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4-Tips for Success

There are literally thousands of different tips you can find by going to forums, blogs, etc. Things to do with SEO, PPC, Usability, Code Optimization, the list goes on. But Consistently I find myself telling people the same 4 things. Here they are, free of charge:

1. SEO – Title Tags and Description tags – Yes, I know, these are “Rookie” items but still so important. Title tags help you get rankings. Description tags help get people to click on your listing. When your site is ranked well, it is still up to someone to click on it. Create a compelling call to action to give people a reason to click on it. Often times I see SEO-only optimized title and description tags that make no sense. I once changed the title tag on this blog. When I added “Free eBook Download” my click through on that ranking rose 280% overnight.
2. PPC – This is an easy one. The most common mistake I see when logging into an existing PPC campaign for a client, often times they mix traffic and ads between search and the content network. The strategies are much different for these two types of mediums. Just because they are under the Google umbrella, doesn’t mean they should have the same strategy. Separate these out, you will often increase your quality score and lower your click cost, while getting the same or more traffic.
3. Usability– So many times I see pages without a call to action. I see a lot of them that are mediocre at best. “Add To Cart” and “Fill out this form” are not sufficient. Here are 2 great ones to use:
   1. ecommerce – Free Shipping is hands down the highest-boosting conversion call-to-action there is. Some studies I have seen (and have personally witnessed) show that it increases conversion by 40%. That number is ridiculous….but true. People do not want to worry about calculating shipping costs, make it easy for them. Give it to them. Raise your pricing if you need to, you are better off having a slightly higher price with free shipping.
   2. Lead Gen – On our lead form, give them a compelling reason to fill out the form. A free book, free download, 5 minute consultation, anything. 8/10 forms I see simply say “Give me your information so I will call you” that does not work any more.
4. Tracking – One of the primary advantages of having an internet business is that you can get almost any data point that helps your business. Many people have Google Analytics installed, which is a great start, but just looking at visitor count is not enough. Visitor count is important, but that is the tip of the iceberg. If you are an ecommerce site, you need to have ecommerce tracking installed (which half the time is not done correctly). If you are a lead generation site, have your goals setup correctly. And since in many cases half of your conversions will typically occur via the phone, you need to have a proper phone tracking system (like IfByPhone.com) installed. It is cheap and it will tell you where each call originated from (even down to the keyword level). Do not half-ass your tracking. You need to know what is working and what is not so you can refine and have an intelligent basis to increase marketing budget over time.

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