Design Tip: Small budgets can reproduce personal photos and copyright-free images for their printed pieces.

The low-budget project can be the bane of a designer's existence, or it can be an exciting challenge. With a low-budget project, the client usually has everything to lose. This letterhead project is probably all he or she can afford, perhaps for months or even years. It has to do the job right, or there may never be a second chance. You will find that it is possible to do a lot with a little. Make a low budget into an asset by producing a package that’s stylishly down-at-the-heels. Spend the bulk of a client’s budget on one expensive but attention-getting element: a heavy paper, a die cut, engraving, or embossing. Rely on a strong design in one or two colors, with ordinary offset printing on common paper stocks. Producing nice layouts and stunning graphics is only half the battle. Solving your client’s design problems is the other half. As a designer, you must try to create practical and aesthetic designs targeted to your client (and your client’s clients). Here are a few tips for achieving those goals:  Printing Most letterhead is printed with offset lithography, which offers more options than most people use. Die cuts, foil-stamping (a specialty printing service), varnishes, and a variety of other printing tricks can help make a piece stand out.  Logos Most established companies have corporate logos that must be included in their printed products. While corporate identity design goes far beyond the scope of this article, even an outdated or downright ugly logo can, if used creatively, be part of a fresh, new design.  Artwork Artwork gives a piece personality. It communicates without words and targets the emotions. Using scanners and laser printers, even clients with small budgets can reproduce personal photos and copyright-free images for their printed pieces.

Linkedin:Tips: Tips to use Linkedin for your business

1. Acquire new customers through online recommendations and word of mouth. Satisfied customers are the best source of new customers. Increase your word of mouth referrals by asking your happy clients to write you a recommendation, which will be published on your LinkedIn profile and will be broadcast to their entire LinkedIn network.
2. Keep in touch with people who care most about your business.Sites like LinkedIn help keep your business alive in the minds of the people who care most about your business. LinkedIn is effective for two reasons: the business intent of LinkedIn users and fewer status updates, which mean you stay on top of mind. Tip: You can also increase the impact of your status updates by syncing your LinkedIn and Twitter accounts.
3. Find the right vendors to outsource services you’re not an expert on. Think of the number of times you’ve asked your colleagues if they knew of a great web designer or photographer. LinkedIn makes it easy for you to find and vet vendors through the network of your peers. Additionally, you can also trade services with your vendor connections on LinkedIn; sort of a mutual referral system.
4. Build your industry network—online and in person. Search LinkedIn’s Groups directory to find industry associations and networks to take part in. For example, if you’re in the event planning or wedding industry, there are over 530 groups. In addition, LinkedIn also surfaces popular events in your industry calling out local events that your connections are attending. Imagine being able to find only industry events that your prospective clients are attending.
5. Get answers to tough business questions with a little help from your real friends. Small business owners deal with challenging questions on a slew of topics each day. LinkedIn Answers and Groups let you find answers to those vexing questions quickly by tapping into the wisdom of your network (LinkedIn tells me there are over 200 different categories on Answers including one dedicated just to small business and over 2000 groups on small business related topics). Wondering whether your recent office purchase is tax deductible? Check out hundreds of questions on related topics here.
6. Win new business by answering questions in your area of expertise. Use the many forums on LinkedIn to share the knowledge you’ve gained in your area of expertise. This is a great opportunity to win new business or at least find prospective clients to pitch your business to. Prospective customers will find your answers when they use LinkedIn’s advanced Answers search. And don’t forget, what goes around comes around. Don’t forget, this is a great way to soft pitch your skills and expertise.
7. Raise funding. You can use LinkedIn to find mentors or potential investors for your startup because there are over three million startup professionals and over 12M small business professionals on LinkedIn and it’s always good to stay in touch with folks who’ve been there, done that and willing to mentor you. Once you’re connected, your participation on LinkedIn (answers, status updates or group conversations) may even cause them to consider investing in your small business.
8. Network with peers in your industry for repeat business referrals. LinkedIn Groups is a powerful medium to find peers in your respective industries to network with and to find complimentary businesses to share referrals with. For example, mortgage brokers can find real estate agents to partner with on relevant groups and as most small businesses know, these partners are your best source of referrals that can turn into repeat business. With over 2000 groups dedicated to small business topics, you’re sure to find a relevant group to network.
9. Convince potential customers of your expertise by sharing unique blog content.Small businesses smart enough to create unique content on their expertise (either with a blog or twitter account) should link to it from their LinkedIn profiles. Or take it one step further by promoting featured blog content to LinkedIn members on the site (for e.g. withsmall text ads). You can specify exactly who will see your ads—Executives or VPs—and include a link to your profile so they know who’s behind this content.
10. Keep your friends close and your competition closer. Over 150,000 companies have a company profile on LinkedIn, the “public profile” for companies. These pages surface key stats on companies; recent hires as well movers and shakers. Not only do company profiles give you unique insight into your competition, they also give you an opportunity to stumble upon potential hires by browsing through company pages.

