AH Digital FX Studios

Long Tail of Search Statistics

24 Feb 2010 15:45:00 GMT

Unique search strings accounted for more traffic than all search strings that more than 100 people searched for combined (including keyword sets that had thousands of searches).

To help explain this topic in more detail we will use this sample data.

Keyword Set	Number of Times Keyword Set was Searched For
Widgets	150
My Widgets	120
Black Widgets	73
Red Widgets that Fly	20
Black Widgets near Boston, MA	2
Black flying widgets that don't float	1
I tried to buy a widget the other day that should fly but it couldn't. I'm not sure why it didn't fly	1
This is a random question about widgets in Boston	1
My widgets sink. Why won't they float or fly	1
...(long tail continued for another 300 items...)	1 (X 300 more)
Total Searches	669

Quantifying the Long Tail of Search. We did some data crunching the other day on all of the Google traffic we received for one site in 2009. Here are some interesting takeways.

Unique Keyword Sets (or search phrases that where searched for only once during the year as shown with the yellow background above) accounted for 27.8% of all searches
Keyword sets that sent only two visitors accounted for an additional 15.2% of all searches.
Combining keyword sets that were searched for only once or twice equaled 43% of all searches received. Almost half of all searches used different keyword sets than anybody else typed in.
All Keyword sets that sent at least 100 visitors (like widgets and my widgets above) accounted for 23.4% of all searches. This means that more people performed unique searches than all of the search strings combined that had over 100 people search for them. People are performing longer and more specific keyword searches than before.
The longest keyword set we saw was 144 words long. That is a long query string to type into Google.
The average keyword set length was 5.7 words.
The mode keyword set length was 4 words.
Not surprisingly, unique keywords sets tended to be longer than searches that occurred more often.

21 Things That Best Converting Websites Know That You Don't

23 Feb 2010 15:15:00 GMT

Takeaways from Bryan Eisenberg's talk at SES London 2010.

So what do the best converting websites have in common?

Communicate unique value proposition – You have 7 seconds to persuade (or 8-10 seconds if you have really, really good content). Establish credibility on every landing page.
Make persuasive & relevant offers – He suggests free shipping. From experience at Dell, free shipping made most profit and greatest sales. Conversion rate doubled for overstock.com However, if you listen to other advice. Free shipping might just erode existing profits. Make sure you test, test, test.
Reinforce the offer sitewide – Don't let them forget your offer. Message must be persuasive and appear consistently.
They maintain the scent – Maintain consistent look feel of the campaign. Landing page text should reflect the original offer. The same style and call to action should flow until they have converted.
Make a strong first impression - Everyone knows the cliche - You only get one chance to make a first impression. I would add that you should make your first impression impossible to miss.
They appeal to multiple personas or segments - Talks about the four different personality types and that you need to market to each of them.
They don’t do slice and dice optimisation - You don't have time to test everything. You will also turn off a lot of potential customers if you test too many awful ideas. Look at the different personality types and create a valid hypothesis and then test that. Test for impact and not variation.
Use the voice of the customer – Social Commerce – People are huge followers. They feel much more at ease with a purchase that others have made and had a good experience with. Just think of those telecommercials and why they do so well. People need to hear from people like them. Figleaves improved conversion by 35% by implementing reviews.
They use Social Commerce for navigation – Helps people figure out what product is right for them
They use Social Commerce for promoting – Use reviews everywhere. Not just the product page, but in email campaigns as well.
And for credibility! - Let others do the selling for you.
And for feedback and research – Cheaper than usability labs
Use persuasion principles like scarcity - “Low Stock!” Or add call to actions that automatically end after X number of days from today.
Make your forms engaging – Why make people register pre-checkout. Why not do this on the thank-you page? Or at the same time as checkout?
Provide point of action assurances - “Guaranteed response within 2 hours!”
They keep customers in the process – Hold your hand and guide you through the complete process.
Consider email previews - Look at how your email will look with and without images.
Budget for experience – Keep focusing on continuous improvement
Utilize a system for prioritization – There is never enough time so work out what resources you need or just change little by little
Make data driven decisions! Do web analytics correctly by making a to-do lists regularly!
Know how to execute rapidly – Have contingency to act fast if the opportunity arise

5 Final Action Steps

Identify problems
Create the to-do list
Document the change hypothiseis
Prioritise this to-do list
Start testing and do the same next time.

