SeoBlackhat.co.uk

Note: Please understand that this information is for Google AdWords Landing Pages – not Landing Pages in general.

Affiliate marketers know that Landing Pages are the best weapon they have. Those who do not use it either do not understand the concept or are just plain lazy. More often than not, it is the latter. Affiliate Marketers see that others do not use it and so, they dont bother with it too. You see, laziness is contagious.

To have an effective Landing Page, we need to understand what the Landing Page is for. A Landing Page is not just a duplicate of your sales page. It is not a page renamed to run a PPC campaign. It is, on the other hand, a page that focuses on selling the product or service. This is why all the elements of effective design are usually stripped out on this page.

When visitors come to your site, your Landing Page should give them only two options: To Buy or To Leave. There shouldnt be any other option aside from that. Do not distract them and make the mistake of giving more options to choose from. If you want them to subscribe for more information, create a name squeeze page. Keep your focus and remember that Landing Pages exists for only one reason to make a sale.

Below is a list of what I do when I create a Landing Page:

Webserver/Configuration – You do have a good host, right? The domain has its down IP address? A clean domain, clean IP address, with no ties with link farms, spamming, etc. is vital to your success.

Headline – This aspect is often greatly misused. The thought of, I must cram as many keywords as possible into my Headline for maximum performance is a thought process hooked on failure. Here is a tip that makes absolute sense, but so many people do not do it. The headline on the page should match (somewhat) to the keyword phrase being targeted.

Example: The keyword discount widgets could have a headline of: This is the Place for Discount Widgets. That alerts the visitor that they are indeed in the right place. Just by changing the headline to one that is relevant to the search causes a drop in CPC and can cause an increase in CTR. Or worse, you can get Google Slapped.

Font Face, Color & Size - Avoid having a distracting and cluttered look on your Landing Page. Having four to five different fonts on your page create a messy look that people would love to hate. While having different fonts for your headlines are fine, having different fonts in your body text is distracting. Do not even think about doing this. Use only one font for your body text.

Test results show that Times New Roman is the best offline print font and because of this, it has become the default font on the internet. This, unfortunately, is a big mistake. It turns out that Times New Roman causes rapid eye fatigue which makes it one of the worst fonts online.

The best fonts for online use are Verdana and Arial. Of the two, I would recommend that you use Verdana as it consistently outperforms every font. It reduces eye strain and increases readability. Remember to use a standard font at all times. Also keep in mind that not all computers may have the font that you use. If you want a standard headline font, it is best to create it as a graphic so it will look constant on every computer. You definitely want your message to have the look that you intend it to have.

You should always aim to make your text readable. The standard size for text is 2 and it is advisable to put dark text on white background. In fact, black text on a white background is preferred. Landing pages arent supposed to show off how cute you can be. Landing pages are supposed to sell. This is serious stuff and requires you to put on your best face.

There is a reason that the top companies choose dark text on a light background. It isnt by accident, it is by design. Follow their lead.

Dont Let Search Engines Crawl Your Landing Pages – Many marketers want as many pages in the search engine indexes as possible. Dont do this as I mentioned above.

Amit Singhal, from Google, did a 50 slide presentation back in 2004, regarding the Challenges in Running a Commercial Web Search Engine.

Why am I covering it now? First, a member sent this to me to comment on, and I think it is rather interesting to see where things were then compared to five years later. Heres a hint: Not much has changed.

Question: How many queries are unique?
Answer: Over half

At first glance, you would look at that and think I have to do a better job of getting more keywords since users search patterns are not consistent.

Wait. After looking at the data from about 60 sites, here is an example from one of my typical sites.

108k visits from 28k keyword queries. Looking at it this way, it looks quite diverse, however, looking at the Top 100 queries, 56,656 visits came through. Which means about 52,000 visits came through the remaining 27,900 queries.

Am I optimizing for 28,000 keywords? Not even close. So how do you improve your chances of coming up for many of the phrases which may never come up on an analytics report or during keyword research.

If I can quote Dan Thies, Use modifiers aggressively.

What are modifiers? You already know them, but probably by a different name.

Examples of common modifiers are:

• best
• buy
• cheap
• discount
• wholesale
• online
• accessories

Modifiers allow you to expand your keyword set. So instead of having just blue widgets, you would have discount blue widgets, blue widget accessories etc. Geo Targeted (San Francisco, bay area, Chicago, etc.) would also be classified as a modifier.

