So you’re doing paid search marketing—that’s very well and good. At a time when the competition for views and interaction with potential and existing customers is at its all-time high, getting a boost where it matters most is the clear way to go. Truth be told, your efforts on pay-per-click (PPC) is often only as good as your landing page. Without the latter, you may be spending on clicks that will never bring conversion or any solid return for your company or brand.

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a standalone page—meaning it can be separate from your website—that users “land on” once they click on your ads. Its main purpose is to gather your potential customers’ information or entice them to perform a specific action that’s beneficial to you. Here are some specific reasons they are crucial to your paid search campaign:

1. It helps convert potential into paying customers. When users click on an ad offering a 50% discount on shoes, they do so because they want to obtain the perk you are giving away. They want something from you. If your ad led them to your website, users would most likely end up confused at all the extra details. By using a landing page, you can focus their attention on how they can convert into actual customers. Do you want them to leave you their email address? Do you want them to click on something? The call-to-action on your landing page will say so clearly, so your potential customers know exactly what to do.

2. It helps you gather leads. You can incorporate into your landing page specific information fields that would allow you to capture details about users, whether it’s their name, telephone number, or email address, among other pertinent details.

You can use these details to interact with them through targeted emails, newsletters, and promotions, to name a few. What makes landing pages better than many lead-generation strategies, such as cold calling, is that users’ actions are entirely voluntary.

They wanted something you offered so they gave you their details wholeheartedly. They were not surprised or tricked into doing so. If they do not convert immediately, then you can nurture them so they become actual customers later on.

3. It delivers the information your customers need. Imagine yourself clicking on an ad that promises huge discounts in three easy steps, only to find yourself in a page detailing the company’s history, their advantages over their competition, and a list of all their products. Such an experience would definitely leave you feeling frustrated and a little betrayed. This is how your potential customers would feel if you led to your site once they click on your ad. A landing page will allow you to filter out unnecessary information so that users see only those they need. This way, they are not overwhelmed and are instead focused on what you want them to do.

4. It lets you get to know your market better. Paid search and landing pages can also be used as tools for market research. Testing is one of the most crucial steps in any online marketing effort and by creating variations in the content of both your ads and your landing page, you can ascertain how users respond to specific messages, offers, and even elements of your campaign.

By gauging their response or how well they receive your landing page, you can obtain answers for questions relevant to your business. Do users want more discounts? Do they want other products to go on sale, too? Compared to more proactive methods of research, such as surveys and questionnaires, testing through your landing page gathers organic data because your respondents go to you not to answer your questions, but because they need something from you. What you get is a raw insight into your market’s behavior and tendencies.

5. It lets you determine if your efforts are working. In the world of online marketing, there is no such thing as a single solution for all problems. It is for this reason that you need to test if your methods are working or if you need to tweak them further. By gauging how users behave in your landing pages, you will know if your entire campaign is working as intended.

Are you generating enough traffic? Are you converting enough people? You will also know which parts of the page or which ad copy is generating engagement. Does “Buy Now!” work better than “Purchase Now!” in getting clicks? Does short content work better than long ones? With the right tools connected to your landing page, you can obtain a lot of insights into how effective your campaign is.

6. It allows a better understanding of the funnel. When you have a full grasp of your market’s journey, you can take steps to optimize their experience. By creating different variations of your PPC ads and their corresponding landing page, you can gauge where your customers are in the sales funnel.

You can fashion your landing pages’ content to address your users’ needs, whether they are searching for products or validating their options. By studying how they behave in your landing pages, you’d have a better idea of how you can make their journey easier and more productive for you.

7. It can be used to boost other online endeavors. All factors considered, landing pages can become indispensable tools in any online marketing effort. Whatever insights you learn can be applied to ensure that your next campaigns are more attuned to the needs and nature of your market.

Needless to say, this doesn’t mean you’ll discover everything you need the first time, but as you go through your own journey as a marketer, you will gain an even clearer understanding of your market through your landing pages, among others.

Your landing page is a great way to ensure that users are being converted into actual customers through your PPC ads, but it can be a lot more than that. Used properly, it can be a vital tool in creating winning online marketing campaigns that benefit not just you and your brand, but also your prospective and existing customers.

