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7 Best Tips to Create Landing Pages for PPC Campaigns

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:53:34 +0000

Guest article by Gagandeep.
Landing Pages are one of the most important part of your PPC (pay-per-click) campaign as it would be the first page which a user sees on your website after clicking your ad. Well designed landing pages can increase your conversion rate and make your PPC campaign more effective.

The success and failure of your PPC Campaign depends completely on the success and failure of Landing pages. In this article I would be discussing few tips which you can implement to make better landing pages for your PPC Campaign.

1. Compelling Headline: – Your landing page should contain an attention grabbing headline as it is the first thing a user sees on your landing page. Your headline should speak what your users want to hear. For eg:- If your user want to lose weight, your headline could be “ how to lose 20 pounds in 1 week”. Make your headline strong and bold so that it can stand out from the rest of the page.

2. Highly Relevant Content: - Your landing page should be relevant to your ads. It should contain similar title, description and keywords you are using in your ad copy. For e.g. – If you are talking about Blue Nike Shoes in your ad copy then your landing page should also talk about Blue Nike Shoes. Create separate customized pages for each offer. The traffic you gets from PPC campaign looks for specific thing only, and if they don’t find your landing page relevant to the ad they had clicked, they would go away.

3. Unique and Useful Content: – Your landing page should contain unique and useful content. Don’t fill your landing page with tones of information because nobody has time to read it till end. Content should answer the questions of your customers and tell them about the product. Information on your landing page should be in the inverted pyramid structure. The conclusion and most important points should be at the top and less supportive information should be at the bottom.

4. Clear Call to Action Link: – The main purpose of your landing page is to encourage visitors you get from your PPC campaign to take the desired action like buying a product or giving information so that you can attain your own goal. The call to action link like “Click Here” or “Buy Now” should be above the fold i.e. it should be easily visible to the visitor without scrolling the page.

5. Use Images: – Images speak more than words. Use relevant images describing your product and offers so that your visitors can get a clear idea about the product they will get after buying.

6. Minimal Navigation: - Remove the navigational links from your landing page which can distract the user’s mind. By removing the navigational links you can control the content on your landing pages which you want your users to see. It would help you to create a suitable environment in which your user can take the decision easily.

7. Analyze Results: - Create multiple landing pages for the same offer and analyze which pages convert better as compared to others. These tests would help you to know which things work better so that you can improve them more to increase your conversion rate.

Gagandeep Singh is a freelance writer and writes mainly on Internet Marketing, Landing Page Design and optimization, SEO, Web2.0 and Affiliate Marketing. You can write a guest article and share your expertise with our readers.

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Local Search Advertising: New Dimension For Small Businesses

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 17:15:50 +0000

Guest Post by Donny Gamble
A couple of years ago, local search advertising was defined as online search advertising which is made through mapping websites, local internet yellow pages, local search engines, and classified ads websites. The purpose of conducting a local online search is to rely on information collected from online sources to execute an offline transaction.

This type of search is extremely important for small entrepreneurs and small businesses. This is simply because it is almost free as it only requires a small budget to make a successful advertising campaign. The small business only seeks customers and potential clients locally and from surrounding areas. This process is also cheaper from all other types of local advertising as newspapers and media advertising like TV and radio commercials.

Image credit: Cartoon Church

Some small businesses do search engine marketing by themselves, and some outsource this operation by professional and specialized third parties. They later achieve more successful and efficient results as it is a simple process, but needs experience and knowledge of the market variables like economical conditions and customers’ trends.

Local Advertising Benefits

1. Local search advertising is based on the IP to deliver local search results. When a customer searches for a general term like “lawyer”, the search engine delivers local and non-local ads’ results, which will benefit the searcher in both cases. IP targeting search results are not perfect, but serve as required and in most times they are sufficient enough for the searchers. This is of a great advantage for advertisers like small businesses, as it will help them achieve more customers when local customers conduct online searches.

2. Local search advertising can give you the option to target customers within a specific area, like a region, a state, a city, a town, a county, or a small neighborhood. You can specify a point on the map and then target all customers from 50 or 100 miles in every direction of that point. Local search can turn up to be international advertising or exclusive to a couple of countries. The options here are unlimited as you can target more than one area with the same ad.

3. Pay per click and classified ads are the most common two methods of conducting and executing local advertising campaigns. Major search engines like Google and Yahoo are specialized in providing advertisers with hundreds of options to publish their advertising campaigns locally and globally. Craiglist is considered to be the biggest classified ads website on the web and most of the ads are for local users only.