The last I checked, were still in a recession, but despite the recession and the news of all the layoffs, business is pushing ahead. Some analysts state that the news of layoffs is a sign of worse things to come.

Me?

I love hearing about layoffs. Ive been laid off and while it was tough, it was a throw you in the water to see if you will sink or swim experience. People are laid off for two main reasons: poor performance or they make too much.

I have spoken with a lot of people in charge of some big companies, and when you get them in a setting away from their office and the stress, the feedback is nearly the same:

Were going to be just fine. We purged our company of those who didnt want to work for a full day. They felt they were entitled to a paycheck just for showing up. We will still meet production numbers even with 5,000 less on the payroll.

Those are sharp words, but they are true. Back when I was with WordPerfect, we ballooned to nearly 6,000 employees, but due to competition from Microsoft and shrinking margins, there were massive layoffs and three years later we had just over 500 employees.

Why was it with 5,500 fewer people, we were able to sell more packages and release more products than we did before? Seriously, there were 11 buildings to house all those workers and in the end we were in just one, yet we not only met the old production numbers, we out did them.

It all comes down to having the right people, people who want to work and love what they do. Even if you are a consultant, the company who hired you wants the same too.

So what should you do? A Needs Analysis. If you own your own company, you are going to perform one on your company, if you are a consultant, you are going to perform one for them. Might I suggest performing this service for your client free of charge.

Am I crazy?

Maybe. But in these tough times, offering something of value (the needs analysis) to something you value (your customer) is never a bad decision. Plus, your goal is to get more business from your customer, and you cant get new business if your customer goes under.

We all know that you cant help a customer until you know what he or she needs. You cant provide a solution until you actually know what the problem is to solve. Determining what they need to solve this problem is key – and often, the customer doesnt even know what their actual problem is. They might know the symptoms, but they dont know the root.

Doctors diagnose a customer (patient) by asking Where does it hurt and administering tests. Rainmakers diagnose customer problems by asking questions and LISTENING intently to the answers and reading body language (or listening to voice influxion on the phone).

Asking questions randomly is going to solve one thing: wasting everyones time. You must be prepared. Asking general questions such as, What are your goals? or What are your challenges? is also a waste of time. Honestly, what do you expect to get as an answer to What are your goals? If it was me, my reply would be To make more money than I spend.

During tough times and high stress, think like the makers of Tylenol. They are, in a word, brilliant in how they market their product.

Their tag line is a simple, Feel better, Tylenol.

The #1 benefit they have marketed is, Use our product and feel better.

Is there anything more powerful?

Stress, Anxiety, Noise, and life in general all weight heavily on you or your client. If you take those away, what is the outcome?

Exactly. It is the best outcome. Since that is your goal, how do you get there. With one simple question.

What keeps you up at night? or What is your biggest stress right now?

The answer is where you attack with a series of follow-up questions until you know exactly the root of the cause and can formulate an action plan from there.

Here are some questions I have used in the past and make sure you take great notes:

- What have you tried? (remember that just because they tried it doesnt mean it wont work if you try again with a slightly different approach)

- What would you estimate this problem is costing you a week? (never just ask what it is costing them, get it in a time frame everyone can understand)

- If the problem remains unchecked, what will it do to your company in 30 days? (this compounds the seriousness of the issue and gives a timetable every consultant can work in – 30 days)

- What is your timetable? (when do they want a solution?)

- What is their budget for this problem? (this is key, as this is how you get paid. If it is high priority, their budget will reflect this. You also need to compare their budget to fix the problem in comparison to how much it is costing them a week. For example, if the problem is costing them $20k a week and they say their budget is $10k, theres a problem. In 30 days, they will lose $80k. You could propose to fix their problem for half of the loss, or $40k).

- Who else are you talking to? (Find out if you have any competition on this project).

Your meeting needs to be one hour or less. This is why preparation is key and the right questions are asked. Respect their time and you will be rewarded. Spending all day at their offices will just bog down the process. Get in, ask your questions, get out. Formulate a plan of action and win the business.

The directory list has been updated and posted in the back office. And here is a comprehensive list of all the directories that had their PageRank change in this update.