Need help creating landing pages?

If you could do one thing to drastically improve your lead generation efforts, it would be to use landing pages on your website. Make the task easier for you. Get a free quote by calling us at 480-970-4688 or by filling out our online form.

Several business owners make the crucial mistake of focusing their energy on products and services, not recognizing that the key to success is not just from what the business offers. Reaching success is also present in your ability to reach customers and how you can persuade them to invest. In a nutshell, marketing is the essential element to any business’ success.

Before the Internet took the world by storm, marketing, especially to the masses, was challenging and expensive. Although the Internet and its accessibility have changed drastically in the last decade, it does not mean there is no place for traditional marketing strategies alongside Internet marketing.

Allow us to weigh the advantages of these two marketing methods:

Understanding Traditional Marketing

Traditional marketing (now referred to as offline marketing) is a broad category involving the promotional strategies used before the Internet. Today, it is still the most recognizable marketing method, which encompasses advertisements we see and hear every day. The majority of traditional marketing strategies fall under one of four categories, including print, broadcast (radio and television), direct mail, and telephone.

Benefits of Traditional Marketing

Even in the digital age, there are great reasons to incorporate old-school marketing strategies, including:

• Reach hard-to-get customers. Believe it or not, 11% of U.S. adults do not use the internet, according to a survey conducted by Pew Research Center. Seniors are the primary age group unlikely to go online, and traditional methods may be the only means to reach this particular group of consumers.

• Woo your clients in person. Internet marketing is convenient in a sense that you rarely have to travel to communicate with a client in person. However, you should not underestimate the effectiveness of traditional face-to-face marketing. Meeting in person allows you to do impressive demonstrations and later read their body language to see if they are genuinely interested in working with you. Furthermore, many customers prefer doing business with people they have met personally.

• Billboards are not a thing of the past. Each week, the average American drivers spend 20 hours traveling over 200 miles. Furthermore, 71% of Americans consciously look at billboard messages while driving, and those who learn about an event or restaurant via traditional ads later pay to visit.

• Hard copy material provides tangible information. Search engine optimization and paid media do great jobs of attracting leads and prospects, but there is still something unique and compelling about a meeting sealed with a business card exchange (which they can refer to at their leisure). This type of traditional marketing makes it incredibly easy to provide information on the go.

Understanding Digital Marketing

Digital marketing, also known as internet marketing, e-marketing, or web marketing, is an all-inclusive term for promoting products and services online.

While the more obvious purpose of internet marketing is to sell goods, services, or advertise your brand over the Internet, your business can build itself by conduct competitor analyses and by learning from your online customers’ feedback and preferences. Online marketing is a very effective way to identify your target market or discover a marketing segment’s wants and needs.

Today, every brick and mortar business can (and should) use the widely available Internet to their advantage and leverage it for marketing purposes.

At PrimeView, we offer a broad selection of digital marketing services, including web design and development, search engine optimization (SEO), social media management, content marketing, pay-per-click advertising, video optimization, email marketing, and reputation management.

Benefits of Digital Marketing

Marketing via the Internet allows your business to reach target audiences more efficiently. Other pros include:

• Measure your marketing success (and failures). Tools like Google Analytics can help you see which methods are bringing prospects, leads, and conversions to your business, including which ones are not. This way, you can alter your marketing practices and focus your efforts on what works.

• Engage and network anytime, anywhere. Social media is a powerful tool that not only allows you to communicate directly with your market, but also share relevant news and information for absolutely free. It is by far the fastest and easiest way to build direct relationships with your clients and prospects. Further, it is an excellent platform for receiving quick feedback on what your target market likes and dislikes.

• Spend less money. Traditional marketing billboards can cost anywhere between $300 to $30,000 per four-week period, which equates to $3,600 to $360,000 per year. Although digital marketing strategy prices may vary depending on which services you integrate into your business, many online marketing tools and methods are free.

Which Type of Marketing Is Best for Your Small Business?

A company can leverage both traditional and digital marketing methods to achieve their goals. It does not have to be one or the other because while one approach might be more effective at drawing leads and analyzing results, it does not mean the other is any less effective. For instance, a television ad might pull in many prospects, but so can the same ad on YouTube for far less money.