Four Step Formula to Be Successful at Multivariate Testing

16 Feb 2010 13:25:00 GMT

Muiltvariate testing we help quickly increase conversions. Here are the four simple steps to implement multivariate testing.

We recently wrote a from the ground up, multivariate testing package to use with all of our upcoming websites. We've always believed in testing, testing, testing, and the iterative design process. However, normal split AB testing has become too slow at adapting to the speed of change necessary to keep margins high and conversions up. So we've jumped on the multivariate testing bandwagon and developed a quick way to test multiple changes at once.

Multivariate testing is nothing more than testing more than one (multi) change (variable) at the same time. Normally the scientific process tells us to only change one thing, test, and then evaluate results. Unfortunately this method is much too slow to be effective online. Plus we can see how multiple elements add or detract from one another in a quicker fashion.

The Multivariate Testing Process

The multivariate testing process is quite simple to understand.

First you want to keep the experience consistent for the individual user, so you need a way to identify specific users and provide them with the same variables every time. Setting cookies or session varaibles for the user allows you to track and consistently display the same information to User X.
Next you need a way to track which variables were shown to User X. We rewrote our tracking software to add the different variables to the stats of User X so we know that they were shown Heading A, Copy C, and Call to Action B while User Y was shown Heading B Copy C and Call to Action A.
Third you need a way to identify success. Whether that is making it to a specific page, or signing up for a newsletter, or staying on the site for X amount of time. And each success needs to be linked to the specific test you are running.
Last you need a way to compile successes and adapt to the findings. As you view your findings you can immediately remove ineffective variables from the test and replace them with modifications of the effective variables and rerun the test.

After building our testing package we immediately put it to the test. The amount of data you can collect is amazing. We've started with some simple changes and have loved the results so far. We will be heavily using multivariate testing in our new sites to identify more precisely how users react to specific varaibles.

Getting Off to a Good Start

Now, I'm not going to jump on the "we don't know anything until we've tested" bandwagon. I think it is a cop out. Good designers know good design when they see it. Good programmers know good programming when they see it. There are still basic "rules" that can be followed to improve conversions. The trick is to start testing good versus better scenarios instead of bad versus bad versus bad.

Do You Know These Tips to Quickly Improve Landing Page Conversion Rates

12 Feb 2010 11:25:00 GMT

Increase landing page conversions with these simple tips.

Increasing conversions is a big topic lately. Here are some more great ideas from ioninteractive for increasing conversions on your landing pages for this year.

Keep your Organic and PPC landing pages separate. Targeted traffic from PPC have been given a very specific hook. Make sure you build a complete page around that specific hook.
Stand Out. While you should use well-known and tried-and-true placement for elements on your landing pages, you need to make sure that your page doesn't just blend in with all the other landing pages the person has seen that day.
Test, test, test. Multivariate testing is becoming the norm. I can assure you that you don't know your customers as well as you think you do. Let them make the decision on what works best for them.
Keep them there. Do whatever you can to give them all the information they need without needing to leave the page. Use in-page javascript windows to provide great information while keeping the call to action right there in front of them the whole time.
Target and segment. I read a great article the other day about segmenting your audience. Mac users think, act, and behave differently than PC users. Chrome users think, act, and behave differently than IE 6 users. There are tons of ways to segment your users and provide very specific information for them.
Video. Video has consistently increased in effectiveness and enticement over the past couple of years. People now expect it.
Help people socialize about you. Allowing people to quickly share information through twitter, email, facebook, you name it will get your message out even faster and increase brand awareness.

6 Ways Your Website Usability is Discouraging Conversions

11 Feb 2010 10:20:00 GMT

Six ways to increase usability and conversions.

There are many ways that you can increase conversions. Here is a list of usability items to fix that will help increase conversions.