Dropped in PageRank

A Web Directory (-1) 0/10
All Web Directory (-1) 3/10
Art Weblinks (-1) 2/10
Clasione (-1) 3/10
Cluboo http (-1) 2/10
Cream Directory (-1) 0/10
Demotte Directory (-1) 1/10
Directory Buddy (-1) 1/10
Directory List (-2) 0/10
Go Guides (-1) 5/10
Gooony (-2) 0/10
iBrain (-2) 0/10
King Bloom (-3) 0/10
Links Match (-1) 3/10
Most Popular Sites (-1) 3/10
Objects Directory (-1) 3/10
Open Here (-4) 0/10
Seek On (-1) 4/10
Seek Pick (-1) 0/10
Shoula (-1) 2/10
Site Folders (-1) 1/10
Starting Point (-1) 4/10
Sun Steam (-1) 3/10

Increased in PageRank

A1 Directory Search (+1) 3/10
AbiLogic (+1) 4/10
ABiz Directory (+2) 2/10
Absolute Directory (+1) 5/10
A Direct 2 Z (+2) 6/10
Around the Web (+2) 2/10
Business Directory (+1) 1/10
Click 4 Choice (+1) 5/10
Clickey (+1) 6/10
Cyborg Info (+1) 4/10
Velnet Search (+1) 3/10
Directory One (+1) 4/10
Directory Storm (+1) 4/10
Euro Find (+1) 3/10
Fast Paths (+1) 1/10
Gokodo (+2) 2/10
Goongee (+1) 5/10
Info Web World (+1) 3/10
King of the Web (+1) 3/10
KwikGoblin (+2) 2/10
Link Now (+1) 4/10
Little Directory (+1) 3/10
Managed Names (+2) 4/10
Network Room (+2) 2/10
Nintra (+1) 3/10
One Way Link (+1) 4/10
Portal Boost (+2) 4/10
Red Reach (+1) 2/10
Search Ave (+2) 2/10
Seek On (+1) 5/10
Seekzap (+1) 4/10
Sezza (+1) 5/10
Smart Links (+3) 4/10
Spheri (+2) 6/10
Sporge (+1) 5/10
Way 2 Find (+1) 4/10
Web 10 (+3) 3/10

Q: Tell me more about Google SiteLinks. How do they determine which links are used?

A:

I have tested SiteLinks algo pretty hard and the one thing I have learned is that the algo is NOT easily influenced. In other words, attempts to “steer” Google to the links you want included doesn’t work on a consistent basis.

As far as getting certain keywords to appear as SiteLinks for your domain, it has mostly to do with your site being “the” landing spot for that search. It isn’t as easy as you might think. For example, I am getting a Mac this weekend. It is my ritual, a new laptop every Labor Day, and this year, I’m going Mac … let’s see if it sticks this time.

If I do a search for “Apple” … apple.com has SiteLinks. However, it does NOT have SiteLinks for the following phrases: iPhone, iTunes, iPod, Mac. The only phrase I could get to come up for Apple.com with SiteLinks was “macintosh”, and that was really one of my “last gasp” phrases to try.

So, as you can see, even the large companies have issues when it comes to getting the right keywords tagged with SiteLinks for their domains.

Q: Does the geographic location of the web host matter for search? Organic? Local?

A: I had a great discussion about this with three Google engineers. The actual location of the server does not matter. Even though there is some “chatter” that it does matter, the choice where to host is clearly yours as a business owner. However, where people tend to get into trouble is the TLD (Top Level Domain). For example, if you had a web business in Portland, Oregon, it wouldn’t make too much sense to have a co.uk domain would it? And the same is true the other way around. If you want localized traffic, and you’re in the UK, get both the .com and .co.uk domains. Build out the .co.uk and 301 redirect the .com to your localized domain. This way you keep your brand, but you are far more likely to get localized traffic with the proper TLD than without it.

Tip: If you are in the US, you don’t need a local host to rank well locally. Your “dot com” doesn’t need to be hosted in Portland if you are also in Portland. You can host in Miami and rank just as well in the local search.

Q: What changes is Google working on right now?

A: I was able to get some info when a group of Googlers thought I was an employee by accident. The biggest issues was a new filter they are working on which would “kill half the businesses here tonight.” The individual who said that was pretty young, and I have learned over the years in this industry that young people like to talk and say bold things in order to get attention and have a feeling of “betterment”.

