Just Search | Search Engine Optimisation & Internet Marketing Journal

Improve your internet marketing strategy by using effective (CTAs) Call-To-Actions

2008-11-21T16:43:16Z

A popular example of a call-to-actions (CTA) is “Click here”, however this particular primitive and simple CTA is fast depreciating, as in essence it does not fulfil in terms of driving conversions and it lacks the basic requirements of using CTAs effectively.

Here are a few tips for using CTAs effectively, to push visitors through your site and on to specified landing pages:

1. The action to be taken.
Keep it simple. Clearly display what to do and what to expect for doing it. Remember not to overload visitors with too much information. Also avoid ambiguous CTAs. Studies show a call to action should consist of a clear and concise descriptive action.

2. The presentation and execution of the CTA.
Like any every other type of advertising, it is first impressions that make the biggest impact. Use the following techniques to advertise effectively.

Utilise eye-catching image CTAs by using attractive and colourful buttons to execute the call to action.
Utilise formatting in anchor text CTAs by using bolder or larger fonts to emphasise the call to action.
Utilise advertising space and position CTAs by generously sprinkling CTA links in the header, footer and body of the page as an alternative path to the same landing page as readers scan and jump around the page when they read.

3. Ensure the conversion process is easily completed within a few clicks.
Make it simple, this way readers know exactly where to click to initialise the conversion process and are less likely to navigate away, effectively losing a conversation.

Conclusions
Adding more CTAs and using CTAs that are more clear and obvious will be more effective in driving conversions. Make it easy for the reader to understand, not just where but why to click through and what they can expect on the other side. Address your readers’ interests to see your CTR increase.

Vipul
SEO Programmer

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Anchor Text Optimisation

2008-11-21T12:52:09Z

Anchor text is a text link on a website that points to another page or resource. An example would be as follows:

“Just Search provide search engine optimisation services”

As you can see ‘search engine optimisation’ is the anchor text.

Not only is the choice of anchor text an important part of creating a useable website, it is also a useful tool in the SEO process. Well chosen text helps search engines understand what the page being linked to is about.

Using wording such as ‘view product’ is informing the search engines that the link page is about the subject ‘view product’. A more effective way to write the link would be to use the product name or description. For example:

“View our selection of Christmas cards for sale”

Keywords in anchor text can be utilised for internal links and also for backlinks to your site. If you are asking another site to link back to you, it is a good practice to provide them with the html code for them to paste onto their page. That way you ensure that the correct anchor text is used. It is also a good idea to vary the keywords you use in backlinks to avoid the search engines thinking you are spamming them.

Finally always make sure that your anchor text makes sense to both the viewer of the website as well as the search engines.

Caroline Bell
SEO programmer

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Improving your Site Index Rate

2008-11-20T16:43:39Z

A major feature of having a successful website is ensuring it is properly SEO-optimised. This ensures search engines pick up all the relevant information from the page, hopefully reducing the amount of ‘clutter’ or unwanted data. However, once you have an optimised website, there are a number of steps the continued progress of the website could take. One of these steps is to improve the frequency that your website is indexed by the likes of Google.

The most important concept search engines look at when deciding (it is automatically derived from each search engines unique algorithms) how often to return to a website is the regularity of changes and the significance of each change.

You could just simply decide to re-arrange the information in your website either manually or using scripts, but search engines can tell if the overall data is the same and are likely to discount these changes. Instead, the website should receive a stream of regular, yet original, content.

This is where content writing is useful, it ensures the information is sufficiently unique to be picked up as changes to a website, it adds new pages, which helps a page rank as well, and also helps to bring visitors in through the use of several other factors such as long tail keywords and interesting discussions.

Stefan Crowe
Creative Developer

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New tool released from Google to help advertisers

2008-11-19T17:32:05Z

Now you can find out what keywords you are potentially missing from your Adwords account thanks to Google’s new keyword tool called the Search Based Keyword Tool. It really is a fantastic addition to Google’s existing tools as it tells you what keywords are missing from your account based on search query data from a website.

