28 March 2009

The Best Squeeze Pages Have These Features

By James T. Maxwell

So you're interested in making squeeze pages part of your marketing campaign. That's a good decision. By now, you're probably wondering what makes for a great squeeze page, as opposed to just a good or average one. Well, in my experience, the best squeeze pages all have the following features:

Headlines, sub-headlines and the rest

You've heard about how important headlines can be. All that you've heard is probably true. They can really grab readers' attention and that's what you want to do.

Plain backgrounds

Can you believe that plain backgrounds are better for sales? It's true. Why risk distracting customers by showing them a background that could be more interesting than your product?

Above the fold content

Where your content is located can be just as important as what it contains. Content is best placed in areas where your readers would not have to scroll down to read it. Keep your content "above-the-fold" to make sure that readers read what they're supposed to.

Bullet points

Bullet points are your friend. They make reading easier on your customers and show them the important highlights so that they won't have to waste time looking for them. Use bullet points to show readers how they'll benefit from buying your product to maximize the positive effect they'll have on your business.

Make it important

If you think your content is important to read, convince prospects of that fact by using power words. Emphasize the value of the content by writing strongly and by using action verbs when requesting that prospects do something.

Testimonials

Prospects want to know that they're not wasting time and money on you or your products. Collect testimonials from satisfied customers and present them on your website so that prospects can read them.

Protect information

Many people are reluctant to give their personal information out to anyone they don't know. Including a statement at you opt-in form can get your prospects' trust by reassuring them that you won't sell or trade their information.

Get accessible

Too many business owners forget about giving their prospects a way to contact them. Provide your contact information so that sales are made even easier.

Call them to action

You need calls-to-action on your squeeze page. They need to be energetic to successfully get a prospect to do something. Use more action verbs for your calls-to-action.

Video

Videos are proven to raise conversions. Why not offer a video on your squeeze page?

Look into forms

Make collecting email addresses easier by including an opt-in form right on your squeeze page. Keep it to the right of the page. Prospects really love to see it there.

Go easy on the links

Why give your prospects a reason to leave your squeeze page? Only include links that are necessary. Keep your prospects trained on your website.

Keep them seated

Give your prospects a reason to follow through. Spell out what you'll give them; are they reports, eBooks, audio, videos or something else? Let them know by being clear and making it desirable. You may benefit by doing a bit of research into your target market to see what they value.

All of these things can help you develop a great squeeze page. But using these tips is not an excuse for forgetting about optimizing your website. To truly make a website work, test all of these elements to find out which ones work best for you.

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27 March 2009

Why Having a Flash Intro Is So Popular

By Maxine Winter

Flash has gained immense web popularity because it provides a convenient way to let web sites include interactive and animated movies, which could not have been possible otherwise. In the beginning, Flash made its mark because it provides advantages in two sectors; animated banner ads and Flash intros. Web designers considered Flash to be the latest, and that having Flash projected them as better designers.

Even though Flash movies as ad banners continues because of a high click thru rate as compared to static gifts, there is a marked and continuing decline in their usage. There are several reasons for this, and are all connected to the relative advantages and disadvantages of using animated Flash movies as web-site intros.

Many varieties of designs can be found in flash intro templates that are quite popular, so you can select the most suitable one. For this task you need to find out the most deserving web design company for getting the templates. Scroll through their website especially website design portfolio to see their work. Make sure that they have a fleet of talented team of professional website designers, capable to craft premium quality templates with outstanding graphics.

Another disadvantage is that your homepage takes much more time to load when you use Flash intros. When you create a Flash intro, it surely has raster graphics, which increase the file size of the .swf file leading to a greater overall time to fully load your homepage. Now it would be too much to expect your time conscious visitor to keep waiting while your Flash intro gets loaded and then again go on to read your animated sales pitches. You know very well that had you been in the shoes of your visitor you would have just clicked out instead of waiting.

In other words flash intros are flash animations designed with the use of vector animation software. Usually people tend to think that it is costly and needs much time to create flash intros. But flash intros are very easy to create in short span of time with website software maker. The software programs have hundreds of in-built flash intro templates that can be customized according to your need with images, text, logo and so on. You can add the customized flash intros into your website for the purpose of presentations and demos. This software gives the advantage of facility where you can edit the templates accordingly without waiting for your graphic designer for the response.

Other uses for Flash: Flash creates an interesting array of websites and animation with ActionScript (a computer program language), and has done so since the beginning days of Flash 2. Vectors and raster graphics add to the versatility of the program, aiding in the creation of a more interactive experience for all who choose to view or create with it. Flash is saved under .swf (small web file) filing extensions.

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26 March 2009

The Five Website Design Rules

By Kevin Harper

A beautiful website design can never compensate slow performance in any website design. Most amateurs and professional webmasters belief that the more visual and audio aids they use on their website, which means slower loading time, the better it is for the visitor, when it isn't so.

There are five website design rules you can follow to help you build that optimal performance website that rocks.