Visitors can't find what they want. Provide an easy navigation as well as a search function for your site. Then make sure you track what people are searching for and make sure it takes them to the best possible page or product.
Your site takes forever to load. Cut back on some of the bandwidth heavy images and animations. People are very impatient. Remember that slow load time is the number one reason 51% of people leave websites.
Don't leave them hanging. Dead end pages and under construction pages are a complete let down. It is better to not get their hopes up and then dash them to pieces. Don't orphan pages and just leave pages that aren't finished completely off the site.
Stick to commonly used words and locations. Calling things by cute names or company specific terminology only confuses and slows a users progress. Keep it simple. Keep it straightforward.
Small fonts. The majority of online purchases come from people aged 35-65. Small fonts make it difficult for older users.
Using flash or javascript for your call to action. Some users don't have them installed (or can't... thanks Apple). Make sure you provide a way for those without those features to still convert.

Simple Steps to Increase Landing Page ROI

29 Jan 2010 12:30:00 GMT

Easy and simple steps to increase landing page conversions and ROI.

You've brought people to your site through great SEO or PPC, but now what. What can you do to help make sure that those people buy?

Here are some simple ideas from EMC to increase landing page conversions.

Include an image along with the offer for visual appeal. Make sure that the image reinforces your branding and product.
Reduce or eliminate navigation to keep visitors focused on the goal and reduce distraction. You want to funnel them toward your goal. Don't give them multiple exits. Use in-page modal windows to give them additional information without removing them from the page.
Keep the look and feel consistent with your primary website so consumers immediately recognize your brand. Consistancy is the key.
Use a compelling call to action that ties in to the offer. For example, the copy for a retail promotional offer could have a call to action such as, "Buy Now and Save 10 Percent." Make it a must have, must have now! offer.
Minimize data collection as much as possible to decrease abandonment. If you must collect additional information, try moving those fields to a form on a second page. For example, if you want customers to register with your site, why not make the registration part of your confirmation page. They have finished shopping, and now have time to "divert attention" to something else.
Whenever asking for personal information, include privacy and security statements to help establish trust and remove hesitancy from the point of action. People want to make sure you don't sell their info or spam them to death. A clear policy helps you and your customers be on the same page.

The main point is to get out of your customer's way. Anything that keeps them from quickly purchasing is a downfall to any retail site.

How to Build Effective Websites 101

26 Jan 2010 17:40:00 GMT

Many small companies are making a wise choice and investing in professionally designed websites that raise the company's level of professionalism, exposure, and sales.

I have had people come to my saddle shop and they were surprised to see that we are just a a small shop because the website made us look so much better.

Online you can be as big or small as you want to be. The web gives small companies an opportunity to go toe-to-toe with big brand companies. It even gives small companies an advantage of being more flexible and quicker to adapt compared to large companies. However, you must have these things for your website to be effective.

Usability - Allowing people to find what they came to find, quickly. And then find it again once they come back to your site.
Findability - If they can't find you, they can't buy from you. Ranking and ranking for the correct keywords are key to getting and keeping customers online.
Legibility - Does the design of your site allow for quick scanning and easy access to critical information. Can they read your headers, text, captions, etc.
Clean - Graphics enhance your message. Every piece of your website should motivate your customer to a specific goal.
Consistent Branding - Reinforce your brand image, building on your logo and other marketing materials.
Fast Loading - Slow sites lose visitors. Don't be one of them.
Cross-browser compatible - Make sure your site looks good across all current browsers.

Unfortunately, there are too many companies that just use an online template for their site. These are plagued with problems from being slow loading, brand destroying, unprofessional, and search engine unfriendly. Don't settle when it comes to your website. Would you want a lousy salesman talking to all of your potential customers and ultimately turning them off to your business and products?

Case Study - One page checkout process vs multi-page

20 Jan 2010 13:20:00 GMT

Comparing the single (one page) checkout process to a multiple page process and conversion rates.

There was an excellent study done on the Vancouver 2010 olympic online store to compare conversion rates of a one page, two page, and four page checkout proccess. The single page checkout process was the clear winner and led to lower cart abondon rates.

Successful completion rate for the entire checkout process increased by 257.26%.
Overall site conversion rate increased by 0.54%.
We also observed some unexpected improvements during this experiment, like an increase of 8.54% in the average order value!

Here are some great take aways from the differences.