This tool was revealed earlier in the year at the annual Google conference in Dublin. I got the chance to speak to a number of staff there about the tool and they basically explained that it is really good for advertisers as it is easy to spot keywords not currently bid on that could generate good ROI.

Probably more importantly there is the opportunity to use the tool for competitive analysis. Essentially it is possible to see data about keywords that relevant to any website on the internet.

Also within the tool is the possibility to show all keywords generated by category. So if the website you’re getting data from is an electrical retailer, for example, it is possible to get keyword data from specific product areas. This can be immensely useful for expanding your Adwords campaigns.

So why has Google released this tool now? Well one theory could be that we are coming up to Christmas and Google are hoping that we can get more keywords that convert and generate more money for advertisers and Google themselves as no doubt click costs will increase substantially.

Adam
PPC Consultant

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Moving and removing pages

2008-11-19T16:13:50Z

With the HTTP protocol, when a page is called from a client but not found, it is referred to as a 404 error message. For example, if you go to a made up page on the Just search site here, you will find our own custom 404 page which tells the client the page does not exist.

When search engines crawl your site they will index every available page they can find, but often you may rename or delete a page. Any page on your site which 404s will be removed from the search index and you will lose valuable rankings - after all, content is king! The best way to deal with this is to either create a custom 404 page or, if you have just moved or renamed the page, use a 301 redirect.

If you have only moved the page, you can use a 301 redirect which will tells all clients trying to access the missing page that it has permanently moved to a new location. 301 and 404 redirects are implemented in different ways depending on the server and type of server script you are using.
For more information on 404 pages you can read up on Googles enhanced 404 page.

Adrian Mursec - Natural SEO Programmer

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Increase Sales with Online/Offline Deals

2008-11-18T17:13:06Z

Christmas is just round the corner and at this time of year we need to ensure that sales are maximised.

Through using in store and online promotions you can capitalise on the extra holiday revenue. With the state of the economy as it is, all shoppers are looking for a bargain. Regardless whether you’re customer shops amongst the hustle and bustle of the high street or in their PJ’s; you need to ensure that you capture their business and give them the deal they are looking for.

One way of doing this is to use sales, promo codes and coupons. Coupons can be available online to be redeemed in store, in your ads to be redeemed in your e-commerce shop or in receipts to encourage future business. It is important for marketing purposes that they are readily available and easy to see and use.

Another way to go is to publish your coupons and promo codes on the Google Content Network, i.e. other popular sites. You could put together a dedicated content campaign especially for the Christmas season, which will allow you to segment budget and results.

To increase the sum of the sale, you could have tiered discount based offers where customers save a higher percent the more they buy. Therefore encourage them to spend more in your store!

Free delivery is another deal that can pull in customers and is an effective call to action in your PPC ads. Buyers don’t like hidden costs and learning of heavy shipping costs in the late stages of the transaction can push users to drop off, wasting traffic and therefore your PPC spend.

To gain repeat custom try incentive schemes, loyalty discounts and send promotional emails to previous customers. Basically make existing customers feel special through discount on further purchases. These can work in store and online, making the most of all new and existing customers.

Why not have offers to entice customers to buy now, through limited time offers and sales. Everybody is looking for a deal now so make sure your PPC campaign is geared up to capture their business before someone else does!

Tanasé Rivers

Paid Search Account Manager

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Simple Scripts that help aid your Word Press install

2008-11-18T17:00:27Z

Installing a blog or even migrating a Wordpress blog can be a time consuming task. There are times when you wish simple scripts were available to help you complete such tasks.
Bellow is a set of plug-ins that may help with installation, backing up data and so-forth.

Easy Word Press Install
Easy WP installer is a script that helps you quickly install Word Press with only FTP access. The script will download all the Word Press files for you so you don’t have to. This makes uploading a breeze because the only file you need to upload is 8kb of data. I’d have to say this is ideal for mobile users.

