubl.org and make like you’re right down the street.
6. Yelp it up. Consumer reviews matter, so remind your customers that you appreciate their feedback and show them where to go. You don’t want to solicit reviews, but you do want them talking about you. Having local info published also helps you get into more Yelp listings in different cities. This is one of the big reasons our third site ended up ranking so well. Despite all the site’s shortcomings, Google recognized that our customers really like us, which means we ought to rank higher than a great site with no real business to speak of.
7. Finally, make sure consumers feel good interacting with you. From third party trust badges and easy, secure checkout processes, to responsive customer service, your online business should reach out and touch more people, not keep them at arm’s length. Prospects can feel it, and they’ll respond in kind.

“Traffic” isn’t a thing. It’s a lot of people searching online. “Conversions” aren’t a thing either. They are real people choosing to trust you and buy from you. Whatever your specific challenges in gaining more traffic, or more sales, or both, don’t use SEO, or CO or any other internet concept as your basic unit of understanding. Always consider the individual prospect. If you can’t satisfy his needs quickly and easily in a way that feels good to him, no matter who he is, you just won’t win a lot of customers.

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Beyond the world of SEO, PPC and banner ads, blogging has been touted as one of the foremost methods to increasing traffic.
Sadly, if you poll marketers, you may find that most are unsatisfied with their blogging efforts. Their time investment simply does not match their blogs’ success.
Do I have a magic formula to get you more traffic to your blog? Certainly not. I could write on and on about the best blogging tips, but every person will interpret them differently and act on them with varying levels of intensity and urgency.
This brings us to my first tip of blogging:

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again

Blogging isn’t a “get rich quick” scheme or a fast way to increase traffic. It is a work in progress. As you continue to tweak, you will find what works for your business.
The following tips will help you increase your traffic; however, the manner in which they are applied will be dependent on your business model. Just remember that the best blogs understand the importance of targeting to a specific market, applying relevant and consistent branding strategies and writing great content based on their brand message.

Target Market

Successful blogging is so much more than great blog posts. I talk about a brand’s target market often because it is one of the most important strategies for internet marketing success. If you do not know to whom you are marketing, every marketing strategy you execute, no matter how excellent, will fall by the wayside.

First step? Create a marketing persona. If you do not know where to start, Heidi Cohen offers a detailed explanation in her article: How to Create Marketing Personas

Step Away from the Technical Language

Avoid using “5 dollar words” and industry-specific terms in your content. Just because you know what CTR and CPC represents, it doesn’t mean your readers will as well, especially if your audience is full of newbies. Assume that your readers know nothing about your industry and start there. The content does not need to be juvenile; it simply needs to be readable and easy for your readers to understand.

Interviews

Interviews can really get the ball rolling for your blog. Interviews are effective for three reasons:

• They create an atmosphere that breeds interaction
• They help bring a fresh perspective to your content
• The expert may link to the interview from several of his/her sites

Whom do you interview? If you can manage to interview a high-profile expert in your industry, great! However, this is easier said than done. Most experts do not respond to their many media inquiries. If you really want to land those experts, start hanging out on their blogs and social profiles, offer helpful advice and build a relationship with them. Purchase their products and write a review so you can more easily build rapport.
To access other experts in your industry, you can create a pitch on sites like HARO (help a reporter). You will receive a response from several experts. In order to use the service, you must have an Alexa traffic ranking of under 2 million.

Viral Content

Of course, we could argue that all content should be viral in nature, but there are a few content ideas that spread faster than others. Here are some ideas you can use to jumpstart your blogging:

• “Top” Lists – “Top 10” or “Top 100” lists continue to attract readers even though marketers have been using these ideas for years. For example, if you sell wedding dresses, consider an article on the “Top 100 Wedding Dresses of 2011”.
• Tutorials – People love DIY information or some education that will make their life easier. In the above example, you could write a tutorial on “How to Sew a Keepsake Under your Wedding Dress”. Use screenshots and videos to further emphasize your topic.
• Stats – Industry statistics and real numbers speak volumes especially to the readers who love real-time studies. Consider including some stats or infographics to make your content more interesting.
• Contests – Run weekly or monthly contests to increase readership and traffic. If you cannot afford to purchase a prize, give away your time and services.

Above all, remember to post regularly and often and don’t forget to stay focused. It’s perfectly permissible to write on other topics occasionally like during the holidays or special events, but stay focused on speaking directly to your target demographic most of the time. Without this focus, all of the above tips will not make a difference in your traffic.
There are many other great ideas to increase blog traffic. Which ones have worked for you?

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Last week, I posted an article about Pinterest (you can read it here) and how it can be used to boost brand awareness and augment SEO link building strategies. Due to the popularity of that article, I wanted to bring you a “real life” Pinterest success story so you can see how businesses are using it.