The one page process did not require users to login or set up an account prior to purchase. They placed the option to create an account AFTER the completed purchase. A very logical place to put it. Once they have purchased, they will want to track the progress. So after the purchase is a great time to collect additional information.
Additional information like "Shipping Address" is only shown if they are shipping to a different address than the billing address using AJAX.
They provide inpage pop-up windows to discuss shipping information, return and refund policy, and their privacy policy.
They can get estimated shipping costs prior to going to the checkout page.This allows them to see total costs prior to giving out any personal information.
They provide a customer support phone number right on the checkout page that allows them to talk to a representative without having to leave the checkout process to resolve any concerns with checkout.
A large, prominant "place order" button is used with the subtext of "Your order is safe and secure".

How to Determine if Your Website is Successful

19 Jan 2010 13:45:00 GMT

Making sure that you pick the correct metric to measure is extremely important to having a truly successful website.

Recently on SEOmoz's whiteboard friday they discussed how to keep clients happy. Much of the conversation focused around knowing what determines success. A point that I thought was extremely important was tracking and focusing on the correct metric for determining success. Here are some ways to "track" success and why the metric might not be telling you what you think it is telling you.

PageRank - Google assigns a link ranking to sites based on the number and quality of links pointing at your site. Google updates PageRank about every 3-4 months. Unfortunately, while many people chase the "green pixel dust" they ignore creating great unique content to get links naturally. Also since it is updated infrequently, it is just an indicator of if your link building is moving in the correct direction.
Number of Links - In general it is better to have more links, but getting links through link farms or other artificial building methods will ultimately have a negative impact on your rankings.
Number of Visits - In general it is better to have more traffic, but if that traffic doesn't actually do something, are they beneficial? The same applies for unique visitors.
Sales - Business metrics like number of sales or number of email list signups is a better metric. However if you don't compare that to the number of visitors you might see that you only convert one of every X number visitors which isn't good.
Conversion rate - This is linked to sales per visitor. Normally the higher the conversion rate the better. But if you only get 5 visitors per year, but you convert them all, you still only had 5 sales. As we've stated before, first increase your conversion rate and then focus on getting more customers.

Ultimately, those things you focus on and track will get the most attention and the most improvement. So make sure you set good goals, track your progress, and evaluate along the way if you are focusing on the right data.

2010 SEO and Website Predictions

18 Jan 2010 12:00:00 GMT

2010 will be the year of shorter, more concise, and quicker information.

I read SEOmoz's 8 predictions for SEO in 2010 and figured I'd make my own (some of which I total agree with SEOmoz.

Conversion Rate Optimization will take off. After reading Call to Action by the Eisenberg brothers I was convinced. Increasing conversions or conversion rate optimization is the absolute best way to make more money in the long run. (But we knew it was important back in 2005.)
Advertising dollars will go to social media. With more and more people interacting through tiny messages (first texting, then facebook status updates, then tweets) it becomes even more important to interact on social sites. Everyone wants to hear and be heard. Also with Facebook's advertising being so targeted, you have an amazing opportunity to hit your specific demographic.
Facebook status and twitter will increase in ranking importance. As Google tweaks its ranking algorithm to incorporate these messages, they will face an uphill battle to filter the noise and get at the real information. I am sure that it will cause a comparison between real sites and the tweets that point at them. Plus because of the quick nature of these items, Google will have to index faster and evaluate faster to identify those things that are important and also determine how "lasting" the information is.
Both Google and Bing will attempt to become more sticky. Finding ways to present the information in short concise snippets without leaving the search engine will improve usability and will increase revenues from increased time spent on the respective engine.
Everything is going to smaller, simpler, and quicker messages. If it can't be said in 140 characters then I haven't focused the message enough. The texting/twitter world will continue to have its impact on how people want their information. They don't want to truly interact. They want to say what they want to say without all of the previous years' perfunctory requirements of protocol.

All in all, people will demand their information quicker and in short, concise, to-the-point snippets. Social media is in, traditional media continues to flounder. You will be required to know your audience even better and provide them with information quicker. Seems like we will all need to step up to the next level.

Now You Can Have Lower Shopping Cart Abandon Rates

15 Jan 2010 09:15:00 GMT

Avoid these e-commerce shopping cart mistakes to lower your cart abandon rates and increase sales.

Did you know that on average 52.1% of people abandon shopping their online shopping carts?