Donny Gamble writes a blog about creating wealth by combining Internet Marketing with Network Marketing and explains why every Internet marketer should have an MLM business. You can also share your tips and write a guest article here.

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Google HiStory Video

QuickOnlineTips — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 20:15:39 +0000

Have you seen this Google Story video which quickly tracks the Google history over the last 11 years from Stanford to Mountain View and around the world, featuring different products, starting with BackRub (Search) up to Google Wave, StreetView and Chrome.

Looking for more details on Google History? Read the key milestones in Google’s development and how Google started in a garage and reached the browser of every web user. You can also view the Google Timeline for an interactive version of Google company history.

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5 Out-of-the-Box Keyword List Strategies That Work

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 11:33:01 +0000

Guest Article by Edward Khoo
There are dozens of keyword selection “strategies.” All you have to do is Google keyword strategies to get 50,100,000 search results the day of this writing. That is over 50 million hits on a very narrow, industry-specific subject, but it makes a good point.

Anybody – everybody – working in the web space, from site owners to W3 marketing gurus, has a theory about keyword selection. The diversity of opinions offers up another point: there is no one way to select the perfect set of keywords.

The fact is, keyword optimization is more art than science. However, by using several helpful tools you can gather empirical data, test the results for your site and tweak your keyword list to increase site traffic and, simultaneously, deliver a more highly-qualified buyer – knowledgeable, motivated to find a solution and willing to pay for that solution.

The solution you sell.

Image via davidkjelkerud

1. Start with your own industry / business knowledge.

First, trust your instincts. What keywords would you enter into a search box? You know the insider jargon, you know your target market, you know your products or services so start with a list of the search words you’d use.

But don’t stop there. Remember, you bring a bias to the search. You already know the lingo. So, your intuitive keyword list brings with it a bias. Same with lists developed by other knowledgeable executives in your company. Even so, these keyword lists provide a foundation for finessing a keyword list over time.

2. Test your list of intuitive keywords.

I like Google’s keyword generator for a couple of reasons.

First, Google controls the largest share of the search market so why not go with the 600-lb gorilla. Second, Google’s keyword generator delivers empirical data – the actual usage figures of Google users over the past 30 days.

Enter your URL and intuitive keywords into Google’s keyword tool and click check. One of three results will be immediately evident:

- Your intuition is correct. Keywords you selected are popular search words.

- Your intuition is incorrect. Your search terms are too sector- or B2B-specific and, as a result, the search terms don’t drive much traffic.

- Or, the most likely result – the affirmation that some of your keywords are on target with SE users, some aren’t and, happily, you’ll discover additional keywords used by searchers. Happy surprises that you might not have considered.

3. Test the strength of each keyword.

If you operate in a commercial sector that crosses numerous business and industries, Google will hand you a list of a few thousand keywords used by its patrons. Narrowing the list down is a crucial part of the development of an effective list of 10-15 keywords.

There are a couple of ways I test the strength of a keyword to deliver good SERPs for my client. First, I use a term extractor, available for use (free) on SEOmoz.org. This tool identifies strong keywords on an existing site that’s been indexed properly by search engines. A quick examination of the results of term extraction always reveals some interesting data.

Example: I had a client that provides hearing aid advice online. The site offered a free consumer download, articles, product reviews and other helpful information for people conducting research on an upcoming hearing aid purchase.

The site owner, intuitively, selected hearing aids as his primary keyword but couldn’t understand why his bounce rate was over 80%. Well, hearing aids, when extracted, proved to be a strong keyword. The problem was, the site didn’t sell hearing aids – the objective of a SE user querying “hearing aids.” No hearing aids for sale? Bounce to the next site.

A simple adjustment to this client’s keyword list in the site’s meta, alt and title tags and playing down the keyword hearing aids in the site’s corpus did the trick. The client’s bounce rate dropped to 40% in a matter of weeks.

Use a term extraction tool to identify which keywords and phrases are strong with search engines. You’re almost certain to be surprised at the results.

4. Calculate the “pull” of a given keyword.

I use SpyFu, a very useful tool in determining the effectiveness of any keyword.

The software is actually an AdWords metrics tool that identifies bidding ranges of given keywords for AdWords placement. Of course, I use SpyFu to help my clients get a bigger bang for their AdWords buck, but it’s also a great tool for determining the effectiveness of a keyword – even if you don’t use PPC advertising.