I hope this helps you take LinkedIn beyond the usual uses and makes your small business even more successful.

Guy Kawasaki

Business Development Tip: Seven specific kinds of change that are sources of innovative opportunity

Thomas Watson, who founded IBM in 1924, placed on the wall behind his desk a single framed word: THINK. It became the corporate motto of one of the most influential companies of the century.



Think. The handiest source of new product ideas is your mind, if for no other reason than that you are always carrying it around with you. You have a mind. The next step is to open it and keep it open. What you want is to be open to change.

Management guru Peter Drucker has made the observation that most successful innovations exploit change. In his 1985 Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Drucker defined seven specific kinds of change that are sources of innovative opportunity:

1. The unexpected, including unexpected success, unexpected failure, and unexpected events. 
2. Incongruity between reality as it actually is and reality as it is assumed to be. 
3. Innovation based on process need. 
4. Changes in industry structure and market structure — especially those that catch everyone unaware. 
5. Demographic shifts. 
6. Changes in perception, mood, and meaning. 
7. New knowledge, including the scientific and the nonscientific.

We are keenly aware of the effect of change in the graphics and arts industry. Few industries have undergone as much change during the last few years as printing. While two of our heroes are Johannes Gutenberg and Benjamin Franklin, we also deeply admire Steven Jobs, Michael Dell, and Bill Gates. We anxiously embrace new technologies and see the changes as opportunities — not something to fear or dread. We just thought you needed to know.

Newsletter Tip: How to make an effective newsletter

Designing Successful Newsletters

Newsletters have become a great way for businesses to spread information, “tell their story,” solidify customer loyalty, and increase sales.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind while designing your company newsletter:

1. Content Is Important
   Successful newsletters provide interesting content for their readers, in addition to product information from the newsletter provider.
   
2. Color Draws the Eye
   Use multiple colors of ink to draw attention to important articles and information. Two-color newsletters are very effective, and full-color newsletters are gaining popularity.
   
3. Pull Quotes Create Interest 
   Pull quotes create interest and increase the likelihood that an article will be read. These quotes are taken directly from the article and focus on interesting, key points.
   
4. Good Design Provides More Room for Copy
   A well-planned and designed newsletter can contain 20% to 30% more content than a casually designed newsletter. Seeking advice from professional graphic artists is often profitable. They can help design an effective template for your future use.
   
5. Good Back Page Design Is Important
   An estimated 15% of readers start reading at the back page of a newsletter and work their way to the front page.

Design Tip: How to design a killer poster

At its best, poster design is the territory of the truly creative, and it has been used in the past as a public display of individual talent. When you are designing in this graphic form, the poster's purpose and application should be your first considerations. The poster will normally be on display in a public area, where it will have to compete both with its surroundings and with other posters. Poster Design Checklist: Establish the information to be conveyed. Decide on the size, proportion, and shape. Research the locations for your poster. Simplify the information to be communicated. Produce scaled-down versions of the design. Consider the space and its effects very carefully. Select the typefaces that work for your design. Make sure the message is conveyed clearly and dynamically. Present a number of alternative designs. When you are designing a poster, the first decision to make is the size and shape of the design area. This may be governed by the display site. For this example, three shapes have been explored: two differently proportioned portrait shapes and one landscape. Portrait and Landscape: Most common sizes are 81/2x11, 11x17, and 22x34. Large Format Posters: Most common sizes are 24" wide and 36" wide. Both are available in unlimited lengths, but 96" or less is most practical.

Copy Tip: Things to keep mind as you choose a typeface and layout the text on your next project:

Tips for Choosing a Readable Type

You’ve worked hard to create just the right look for your client’s newsletter. But will your masterpiece also be easy to read? Balancing beauty with readability can be challenging. Here are some areas to keep in mind as you choose a typeface and layout the text on your next project:

X-height. X-height refers to the size of a lowercase x in a given typeface. The larger the x-height, the denser the type will appear on the page, and the less readable it will tend to be.


Tracking. Tracking refers to character spacing. Any variation from normal tracking (narrowed or expanded text) can have an adverse effect on readability.


Serif vs. sans serif. Research shows that serif fonts are more readable than sans serif fonts for large areas of body text. This may be due to the serifs’ ability to lead the eye from one character to the next. On the other hand, typefaces with serifs that are too pronounced can have the opposite effect. Also, sans serif fonts tend to be more readable than their serif counterparts in smaller point sizes, such as those used for footnotes or fine print.