Primary reasons for abandonment include high shipping charges, high cost of items, price comparison with other sites, saving items for purchase later, and cumbersome checkout processes that required too much personal information.

Here are the top ten (plus one) mistakes that websites make with their e-commerce sites.

Call your Shopping Cart a Shopping Cart. Cute names like bag, handbag, or tote add confusion to what the customer is really trying to do. Also add a shopping cart icon to increase access.
Use "Add to Cart" instead of "Buy Now". While buy now is a great call to action, less savvy web users hesitate to click buy now. Add to Cart is noncommittal and tells the person they can keep shopping.
Give a noticable visual cue that items have been added to the cart. Whether you take them to the "view cart" page or have another visual cue, make sure it is noticable so they don't sit there clicking the same button, wondering if it really added to the cart.
Don't get in the way of them ordering more. If you take them to a "view cart" page every time they add an item, they are less likely to purchase more. Especially if getting back to where they were is difficult. Give them an option to "Add to Cart and continue shopping" and a "Add to Cart and proceed to checkout" option.
Show confirmation before cross-selling. People want confirmation that they successfully added to their cart. Don't show cross-sell items until after you have confirmed the newest item is in their cart.
Don't require people to register before adding to cart or checking out. People HATE to register before they have truly committed to purchasing the product. Also, requiring more information than is necessary is a deterrant. Even something as simple as asking for an email address can keep people from purchasing because they fear they will be spammed.
Use a method for removing items from the cart other than making the quantity 0. Less savvy users become frustrated when they can't figure out how to quickly and easily remove items from their cart. Give them an easily identifiable icon to click on to remove the item.
Don't include instructions on how to use your cart. People don't read them. If you haven't made it simple enough, they'll just go somewhere else to buy.
Don't require them to scroll to find the "update cart" button. When people add more items to their cart, they still want an easy way to update and don't want to (and won't) spend the time to search for the update button.
Don't require personal information before they know total costs. Again, people are hesitant to give out personal information until they know they want to buy. So, don't ask for lots of information before giving information about shipping and total costs.
Show your site is secure. Display security items prominantly so you remove any hesitation about security and let them know exactly why you need their information and that it will only be used for this order.

Following these tips will help increase sales and lower your cart abandon rate.

[SOLVED] Ubuntu Hanging at Shutdown - Blinking Cursor

14 Jan 2010 14:10:00 GMT

How to fix Ubuntu shutdown problem with blinking white cursor by using acpi=force.

I had found this fix once before, but then when I went to look for it, I had to dig for about an hour to find it again, so I'm posting it here. I've seen this both on Jaunty Jackalope and Karmic Koala. The system would try to shut down but it would show "System Halted" but then just have a blinking white cursor and the system wouldn't shut down until you pressed the power button.

This fixed the problem for me:

Modify /etc/modules and added

apm power_off=1

Then I modified /etc/default/grub and added this after quiet splash (this might be /boot/grub/menu.lst if you are running anything prior to Karmic Koala that runs off of the new Grub 2 boot loader)

acpi=force apm=power_off

After saving that file I had to run

sudo update-grub

And that seemed to fix it for me. I'm not sure the /etc/modules modification is necessary. I don't remember doing that the first time, but it was a while ago. Hopefully this helps someone else that is having problems with Ubuntu 9.10 shutting down.

2009 Website Browser Statistics

13 Jan 2010 17:00:00 GMT

2009 Website Browser Statistics Review.

IE 7 is still the browser of choice, but some of the IE 7 crowd have recently switched over to IE 8. Mostly we saw a move from IE 7 to IE 8 with Firefox gaining another percentage and eveyone else staying practically the same from the middle of 2009.

The web browser war is still waging and it looks like some of the IE 7 crowd have finally started converting over to IE 8. Currently it stands that IE 7 is top, followed by Firefox, then by IE 6 and then IE 8 and Safari.