AdWords functions much like a stock market with investors bidding up the price of keywords, just as investors bid up the price of stocks. SpyFu shows me the range of bids for a keyword. And if AdWords users keep that keyword at $1.27 a click, well, I know that’s a keyword that pulls and more than pays for itself at $1.27 per click.

Conversely, when SpyFu identifies a low cost AdWords keyword – six cents per click (see chart), for instance, I know it’s not popular, I know it doesn’t pull but I don’t necessarily cross it off the list. Here’s why.

5. Use lower-ranking keywords to beat higher ranking competition.

If you’re just launching a new site, if you’ve just added several sub-domains that don’t show up on SERPs, or if you’ve made significant changes to your business or revenue model, you can often upend deep pockets competitors by using lower-ranking keywords.

Let’s say you own a small site that sells digital cameras and accessories. You’re in a highly-competitive market sector up against the likes of Amazon, Best Buy, J&R and other well-known, branded names. So, a search of “digital cameras” reveals that your little site is on page 34 of SERPs, and when was the last time you drilled down 34 pages searching for anything?

Using the identical keywords that deep-pockets, well-known competitors use will bury you. BUT, if you deploy lesser-used keywords, for example “digital cameras real cheap,” you won’t see as many SE users entering those particular keywords, but those who do will see your site at the top of page one of Google’s SERPs. Why? Because the heavy hitters aren’t using those long-tail keywords. Once again, before you opt for a long-tail, test it on all major search engines: Google, Yahoo!, Bing and Inktomi.

Also, run that long-tail through an AdWords metrics generator. This will enable you to uncover strong terms that aren’t being used, even by stronger sites. Look for keywords that haven’t been bid up in price but still pull a good quantity of traffic each day. This eliminates the stronger competitors.

Check out the spread sheet showing keywords and prices for digital cameras. I’ve highlighted popular search terms that haven’t been “discovered” by the competition because the AdWords bid price is comparatively low. Consider :

1. Using these less popular keywords as your primary search terms or

2. Add the most promising candidates to your existing list and incorporate them in your site’s meta data, description tag, alt tags and title tags where appropriate.

One last piece of advice: keyword list refinement is an ongoing process. It’s not something you do once and forget about it. Use tools like Google’s keyword generator, SpyFu and other AdWords metrics analyzers to determine the best list for your site – a list of keywords that pulls, but also isn’t used by more powerful competitors.

Then, as your business grows, you can add more of the most-used keywords and go head-to-head with the cost-cutting big box stores. That day will come a lot sooner if you select the strongest keywords for your site.

This guest article was written by Edward Khoo, a full time blogger from Malaysia. You can also write a guest article and share your tips and tricks with our readers.

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Why Does Google Front Page Show a Barcode?

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 16:51:50 +0000

Have you checked out the Google front page today? The Google logo is replaced by a barcode! Is this a new Google doodle? Click on the barcode and it leads you to these results.

Google is celebrating the 57th anniversary of the first patent on the bar code. And any barcode reader will probably read the above code as Google!

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15 Best Tips, Tricks, Strategy for Monopoly City Streets

QuickOnlineTips — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 16:51:08 +0000

Here are some best tips, tricks, tactics and strategy moves for playing the Monopoly City Streets game. Follow these practical tactics and rise on the Monopoly City Streets Leaderboard quickly. I have been addicted to the game since it started. Here are some quick tips to succeed….

1. Buy extra long streets - Buy super long streets above M$5 million as they are the best way to make more money on Monopoly City Streets. Longer streets are expensive, but have higher rents values. Moreover, you can build a huge amount of property than smaller streets, and earn a really huge rental. Buy the longest streets you can afford, get lots of real estate on the street and see the rent accumulate rapidly. There are many $10 Million streets out on the highways, find them now – zoom out and look for the red “for sale” signs.

2. Small buildings earn more rent - How do you decide which building to build? Have you seen why so many players build so many small houses instead of big buildings? Firstly, the multiple small houses pay a better rent than one building of the same value e.g. the smallest house costs $50000 and also earns a rent of $50000, while a huge million dollar building will cost much more and give much lesser rental. Secondly, many people try to block all placements on their street so no one can put hazard buildings on their street. So what is the disadvantage? Your streets earning potential is limited as smaller buildings give less rent. As you grow richer, sell these houses and replace with more expensive buildings to increase rent.