The real question should not be what type of marketing is best, but instead, which method offers the best way to reach your audience and convert them into customers. Fact is, there are strategies in both traditional and Internet marketing that will work to your advantage.

Speak with a Professional Marketing Strategist Today

Are you having a hard time figuring out which method – traditional or online – works best for your business? PrimeView, a pioneering digital marketing agency in Phoenix, AZ can help determine which option is the best for your audience. Dial 480-970-4688 to speak with our strategist about improving or rebuilding your company’s marketing strategy. You may also complete our online form to receive a free quote. We look forward to hearing from you.

As a marketer, you understand how challenging it can be to provide new and unique ways for your product or service to stand out amidst a sea of competitors. In hindsight, video marketing is nothing new — but it can prove as a unique, powerful, and efficient aspect of a marketing strategy.

As a matter of fact, online videos are so popular that they increase the click-through rates of emails by 200 to 300 percent. Further research shows that adding videos on a landing page increases conversions by 80 percent. Today, 60 percent of marketers use video in their marketing and roughly 73 percent plan on improving their use of video. The continuing growth of video marketing is due to the 90 percent of people claiming that product-focused videos help them make better buying decisions.

Now, you may be one of the 60 percent of marketers leveraging on this powerful strategy — but why exactly are your video marketing efforts failing?

In truth, producing video after video is not enough. You have to do it right if you want people to take action, make a purchase, and believe in your brand. If your video marketing investments are not producing measurable growth for your small business, here are the top reasons why (and how you can fix them).

1. Are you creating original content?

No matter what kind of product or service you put into the world, always remember that your brand will not be rewarded for doing what everyone else is doing. Your target audience will recognize originality, so steer clear of distinct resemblances to your competitors.

The Fix: There is no other workaround than to be original. You must take calculated risks, have fun, and build your brand. Like how every person has a unique personality or quirk that differentiates them from everyone else, your brand must possess a stand-out character. If you don’t know your brand well enough, it will be difficult to use its charm to your advantage. In this case, put your team through rigorous branding to figure things out. Remember that some of the world’s most authentic and inspiring business owners are unapologetically themselves.

2. Is your message or objective clear?

Making an online business video just for the sake of making one is never a good idea. Have you ever heard of the saying, “If you can’t explain it simply, you simply don’t understand it,” — and neither will your audience. If your objective is unclear, or if you are struggling to put into words the message you want to convey, your audience is unlikely to stick around until the end of your video.

The Fix: To start defining your objectives clearly, here are the two questions you must answer:

• How will your video help customers and prospects solve their problems?
• What benefits do your products or services provide?

It all boils down to crafting a high-quality script. All successful business content has a clear and concise message. They comprehensively describe a problem, provide a groundbreaking solution, then present quirks that show their brand’s personality to keep the video compelling.

3. Are you connecting with the right audience?

A great video does one thing that no other form of content can — it makes information super-easy to digest. If a viewer is not able to connect with your story, your video is likely to fail. Aside from the possibility of having an unclear objective, another cause could be not knowing who your target audience is. If you are attempting to tap into all audiences instead of segmented groups, it won’t connect to anyone.

The Fix: It is crucial to make sure that audience research is a significant part of your pre-production strategy. Section your audience using demographics, interests, behaviors, and other related factors.

4. Are you striking a balance between selling and authenticity?

You may be the one producing the videos, but they are more for your audience than for your business. Therefore, hard selling will not be an effective tactic to draw in more prospects. If your videos are just like the commercials people see on TV, where they only showcase their product like an advertisement — your campaign is bound to flunk. Take a good look at how successful Youtube online creators talk about a product. Many of them gather millions of loyal subscribers by making a legitimate effort to define a product, while staying true to their brand’s personality and authenticity.

Customers are hypersensitive to being sold. Applying psychological pressure or pushing your viewers through urgency and other hard selling tactics will not deliver the results you desire.

The Fix: Make sure that your video strikes the right balance between selling and authenticity. Though the reasoning behind your video is to sell your product or service, that should not be the goal. Instead, let’s move on to reason #5.