Line length. Shorter lines of text tend to be more readable than longer lines. However, lines that are too short may also prove difficult to read. Experts suggest setting line length at approximately 39 characters, or two times your point size, converted into picas (e.g. 2 x 10pt =20 picas or 3 1/3 inches). Experiment with both of these options to see which works better for you.


Leading. The leading, or space between each line of text, can also affect readability. In general, leading that is 2-3 points larger than the typeface enhances readability. Leading that is too much larger or smaller than that, however, can make the type more difficult to read.


Widows and orphans. Widows occur when the final line of a paragraph contains just a single word. Orphans are paragraphs that carry over just a single line from one column to the next. Both are visually distracting, unattractive, and reduce the readability of a page.


Point size. Body text is generally set at 9-12 points in size. This can vary, however, depending on the typeface and purpose involved, so make adjustments accordingly.

Design Tip: By being aware of the signature unit, you can reduce waste and saves you money.

Of course, we aren't talking about your autograph, but a printing concept. As you may know, printing companies don't always print documents in the one-page-per-sheet way that your office laser jet does. Instead, they may print several pages of material on a single, larger sheet (that's called a press sheet) and then fold it and cut it to get the final finished page sizes.

What that means is that one large piece of paper coming off the press (before it's folded and trimmed) could hold four, eight or more pages of material. That large piece of paper containing multiple finished pieces is called a “signature,” and the number of finished pages in one signature is called the “signature unit.”

The key to properly planning your multi-page documents is to think about the signature unit.If you have a project that is nine pages long and the signature unit is eight (meaning the signature contains eight finished pages),you would use two signatures: one signature for the first eight pages, and a second signature for that last (ninth) page. But if you were to do a little bit of editing to reduce your document page length to eight pages, you would only use one signature.

By being aware of the signature unit (the number of finished pages that can fit on a press sheet) required for your project, you can remove or add content so that your final product fits the signature, which reduces waste and saves you money.

Lead Generation Tip: four ways to make your voice mail fun, memorable, and a better marketing tool

“Thank you for calling. Today is Monday, March 17th. I’ll be in meetings all morning and... blah, blah, blah...” Voice mail is one of those “conveniences” most people love to hate. They hate recording an outbound greeting, and they hate leaving inbound messages. But using voice mail doesn’t have to be as painful as a root canal without the anesthetic. Here are four ways to make your voice mail fun, memorable, and a better marketing tool... Educate your customers. No, that doesn’t mean telling them you’re either on the phone or away from your desk. And it doesn’t mean letting them know what day of the week it is. Instead, try sharing a useful tip relating to your products or services. Let customers know how you can help improve their bottom line. Update the message frequently, with new and different advice. Inspire them. Start your message with a daily quote or quick anecdote that’s enlightening and inspiring. Your customers will appreciate the daily lift and might even encourage their colleagues (your potential customers) to call and hear the message, too. Involve them. Ask one or two of your best customers if they would be willing to record a brief testimonial to use on your voice mail message. The customers who provide the testimonials will enjoy the experience and probably encourage their peers to call and hear it. Your other customers and prospects will hear the testimonials and know they’re in good hands trusting you. Entertain them. Add a spark of humor to your voice mail message. Offer a “celebrity” endorsement, if you’re good with impersonations... or even if you’re not so good with them. (Robert DeNiro from Taxi Driver: “You talkin’ to me? You must be talkin’ to me, because Phil isn’t here right now.”) Poke some gentle fun at yourself. (In a harried voice: “The ringing. I hear the ringing... then the voices. Always the voices.” Second voice: “Hi, this is Gene’s psychiatrist. He can’t take your call right now...”) Share a humorous anecdote or (clean) joke of the day. Have fun with your voice mail message, and make it a treat for customers who call and cannot reach you.

Lead Generation Tip: You must create a balance between the emotion to trigger the sale, and the logic to justify the purchase

John Patterson, known as the father of American salesmanship, is responsible for many of the modern sales practices used today. His work with the National Cash Register Company (NCR) changed the way salespeople think about marketing and selling their products. In his book entitled The Patterson Principles of Selling, modern sales expert Jeffrey Gitomer unpacks some of Patterson’s most powerful tactics.

Patterson’s greatest sales accomplishment didn’t lie in selling cash registers, but in creating a demand for his product. He knew that sparking a desire would increase demand, and he focused his sales and marketing efforts on convincing consumers of the importance of obtaining a sales receipt. When consumers began to ask for a receipt from store clerks, the store managers felt obligated to purchase a cash register that would produce such receipts, and Patterson was poised to sell them one of his machines.

