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Believe It Or Not! You Can Get More Leads Without Generating Web Traffic

Believe It Or Not! You Can Get More Leads Without Generating Web Traffic  by Judy Caroll.  Available from <http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/believe-not-can-get-leads-without-generating-web-traffic-01662809#zQQH8SPYH3YhRdrF.97> [September 23, 2016]

In B2B marketing, perhaps no two words are as important as Traffic and Conversion. These two spell the difference between being in the black and being in the red. But you probably already know this by now: More web traffic does not always mean more leads. Traffic that does not convert is useless. That’s really unfortunate. Luckily, you can still increase your leads production without necessarily increasing your web traffic. Convenient, right?

Here are surefire ways to increase your conversion – meaning, turning traffic into leads – without actually increasing your web traffic.

Amplify your Unique Selling Point

I said amplify. Not just state or declare or put it there for all to see. Maximize and optimize it by making sure it grabs the viewers’ or readers’ attention the moment they see it, or at least, creates a strong connection with them. A convincing declaration of your unique selling point can build trust and keep prospects on the page longer than they originally intended.

Pro tip: Use “action” words, not just passive words. And yes, sell the solution to their problem, not your product. Don’t be too salesy like a snake oil salesman.

Simplify your Home Page

Really, just KISS it, or “Keep It Short and Simple”. Or “Keep it Simple, St****.” The simpler your homepage is, the easier for the viewers to navigate through it and find what they need and want. Just make sure it answers these questions:

#1: What does your product or service offer?

#2: How will your product or service solve my problem? Explain the benefits you provide, not the features.

Don’t make the common mistake of talking about yourself at length. Harping about your accomplishments will bore, if not totally turn off your viewer.

Pro tip: Remember, the homepage is yours, but it’s about the customer or client or guest. If it’s about them, they’ll stay longer.

Make your Headlines & Contact Information Visible

It’s the goal of the webpage to at least generate inquiries. If your headlines can’t be seen, what do you think would make any visitor want to learn more from it? Make sure your headlines attract the visitors’ attention as soon as their eyes land on the page. And that “Contact Us” page? It’s not just for display. You really have to make an effort to make it as user-friendly as possible – make it visible and easy to read. No fancy fonts, please. If can make your contact number(s) so conspicuous the visitor doesn’t have to look for it, so much the better.

Pro tip: You have to make the visitors feel confident in you, in your product or service or whatever you’re selling.

Offer Incentives

What sounds better than freebies? Rewards! Incentives! Bonuses! Use the psychology of free stuff. I don’t know, but there’s something about those words that give them a really nice ring when spoken. Positive reinforcement almost always works, and it’s true especially in marketing. When you add something extra – like a reward or bonus – to your unique selling point, it’s easier to close the deal with the visitor. Offer a “money-back guarantee” or “free replacement” or “lifetime warranty” and chances are, you’ll clinch the sale.

While you have already effectively differentiated your product or service from the competition through your unique selling point, the incentive to bonus or reward adds value to the whole thing, and even builds a deeper client-business relationship.

Pro tip: Your message should be “You can’t get from others what I’m offering you.”

Focus on Outbound

The previous four tips focus on optimizing the webpage. This last one is a no-brainer in terms of increasing leads without increasing web traffic volume. Why not try some of the most effective outbound marketing strategies?

Event marketing is a simple and easy way to interact with prospects and turn them into leads. Experiential event marketing is even better, as it goes beyond the mere physical presence of people at an event. Here are some unconventional event marketing campaigns, find out why they totally worked.

And of course, there’s good old targeted telemarketing if you want fast results. Whatever medium you choose, the most important thing is choosing an efficient and effective third-party service provider.

Pro tip: Do not settle. When you’re outsourcing, you simply do not settle for mediocre results.

Conclusion

One key takeaway here is, when you implement something new, make sure it’s measurable so you’ll know what works for you and what doesn’t. More importantly, don’t stop trying testing new things. Observe what your competitors are doing successfully that you may apply to your own. If you don’t think imitation is the highest form of flattery, then just make it your inspiration.

This post originally appeared at The Savvy Marketer’s Blog

Believe It Or Not! You Can Get More Leads Without Generating Web Traffic  by Judy Caroll.  Available from <http://www.business2community.com/digital-marketing/believe-not-can-get-leads-without-generating-web-traffic-01662809#zQQH8SPYH3YhRdrF.97> [September 23, 2016]

The importance of multiple domain names and web addresses

The importance of multiple domain names and web addresses by Lucy Wayment.  Available from <http://startups.co.uk/the-importance-of-multiple-domain-names-and-web-addresses/>. [Updated: Sep 26, 2016 Published: Sep 23, 2016]

Are you doing all you can to drive traffic to your website? Chances are you won’t have tried some of these handy tips…

Creating a solid foundation is vitally important when building your business’s online presence

The first step is to choose and register the right domain name. A .com domain name is especially valuable if it’s time for your company to go global and sell to different markets. If you register a domain name for your business’s main website in an internationally recognised top level domain (“TLD”) such as .com, you won’t need to register a domain name in a TLD that’s suited only for a particular country.