1) For whatever reasons you may have, resist the temptation to include splash pages. Splash pages are dazzling fancy pages you often see when you first arrive at a website. These are elaborately fancy pages with lavish designs and images along with words such as "welcome to our website" Usually, they are pages of elaborate graphics that includes words such as "welcome" or "click here to enter the site". These are merely distractions that can divert attention away from the purpose of your website. The slow loading time often gives extra incentive for visitors to click on the back button in frustration.

2) Do not overuse banner advertisements. When banners are displayed on a web page, they are usually right at the top but can frequently be seen located elsewhere, including the foot of the page also. Even the newbie to the internet have trained themselves to ignore banner ads so placing them would only waste precious real estate space. The right way to use the space is to add contents that are engaging and informative and add your affiliate links into them so that they would feel natural instead of sounding like and advertisement.

3) Always use an easy navigational system Navigation should be made very simple so that even a young child can understand. Do stay away from any form of Flash based menu or even multi-tiered menu as they only serve to add more complication to the layout. If you make it difficult for them, they will leave your site. Have a sitemap added to the website design to help them find what they are looking for.

4) Have a clear indication of where the user is. When you have successfully captured their attention and enjoying the whole experience perusing your website, you will want to make them know where they are at the moment without feeling lost. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. This can easily be achieved by ensuring each page has a title and a textual 'breadcrumb trail' that clearly shows the links they have made to get where they are now. Any type of confusion drives your visitors away.

5) Audios are a bad idea. If you wish for your visitors to stay long enough to read the contents, do not loop your music file in a way that irritates. The sounds when added can enhance an experience, but when played over and over gain it can start to be irritating. Using audios may not always be a good idea, if you have to include them be sure to allow for some form of user control such as volume or muting ability. By applying all these website design tips we share, you can expect to reap long term benefits from continuous traffic from returning visitors to your website.

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25 March 2009

Unlimited Domain Hosting:Choosing A Reliable Web Hosting Provider

By Marc Marseille

If you are planning on starting a new business online, then you will need a reliable web hosting company. Your web host is the lifeblood that keeps your website lasting on the web. To ensure you site is working when customers visit your site, a reputable web host is needed.

The worse feeling you can have is when you realize that your website is down and you are unable to reach a representative to fix the problem. Believe it or not, this is a common occurrence with hosting companies that are totally automated. Knowing that your hosting company can be reach in those very important moments is very reassuring.

Some hosting companies are accessible, but compromise service when it comes to being reliable. A good customer service department has to be able to solve issues rather quickly. A good rule of thumb to keep your hosting provider on point is to report the minor issues to see how fast their response time will be. Keep constant contact with your web host of any issues that may arise so that when larger issues occur, they will have a good idea as to what is wrong.

Email is the communication of choice for most companies today, and web host are not any different. A customer service friendly web hosting provider will usually have a pretty fast response through email, so that should not be an issue. Make sure you have phone number back up just in case you don't receive a timely email response. If both forms of communication yields nothing, then you will need to get rid of your hosting company.

To make your customer service experience a little bit better, I suggest that you find one particular customer service agent or technician and request that you deal with them directly. Being able to deal with one person will save you a lot of time when trying to deal with an ongoing issue. It also strengthens you relationship with your web hosting company. The better relationship you have with your hosting agent, the faster your problems will be resolved.

When purchasing web hosting for the first time you need to make sure of your hosting company. If your are not too keen on web hosting providers or the packages you will need in the future, you should avoid signing a long term contract. You can use the short contract as a trial and error to give your new hosting company a good look over.

A relationship with a bad web hosting company should not be continued for a long period of tme. The money you will lose from dealing with a bad web hosting company will outweigh the cost of switching to a new hosting company. There is no telling how much money you can lose when paying customers cannot access your website.

Having a reliable hosting provider may not seem that important when you are first starting out on the internet, but as your business grows, the lack of a good hosting company can be scary. Securing your business cost and advertising cost for the long run goes hand in hand with having a reliable web host.

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24 March 2009

Search Engine Optimization For Newbies

By Michael Fleischner

A common question I'm often asked from people who are new to Internet marketing is whether or not they should be concerned with search engine optimization. What often happens is that after a while, new website owners don't receive any traffic and they start to wonder why. The truth of the matter is that now they are focused on search engine optimization which determines where and how your website is ranked on search engines.

Search engine optimization, commonly referred to as SEO, is the practice of understanding the intricacies of how search engines work and their impact on rankings. When thinking about SEO, it's important to focus your efforts on those techniques that have been proven to impact search engine rankings. When applied correctly, these techniques have a positive impact on results.

SEO has an impact on search engine rankings. In essence your are controlling where your site ranks for a given search term or phrase. Some people feel that having this control is not fair or somehow manipulates search engines in a bad way. I disagree with this statement in that SEO allows you to accentuate the positive related to your website or blog. Yes, people try to game the system but they need to be identified and taken off the web. In such a high stakes game as Internet marketing, some are prone to stretch the boundaries and do things that are inappropriate.

When optimizing for the web, there are different methods that work for different types of websites. Before describing these methods, consider the functionality of search engines themselves. A great way to illustrate this is by thinking about a common search. When users type a search term into a major search engine, the engine returns a list of results based on their algorithm. Each algorithm is different but is designed to return those web pages most closely aligned with the given search term.