Browser	Site 1	Site 2	Site 3	Site 4	Site 5	Site 6	Site 7	Totals
MSIE 8.0	9.54%	6.81%	6.21%	11.48%	16.46%	11.63%	6.76%	10.17%
MSIE 7.0	43.81%	16.18%	14.69%	46.96%	44.10%	46.20%	21.80%	36.11%
MSIE 6.0	18.19%	35.84%	10.23%	17.85%	16.92%	11.10%	40.65%	20.64%
MSIE 5.5	0.04%	1.37%	0.07%	0.30%	0.03%	0.03%	0.96%	0.33%
MSIE 5.0	0.11%	1.09%	0.08%	0.04%	0.17%	0.06%	0.52%	0.30%
Firefox	20.86%	31.90%	54.01%	20.22%	15.83%	21.76%	21.53%	24.69%
Safari	5.78%	3.43%	6.53%	2.53%	5.47%	7.12%	5.29%	5.35%
Chrome	1.21%	2.34%	6.31%	0.58%	0.73%	1.93%	1.45%	1.80%
Opera	0.46%	1.04%	1.88%	0.04%	0.29%	0.16%	1.03%	0.62%

Takeaways

Proper Label Placement in Forms

12 Jan 2010 14:50:00 GMT

Label placement is important in usability of HTML forms.

There is an amazing study done by uxmatters where they compared different label placements in forms. Here are the results:

Label position—Placing a label above an input field works better in most cases, because users aren’t forced to look separately at the label and the input field. Be careful to visually separate the label for the next input field from the previous input field.
Alignment of labels—In most cases, when placing labels to the left of input fields, using left-aligned labels imposes a heavy cognitive workload on users. Placing labels above input fields is preferable, but if you choose to place them to the left of input fields, at least make them right aligned.
Bold labels—Reading bold labels is a little bit more difficult for users, so it’s preferable to use plain text labels. However, when using bold labels, you might want to style the input fields not to have heavy borders.
Drop-down list boxes—Use them with care, because they’re so eye-catching. Either use them for important data or, when using them for less important data, place them well below more important input fields.
Label placement for drop-down list boxes—To ensure users are immediately aware of what you’re asking for, instead of using a separate label, make the default value for a drop-down list box the label. This will work for very long lists of items, because a user already has the purpose of the input field in mind before the default value disappears.

The Secret to Communicating Your Business Effectively

11 Jan 2010 14:40:00 GMT

Avoid these common website mistakes that keeps your website from communicating effectively.

Too many people have the "reading the label from inside the bottle" mentality when they think about their business. A great article by Todd Follansbee still holds true for all businesses online.

Here are some common mistakes that businesses make about their website:

The user knows something about what your business is.
The user is willing to "work" and dig a little to find out about your business.
The user realizes that your business is special or unique.
The users wants to do business with you.
The user is interested in your business.
The user came as a result of a recommendation or sought you out specifically.
The user knows what you want visitors to do or "get" from your site.
The user understands the unique terminology and nature of your business.

In reality, your business needs your site to:

Explain why your business is special right from the start.
State simply what business you are in -- at first glance, from five feet away!
Provide all the information a user would need to do business with you and, in case need more, offer an extremely simple way to get in touch with someone at your business identified with a name and a picture.
Provide an easy way users can refer the site to a friend, not by just a URL but by directing visitors to a special page (or home page) that explains your business and unique value proposition, that is, what makes your business special. You don't want to unintentionally direct someone to a page within the site which fails to present your business at its best (such as a sign-up page).
Give users a reason to act now.
Eliminate all anxieties by clearly reassuring users that you won't misuse any personal information, that you offer secure transactions, and are trustworthy.
Make sure, by testing new users, that your site works properly, is laid out sensibly, and delivers information in an intelligent way that leads to a lead or a sale.

Only by assuming that your users know nothing about your site will you convert the most visitors. The best part is that people who come to your site already motivated and with some awareness about you, will also find the site easy to navigate and respect your business sense even more.

Who Else Wants to Build Links and Rank High in Google

08 Jan 2010 14:30:00 GMT

Who Else Wants to Build Links and Rank Higher in Google

Link Baiting has become common place to increase organic inbound links and rank higher in Google. There was a great article by Andy Hagan but he broke his site to pieces, so I had to do some digging to find it again. Here are some of the best from his article with my comments throughout.

Content is still king. But if you venture into my little world, you’ll find that packaging is queen, promotion is the crown prince and a baity title is the Sword of Excalibur.

Start thinking. Anything can be link baited. Sell a special kind of Dacron pillow? Maybe you need to write "101 Secrets to Sleeping Revealed." The idea of thinking outside the box is critical when coming up with great link bait.