5. Do you nail your sales pitch?

At this point, you may be thinking, “My content is original, my objectives are as clear as daylight, I connect with the right audience, and my brand’s personality shows — but my videos are still failing to convert!” If this is the case, the issue could be the journey you create for your viewers. In fear of hard selling, you may be slacking on providing a comprehensible or easy “next step” for your viewers.

The Fix: Similar to writing a blog post, it’s not necessary to leave your call-to-action (CTA) at the very end. Make sure to use more than one type of CTA, but keep your desired action consistent. Know your CTA options and experiment with different placements and choice of words.

The types of video CTAs include:

• Verbal:

  Spoken by a narrator.

• Annotations:

  Clickable text layered on top of a video.

• In-Video:

  CTAs that are part of a video.

• End Cards:

  CTAs that are at the final screen of a video with credits, which include links.

In the simplest sense, do not forget to tell your viewers to “reach out to us,” “sign up,” “register,” “call now,” “click here” or do whatever it is you want them to do.

What’s next?

If your videos are guilty of any one of the five bases, now is the time to redevelop your video marketing ventures. But wait! There is still much to learn about video marketing and why your campaign efforts are failing. Keep an eye out for part two of this article, where we will further discuss the factors that impact the conversion-driving power of online business videos.

You may be thinking about a new design for your site, especially if you are tired of looking at the same old same old each and every day. The real question is whether or not you need one, however. Redesigning your site can be time-consuming and often, the process requires budget allocations that your business may or may not be prepared for. Of course, you can always pinpoint site areas in which less expensive, simpler designs can be made. At the moment, however, you need to know the deadly signs that it is time to get your website redesigned immediately.

1. 1. Are you visible? Try and type a few keywords or product names on the search bar for Bing or Google. In fact, use any of the search engines you prefer. Type the name of your company or any product you provide. Does your page pop up on the first page of the search engine? If not, you will need to do a complete SEO makeover of your site. Most companies gain traffic from searches that happen organically or naturally. However, potential buyers or clients have a tendency to stay on page one. Keeping your site where the action is on page one will mean making sure your SEO works and that your products show up when customers look for them.

1. 1. Your brand is not reflected accurately by your site. In so many different ways, it is your website that gives everyone the first impression they will have of your brand. Make sure you are virtually putting your best foot forward with an understandable, clear and aesthetically pleasing site aligned with the core values of your company. Remember that if your brand is getting a revamp, your site is a tool critical to help facilitate this change. Brand perceptions by consumers are influenced by your digital identity in a big way. Thus, what visitors feel and think the moment they first get on your page will have a big impact on whether or not a sale is made in the long run.

1. 1. Has your rank changed? Of course, there may be different factors affecting your site ranking. For instance, your content may not be relevant or your SEO needs work. You may not have high-quality links or a blog on your site. It may even be that the content strategy of your site is old-fashioned. No matter what the reason is for your ranking to remain where it has always been, you will need a site revamp.

1. 1. You have outdated third-party tools and an old-fashioned content management system. A site should be user-friendly not just to the ones who are doing the navigating and the users who browse in it, but also for the website owners. If you are having a hard time doing site updates for your site when necessary including page amendments, events, business updates, and news, then this means you need to get a website that works better. In this event, an update is definitely in order.

1. 1. Leads are not being converted. You may have an awesome looking site and have all the most important info about your company. However, you need to know whether or not your business is growing with the help of your customers. If your site is not doing conversions to leads, you might need a new design. Find out what the rates of conversions your websites have. This way, you will know what adjustments to make on your site.

1. 1. Your site is not optimized for mobile. If the website you use for business is not designed to be friendly for mobile users, then you seriously need to consider an update. These days, who doesn’t have a cell phone? Those who own smartphones will probably have a tendency to use it for more and more stuff, from browsing to reading books, to shopping and paying bills. This tells you that each day; more and more searches are going to be conducted through a smartphone. Not having a site friendly to mobile users will mean that if someone gets on your landing page using a phone, your site won’t be ready to show itself on this gadget and may drive the user out immediately. In fact, you might want to try whipping out your cell phone right this minute and getting on your website.