The same can be done in your business. Gitomer says in his book, “You must create a balance between the emotion to trigger the sale, and the logic to justify the purchase.” What is one thing your company could do to create a demand for your products or services?

Lead Generation Tip: wasting your time tracking down lukewarm leads and prospects?

What exactly is a TIP, and how does it work? In his book Getting the Second Appointment, author Anthony Parinello describes this sales weapon as, “a tool that helps you to eliminate individuals and organizations that are likely to waste your time.” TIP stands for Template of Ideal Prospects, and it works to qualify your sales leads by comparing your current prospects to the qualities you see in your top current customers. 

Here’s how you can create your own TIP sheet:

• Take your company’s current customer list and study it very closely. You may need to break the list down into sub-groups, industries or niches in order to get the best understanding of what lies at the core of each company.
  
• Ask yourself: What do my company’s best, biggest, and most profitable current customers have in common? Then write down your answers this question for each top current customers, being very detailed and deliberate about what you record.
  
• Develop a worksheet that lists these common factors, along with a way to record whether your prospective customer meets that criteria (see sample TIP sheet below). The longer the list of common factors, the more accurately and completely you will be able to prequalify your prospects.

Once you have created your TIP sheet, you can begin filling it out for your prospects. In the beginning, it is best to only spend your energy pursuing the prospects that meet all of your criteria. Remember, the criteria you have established was gathered from your top current customers, and offers a reflection of the type of companies you want to do business with. Don’t compromise on what you deem to be most important.

If you have been wasting your time tracking down lukewarm leads and prospects, this TIP sheet is sure to give you a fresh perspective on landing hot sales.

Copy Tip: Creating intriguing headlines will revolutionize your advertising and will have a great affect on your company’s success.

If you want to get prospective customers excited about doing business with your company, creating eye-stopping, mind-grabbing headlines is a great way to do it! While the content of an advertisement is helpful for relaying information about your company’s products or services, it’s the headline that creates the initial relationship with the reader, and entices them to read about what your company has to offer. Here are six types of headlines that will boost inquiries about your company: 1.) The problem/solution headline. Readers are looking for products and services that will make their lives easier. By writing a headline that poses a problem many readers may have, and offers the solution your company can provide, you have created a situation that will most likely encourage the reader to take a look at the remainder of your advertisement.
2.) The historical event headline. If there is something newsworthy about your product or service, such as it is the world-premiere, or a limited-time offer, it can prove to be an effective draw.3.) The testimonial. Providing a testimony from a person that has used your product or service encourages prospective customers to think, “If it worked for him, it can work for me, too!”4.) Product claims. Include statistics and percentages in your headline to increase a product’s credibility. It is important to credit the source of the information you use because it gives your prospective customers a piece of mind about using your product. Even if the source is not well-known by the public, it should be included.5.) Outrageous statements. The purpose of writing a headline is to provoke curiosity in your readers - making an outrageous statement relating to your product or service will almost force your readers to see what you have to say.6.) Questions. Posing a question to your readers allows them to take an active role in your advertisement. The key is asking a question that most people will feel compelled to answer because it is relevant to their lives. People will naturally want to know what their answer to the question has to do with your products or services, and will continue reading your ad to discover what your company can do for them.Headlines are a key component to successful advertising. Creating intriguing headlines will revolutionize your advertising and will have a great affect on your company’s success.

Lead Generation Tip: Always focus your efforts on the markets, prospects, and activities that offer you the highest probability of a payoff.

Are you wasting your time, money, and enthusiasm on people who sincerely aren’t interested in what you have to offer? Instead of looking for suspects who may have the capacity to buy your product or service some day down the road, start seeking prospects who are qualified to do so today. In other words, go where the money is. Here are some tips on how to find prime, qualified targets today:

• Build a strong client list of names, addresses, e-mails, and phone numbers by placing customers on a preferred client mailing and announcement list. After requesting to add them to your client list, be sure to follow through and make formal announcements once you compile your client list.

Use the Internet to search for other industries that have a similar target audience (those who are complementary versus competitive with your business). When you determine which other businesses would also sell to your client, contact them and offer to share or trade prospect names with them.

Don’t limit your prospecting simply to previous or current customers. A large number of high-quality prospects and leads can be turned into profitable clients through regular and strategic communication with them.

Avoid general advertisements, letters, or promotions. Always make sure that your offers refer to a specific product or service. This way, readers with strong interests can easily qualify themselves and take advantage of your offer.

• Always focus your efforts on the markets, prospects, and activities that offer you the highest probability of a payoff. The less energy you waste on suspects, the more you have left for big, rewarding prospects.

Newsletter Tips: establish expertise and credibility, inform and educate, as well as increase sales and influence positive word-of-mouth referrals.