3. Don’t sell sabotaged streets - So you login and find your street is sabotaged with a hazard building. Don’t worry and keep expanding your network, maybe even build more. Don’t panic and sell the street for a really low price, just because it makes no rent. Just by chance, a demolish chance card may come along , and make your street high rental back again, or simply place a bonus building and the effect is nullified.

4. Buy 5 streets – Don’t just stick with very few streets. If you have 1-2 long streets, with hundreds of buildings which earn a huge rental, and you get a hazard building, all your rental stops. If you have several high paying streets, at least most of the rental continues, and you have a better chance to stay active and get chance cards, till you free the street. But dont buy more than 5 streets as tax starts after that at rate of 3% per street. So if you buy 38 streets, your rental is zero! Buy upto 5 streets and pay no tax.

5. Put more bonus buildings on special streets – Instead of scattering all your bonus buildings on multiple streets, secure your highest earning street with multiple bonus buildings. Players will never waste their demolish cards destroying multiple bonus buildings, and then getting a sabotage building in place, unless you have made real enemies with them. More bonus buildings discourages people and send them finding some other street.

6. Keep low profile - No one cares you build your empire in the heart of the most populated city or on the outskirts of a lonely city no one ever heard about. Its the long streets and properties which matter. And if you can quietly develop your empire, and save it with bonus buildings, and keep getting the huge rents without getting sabotaged with hazard buildings you will rise very fast. So keep a low profile and don’t fight for that street in front of your house. Its great to rise on the local leaderboard with only a few players, and while you make it to the national leaderboard, you are way ahead.

6. Don’t make enemies – How will you react if someone sabotaged your most pricey rent street with a hazard building? I am sure you would retaliate and sabotage all their streets given the first chance. You have an option to discard (not use) a sabotage card if you get one. So think twice before using a hazard card – don’t make unnecessary enemies. Just as you got this card, they will too. But if you are going to do it, spot your competitors on the leaderboard and get them. Why not make friends and rise together.

7. Build more houses – If you observe closely, the huge rental income comes from the property you build on it. Simply buying a street does not give you any great income. The more you property you build, the more the property value rises, more rent you get and more your net worth becomes. As space on you street gets limited, you can sell cheaper buildings and put more expensive buildings to increase street rental. So the longer street you have, the more it can earn.

8. Pay no tax - There is no sense in accumulating needless streets. Only keep and build on your select great streets. Once you cross 5 streets, you have to pay 3% tax per street. So if you have 38 streets, you pay 100% tax which makes you no rental income. Stick to 5 streets and pay no tax.

9. Follow top players - Learn what the top players on the winners ladders are doing and how they make those millions so easily. See how they have so few streets, so much property, all the Chance cards they need, and how they keep rising on the charts. Follow them and learn from them. See which streets they just sold and which players they are spying – you could get a good deal.

10. Login every day – You get rent only if you login daily. No login, no rent for the day. So losing the precious millions of monopoly dollars simply because you did not login, is a total waste of money and a sure chance to fall from the leaderboard. Even if you dont play, but simply keep logging in, your streets will keep earning huge rental. Be warned that if you forget to login for 2 weeks, all your streets are gone!

11. Fill up streets – Don’t leave any empty space on your street, instead fill it up with houses. People with hazard cards, will first need a demolish card to remove a building to create space, then place a hazard building. If your street is full, they will go elsewhere. If you have a long street, you can fill with cheaper houses.

12. Find inactive players – Find players who have low activity and bid to buy their expensive streets. The rule is if they do not respond to your request in 7 days, you win the street however ridiculous the price! Once you find low activity players with long streets, send your request – and you might just get them. Add them to your spy list. There are many players losing interest and the smart players are watching.

13. Add bonus buildings on sabotaged streets - So your street is sabotaged with a hazard building and stops earning rent. Don’t keep waiting for a demolish card to remove the hazard! Instead place a bonus building on the sabotaged street, and the the rent starts even with the hazard building still there!

14. Get more chance cards - Although it is still not clear how Monopoly City players get more chance cards, here are a few things which worked for me - Place buildings at streets ends, place lots of buildings on streets, place clustered buildings at intersections, show lots of activity which increases your chances of getting chance cards.