In addition, the familiarity and dependability of .com inspires trust in customers. After all, for more than 19 years, Verisign has maintained 100% operational accuracy and stability for .com and .net.

Once you’ve registered a .com domain name and established your business’s main website using the .com domain name, you’re ready to expand your business’ online presence. Registering multiple domain names will not only help you expand your business’ online presence but will provide you with a variety of other benefits as well.

Registering your company’s name as a domain name in other TLDs, like .net or .tv, can help protect your online space by preventing competitors from using the same domain name in the selected TLD and stop internet traffic otherwise intended for your website being sent to a competitor’s website, thereby helping you reduce customer confusion and challenges in finding your business online.

Capture misspellings and keep the competition at bay

Registering multiple variations of your company’s name as domain names in one TLD, such as .com, can help your customers reach your website even if they misspell your company’s name. Instead of visiting an error page, you can use URL redirection to redirect customers from the improperly spelled domain name to the properly spelled domain name with your business’s main website. As an added benefit, you will also prevent others from registering domain names that are similar to your company’s name.

More marketing opportunities

If your business intends to launch a marketing campaign, you can register domain names to align or support the campaign.

Take comparethemarket.com, for example. The company’s ‘comparethemeerkat’ campaign was a huge success. To complement the campaign, the insurance company registeredcomparethemeerkat.com, an additional domain name with a website that provides quotes and links to the main site.

Whether you direct customers to a promotional landing page or to your main website, additional domain names can help promote and drive results for an existing in-market campaign.

Highlight your company’s niche

Additional descriptive and memorable domain names in the .com TLD can highlight the unique aspects of your business, such as location or speciality.

If, for example, your main website is plumberjones.com but you’re eager to target customers in a specific area, you could register plumberinbrixton.com as an additional domain name and redirect customers from the additional domain name to the domain name with your main website.

Alternatively, you can use descriptive terms to help ensure that potential customers looking for plumbers can reach you – such as registering a domain name like stopleakypipes.com.

Registering multiple domain names in multiple TLDs, like .net or .tv, doesn’t mean you need multiple websites. For example, you can use URL redirecting to redirect internet traffic intended for one or more of your domain names to your preferred .com domain name with your business’s main website. With URL redirection, it will be easier for you to collect, measure and analyse all of the internet traffic destined for your online business since it’s all being redirected to one domain name. Setting up URL redirection with a registrar, such as GoDaddy, 123-reg,names.co.uk or 1and1, is typically an easy process.

Registering multiple domain names in multiple TLDs and/or in .com, with your main website on a .com domain name, is a smart, cost-effective way of increasing your company’s online presence while also creating a variety of other benefits for your business. Use our Find a Domain Name tool to register a domain name.

This article is a part of the ‘Getting Online’ series sponsored by Verisign. For more information from Verisign on how to get your business online, click here.

The importance of multiple domain names and web addresses by Lucy Wayment.  Available from <http://startups.co.uk/the-importance-of-multiple-domain-names-and-web-addresses/>. [Updated: Sep 26, 2016 Published: Sep 23, 2016]

How to Protect Yourself After the Yahoo Attack

How to Protect Yourself After the Yahoo Attack by The New York Times.  Available from <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/technology/personaltech/what-to-do-if-hacked.html?_r=1> [UPDATED September 23, 2016]

Yahoo said on Thursday that hackers in 2014 stole the account information of at least 500 million users, including names, email addresses, telephone numbers, birth dates, passwords and, in some cases, security questions.

Even if you might not have used a Yahoo account for years, security experts say the incident could have far-reaching consequences for users beyond Yahoo’s services.

Here are some answers to frequently asked questions about how you can protect yourself.

How do I know if my personal information was stolen?

Assume it was.

Yahoo said it had begun notifying potentially affected users, but its breach was huge, and similar attacks and smallerthefts happen all the time.

Should I change my password?

The first step, as always, is to change passwords for sites that contain sensitive information like financial, health or credit card data. Do not use the same password across multiple sites.

Changing Yahoo passwords will be just the start for many of you. Comb through other services — especially those for which you provided a Yahoo email address to create an account — to make sure passwords used on those sites aren’t too similar to what you were using on Yahoo.