Newsletters have become one of the most popular ways for companies to keep in touch with their customers. A well-written, interesting newsletter can establish expertise and credibility, inform and educate, as well as increase sales and influence positive word-of-mouth referrals. 

Here are some tried and true newsletter do’s and don’ts:

People Like:

• Interesting subjects
• Short articles
• Good visuals
• Easy-to-skim designs
• Bulleted lists
• Content telling how to make money, save time
• Clear organization
• Calendars
• Offers, benefits

People Don't Like:

• Intimidating pages
• Disorganized information
• Long, continuing articles
• Overly frequent mailings
• Irrelevant content
• Impersonal tone
• Receiving multiple copies
• Chaotic page design
• Too many pages

If you’re looking for unique ideas or expert advice on how to create a newsletter, or simply spice up your current newsletter, call us. Not only can we provide you with inspiring ideas and printed examples; we can also help you create a powerful newsletter that will boost sales and stay within your company’s budget.

Save your customers some hassle and make your product easy to buy.

Some marketing experts recommend that in creating a direct mail program, you should devote half your time to creating the reply form. Most clients are surprised, if not shocked, when they hear this very revealing rule. The rule is revealing because it suggests that most marketers spend too much effort on the sale and too little on the “buy.”

Think how often you have been virtually sold on something, but chose not to make the purchase because it was too hard to buy. The salesperson offered all sorts of options, for example, or made you worry about the value of an extended warranty. Perhaps they offered more complicated financing packages than you could intelligently choose among. The product was too hard to buy. Now, think of your opposite experiences. Something appealed to you a little, not necessarily a lot and the ease with which you could order, pay for, and receive the product ultimately led you to make the purchase. 

Good marketing must focus on the buy. How clear is your offer? Can the prospects sample the service, thereby reducing their risk? How clear is the price? How easy is it to buy?

Save your customers some hassle and make your product easy to buy.

A Guerrilla Marketer's Wisdom

A Guerrilla Marketer's Wisdom: Guerrilla Marketing's Golden Rule

A customer is a very special person. Of the billions of people on planet Earth, only a tiny fraction have chosen to do business with you. They have selected your business on purpose. It is your constant obligation - though it should be a pleasure - to do what you can to improve the lives of these people: with valuable advice, reduced prices, and reviews of new products and services. The only way to do this is by staying in touch.

Customer reverence is felt by the heart and planned by the mind. Show your customer how much you appreciate them by sending:

1. A thank-you note within 48 hours of each purchase, although 24 hours is more impressive and memorable. Anyone can send a thank-you note. Guerrillas do it ASAP.
   
2. An offer of an item related to their purchase, tendered about 30 days after the purchase. The offer can be for a product or service.
   
3. A questionnaire. Send each new customer a questionnaire to learn more about them and their interests.
   
4. A birthday card. Use the questionnaire mentioned above to learn each customer’s birthday — month and day, not year. Then, send them a card when their birthday rolls around. Later, you can expand this tactic by sending graduation cards to the customer’s kids, anniversary cards to the customer and spouse, and postcards from your next vacation. Don’t overwhelm your customers, but continue to acknowledge their existence.
   
5. A newsletter, sent monthly, bi-monthly, or quarterly. If it’s created with customer reverence in mind, it will give more than it asks, provide valuable free information, and still make offers to sell something.
   
6. A catalogue of your offerings, sent only to customers or sent first to customers, then to prospects, if your customer list isn’t long enough. Customers will especially appreciate a catalogue that clearly communicates it is for customers only.
   
7. A fact-of-interest postcard, sent in the purest sense of customer reverence. Give data that can help your customer, without trying to sell anything. Keep it brief, and customers will actually look forward to your mailings — a dream world for most, but the standard situation for guerrillas.

Here are some of the more popular and creative ways to use postcards:

• Thank you cards... have a picture of your business or organization printed on the front.
  
• New product announcements... place a picture of the product on the front.
  
• New employee announcements... feature the new employee’s picture on the front, with their contact information on the back.
  
• Card pack inserts.
  
• Customer follow-up mailings designed to create loyalty.
  
• Low-cost direct mail marketing.

If you don’t stay in contact with your customers, somebody else may win them away from you. By constantly fanning the flames of love and loyalty, you will prove beyond any words that you revere your customers, while at the same time safeguarding against apathy.

What are the Secrets of a Great Presentation?

What are the Secrets of a Great Presentation

Maintaining Their Attention
Getting your audience’s attention is only the first step to a successful presentation. Once you’ve captured their attention, your next challenge is maintaining it. Typically, adults have short attention spans that shift constantly. Here are some tips to help you out.