1. The competition’s site looks much better than yours. Put yourself in your consumer’s shoes and see what your competitor’s website looks like. Do they have great looking sites that are organized well? You will need to step up to the plate and consider a new design. This will help get your target audience looking at your products. A great looking site also does wonders for credibility. It is always a good idea to stay ahead of the game and make sure that rather than you being nervous about how great your competitor’s site looks, it is the competition that is nervous about how great your site looks.

It might surprise you how many people have not checked their own websites on various gadgets they own. In fact, it comes as no surprise if you yourself have not done this. You might want to do this yourself using your own site. Use a tablet, a phone, and a laptop.

Check to see what the graphics are doing and whether or not the text can be read. Is it easy to click on the various tabs and links? This shows you how much of a business necessity getting a site revamped is. In the last decade alone, the internet has made such tremendous progress at a dizzying pace. Keeping up with as much of the progress as you can only work wonders for you.

img c/o pixabay

More and more people are taking to the Internet to open their own entrepreneurial businesses and online stores. There are many advantages to choosing to sell online rather than in a brick and mortar store: not having to pay rental fees on a storefront, not needing to pay for utilities such as electricity or water, not having to pay for maintenance or even a staff to aid in the selling.

Why sell online?

By all accounts, it is simply more cost effective to get started online with a business rather than opening an actual store, as there is ultimately less risk and less capital needed. Nearly anyone can sell online through a variety of shopping websites or even social media pages. Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr now have integrated “buy” buttons and business page options that allow users to easily buy right from the site. You can get started immediately, with very little effort necessary.

However, for individuals, groups, or entities that truly aim to launch an e-commerce presence that is above the regular buying and selling online, it becomes imperative to create one’s own shopping website. As with opening one’s own brick and mortar store, however, the groundwork and the system that you will erect needs to be the best fit for your business.

The two major options

The two of the most popular options available online are between two e-commerce software systems: Shopify and Magento.

Shopify is a licensed software that ultimately gives individuals and brands complete control of the features, look, and feel of their website. The customization options are endless, and Shopify is a near-universal tool available to everyone in the world who requires a more customized user experience for their own e-commerce website. It can be applied to virtually any type of website for e-commerce, from selling individual niche items to businesses that cater to a large base.

Magento is another powerful software, open-source, that has steadily been gaining in popularity as well as quickly becoming the latest standard in e-commerce software. Being open-source software, it means that it’s even more customizable as well as completely open for absolutely anyone to use with or without a license. Users can apply Magento in a variety of ways, even customizing the code to best adapt to what they need it to provide for their online business. Currently, Magento is now in its second iteration at Magento 2.

Which version is right for you?

As with anything, there are pros and cons for either one. These are quite a few differences between them, so let us look into what they have to offer in terms of:

Availability and Setup

Let’s begin with the availability and setup of each one. Shopify, being a commercial and licensed software, will obviously cost you some money to procure for its full capabilities. It is a hosted solution, which means that your store will be based on Shopify’s servers. There is a support system in Shopify that will already have this system installed, setup, and configured as needed.

Magento, on the other hand, is free, being an open-source software. The downside of this means that you will have to find your own hosting, and you will have to install, set up, and configure it yourself before any customization can begin.

This means that if you are a small business owner looking to start up on your own, Shopify would be far easier to use given that it already provides hosting, software, and support built right in. It would cost money, but it’s a lot easier for you to make use of. Magento, on the other hand, being open source, would still require work before you can even begin using it. You may need the help of a web developer who understands this software’s coding for it to be installed and subsequently used as needed. This may be easier for companies who can afford to hire their own developers.

Inventory

Both Shopify and Magento have a large inventory management capability. Users can put any number of products or items in their online store through these systems easily. An e-commerce store lives and dies by what it puts up to sell, so this is one of the major concerns, particularly as many sites that host e-commerce tend to have a certain limit to items being sold and other similar restrictions.

Themes and Templates

Both Shopify and Magento also work with pre-built themes that users can choose from. These theme templates can be changed and customized to better fit the brand of the company or the individual’s business. However, there is a notably larger pool of themes and templates available in Magento rather than in Shopify. Being open source, it makes sense that Magento would have more themes and templates available as many more people would be able to freely create them and make them available for use for anyone who wishes to use the system. Shopify remains restricted to what Shopify as a company intends to produce as a template or theme for its users.