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard that allows users to “pin” images they find on the web. These images are “re-pinned”, shared and “liked” across its vast network of users. Pinterest is currently enjoying more traffic than the popular image-sharing site Flickr and it hasn’t even officially exited the Beta phase. Additionally, all links are “dofollow” as of today which is the reason why SEOs are starting to take notice.
Though Pinterest has become quite a phenomenon, I see it as an untapped resource since many website owners are unaware of its potential. So to nudge you in the direction of what could be a great marketing avenue for your business, I asked Phyllis Cheung, CEO of LuxeFinds.com, a luxury lifestyle search engine for women, to share with us how she became so successful using Pinterest.

Q: Please give our readers a brief summary of your background and your website (LuxeFinds.com) and why you started it.


A: I have a marketing background with a focus on the luxury wedding market.  We started our company as My Wedding Concierge, a curated wedding blog search engine.  Three years and a lot of media exposure later, we were asked all the time by women if we were planning on expanding to other domains.  We decided that this summer was the right time to rebrand and expand.  LuxeFinds was launched September 2011.

Q: When did you start using Pinterest and how long did it take to see some results?
A: I started using Pinterest in May 2011.  As a rule, I only pin from LuxeFinds.com – We have over 4 million gorgeous images to pin from.  We credit all our sources – our next project is to make every link a permalink as currently, search results are dynamic.  We started seeing click throughs from Pinterest almost immediately.  Our shining moment came when they made us one of their “tastemakers”, a program they have since discontinued.  After being on that list, we were gaining between two and ten thousand followers daily.  Our pins get repinned roughly 50-75 thousand times a week!

Q: What strategies do you use on Pinterest and how much time do you invest?

A: I typically spend about 2-3 hours pinning per day and try to find around a hundred images to pin.

Q: What are some successes you have experienced as a result of using Pinterest for LuxeFinds.com?


A: Some successes that I’ve had because of Pinterest – 1. We’re nearing 1 Million Pageviews per month for LuxeFinds having only launched 3 months ago.  2. We are finding that pinners love our logo and are constantly pinning it.  3. Because we share the same target demographic, I love that the users from Pinterest have a very low bounce rate on LuxeFinds.  I love it when I see users from Pinterest going through over 300 page views on LuxeFinds in one session.

Q: Would you recommend our readers use Pinterest as a part of their website marketing strategies?
A: I don’t think that every business can benefit from Pinterest’s traffic.  Pinterest is a very visual website – if your business is visual, I would definitely say to go for it as the community pins everything from logos to sofas.  I believe that if you join today, you’re still an early adopter and can still build a huge following if you put the work into it.

Thank you Phyllis for providing us with your success story and some helpful strategies as well! Here is a link to the Luxefinds.com page on Pinterest where you can see all of the wonderful images Phyllis has pinned for her followers.

Pinterest is still in Beta and on an “invite only” basis. Please let us know if you would like an invite in the comments below. Happy pinning!

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SEO experts are flocking to Pinterest in droves. Why? According to Google trends, Pinterest has now surpassed other popular image-sharing sites like Flickr:

What is Pinterest?

Pinterest is a virtual pinboard that allows users to collect, share discuss and organize their favorite things on the web. Any type of inspiration can be shared in image form. From quotes, to DIY projects, fashion and anything you can imagine, Pinterest is the newest craze and it is exploding in exponential proportions.
When people “pin” an image they find on the web using Pinterest’s bookmarklet, it creates the pin with a link to the original page or to the image depending on how the user pinned it.

Below is a screenshot of some of my personal profile pinboards. Users can easily organize, categorize and move around all pins and boards.
The pins are “re-pinned”, “liked” and shared across the network of users. Users can comment on the pins and add links within the description as well.

Are you seeing the potential here? If not, keep reading…

Pinterest, with a PR6, and 16 million indexed pages, is still growing daily. Its popularity hails solely from excited users who are only permitted to join via a personal invite (the site is still in beta). The interface is different than any other social media site and its popularity most likely stems from its attractive interface, ease of sharing and social features.

Now for the really good stuff…

Pinterest, as of now, is keeping their links “dofollow”. There are three link opportunities on the Pinterest image page:

1. The image, which is added by user
2. The right upper corner
3. In the pin description

The pin also comes with a custom embed code so you can syndicate it on other websites. The code includes a link to the original pin page.

Luxefinds.com is using Pinterest to attract more attention to their brand. I never heard about the website until I found it on Pinterest. I noticed an attractive image which was re-pinned by one of my friends on the site and I re-pinned it on one of my boards as well.

You have the option to follow anyone’s pinboards. The pins of the people you follow show up on your personal Pinterest home page and all images are available for re-pinning. The images are constantly shared and spread like wildfire.

