Last month you had a chance to hear the world’s leading online marketing luminaries at MNSearch Summit. A full-day seminar held on June 27th 2014, it drew experts in online search, social and digital marketing from all over the USA.
If you couldn’t make it in person, here are some excerpts from the presentations that will help with your endeavours.
Landing Page Optimisation
Landing page guru Brooke Furry stressed the necessity of continuity from search engine to landing page in what she called a ‘scent trail’. “If you give me cause to pause, I might not convert,” she said.
Oli Gardner spoke of the need to maximise your conversion rate by removing all extraneous features from your pages. These include social media links and navigation buttons. Anything that distracts from your visitors performing your intended action should be ruthlessly cut.
He also spoke of the importance of the ‘Attention Ratio. This is the ratio between your page goals (which ideally should be just one – sign up for a newsletter, make a purchase, watch a video etc) and the various elements on the page.
These elements represent confusing choices and should be minimised to help your user towards your main goal and thus boost your conversion rate. Clarity should be your driving ideal with credibility a close second.
In the same way, sites with more than one goal or key performance indicator should contain separate landing pages for each one. This was you can create an authentic experience for visitors that carries on the emotion that made them click on your listing in the SERPs.
Content
Content maven Alexis Hall maintained that questions of sharing should be considered even before content was created. You need to ask the key question “Who will share and amplify this and why?” she said. In other words, you need a clear picture of your target market before trying to communicate with them.
Eliza Steely pointed out that users share out of the need for involvement, to educate others or to define themselves. For this reason, you need to create content to help them achieve these goals.
Social Media Marketing
Emily Bacheller said that social media was a discovery tool in contrast to search which was a validation tool. This suggests that buyers get leads from social media and then use search for confirmation. Be sure to spend time building an active social community around your brand or offering and have your site setup with the content needed to answer all potential buyer questions.
If you missed this year’s event, there’s always next year. Meanwhile to see how Smart SEO can help you improve your rankings and online commerce, get in touch today for a free, no obligation, consultation.