Database Backup
This should be used with any blog install. Instead of having the inconvenience of installing php MySQL Admin and then taking a back-up, this script will do it automatically. The only details needed to back up your blog are user, pass, db name and host.

If you do not have the db details it will automatically take this out of the config.php file for you.

Resetting your administrator password
Did your install not work correctly? Have you forgotten your admin password? Well the script emergency.php will easily reset it for you. The script will reset your password and then resend the details to the admin email address assigned.

S.Whiston, SEO Programmer

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Content can help your company survive the recession

2008-11-18T09:34:35Z

Everywhere we look, the media is talking about recession and how it is affecting businesses. At times like these, companies need to watch their expenditure and ensure their marketing budget is used wisely. Content can help your company survive.

By integrating articles and regular, fresh content into your website, it demonstrates to customers and visitors that you are an authentic company, that you have a regular presence and it encourages them to interact or make an enquiry with your company.

It is not likely that either you or your team have the inclination, the time and the necessary talent to do all of this work yourselves and so it is important to use experts who can do this on your behalf. Undoubtedly, you know your industry and business inside out and this needs to be translated into relevant content but this is difficult unless you know about search engine optimisation, have the dedication to do it regularly and have strong editorial skills.

The forthcoming recession, or the one that we are already in, depending on which newspaper you read, could be a tough downturn for our economy. Your marketing budget might be limited. Either way, you need to set in place an online marketing strategy to help connect you to quality traffic and prospects, and content is just one of the methods that should be used.

Lianne Wilkinson
Creative Advertising Manager

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Video Blogging

2008-11-17T13:42:44Z

Video blog, also known as a vlog, is a web blog in which the medium is video rather than text. Just like other blogs the content is made regularly and most of the time it is a combination of text, images and other metadata, hence they provide the user with a richer web experience. Most video bloggers believe that it allows for more natural expression as compared to a normal blog.

These days video blogging is becoming popular with bloggers and podcasters because new technologies (digital or mobile phone cameras) make it easy to produce images and videos rather than writing loads of text.

It is quite easy to post a video. You can capture video by using a digital camera and then simply upload it on a blog post. However, you can incorporate titles, edited clips and other media effects to enhance your message. Video blogging exemplifies the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words. The only disadvantages or downsides of video blogging are bandwidth requirements and resources or equipment required to capture, store and distribute video. Also, a significant amount of time and money is required to do the video blogging.

Nadeem Hussain
SEO Programmer

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Pattern Matching with robots.txt

2008-11-14T17:26:21Z

The robots.txt file is a simple text file placed in the root directory of your site which offers specific instructions for how robots can access your site. The SEO implications of this are that you can restrict certain pages from being indexed helping to ensure that only relevant pages are made available to search engines and helping to retain PageRank on those pages. The robots.txt file uses three rules; User-agent (the robot the rules will apply to), Disallow (the URL that is to be blocked from the given robot) and Allow (the URL that the robot is allowed access too). Asides from blocking given URLS, pattern matching can be used to disallow access to any URL that, as you may of guessed, matches the pattern.

Matching a sequence of characters – This can be done through use of an asterisk (*) to block any directories or files that match the given text, for example the following rules will disallow the robots from any directory beginning with “admin”:

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /admin*/

Blocking a URL containing a question mark – This is a useful technique when dealing with pages that are passing user submitted data through the URL. In the following example the rules disallow any page that contains a “?”:

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /*?

Matching the end of a URL – This can be achieved through use of the “$” symbol. By placing this at the end of a URL you can specify that this rule applies to URLs that end here. Using the example of user submitted information being passed through the URL, the following rules can be used to ensure that any page containing information after the “?” to be disallowed, whilst pages with nothing after “?” to be allowed:

User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /*?$
Disallow: /*?

Nick Price
SEO Programmer

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