• Provide handouts that outline your presentation. Ask your printer to use a heavier, 60 lb. paper if you have copy on both sides of the page. It will prevent a distracting show-through of your copy on the backside of the sheet.
  
• Use colorful overhead transparencies with bold colors and large type. Use no more than seven words per line and seven lines per overhead. Letters should be one-fourth of an inch high and limited to one or two typestyles and no more than three colors.
  
• To increase interest and keep people a little more alert, pass out one or two handouts during odd times of the presentation. Color photocopies of a product or graph are always effective, as are mini-catalogs, brochures, or postcards that contain your website address and contact information.

10 Ways to Create the Wrong Brochure

To be successful, a brochure needs to be produced with a precise objective and a target reader in mind. It's best to create the least elaborate brochure likely to achieve its objectives.

Deciding on Your Purpose
Brochures fall into two broad categories — those that introduce a new product or service to a likely customer and those that turn an already interested customer into a buyer.

Using Color
Full color is more costly but is justified if the product or service you are offering needs color to show its features. For example, a wallpaper brochure or a brochure of knitwear would not work effectively in anything other than full color. Another reason for using full color may be to compete head-on with a rival’s color brochure.



Using two or even three colors is a cheaper alternative to full color and can be quite effective, especially if part of the brochure is printed in a screened color that lightens the tone and gives the effect of another color.

A limited use of color can look more sophisticated than bold colors. You might also consider using full color in only part of a brochure, or you might try using colored paper — although that is quite tricky to do well.

10 Ways to Create the Wrong Brochure

1. Being concerned with the looks, but forgetting the sales objective.
2. Giving the printer poor artwork, but expecting excellent results.
3. Forgetting to emphasize the unique selling proposition of your business. 
4. Omitting (or hiding) prices if they are critical to the reader’s decision-making. 
5. Printing too many brochures with details that date too quickly. 
6. Giving insufficient thought to how the brochure should best be distributed. 
7. Using text on the brochure that is too small to read easily. 
8. Including poor-quality or inappropriate illustrations. 
9. Allowing a fussy or complex design to distract from the key selling message. 
10. Forgetting to monitor the response (as with any other type of advertising).

8 tips to help you turn an underperforming landing page into a star player.

Here are 8 tips to help you turn an underperforming landing page into a star player.

1. Create a unique landing page. The first rule of thumb for PPC campaigns is: NEVER send your PPC campaigns to your home page, NEVER. Got that, NEVER! (Pardon the all caps, people.) By itself, your home page isn’t designed to convert. Its primary purpose is to be a brand entry point and navigational hub for your website. Depending on your conversion goal for your unique landing page, your landing page should provide users with the most direct path to the conversion event, whether it’s a page view, click-through or form submit.

2. Capture attention. The headline is the first thing visitors will see when they come to your landing page. So it’s important that the headline capture attention by stating clearly why your visitor should continue reading, scanning and viewing the page rather than exiting your site. Adding a subhead can help provide further clarity and give you another chance to hook your visitor into wanting to learn more or take the next step in engaging with your company.

3. Don’t just pick pretty images – make sure they support content. Many companies blow it when it comes to images on their landing pages. They pick a generic business image or one that the web designer personally likes. Instead, the image should work with the content to tell a story. You need to think about how that image helps convert and less about the artistic merits of the graphic.

4. Know your target audience. Most organizations think they have a pretty good understanding of their target audience. But how many of them have really taken the time to really get to know their target audience’s challenges, their decision criteria and their perceptions of your products or services – by actually talking to a few prospects or customers? By building buyer personas, organizations can finally connect with what really matters to their target audience, how best to reach them with the right messages, and how to overcome resistance and turn a suspect into a prospect.

5.  Don’t let your landing page be the online equivalent of the boring, self-absorbed guy who talks endlessly about himself at the party. Keep your audience in mind. What do they care about? What trends or case studies would they be interested in viewing or reading? Your content needs to address exactly what matters to your audience. Whether it’s in the form of a video or text, your landing page’s content is your golden opportunity to convince prospects, in a clear and concise way, the reasons why they should engage with you. Also, your landing page should have a single goal or call to action, so keep all of your copy on track with that objective in mind.

6. Don’t forget the next step. The call-to-action is what you want the user to do on the landing page, whether that action is to purchase, to sign up, to download – or even call a phone number. Often, the call-to-action is placed on a graphical submit button. You can also use hyperlinks within the copy to give visitors – who aren’t quite ready to respond to your offer – some valid alternatives to engage with additional content and keep them moving along in the buying process.

