Grade Your Website
Recently a colleague suggested I check out the site Website Grader. It’s a free seo tool that measures the marketing effectiveness of a website. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
Interesting results. Out of 100, our site was graded a 92. Whoopee!
Gnomedex 9.0 – Oh, What I Learned…
This last Friday and Saturday, I spent two days immersed in Gnomedex 9.0 in Seattle, put together by Chris Pirillo. It was my first Gnomedex experience. I knew several people who were going to it, and watching the conversation via Twitter, it sounded like an experience worth exploring. So I took the plunge and shelled out the bucks for a full 2-day pass.
The room was filled with geeks and nerds. Okay, maybe not everyone, but definitely more than I had ever seen in one place. Please don’t take this the wrong way, I’m just painting a picture here. So, what exactly did I learn in those two days?
Conversation rules. Whether it was during breaks, at lunch or after the event, as with any community, discussion and life-revealing insights abounded. Stories told, questions asked that spurred deeper thoughts and ideas that will be taken beyond the walls of the conference.
Yes, I am good at multitasking. The experts say it is impossible, that you really do only focus on one thing at a time. But when I found myself posting tweets, following gnomedex on twitter, checking email, setting up a client meeting, etc. etc. and yes, wandering to Biznik.com occasionally, I was in the groove.
I am not a geek or nerd. Yes, I knew this already deep in my heart, and never claimed to be. But until you experience this collective energy that they possess, you will never know. Jokes told where I find I’m one of the few not laughing. Eyes glazing over as a group of young techies at lunch converse in languages unknown to me.
This community has passion. I have been to all kinds of conferences, and sometimes one can be just like another, just a different spin. And although I may not understand every realm of geekdom, I do know that at Gnomedex there was a passion for technology, a passion for knowledge and a passion for social causes. They were there for a reason, and it went beyond the typical conference.
Finally ten other things I learned at Gnomedex 9.0.
1. Attendees are not allowed to go hungry or thirsty.
2. Geeks really like Star Wars.
3. An amazing 3-D printer does exist.
4. I can now blame everything on Drew’s cancer.
5. Hard-core spammers can turn around their lives.
6. Macintosh and PC users can co-exist in the same room.
7. Getting a flask in our swag bag does not mean we can fill it right away.
8. Never be surprised at the interjection of four-letter words.
9. If you leave early, your name will be pulled for a prize.
10. Geeks and nerds are people too!
My hats off to Chris Pirillo and his gang for Gnomedex 9.0 The blend of human and social intereaction, both in person and online, again, shows me the power of the online community.
Will the new theme Headway take the place of Thesis?
Just a quick post, as the talk on Twitter, and elsewhere, is the new theme Headway. I’ve yet to really take the time to go through it, but at first glance it’s pretty impressive.
So instead of rehashing what has been said, check out the Headway site and John Haydon, social media marketer, on why he made the switch from Thesis to Headway.
Get Rid of the Google Landing Page Blues: 5 Tips for Increasing Online Sales with a ‘Portal Site’
Whether you are a massage therapist, dog trainer, executive sales coach, event planner, or someone else, if you are selling information products online, or are thinking about doing it, you might already know how hard it is to get your visitor’s undivided attention.
Your website visitor, who must be convinced to buy a product they might have never heard of, is a little different from the customer who goes to Amazon.com to buy a copy of Seth Godin’s latest bestseller-something she already knows she wants. What you must do, then, is persuade her to buy your product.
On a large, multi-page website, your reader has many choices: click here, go there, do this. If you have several products (e-books, DVD sets, audio recordings, etc.), your visitor can easily become overwhelmed.
To attract visitors and convince them to buy, consider creating landing pages. Also called micro-sites, landing pages are really just sales letters posted on the Web that allow you to target the very people who are most interested in what you are selling, the people most likely to buy.
Great idea. Except for the fact that Google recognizes landing pages as sales letters and does not rate sites with sales copy very highly. So you don’t get nearly as much organic search traffic. Many online marketers get around this by creating a portal site, one central place with valuable free content for the search engines and links to their individual landing pages.
5 Tips for Increasing Online Sales with a ‘Portal Site’
- Create a simple URL/address for your portal site. It helps, especially as you begin to sell more products, to have a simple, central site. When someone asks what products you offer, it’s easy because you just have to remember one site address and direct them to that.
- Create links from your portal site to each of the landing pages for your individual products. You will want to send people to separate landing pages for each product, each with its unique domain name. Choose names that are easy to remember.
- Create sections of your site where visitors can download free content. This is key because it will increase your organic search rankings and drive traffic to your site. Because Google loves content, especially fresh content, include articles, special reports, and other information that is timely and helpful and will bring you lots of visitors. Valuable content will also establish you as an expert and build the reader trust that leads to sales.
- Include a sign-up for your free, opt-in e-newsletter and links to your blog and other social media profiles. It’s a great way to build your list organically, find quality prospects, and get your content out to more people.
- From your portal site, send visitors to separate landing pages with their own unique domain names. Make each page simple, with no menu bar, no confusing options. You want your reader to focus on the reasons she needs to buy your product right now. So just include your sales letter and link to a form where your visitors can buy your product.
A well-thought out portal site linking to landing pages with amazing copy that sells your unique products will go a long way in pumping up your online sales.
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SEO Tools – A Must for WordPress
The All in One SEO Pack is probably the most used and well known admin plugin for WordPress. The All in One SEO pack allows you to give your post or Page a keyword rich title, different to the post/Page title, a meta description and keywords. This is a must have tool especially for Pages and when you are running your site as a content management system. Click here to download the All in One SEO Pack.