15 Demolish competitors bonus buildings - So you want to stop your competitor, but they have bonus buildings on the street. Did you know you can demolish these bonus buildings too and make their most costly street vulnerable to hazards. Once any street is vulnerable, anyone can sabotage it. So do they have multiple bonus buildings? Keep reducing their number, and eventually you or some other competitor might sabotage it eventually.

And here is the most important tip -

16. Have fun - Don’t be afraid to sell your worse streets and bid to buy better streets. The game of monopoly is not about sitting on long streets and grabbing rent, its about trading and playing the game to have fun. If you are earning millions, but not enjoying the game – then you need to sit up, trade, make friends, sabotage streets, spy more and get more active and actually enjoy the game – after thats what it is all about – FUN!

What are your favorite strategies in Monopoly City Streets? Post in comments.

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Secret Ninja Mode in Google Reader

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:14:51 +0000

I use Google Reader for RSS reading daily and today stumbled upon this easter egg called Ninja mode that causes Ninjas to appear in the sidebar and hearts to bloom and break in Google Reader.

Matt Cutts from Google reveals this easter egg in the video below and you can try the secret code and enjoy it. I know most QOT readers use Google reader, so if you are reading this in Google Reader right now, see the video and test the magic for yourself.

In case you did not catch that video, in Google Reader press following keys in this order – Up arrow, Up arrow, Down arrow, Down arrow, Left arrow, Right arrow, Left arrow, Right arrow, B key, and lastly A key. See the Ninja! Break a heart!

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Keywords Meta Tag Useless for Google SEO

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 17:46:43 +0000

How often do you stuff keywords on the META keywords tag on your html pages? Now Google officially says that Googlebot pays no consideration of META keywords tag for your search engine rankings.

This is how typically a meta keywords tag would look like

Matt Cutts, the famous Google engineer clarified the issue which often confuses webmasters and SEO experts. Now we have an official word from Google that Keywords Meta Tag are not used at all!

Next time some SEO article tries to convince you optimize the meta keywords tag, remember Googlebot will not even bother to index and interpret those keywords, but rather extract keywords from your content.

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Monopoly City Streets Restarts: Grab New Streets First

QuickOnlineTips — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 09:04:24 +0000

Now is the time to buy streets on Monopoly City Streets, as the addictive game has been reset and restarted. A lot of new streets are up for grabs and new rules now ensure fair play.

Some of the key new rules which will make the game more interesting, ensure only active players stay in the game and there is low cheating are

1. Streets can be bought or sold only once per day – so now there can be no sudden inflation of prices and cheating via multiple accounts.

2. “For Sale” signs – now it is easy to find which new streets are available for purchase from the bank without negotiation and for instant buy.

3. Pay Tax – Only the first 5 streets that you own are tax-free. If you own more streets, the more tax you pay at the rate of 3% per street. So if you own 25 streets your tax will be 60%! Now people will choose and retain property which they actually need. So you will find more empty streets for sale now, making the game more interesting to attract new players.

4. Street Protection Gone – Streets will no longer be protected from hazards when they are included in negotiations.

5. Don’t play 2 weeks – Bank Gets ALL your streets – If there is not activity for 2 weeks on your account, your streets are gone. This is the best way to keep the game live and only keep active players into the game.

6 Login daily to get rent - The best way to earn monopoly money is via rent. If you don’t login, your rent for the day is gone. This will really keep people active in the game and the negotiations will also proceed faster. Now people no longer wait for 1 week for the seller to accept or reject the deal due to inactivity – if they login, they see the deal.

What are you waiting for – rush out there and buy your streets before they are sold out. I missed 3 streets before as soon as I pressed buy, there is so much activity out there.

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Convert Your Blogger Blog to Book Easily

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 16:17:10 +0000

How can you convert your Blogger blog into a printed book and sell it to make extra money online? Google has partnered with Blog2Print and now offers this service at very reasonable prices.

There are a lot of customization options so that you get exactly the book you want. You can select all your articles to be added, or choose a date range for weeks or months. Then choose if you want to include or exclude article comments. There are a range of pre-selected book cover designs or you can upload your own cover design. Complete it by writing your own introduction text.

Remember you need to be on Google Blogger for this to work and you will have to enable full text feeds to grab all your content. Start by simply entering your url and sit back.

So how much does you new blog book cost? A 20-page softcover Blog Book will cost $14.95, while the Hardcover costs $24.95. For every extra page, you pay 35 cents! So if you have a huge blog, then keep the rising price in mind. However, you can grab your blog book PDF for only $7.95!