This means that customizing in Shopify might take a little more work than in Magento which, with its mass amounts of custom themes, would probably have what you need already.

Apps and Add-Ons

Magento and Shopify are themselves pieces of software; to make it even more useful, you can add custom add-ons to them. These include things like integration of e-mail marketing, widgets, payment options, and other additions that would not only make the customer experience easier but also make it a lot easier for the company to keep track of customer data.
Again, being open source, Magento has far more offerings in terms of apps and add-ons that can be used, while Shopify’s are extremely limited, as not many people will have access to the code that will allow them to develop them.

Multilingual capabilities

If you expect to reach customers beyond the English-speaking sphere, Magento may be the better bet as it fully supports multiple languages for your e-commerce site. Shopify doesn’t allow multilingual capabilities and restricts you to a single language throughout the website. This may limit your user base, as not everyone may speak the single language on your site.

All in all, both are excellent. Whichever one selected would largely depend on the company’s target, resources, the need for customization, and how many people they want their products to reach. SMEs and entrepreneurs might make a great start on Shopify, but bigger companies who demand more customization and more abilities may be better off with Magento operated by their own web developers.

The new local ad inclusion is paid real estate on top of the SERP, and appears before the local pack. It has the green Ad tag that indicates it’s a paid search result and not a local listing. However, its layout is similar with organic results and it may cause confusion among users.

When clicked on, local ads will direct users on the business’ website. As for organic search results in the three-pack, the user will only be redirected to the designated Google My Business Page of the brand or shop. More so, ads have the directions option while regular local pack results do not.

What does this mean?

Including paid ads in the local pack is a major change that Google rolled out, especially for mobile users. While, the top search engine is always making adjustments to improve user experience and quality of search results, it can still be noted that this recent development is also geared towards growing their business and increasing their revenue.

This also makes the playing field more challenging and competitive for local SEO and businesses. Those who have the money to spend on paid listings is at an advantage, but those who have limited budgets may need to level up their strategies in order to take the top spot in the local pack or in organic search results.

Meanwhile, some internet marketing experts noted that such changes may also mean poor user experience on Google. Because paid ads are given to advertisers with the highest bid, they are most likely to snag the top spot on Google even if they’re not the option that most people can benefit from.

What you can do

The top spot for local search results is crucial, because the higher your placement is, the higher your chances of increasing conversions. However, with the ever-changing environment in Google, getting to the top becomes increasingly challenging.

So, what can you do in order to boost your local internet marketing strategy?

• First off, the most obvious option would be to bid high for the top spot, but that may mean more expenses for your business. However, if you’re willing to spend, this may be a viable move for you.

• Another option would be to boost the quality of your business and website, so that you will have higher chances to appear on the local pack or the top spots of the organic search results.

• You should always be prepared for change. Every now and then, Google makes adjustments on their platform, may it be algorithm changes, ranking factors, and other features—all of which will affect your internet marketing strategy. That being said, you should always have room for these developments in your plan.

Ask help from professionals. Staying on top of a local SEO campaign is not just a walk in the park. It requires analysis of the current market, finding reputable directories, targeting keywords that will help boost your reach and conversion within your business area, and making sure that you’re in-line with recent developments. This is where PrimeView can help you. We can help enhance your visibility not just within your locale, but in search results as well, making you more accessible to your target market especially at a pivotal point of their purchasing process.

A landing page is an essential element for capturing leads and increasing conversions. It is typically the avenue where you will usher in users to convert or perform an action that you want for them to take such as signing up for a free trial, downloading an ebook, scheduling an appointment, or requesting for a free quote.

Conversion is the ultimate goal for any internet marketing effort—and landing pages are crucial in making that happen. But how can you make it stand out and be irresistible? Here are six elements that should be present in your landing pages if you want to boost conversions.

1. Persuasive Call to Action

The effectiveness of your landing page has a lot to do with how compelling your call to action is. Your ad can be enticing, but you can’t usher people to accept your offer if you have a poor call to action.