The point is that your topic has a link bait piece (or a dozen of them) waiting to be written. Granted, some topics will require a bit more creativity in coming up with baity content. That’s fine.

It's all in the Title

I've already posted about the importance of your article heading and quick ways to come up with the perfect title by using eye catching words.

Delivering what you Promised, Quickly

Well, content is only crowned as king when it has focus. Focus comes from the title. In the title, you are making a promise to the reader: here’s what you’re going to read/learn/achieve in this article. All your content should be devoted 100% to meeting (or exceeding) this promise. Anything else no matter how "valuable" is fluff and should be cut out. Readers do want in-depth resources and advice, but they want it in a concise, focused serving.

Provide a "hook" in the content. Here are some basic types of hooks:

News Hook. The news hook is when you are the first to scoop a story; everyone who carries the story will then (theoretically) link to you as the original source.
Resource Hook. The resource hook occurs when you make an extremely helpful piece of content that everyone will naturally want to bookmark (like this one!). This may be my favorite hook, because as opposed to the news hook, it encourages people to link to and bookmark it for a long period of time. Content that sits there and naturally obtains trusted, relevant backlinks passively? Isn’t that the original white hat SEO dream?
Contrary Hook. The contrary hook is when you refute a common myth in your niche. Most little areas of the blogosphere hold certain beliefs to be self-evident; all SEOs know that META tags are dead; all Web2.0 designers know that writing validated code is the right thing to do. Calling these people wrong will usually incite them into talking about you, and linking to you.
Humor Hook. People love to laugh, especially at people in their industry or niche.
Tool Hook. A good link bait tool has one of two characteristics: 1) It is actually useful; or 2) It feeds bloggers’ egos.
Award Hook. No official awards in your tiny niche? Why not host them yourself?
Giveaway Hook. Anyone who has been to an SEO conference recently (or any other conference for that matter) is stocked for life on pens, highlighters, key rings, and loads of over freebie junk. Companies fight to give trinkets away at certain events because, when directed towards the right audience, giveaways are a great way to drive sales and get a return far better than any ordinary advertising.
Research/Statistic Hook. Sometimes just compiled numbers, or any kind of scientific survey, will get a lot of link love, especially in an under-studied area. And while a scientifically-conducted study with valid methodology will often get better links, the (sad?) truth is that almost anything can pass as “research” on the Internet.

Socialize

Today the buzzword is social media. Everyone wants to comment on every piece on mundane life. From Tweets to a new Facebook status, everyone wants to connect. Great ways to communicate are right at our fingertips and growing every moment. Why not socialize about your link bait?

Basic Website Usability Tips

07 Jan 2010 14:00:00 GMT

Here is a good list of important basic design usability tips.

I'm doing a massive cleanup of my bookmarks, and realized that tons of really good content just disappears off the web. So, I'm going to put the content where I know it won't disappear. Here are some great usability tips I grabbed from Jens Meiert.

Use of whitespace between paragraphs and in the left and right margins increases comprehension by almost 20 %
A format of 95 characters per line is read significantly faster than shorter line lengths; however, there are no significant differences in comprehension, preference, or overall satisfaction, regardless of line length.
Narrative presentation enhances comprehension and memory. Narrative advertisements produce more positive attitude about the brand and a higher incidence of intent to purchase.
Users will wait longer for better content. Users will wait between 8-10 seconds for information on the web, depending on the quality of the information. Most of the time we tell people that they have 7 seconds to convince the user that they have found what they are looking for. It appears that sites that have proven that they have great content, gain an extra 1-4 seconds if the user knows that the content is going to be good.
Consumer purchase behavior is driven by perceived security, privacy, quality of content and design, in that order. This is a no brainer in my book. No matter how nice or "functional" a website is, if their "SSL or HTTPS" website is broken because of insecure items on the page, I don't buy. Period. I've purchased from websites that are plain ugly because they are the only company that provides the items that I am looking for, but I could still tell that they secured their site.

Search Engine Usage for 2009

12 Aug 2009 15:20:00 GMT

Search engine usage is out for June 2009.

The Nielsen Company reported search engine usage for June 2009. Here are their findings.