Only time will tell how long Pinterest will keep its links “dofollow”. I am sure once the site goes live it will change to “nofollow” similar to other social media sites, but we will not know until this happens. Until then, the site could be a fantastic opportunity for businesses to share their products and services in an entirely different way.

Local SEO Strategies

Pinterest offers many opportunities for local optimization.

Profile Setup
Use the description section to write keyword filled text about your business. Add your city name, social media accounts and website url as well. The finished profile will look something like this:

• Create pin boards using your city name. For example, if you are marketing a restaurant in Los Angeles, you would set up a pinboard named “Los Angeles”. You can add images of the best dishes and their names along with restaurant information in the comments.
• For internet companies without a physical location, you can also name boards after your business name or the type of product or service you sell.
• Your images should be high-quality, interesting, and eye-catching. With Pinterest, it’s all about the “wow” factor of the images that attracts users.
• Find other users in your area and follow them. “Like” their images and show your interest in their boards.
• Find users who post images related to your products and services and follow them as well. Every time you follow someone they get a notification, which will prompt them to visit your pinboard page and hopefully your website. Once they start re-pinning your images, those pins are shown to all of their followers on Pinterest and so on.

If images constitute any part of your marketing strategies, whether you are an ecommerce retailer or an affiliate marketer or anyone who can use images to boost your brand, Pinterest is worth a second look.
Are you on Pinterest? If you would like an invite, post a comment below with your email address.

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It’s almost 2012! Break out the treadmills and uncork the champagne. It’s time for a new start, a fresh look and an elevated perspective for our lives and our businesses.
I have never taken New Year’s Resolutions seriously and I usually bypass the chance to motivate myself to do something greater. But this year, I am making a resolution to make a resolution! Who is with me?
If you would like to join me in ringing in the New Year with a new and fresh motivation for your business, read on…
Here are some New Year’s resolutions for 2012:

Shift Focus

It’s time to focus on priorities and eliminate what isn’t necessary. Too many times, marketers want to get their hands in everything, from article marketing, videos, podcasts, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, blogging, press releases, keyword research, online networking, offline networking, LinkedIn…can you see where I am going here?
The list is endless for what you can do to increase your profit potential. Yet, the sad truth is that the more you put on your plate, the less you will earn. Your profit is directly tied to how well YOU execute the strategies. And if YOU are pulled a thousand different ways, you will never properly execute something long enough to make it successful.

RESOLUTION

Focus on 2-3 marketing strategies first and work on them until you experience success. These strategies can then enter “maintenance mode” or be taken over by an employee.

Follow Through

For some of us, myself included, we can be somewhat “lax” in our approach to marketing our businesses. As a result, we fail to follow through with enough effort to tip the scales and see results. The beginning stages of any new venture can take quite a bit of time due to learning curves and initial setup, etc.
For example, I recently started a Facebook page for my business (I had been sitting on that one all year). I could easily stop there but I know what I need to do to make it successful. So my next step is to create a welcome page, an info product I can give away to prospects, and start an email list. This is one of my goals for 2012. I just put up a motivational calendar in my office so every day I can look at it and keep moving forward towards my goal.

RESOLUTION

Decide what you want to accomplish by the end of 2012 and work your way backwards with monthly and daily goals. Reward yourself when you complete a goal and find other ways to stay motivated.

Take a Chance

I am sure you have heard the mantra “take a chance” a million times. The statement, though a strong cliché, is one that can change your entire business climate and catapult you to a more successful future.
I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life and that is why I succeed. Michael Jordan
Fear of failure is what keeps us from taking chances on new opportunities or shying away from even looking for them. This fear can lead to a paralysis of sorts and cripple us from experiencing true success in our business.
More chances leads to more opportunities which leads to the increased chance for success. You will only truly fail if you don’t try at all.

RESOLUTION

It’s not enough to say you will take a chance in 2012. You must specifically list something you will accomplish that will push you out of your comfort zone. Write this goal down in a visible location. Next, come up with action steps (monthly and daily) that will bring you closer to that goal.
It’s Your Turn
What New Year’s resolutions will you make for 2012? Please let us know in the comments below! Let’s join together and make 2012 our most profitable year yet.
Happy New Year!