7. Establish credibility from the get-go. Any good relationship – even an online one – must be built based on trust. Your landing page is no different. In order to keep your visitors reading or viewing your content on your website or filling out a brief form, you must establish credibility with your visitors immediately. Client testimonials, guarantees, trust or security icons, and placement of privacy statements are ways that you can build trust and credibility with visitors right away. Be careful not to overdo it, though. Too much bragging and boasting or guarantees might have the opposite effect of triggering doubts in visitors’ minds.

8.  Test, test again, and test some more. You may have created a great landing page, but are you sure that it will convert – or convert better than sending visitors to your home page (It had better!)? The fact is, you will never know until you test it.  Don’t set it (your landing page) and forget about it. Instead, use your favorite testing tool – Google Conversion Optimizer (free), Visual Website Optimizer, and Unbounce, to name a few – to perform split tests, A/B tests, multivariate tests and more on your landing page(s). If you do, you will gather the intelligence needed to tweak your landing pages and improve conversions.

So what do you test? The answer is anything and everything. It depends on which variables are present and what action you are trying to get your visitor to take on your landing page.  It might be you want to test the headline, the content, the calls to action, or the images and layout.  Check out Scott’s conversion optimization guide for a more complete list.

SEO Myth Exposed

By David Jackson in Featured

With so much misinformation about SEO having been dispensed over the years, it’s hard to know what’s true and isn’t true – making it all the more difficult to separate the proverbial wheat from the chaff, as it were. Concerned about the potential harm misinformation about SEO can ultimately cause, I decided to compile an alphabetical listing of the most popular and persistent SEO myths, to either debunk or confirm their factuality.

 1. AdwordsSince the arrival of Google Adwords, there has been an ongoing debate over whether or not running an Adwords campaign can improve search engine rankings. Ultimately, only Google knows the answer to that question for sure. However, to my knowledge, there is no credible evidence to support the notion that Adwords can improve your search engine ranking. If there were indeed concrete evidence to the contrary, it stands to reason, everyone would just start an Adwords campaign to boost their rankings.

2. Anchor Text

Although it can be other colors, anchor text is typically the blue, hyperlinked text you see on a web page – the words that you click onto take you to another page. For example:

free marketing tips

Okay, but is anchor text important? Yes, it is because it’s a crucial element in the search engines complex algorithmic formula that helps determine the rankings of websites.

For example, suppose you have a blog that reviews digital camera’s; the more links you have with the words “digital camera reviews” in your anchor text, the greater your chances of increasing your ranking for the keywords digital camera reviews.

3. Alt Tags

Alt tags are used to display a short text description of an image. It gets displayed when you hover your mouse over the graphic. But are Alt tags an important part of SEO?

It depends on whom you ask. Some experts dismiss the importance of Alt tags altogether, while others tout its importance. Personally, I used to lean in the direction of “not important,” until I read a couple of outstanding articles that made me rethink my position.

SEO expert Bill Hartzer makes a strong argument for the use of Alt tags. In his article, Search Engine Optimization: Why Image Alt Tags are Important.

“There is strong evidence that the search engines are now giving more weight to Alt Tags than they are the Title Tag or even an H1 Tag on the page. What?!? Yes, that’s right. You do need to make sure you use proper Title Tags and H1 Tags, but more SEO value for organic search engine rankings can be gained by using proper Alt Tags than using proper Title Tags or H1 Tags.”

And in his article, Why You Need to Stop Ignoring Image Alt Attributes, AJ Wilcox of OrangeSoda.commakes a compelling common sense argument:

“Keyword usage in image alt text is classified as having minimal importance by a consortium of SEO experts, but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless. It is yet another opportunity to declare your relevance to your given keyword. The little things add up to big things together, so don’t ignore them.”

I agree with AJ. A lot of little things in combination do indeed add up to big things.

4. FFA Pages

FFA is an acronym for “Free-For All.” Here’s an example of an FFA page:

In a nutshell, FFAs are basically web pages of worthless links where anyone can submit their website’s URL for free (hence the term Free-For-All). One of the biggest and oldest SEO myths is, if you post your website’s URL on FFA pages, you will get massive traffic, as well increase your link popularity and search engine ranking. Here’s the truth: People who visit FFA pages do so only to post their own ads – not look at someone else’s. And any traffic you do get will be completely worthless!

In addition, FFA pages are considered both spammy and scammy, and posting on them could adversely affect your website’s reputation with the search engines – which could in fact hurt your ranking – or even get you banned. Why? Because in essence, FFA pages are nothing but link farms – and you know what Google thinks of link farms.

My advice: RUN, DON’T WALK away from FFA pages!

5. Header Tags

Header tags, for example H1, H2 are standard HTML elements used to define headings and subheadings on a web page.