Standout buttons plus powerful wording is the recipe for a perfect call to action. Instead of going for generic call to action wordings such as “submit” or “donate now”, you can get creative and specific with your CTA copy. Here are some examples:

• Get your Free (offer)
• Start your Free Trial
• Try It
• Discover More
• Support our Cause

In addition, it’s also essential to keep your call to action with your ad copy. This further strengthens your point and avoid confusion on the user’s end.

2. Provide Value

People will want to know what’s in it for them if they accept your offer. Instead of highlighting specs, you need to let people know the benefits of giving your product or service a try. Here are some examples:

• Experience a 50% more electricity efficiency with this services.
• Boost productivity within two weeks of use.
• Never miss a grammar mistake again.

3. The Ideal Form Length

Should you go for a long or short form on your landing page? It depends. There’s no clear-cut answer about which is more effective. The key is to only ask information that’s necessary or those that you only need.

Shorter forms require less work, which may result in higher conversion rates. But that doesn’t discredit long forms as they can also generate quality leads. The best way to know what works for you is to test it out. Again, the trick is to only ask information you need. Otherwise, you can try including optional fields, and leave the prerogative to users to fill them out or not.

4. Uncluttered Design

Keep your landing page focused on your offer and what you want people to do with it. Put the most important elements—offer, CTA, and logo—on the front and center of the page. Remove menu navigation so that people will not be swayed to go to another part of the website.

The key to effective landing page layout is to provide only information that the user want to know. With landing pages, white spaces, bullet points, and supporting image or graphics are your best friends. Nothing over the top, just the points that will convince people to convert.

5. Security Signals and Social Proof

Before users fill out that form, they need to trust you first. That’s why you need to display security signals and social proof that you’re reliable and legitimate. You need to assure users that the information they provide will not be compromised or used in an inappropriate way. That’s why it pays to display security seals or badges, testimonials, press mentions, usage statistics, or a list or logos of your clients.

6. Unique Offers

Top performing landing pages have unique offers, which make them stand out and stay ahead in their field. So how can you upstage the rest of your competitors? First off, you need to know what your customers want and give it to them. You can add an additional field in your form to get such insight and use it to tweak your offers. Another way would be to check out your top competitors and see how they do it, and try to provide something better than what they put out there.

At that time, meta tags, keyword stuffing, and manual submissions were considered as the conventional tactics that are needed and utilized to increase rankings in search engine results. By the time 2004 came, links have started to show its potential in terms of leveraging traffic to sites. In 2011, social media and vertical search have been added to the list of mainstream search engine optimization (SEO) methods.

Nowadays, web marketing firms are busier than ever, trying to stay on top of all the latest marketing developments that would help them drive traffic to their clients’ websites as well as improve search engine rankings.

No matter what other methods and techniques are introduced in the future, the underlying principle is pretty clear—websites will always compete for that no.1 spot on Google and other search engines. The companies with the most up-to-date and accurate knowledge about ranking factors are likely to find themselves getting the most benefit, from increased web traffic and enhanced visibility to higher return-on-investment.

The Three Faces of Search Marketing

At this point in time, there seems to be three obvious marketing strategies that has somewhat become “the faces” of search marketing and these are:

Face #1:Organic Search

According to SEO Workers, organic search is a type of SEO marketing that involves improving harnessing the power of search engine results to increase the amount of traffic that goes into a website. This is made possible by using specific, industry-related target keywords that help make a website more visible in search engine results. This type of marketing is called organic, because businesses do not pay to be seen in search engines.

Prominence and top rankings are achieved through diligence and hard work in terms of utilizing various internet marketing tools and methods, such as keyword research and analysis, blog posting, article writing, link building, directory submission, and more.

According to Techopedia, organic search relies on “unpaid, algorithm-driven results” to get high ranking for websites. Although white hat methods (those SEO tactics that are recommended by search engines) are commonly used, some companies continue using black hat SEO techniques such as link farming and keyword stuffing because, despite Google’s insistence that its days are long gone, some still work. Just like what E2M Solutions are trying to say, there still remains a few shady tactics that quite surprisingly work, which includes link farms and yes, hacked websites. Just read the article and you will see why.

