MKLINK
Website Tips Newsletter
Commission Based Internet Marketing. You only pay on Results.
Thursday 26th January
2006 - Issue 4
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Hello again and welcome to our shortened and more focused Newsletter.
In this issue we’re just focusing on the 2 most important aspects of your online business ...
1.
Traffic Generation Tips
Search Engine marketing-Optimizing your website
2. Convert more of your visitors to Sales/Leads
Creating site navigation that leads visitors to take action
3. News & Feedback
Have your Say
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Search Engine Marketing-Optimising your website
“In essence this is the art of creating a search engine friendly site that can be easily picked up by the search engines as being a site worth looking at”
This starts with good copy. The trick to optimizing your copy is firstly to ascertain your target market's most frequently used keywords(using software like Wordtracker) and then inserting these into the relevant places within the copy - without comprimising the content or readability.
A few questions to consider... What are the right places? What should the word count for my pages be? What if you want to try different keywords?
Word count:
Surprisingly, you can reach the top of the search engines with a word
count of between 100 to 1000. Either side of these limits makes no readable
sense - either for your visitors or the search engines.
Targeting multiple keywords: A rule of thumb here is to only aim for
one keyword per page - otherwise you'll be comprimising their value.
For example - categorise a fishing tackle site into pages for sea fishing tackle,
freshwater fishing tackle etc. Within these sections you can then target more
specific phrases such as 'Deep Sea Fishing Tackle' or 'Second-Hand Freshwater
Fishing Tackle' and be quite specific.
Keyword
Placement: You should make your headings and links keyword-specific
if possible. That is to say for link to the Second-Hand fishing Page - make
the link say what the page contains - rather than 'Click Here' for example.
This same technique should be used on the other key areas of the site - the
HEADING and the FIRST paragraph of each page.
Keyword Repetition: It is important not to use too much repetition
of keywords otherwise you'll be seen as spamming and lose position. Go for a
keyword density of between 1.5% and 2.5%. This means that if you have 400 words
on the page and the keyword appears 6 times, this is a density of 1.5% . Don't
be too fussy just bear this in mind when writing your copy.
Click here for more information...
2 - Convert more of your visitors into Sales/Leads:
Creating
site navigation that leads visitors to take action
“You
lose visitors with every extra click”
Navigation is one of the biggest problem areas for website owners. Most sites are built without thinking about the sales process.
Sketch out your Navigation with pencil and paper first. Because a website is different to a book and a visitor can come in on any one of a number of sites, these web pages can become a tangled mess if not well planned.
This process is best done with a good old fashioned pencil and paper or flip chart.
Start by creating a list of all the things your site will include. Don’t worry at this stage about whether these are logical or ordered, just ensure your list is complete. Now you have the list it’s time to decide what the navigation of your homepage will look like as these in most cases will be where your visitors start.
Next, draw out your homepage with each link to a new page; draw new pages on a separate piece of paper. Once this is done you should then be able to lay all of the sheets out on the floor or tape them to a wall in a triangle, with your homepage at the top. This is called a SITE-MAP.
Now, pretend you’re a visitor. Simply try navigating from one page to another. Is it easy or hard? Then have other people try it. Do they struggle?
Mapping out your navigation like this prior to building it or updating will help you catch issues with navigation before they become a serious problem.
You lose Visitors with every extra Click
The focus at this point should be to minimize the number of clicks your visitors will have to make to accomplish the main goals of the site. Web surfers are an impatient lot and and are always one click away from leaving, so you must not assume they will take any extra trouble to seek out your information or latest offer.
At any time you ask your visitor to click on a link, you risk losing them. In fact studies have shown that you can expect between 30% to 60% of your visitors to drop off at each click! So instead of having a link on each page of your site leading to a separate page with an opt in form for your newsletter why not place the form itself on each page. Remember, one less click means losing fewer subscribers.
Avoid adding unnecessary layers to your site
The further a visitor has to dig into your site, the less likely they‘ll complete the action(GOAL) you want them to take. Splash pages or entry pages often have a negative effect on sales or lead generation. So, why have your products buried on a separate page or layer when they can be featured on your home page?
Sites selling less than 10 products
Sites that sell a single or just a hand full of products should have very simple navigation. Your links should just consist of the standard pages visitors expect such as FAQ's, Privacy Statement, Terms and conditions, about us, Contact us, opt in offer.
All the product links can be on the home page and take the visitor straight through to the relevant information. This is much more direct than having a link that says “Products” and forcing the user to click one layer down to find the information they want.
Sites selling more than 10 products
Here, the tendency
is to bury the products too many levels away from the user. It’s a good
idea to group these into a hierarchy of categories.
For instance, if you sell radiators you can group these into Bathroom/Towel
radiators, Modern Radiators, Classic Radiators and Funky Radiators….etc.
Researchers have found that there are two main types of shoppers on the net: the browsers, who like to explore by clicking the links that take them deeper into the site, and the searchers, who prefer to hone in on the keyword they’re looking for. If you can add a search function to let the customer look for specific items you’ll keep both types of shoppers happy.
Sites selling a service
Service sites are about the most straightforward to design and plot out because you can avoid complicated catalogues. Very often the most effective type of site to sell a service is to have a sale letter right on your homepage, where you can start selling the benefits of the service you provide straight away with no extra layers to complicate the message.
If you’ve
found this information useful and want to find out how you can improve the conversion
rate of your site why not look at our website Health check report and find out
how many others have benefited from having us carry this out.
Click here for
further Info...
3. News & Feedback
Have your Say
Now you can have your say! Checkout the forum at www.mklink.com/forum In addition, we will be adding views and questions you send us at the end of this newsletter. Click here to ask us a question or express a view
For
help or further information about these articles - click here.
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