Search Engine and Landing Page Optimization

Editor's Notes

• #2: JLH Marketing is my own consultancy, developed after years of working as an Agency rat. I take an “organic” approach to marketing, believing that (to quote an old movie and give you some idea of how old I am) “if you build it, they will come.”
• #3: 12 years in searchColumnist for Search Engine LandInstructor for QIC LearningSpeaker – SMX, SES, Internet Summit…Agency, in-house, consultant
• #4: You know what SEO means, and understand the basic concept.You are a marketer, trying to sell a potential visitor on a product or service.You have a website.
• #5: You must be seen by your potential audience. To do that, you need the search engines to be able to index your site and crawl your pages. You wouldn’t believe how many sites miss this essential truth.You must be relevant. Learn what your customers are searching for and make sure your site uses that language so that you will show up for those keywords. More on that in a minute.You must motivate a click. It drives me crazy to hear people who say the meta description doesn’t matter. It may not have a direct impact on ranking, but it has a tremendous impact on CTR! And unless your visitor clicks through, it doesn’t matter how great a site you have. They’ll never see it.
• #7: Now let’s talk a little about the concept of user-centered design… everything’s going personal. We’re seeing a return to the earliest marketing concept there was – the idea of defining a target market and creating a need. Even with a keyword search as simple as “keyword research”, you can see the difference between impersonal and personalized results.
• #9: Historically, people have said the best thing about search as a marketing medium is that it’s a pull medium. The idea that the searcher comes to the engine and says “I need blue widgets”. As personalization becomes more and more integrated, we’re seeing it return to a push medium. The person might say “I need widgets”, but it’s your job to be there in their results explaining to them why they need blue ones.This is why user-centered design is so important. Let’s talk a bit about the fundamentals of user-centered design.
• #10: Dr. Jakob Nielsen, a pioneer in the field of usability, conducted an eye tracking studyon the reading habits of web users comprising of over 230 participants. What the research study displayed was that participants exhibited an F-shaped pattern when scanning web content.
• #11: Dr. Jakob Nielsen, a pioneer in the field of usability, conducted an eye tracking studyon the reading habits of web users comprising of over 230 participants. What the research study displayed was that participants exhibited an F-shaped pattern when scanning web content.
• #12: according to a study by Dr. Jakob Nielsen, people only read 28% of the text on a web page and that percentage decreased if there was more text on the page.
• #13: Bing conducted an analysis to see if there are any correlations between page speed and satisfaction, revenue, and clicking speed. The report showed that with as little as a 2-second decrease in speed reduced user satisfaction by -3.8%, lost revenue per user of -4.3% and a reduced clicks by -4.4%
• #14: Friction is anything that makes people stop and think
• #15: When you roll over the dark lines in the middle, categories of photos show up. The light lines on the outside edge do nothing.
• #16: The navigation on this one is so bad that I actually spent a few seconds chasing one of those circles at the top because it moved, but didn’t do anything.
• #17: I don’t know what I’m supposed to do here. The links at the bottom are overwhelming.
• #18: I know exactly what to do and where to go. I’m likely to need one of these four tasks.
• #19: I know exactly what to do and where to go. I’m likely to need one of these four tasks.
• #21: Oh no, my credit report might contain mistakes! That could cost me money!
• #22: This is the value I get. Only $1! Delivered in 2 days! Where do I sign up?
• #23: Motivation is a little lacking, I’d like to know more about what you’ll do for me. Maybe something about warranty, speed? Does your stapler jam less than other staplers?
• #24: Quality, reliable, in business for over 80 years.
• #25: There are no primary calls to action on this page. There are these three items at the bottom, but I don’t think any of these are what Vanguard really wants me to do.
• #26: Is it obvious what the call to action here is?