Search Engine	Percentage
Google	66.1%
Yahoo	16.2%
Bing	8.8%
AOL	3.0%

Google is still the master of search and expanding its grasp on the search market. Yahoo recently announced that it would outsource its search engine results to Bing, Microsoft's newest spin on search. I still don't understand Yahoo's thinking. A recent poll on Matt Cutt's blog showed an overwhelming feeling that Microsoft came out ahead in the deal. I agree completely. Yahoo has had a better market share than MSN for a number of years running. Microsoft's attempt to rebrand itself as Bing hasn't impressed me personally, and as such I was surprised at Yahoo's move to adopt Bing so readily.

The move does allow PPC advertisers a simpler way to advertise on Yahoo and Bing at the same time. We'll see if Bing picks up more of the market, but I won't be holding my breath.

2009 Website Browser Stats Review

05 Aug 2009 11:00:00 GMT

IE 7 is the current browser of choice with Firefox second and IE 6 in third. IE 8 adoption is still slow.

Since we didn't do a browser stat review for 2008, we decided to do a review for the middle of 2009 and bring people back up to speed on the browser war. Among the tech field (Site 6) Firefox still dominates and also has a greater showing from the Chrome crowd. Among standard users, many have updated to IE 7. Web developers and SEO professionals (Site 2) are higher than average on firefox adoption and slower on IE 7/8 adoption as well.

Browser	Site 1	Site 2	Site 3	Site 4	Site 5	Site 6	Site 7	Totals
MSIE 8.0	4.59%	2.93%	5.85%	1.34%	4.16%	3.73%	9.51%	4.66%
MSIE 7.0	49.61%	17.83%	53.44%	45.93%	55.90%	17.28%	42.83%	42.67%
MSIE 6.0	18.98%	41.16%	19.07%	24.49%	12.15%	11.07%	12.48%	20.87%
MSIE 5.5	0.02%	0.81%	0.02%	0.06%	0.02%	0.05%	0.02%	0.15%
MSIE 5.0	0.15%	1.18%	0.24%	0.98%	0.06%	0.08%	0.11%	0.33%
Firefox	20.44%	30.49%	15.28%	17.21%	20.02%	54.21%	22.09%	23.92%
Safari	5.18%	2.92%	5.11%	7.02%	6.61%	6.62%	10.58%	5.50%
Chrome	0.83%	1.73%	0.74%	1.06%	0.94%	5.00%	2.24%	1.40%
Opera	0.21%	0.97%	0.25%	1.92%	0.16%	1.96%	0.15%	0.51%

Creating Web Copy That Brings In Customers

09 Jul 2009 09:59:15 GMT

The content on your website should always help pull in your visitors, not push them away.

So, you've optimized your website for search engines, but have you optimized it for visitors as well? When a user arrives at your website from a search engine, they have typed in specific words that they are hoping to find on the page they land on. If they can't find it soon, they may just leave.

If you know what kind of keywords your visitors are searching for, you can make them obvious in your web copy. Place them near the beginning of your copy, or bold them to make them stand out. If you don't yet know what they will be searching for, follow some simple rules to help them find what they are looking for.

Keep paragraphs short and to the point. If each paragraph has its own focus, users can skim them easily and find what they are looking for.
Put the most important part of your text at the beginning. If they are interested in it, you want them to know you have it right away.
Take time to learn what your customers are looking for. Find out what they are searching for on your in-site search, or even look at what they are typing in to search engines to find you.

Personalize your message to your visitors. They don't want to hear you drone on about things they don't care about. Know your customers and how they speak, then put that kind of language to work in your website. People love to hear things that sound the way they speak. Try to make it personal—one-on-one. Develop relationships with your customers through the way you speak to them.

People are often told to keep copy on the web short because visitors just can't be bothered with reading it if it's too long. However, don't short-change your content by making it too brief. Take the time to cover your topic; if it goes longer than expected, that's just fine. But, be sure to break your copy into paragraphs so visitors aren't faced with huge blocks of text, and you should be fine.

Last, but not least, be sure to use correct spelling and grammar. Visitors don't like to see glaring errors in online copy. It lowers your credibility and often irritates customers. Check and check again to be sure that you haven't made mistakes. If you are able to follow these rules, it will help keep visitors on your site, as well as keep them coming back.