I don’t believe that statement for many reasons, first, he has no clue about the level of people at the party … as SES attracts mainly newbies. And I followed this comment up with a few Google engineers that I am good friends with and they basically laughed it off. I was on the Organic SEO panel with Aaron (he’s on Matt Cutts’ team) and there are no big filters being worked on currently.

Over the last week or so there has been a TON of press about the new Google algorithm change with brands – even some going as far as to saying it is bigger than Update Florida. I wouldnt go that far, because that update literally killed many markets. This one, not so much. But lets break this down as I have had a week to really hammer on it in my testing lab.

So what changed?!?!

Report: Google has flushed their index and rebuilt it again based on brand strength. Last fall Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, was quoted as saying Brands are the solution, not the problem and now brands are shooting to the top of the SERPs.

Reaction: Everyone who is not a brand is freaking out that SEO is now dead again.

What You Should Do Right Now: Sit back, take a deep breath, and know this: the sky isnt falling. And Im going to show you why you dont need to panic. SEO is far from dead.

Lets start out by defining a brand.

Definition of Brand: A company that is well known in certain markets. Examples:

Running Shoes: Nike
Photocopies: Xerox
Tissue: Kleenex
Jeans: Levis
Bandage: Band-Aid
Coffee: Starbucks

The sheer power of brand awareness is when the actual competitors product is called by the name of the branded company. For example, you dont ask for a tissue if you are going to sneeze, you ask for a Kleenex. If you get cut, you dont say, Do you have an adhesive bandage? No. You ask for a Band-Aid. And if youre old enough, making a photocopy was referred to as Making a Xerox copy.

With that out of the way, we can agree that branding is important and nothing will change that. Lets now look at the actual algorithm change. Well use RankPulse to track these changes as it has been the choice tool in all the Blog posts online.

First things first – lets define the Supplemental Index. The best way is to take it straight from Google

A supplemental result is just like a regular web result, except that its pulled from our supplemental index. Were able to place fewer restraints on sites that we crawl for this supplemental index than we do on sites that are crawled for our main index. For example, the number of parameters in a URL might exclude a site from being crawled for inclusion in our main index; however, it could still be crawled and added to our supplemental index.

If youre a webmaster, please note that the index in which a site is included is completely automated; theres no way to select or change the index in which a site appears. Please also be assured that the index in which a site is included doesnt affect its PageRank. For tips on maintaining a crawler-friendly site, please visit our webmaster guidelines.

Reference: Googles Webmaster Help Center

ok this is working flawlessly

its quite simple, the code I have produced in older posts look for it, and then you add the code in a html file..

another example, 1st line on www.sexaddicts.us

As you can see people will click on the 1st line of video’s.. so I am getting hits all the time on my adsense.

Currently averaging approx 200 per blog I have this on per month

Another example:

Just remember to keep your CTR DOWN, post your adsense on legit sites on posts, my CTR IS ALWAYS LESS THAN 1%

Search Engine Cheat Sheet Posted

The Search Engine Cheat Sheet which was originally posted in the On-Page Factors eBook is now posted in the Tutorial section and it has been updated.

There were a few updated changes, here they are:

The displayed characters each engine accepts changed:

Google increased one character from 65 to 66. Here is an example of the new longer Title tag:

Yahoo! is currently 71 characters as evidenced by this example:

Microsofts Live.com shows 70 characters:

What does this mean? Basically that you have one extra character to play with when creating your Title tags. I just posted the information from Live and Yahoo! to show how the other two engines are currently behaving, but Google is still your main focal point. Since they are the lowest, you target that number.

Why?

The testing numbers are stil accurate. Titles which have ellipses (the three dots at the end) have a lower click through rate than Titles which do not.

Simply put, Video SEO is the art and science of ensuring that your video content attracts as much traffic as possible.

You have basically two options: You can host the videos on your own site or use Amazons S3 servers, or you can post them on YouTube and embed them in your pages.

Important Tip: If you post your videos on shared service like YouTube, make sure you read the Terms of Use. Often, by posting the video on their server you are transferring ownership of the video to them.

Where do viewers discover video online?

44% – Discover Randomly
43% – Via Sharing
43% – Via Video Websites
39% – Via Search Engines
27% – Via Marketing Email
4% – Via RSS & MRSS Feeds

Fact: 38% of users who search Google in 2008 were served VIDEO as part of Universal Search in the SERPs.