How does the search engine determine what listings are relevant? Ah, the magic of search engine optimization. Although each search engine has their own unique methodology for determining which sites are truly relevant to the search term entered, online marketing experts have found common principles that apply, explaining search engine results listings.

Everyone wants to know the one single thing they can do to improve their website ranking. The fact of the matter is that SEO is complex and there are many factors that go into determining the ranking of a website. That said, there are a number of principles you can use to positively impact your rankings and this is commonly referred to as SEO best practices. These best practices are widely reported on the internet and are essential for top placements.

The internet is full of informational products and services related to SEO. The reason why this has created an industry unto itself is because search engines are continually updating their algorithms. As a result, websites need to be continually updated, changed, and new strategies developed. Some principles stay the same however such as good quality content and the importance of keywords.

For anyone doing business online, I recommend having a working knowledge of search engine optimization. Although I don't recommend trying to become and SEO expert, I do feel that it's important to have an awareness of basic SEO principles. This is important because everything you do, from naming your web pages, to developing partnerships needs to consider the implications of search engine rankings.

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23 March 2009

So, Exactly How Can S.E.O Optimisation Help Your Business?

By Alan Redman

There may have been times while you were researching online and stumbled upon the term Search Engine Optimization or SEO. You may have wondered?What the heck is SEO?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of getting a website to work better with different search engines. SEO aims to increase the amount of visitors to your website or blog by ranking high in the search results of different search engines such as Google, Yahoo or MSN. The higher your website ranks in search engine results, web users will more likely to visit your website or blog.

Majority of Internet surfers worldwide rely on search engines when they are looking for information they need. Therefore, ranking high in search engine results should be your main priority in marketing your website.

The ones on top of the lists in search result pages are normally those visited by most Internet users worldwide. That?s the spot you would want your website to be on in order to generate traffic. SEO can dramatically improve your website?s chances to be found by the search engine in a short period of time.

It is important to remember that the traffic generated by your website is the life of your website or blog. Your website is just a waste of time if it?s not generating any traffic. Advertisers will not rent space in your blog or website simply because no one is visiting your site. As a result, you would end up not making any money from your web site.

They say Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the more technical aspect of web marketing. SEO works would require some technical knowledge and at the same time SEO helps in promoting a website. SEO improves the chances of your website to be found by the search engine.

However, your website?s success would not be reached especially if you fail to do the basic rules of SEO. And even if you do all the necessary SEO works, you are still not guaranteed to reach your goal. Thus, it is advisable that you set realistic goals. For example, for one keyword you would aspire to get into the top 10 Google results, as oppose to being in the number one spot for 10 keywords in 5 search engine?s result s.

SEO is not considered advertising even if it helps in increasing a website?s traffic. The basic idea behind the SEO techniques is to get the number one spot because your site is relevant to a particular keyword search, not because you pay.

So if you really want to be at the top of search engine results, pay special attention to SEO and devote your time and effort to it.

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22 March 2009

Specifics of sales marketing

By Viliam Kanis

Supplied byTeknatool Lathe.would you like to put up a sales marketing business online? Keep your business aware of those things that you have to consider to put up such business. A sales marketing business would be able to produce profit from particular clients that requires assistance regarding marketing methods that work as well as creating product identities that would sellwhich has selling factors.

Aside from concentrating into generating profit from your regular clients, your sales marketing business have the chance to improve if you will gain access to clients whom you can build new business relationships with. You might as well be thinking on how would you be able to obtain you prtentialclients, right? What you really have to focus on is how would you be able to satisfy the need of these new customers, so you could gain their business.

First you need to heighten your marketing skills, meaning if your methods in marketing are noncurrent, there will be a need for you to either forgo training or add a little more information through thorough research.

Remember that in a sales marketing business you should be able to gain knowledge on how to innovate not only what you offer to the public but as well as your ideas, concepts together with the methodologies you use. Obsolete ideas won't fit in, what you need are fresh and new concepts and strategies that would make your clients believe that they will benefit from the service that you are offering ,and you will be able to provide solutions to their marketing and sales issues.

You may have gained the influence of your business to your old clients but what about obtaining new ones which could give greater benefits to your sales marketing business|You might be thinking that having your old clients as your source of profit is enough to make your business running, well how about those new clients that can bring you added revenue they might be more advantageous to your sales marketing business, right? What do you need to do then? You should make them part of your business approach and let them experience what you can do for them regarding sales and marketing.

Put in mind that everybody in the industry of business is a potential customer. To narrow down the number and get directly to your target market, you need to learn from what your new clients would have to say. And then you will be able to distinguish one time customers from repetitive clients which will provide you an idea with your ales pitches. If it is then you have to keep them, if not then you have to lead them to the right direction. The point here is, that every type of client in the business is important either if they are old or new.

So, plan of action is to set up new objectives for your new clients. It should be like when you were starting to gain the loyalty of your repetitive customers. In this way, your sales marketing business can have access to a larger scope in the market and you'll definitely gain access to a larger profit for business.

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