Are they important? To my knowledge, there is no credible evidence to suggest that header tags have an effect on search engine rankings one way or the other. My advice: If you’re currently using header tags, continue using them if you wish. If you’re not using them, don’t worry about it.

6. Keyword Density

Question: What is the correct density of keywords on a web page?

Answer: There isn’t one.

Yes, I know this topic has been debated back and forth, but personally, I don’t think keyword density even exists as a calculable numeric constant. In other words, don’t worry about the correct keyword density. And don’t worry about counting keywords. Just create your web pages naturally, without trying to force or stuff keywords where they don’t belong. Then, let the proverbial chips fall where they may.

7. Keywords in Domain Name

Do keywords in a domain name help your ranking?

Based on my own personal experience, yes, having your primary keywords in your domain name does help with your ranking. To what degree, however, only Google knows the answer to that. But since Google uses over 200 signals to determine the ranking of websites, I can’t imagine keywords in your domain name not carrying some amount of weight.

8. Meta-Tags

A meta-tag is the HTML coding that describes the contents of a web page.

Opinions vary on the importance of meta-tags, but in my opinion, they’re not nearly as important as they once were. They don’t have a significant impact on your rankings one way or the other. That being said, if you want to use them, it certainly won’t hurt anything – provided you don’t abuse them (i.e., keyword stuffing).

9. Nofollow Links

As you already know, Google doesn’t count “Nofollow” links, right? Wrong. Google looks suspiciously at sites that have an unbalanced ratio of Dofollow links to Nofollow. Why? Because it’s an unnatural linking pattern that’s why. It’s also a huge red flag! Google prefers a healthy combination of both Dofollow and Nofollow links. So contrary to popular belief, Nofollow links do add to a site’s overall link profile, and has the ability to rank for keyword phrases. And while Nofollow doesn’t influence PageRank or pass link juice, it does contribute to your overall search engine ranking.

10. PageRank (PR)

Is PageRank important? One of the most controversial, misunderstood, confusing and debated topics in the SEO universe is the importance of PageRank.

However, in my not-so-humble opinion, Google’s 0-10 logarithmic toolbar PageRank is nothing more than a “superficial beauty contest” vanity tool – very much out-of-date, and does NOT have a direct impact on a site’s ranking. That fact was established long ago.

I’m going to say this as succinctly as I possibly can: Toolbar Pagerank Is Not An Accurate Representation Of A Website’s True Reputation With Google. In fact, if you do a little research, you’ll discover lower-PR URL’s consistently rank higher than higher-PR URL’s in Google’s SERP’s (search engine results pages). Therefore, the only page rank you should be concerned about that has any significant importance, is where your web pages rank in Google’s SERP’s.

Does toolbar PageRank have any importance at all? Yes, it has some…just not as much as many perceive it to have.

11. Reciprocal Links

Yes, reciprocal linking is an important part of SEO, but all links are not created equal. Achieving a high search engine ranking depends not only on the number, but also the quality of inbound links you have pointing to your site. For example, if your website does movie reviews, exchanging links with Betty’s Homemade Fudge won’t do you nearly as much good as exchanging links with a site that is thematically related to yours. So if you exchange links with other sites, be sure to keep relevancy in mind.

12. Site Maps

A sitemap is a collection of hyperlinks that outlines a website’s structure. These links make it easier for visitors to navigate their way around your site, as well as make it easier for search engine spiders to crawl your site.

But do they have any SEO importance? Not really. A few years back, I thought they did. But recent experience has taught me sitemaps have no direct impact on search engine rankings.

13. The Open Directory Project (DMOZ)

Is getting a backlink from DMOZ still important? With the arrival of mega-popular social media sites, as well other types of high quality websites and blogs, DMOZ is not nearly as important or respected as it once was. Personally, I think your time would be better served trying to acquire high-quality backlinks from other sources.

Does that mean you shouldn’t waste your time submitting to DMOZ? No, it doesn’t. Since it only takes a few minutes to submit your site, I see no harm in submitting to DMOZ. But be advised, it can take up to a year or more to get your site approved – and it might not get approved at all. So I wouldn’t lose any sleep worrying about getting your site listed in DMOZ.

My advice: Simply submit your site and forget it!

14. Title Tag

The title tag is a critically important factor in achieving high search engine rankings. For those of you who don’t know what a title tag is, it’s the words displayed at the very top of your browser. It is also used as the title of your website in the SERP’s (search engine results pages). Therefore, you should put plenty of thought into writing your title tag – to make sure it’s as effective as possible. Your title-tag should also contain specific keyword phrases, in addition to the name of your company.

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David Jackson is a marketing consultant, and the owner of Free-Marketing-Tips-Blog.com – Powerful,free marketing tips to help grow your business! http://free-marketing-tips-blog.com