First Generation Video Search Engines:

• Depends primarily on Metadata and on-page text
• Most are moving to Second Generation
• Examples: Google Video, AOL Video, TruVEO, Yahoo! Video, Live Search

Second Generation Video Search Engines:

• Use Metadata, on-page text, UGC (User-Generated Content: Comments, Annotations, etc.), and advanced recognition technologies (speech, visual, facial, OCR, etc.)
• Examples: Blinkx, ClipBlast, VideoSurf, VideoCrawler

SEO Tips and Tricks for Video

• Search Engines cant read the video content, so it is recommended NOT to do a full transcript of the video, but rather a Cliff Notes summary of the content. Why? Instead of just having someone read the full transcript, which could be boring without the visual support. Plus, the summary can be an enticement to view the video, which could lead to conversion.
• Video search engines need to be told what the video is about using Metadata and On-Page text, just as you would a normal page with a few wrinkles.
• If possible, have multiple video formats available: flv, mov, mpeg, mp4, etc.
• Include the word video at the end of the filename along with your main keyword phrase. Use hyphens to separate words.
• Use In-File Metadata which will include: Metadata Title, Author, Date and Description.
• Keep in mind that video search engines arent real good at indexing Metadata right now, but they are getting better at it.
• Use only 1 video per URL and use unique URLs
• Place your videos in a folder just off the root, dont place them many levels deep.
• If you you have a lot of videos, you may consider using a subdomain (i.e. http://videos.yourdomain.com/).
• I dont recommend .tv extensions right now. You may want to register them, but dont use them for video just yet. The brandability is still poor.
• If you want a new domain for your videos, you might consider using your keyword term with video or media
  at the end. (Example: IndiaTravelMedia.com).
• Use embedded players, dont use pop-up players, they are annoying and many have pop-up blockers.
• Make sure your navigation includes a link to your video content.

Tips to Make Your Videos Viral

• Allow visitors to grab your embedded code to use on their sites or blogs.
• Include social bookmarking tool links (Digg, StumbleUpon, etc.)
• Enable comments to invite conversation.
• Allow users to subscribe to your videos (so you can get them back with future video releases) via RSS/MRSS
• Use internal linking to promote your videos
• Use MRSS Feed Syndication

http://www.blinkx.com/rssupload

http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/submit

http://www.reelseo.com/submit-videos-rss-mrss

Google Video Sitemaps & XML Feed

Google has XML Sitemaps for Video. eMarketer projects that 87% of the total U.S. Internet audience will watch videos online by 2011. Guess who dominates in the video search market? Yeah, Google.

If you use the XML function, which I highly recommend, make sure you provide a thumbnail URL so you increase the likelihood your video is included in Googles video index.

• If you want your users to be able to watch your videos on Google video, make sure to set the player to Autoplay so that users will be shown the video after they click on the result.
• When you submit a Video Sitemap to Google, it isnt only searchable in Google Video, but on other Google products as well. This can help you DOMINATE the video landscape.

How can you dominate? Well, think of this. We have all seen the famous eye tracking study of the SERPs, but have you seen the one when video thumbnails are presented to the user?

Now, if that isnt an eye opening experience, I dont know what is. Check out how much more of the page is getting the users attention. This drives the point home that people are heavily attracted to images. This is why you need video to dominate the SERPs.

A Page Layout Example

1. There is plenty of text around the video to give SEO support so the engine will know the theme of the video content.

2. Write an effective and compelling Title

3. The description needs to work hand-in-hand with the Title to gain interest from the visitor.

4. The video should be embedded with Social Bookmarking icons, rating option, Email to a friend, the link code and embed code to allow for the video to go viral.

5. Include a transcript, but not a full transcript. Keep it to a Cliff Notes summary.

6. Allow comments to bring life into the video posting.

7. Use cross linking for other related videos or related content on your own site or network of sites.

8. An option would be to include Vertical Channel Content, but this is optional.

9. Contextual ads can be used to monetize the site, but it is a good idea to have them tucked away to not distract from the real reason they are there – to watch your video content and become hooked.

10. Tag cloud. Keywords are placed here to raise awareness more for the video search engines indexing the page.

More Video Tips

• If you have a long video, break it up into many shorter videos. Visitors are more likely to click the Next button than they are to sit through a long video.
• Adobe Premiere Pro and OnLocation are solid desktop solutions for video editing.
• Link to your video from your site
• Send the link to your new video to your subscriber list on YouTubew