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When you run a website you have lots of goals and these will vary from webmaster to webmaster. Maybe your sole intention is to promote your business, or maybe it’s to get clicks on adverts. Then again maybe it’s just to get the word out there and to share your interests. Whatever your purpose though, one thing is crucial to achieve any of it – and that’s traffic.
In short you need to bring people to your site, and then you need to hold their attention for long enough to keep them there so that you can send them your message or tempt them with a product or service. The question is – how do you do that?
There are lots of ways of course, but one that’s particularly effective is to use controversial and provocative titles, and that’s what we’ll be looking at here…

Adding Details to Titles

So let’s say that you have an article on how to lose weight. If you were to call it ‘How to Lose Weight’ then you would have done nothing to help it get read because it wouldn’t stand out in any way from the hundreds of other articles out there. You need to think of the people who will be seeing your article, and about what is more likely to grab their attention.
One tip right away then is to be more specific and unique. To achieve this you should simply summarize what’s in your article, or pick out and describe a key interesting point or even your conclusion – and don’t worry if the title is quite long. So for instance you can have ‘How to Lose Weight in 12 Steps’ or ‘How to Lose Weight by Having Less Sugar in Your Tea’ or ‘How to Lose Weight by Eating More Fiber’. Immediately then your title stands out more and is more descriptive and it tells the person whether they might be interested.
Secondly, don’t be afraid to exaggerate or mislead in your title. So if your article was on losing weight by eating fiber, then you could make the title something like ‘Lose Weight by Eating More‘. Or ‘One Magic Food to Help You Shed Pounds’. This instantly grabs attention and again makes sure that your article stands out from the crowd. You can also ask questions in your title (that will be answered in the article) which is a great way to get the reader interacting and thinking.

We Need a Little Controversy

The other way to make your articles really grab attention is to make them controversial. Making short sharp sentences for your titles is a punchy way to get someone curious, and if these statements are controversial, or seem unbelievable then that’s even better.
Again this title can be misleading and the statement you use for the title doesn’t have to concur with the conclusion of your article. For instance then if you were to write an article on how to lose weight, you could put a very controversial spin on that by stating ‘No Excuses for Fat People’, or ‘Why it’s Your Own Fault You’re Overweight’. In the article you would then point out that of course there are many more factors and in fact that people are often overweight for reasons outside of their control – but by using the controversial statement you get people to read.
Even if the reason those people read is because they are angry or because they don’t believe what you’ve written is true – they’re still reading and that’s all you need to put your real message across. Any emotional response, and anything that gets them to stop in their tracks, will be far more likely to be read when they stumble across your site or see a link on a social networking site.

Jeet loves to write posts on SEO link building, blogging and if often found lurking on various webmaster forums interacting with members.

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There’s the fine art of writing catchy, reader intriguing headlines.  And then there’s the importance of SEO.  Combining the two effectively is a little trickier and can mean the difference between success and failure… well it’s maybe not that extreme but it does matter, and if you know what you’re doing you can get it right.

Step One – Keyword Research

Unless you are incredibly adept at SEO, it’s likely that you are targeting long-tail keywords for your website or blog.  Long-tail keywords are basically phrases which due to their length are easier to rank for in Google.  Ideally you need to include your keyword in your heading, whilst at the same time making your heading sound interesting.
For example, the keyword in the title of this blog post is ‘effective SEO’.  The Google keyword tool tells me it’s not a bad keyword to try and rank for – it has over 5,000 searches a month and medium competition – so now I just need to encourage you lovely readers to click on my post.  This is where I need to come up with a catchy title.  Here are a few of the pages that are on the first page of Google for my search term:

• 5 Secrets to Selecting Highly Effective SEO Keywords
• The Simplest, Most Effective SEO Move You Can Make
• 22 Effective SEO Tips

All of the above are catchy, and I’m sure that as a user I would click on a couple of them.  Want to know why?  Well aside from pleasing Google they also intrigue a reader.  Hence my title ‘How to Write Effective SEO Headlines’ would probably (at least I think it would) intrigue a reader too.

Step Two – Keyword Placement

Whilst not essential, it is a good idea to place your keyword at the start of your headline if possible.  I haven’t managed to do it with this post but it is thought to help an SEO strategy if you can.  A few examples of good keyword placement, that will still intrigue a reader include:

• Effective SEO – Five Tips That Won’t Cost You a Penny
• Effective SEO Strategies That Can be Implemented In Seconds
• Effective SEO Marketing – Are You Sure You’re Doing it Right?

Step Three – Take Your Time

An effective SEO headline won’t just appear out of thin air, and many will take a while to come up with.  In fact some SEO copywriters say that the headline of an article should take as long to come up with than the article itself takes to write; whilst this may be a bit extreme for an average blog post, it’s not a bad way of looking at things.  It’s a good idea to brainstorm a variety of headlines and then narrow your list down.  The one that keeps popping out at you, is likely to be the same headline that will intrigue your readers, so have faith and go with it.  Don’t be afraid to keep messing around with your headline until you have got it exactly as you want it.  There are also a variety of different punctuation marks that you could include to give your headline that little something more.

Above all, remember that you want your headline to be catchy for your readers, but full of SEO juice too.  The better your headline is, the more clicks to your webpage you will receive.  Good luck!

If you are struggling to write effective SEO headlines, why not get in touch with Apple Copywriting?  They offer a range of copywriting services and can definitely improve your copy.

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