Basically, organic search centers on the following safety measures:

1. Producing fresh, quality content on a regular basis
2. Spreading links all over the web that go back to the website content
3. Making good use of meta tags and other attributes

The reason why organic remains the most preferred way of boosting a website’s popularity in search engines is because of the following reasons:

• The effects last longer due to the relevance of the content
• Trust is built among users due to the site’s authenticity
• Sites that are optimized organically have more relevant content, attracting more clicks
• Sufficient (not ridiculously spammy) keyword optimization makes it easier for search engines to give the website a high ranking.

Read the next part of this multi-part to learn about the second face of search marketing, which is paid search. Learn what makes paid search as vital, if not more important, as organic search.

In 2012, the average user downloaded 80 apps per device. This is eight times more than when there were only 10 apps downloaded for every one device in 2008.

With those numbers it’s quite a feat to get your app downloaded, but what can be even harder is getting users to use your app more than once. Marketers and developers need to plan and execute marketing efforts to keep users engaged after your app is downloaded to their device.

Why Users Delete Mobile Apps

Because the data doesn’t lie, most of your users either aren’t using your app or uninstalling it altogether. Research by Mobilewalla revealed that users eventually delete 90 percent of all downloaded apps. Make one wrong move that angers or frustrates users – and chances are your app will be deleted.

Mobile App Types of Problems Encountered

The survey by Compuware also sheds light on the most common reasons why users might delete mobile apps or give them bad reviews. The number one cause: freezes. Sixty-two percent of the people who were surveyed said they would delete an app if it froze up.

Another survey from uSamp revealed that 71 percent of users said they would delete an app that crashed, 59 percent for slow responsiveness, 55 percent for heavy battery usage, and 53 percent for too many ads. That’s a lot of pressure for developers and marketers!

This tells us a couple of things:

Mobile customers are intolerant and fickle. (You know you are). If your app isn’t a knockout on first impression, it’s probably going to be deleted or will be forgotten on their smartphones.

You’re potentially losing thousands or millions of dollars in revenue. That’s no joke.

Profit in the app world is a numbers game dictated largely by your app users. Whether your app business model is pay to play, in-app purchases, advertising, or freemium; theoretically, the amount you can generate from an app is highly dependent on the number of users you have.

Why Users Abandon Your App

Here are top reasons why users abandon your app:

Complex or bad registration process: Users won’t keep an app if the registration process is complicated. Mobile users want to start using their new apps quickly. If logging in isn’t a fluid experience, you may have users leave your app for good. Greet new users with useful welcome messages or an intuitive tour.

It’s another “me too” app: It’s difficult to stand out in a crowd of a million. (Literally a million apps just in the iOS app store). Search “to-do list” on any app store and you’ll find pages of apps that offer “the best” solution to managing your to-do list. Finding the best combination of channel, creative, and timing for your marketing campaigns to reach your target audience – and stand out from competitors – is critical to make sure your app gets repeat use.

Lots of bugs and errors: Mobile users have a very low tolerance for unstable apps and nothing can turn them away faster than crashes and buggy interfaces. That’s why 71 percent of users will delete an app after it crashes. If your app happens to have bugs when it’s released, be sure you have the resources to handle support questions or you may receive a lot of poor reviews in app stores.

It’s important to remember that the factors above aren’t the only reasons customers will delete an app after one use. Every app is different. The problems in your app’s first time user experience might not always be apparent from just looking at these three issues.

Don’t Leave Money on the Table

To figure out how to prevent users from deleting your app, you need to understand why they’re leaving in the first place. If your users are abandoning your app after only one use, whatever is turning them away is probably not very deep into your app experience.

The launch and registration of your mobile app is the first opportunity to impress new users of your app. By seeing how your first time users navigate through your app and where and when they leave, you’ll be able to identify the exact feature and/or screen that caused them to drop off – and fix it.

Monitor valuable metrics, such as tutorial completion, time spent on each screen, quitting the app, back tracking between screens and more. For example, if users are closing out of your app after connecting their Facebook account to create a new account, it may mean there’s a bug that’s causing your app to crash or it could be that users are reluctant to share their social network information on their first visit. You may need to offer email registration as an additional option.

The mobile app landscape is only going to get bigger and more competitive. As more apps enter the market, you’re going to need every advantage you can get to stay ahead of your competitors.