And if they weren’t doing so already, they’ll have to treat everything they receive online with an abundance of suspicion, in case hackers are trying to trick them out of even more information.

How do I create stronger passwords?

Try a password manager like 1Password or LastPass.
These sites create a unique password for each website you visit and store them in a database protected by a master password that you create. Password managers reduce the risk of reused passwords or those that are easy to decode.

If you must create your own passwords, try creating long, complex passwords consisting of nonsensical phrases or one-sentence summaries of strange life events and add numbers and special characters.

Examples:

My favorite number is Green4782#
The cat ate the CoTTon candy 224%
Or, if you’re extra paranoid, consider mimicking this setup:

Jeremiah Grossman, a web security expert, memorizes only a few passwords, including one to unlock his computer, and another to unlock an encrypted USB drive containing a file with a list of all his passwords for dozens of services. None of his passwords are memorable because they are random.

“I select them quite literally by banging on the keyboard a few times like a monkey,” Mr. Grossman said, adding that his setup is “a bit more paranoid” than that of the average person.

Create the strongest passwords for the sites that contain the most sensitive information and do not reuse them anywhere.
Are passwords enough?
Passwords are not enough. If a site offers additional security features, like secondary or two-factor authentication, enable them. Then, when you enter your password, you will receive a message (usually a text) with a one-time code that you must enter before you can log in.

Many bank sites and major sites like Google and Apple offer two-factor authentication. In some cases, the second authentication is required only if you are logging in from a new computer.

How can I stop my information from being stolen in the first place?

Increasingly, you cannot. Regularly monitoring your financial records can help minimize the damage if someone gets your information. But only the companies storing your personal data are responsible for securing it. Consumers can slow down hackers and identity thieves, but corporate computer security and law enforcement are the biggest deterrents.

What if you have changed your password after the breach happened but before it was disclosed?

The Yahoo attack happened two years ago but was disclosed only this week. Even if you changed your passwords recently for other websites, chances are at least some of them are similar to the password linked to your Yahoo account two years ago.

To play it safe, you should change your passwords, starting with your most sensitive accounts, including your online banking account.

Forget about security questions

Sites will often use security questions like “What was the name of your first school?” or “What is your mother’s maiden name?” to recover a user’s account if the password is forgotten.

These questions are problematic because the internet has made public record searches a snap and the answers are usually easy to guess.

In a recent study, security researchers at Google found that with a single guess, an attacker would have a 19.7 percent chance of duplicating an English-speaking user’s answer to the question, “What is your favorite food?” (It was pizza.)

With 10 tries, an attacker would have a 39 percent chance of guessing a Korean-speaking user’s answer to the question, “What is your city of birth?” and a 43 percent chance of guessing the favorite food.

Jonathan Zdziarski, a computer forensics expert, said he often answered these questions with an alternate password. If a site offers only multiple choice answers, or requires only short passwords, he will not use it.

“You can tell a lot about the security of a site just by looking at the questions they’ll ask you,” he said.

Photo: By Yahoo! Inc. [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

How to Protect Yourself After the Yahoo Attack by The New York Times.  Available from <http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/technology/personaltech/what-to-do-if-hacked.html?_r=1> [UPDATED September 23, 2016]

How to test a website before you launch: a 28 point checklist

How to test a website before you launch: a 28 point checklist Author Christopher Ratcliff.  Available from <https://www.clickz.com/how-to-test-a-website-before-you-launch-a-28-point-checklist/106011/> [Sept 20, 2016]

Three years ago, Mark Knowles wrote a thoroughchecklist for testing a website prior to its live launch. It was a very helpful guide, so we thought we’d update it for the current digital landscape.

Here we present a guide on how to test a website, full of updated information and tips to make sure everything looks and works exactly as it should on launch day. Everyone has a role here, and that’s how the tasks have been divided – for Editors, Designers, Developers, SEOs and Network Administrators.

Please note: many of the tips below are from Mark Knowles, but have been updated to reflect any changes.

For the Editor and Writers…

1. Spelling, grammar, punctuation

Check for proper spelling, typos, and grammar site-wide. Not just in article text and headlines, but also throughout the navigation, calls-to-action, buttons, forms etc.

2. Forms

Fill out the forms on the site and go through the following questions:

Can the flow be improved?
Do you get stuck?
Are the instructions accurate?
Does the completed form get sent to the right people or person?

3. Check images

Make sure your images are all optimised for the web. Ensuring they’re not too large – and site-speed draining. As well as being properly labelled with titles and alt-text.

4. Context

When giving a critical eye to the pages within the site, ask:

Why would I visit this page?
Is the content ready for visitor?
Does the page address the audience?

For the Web Designer

5. Site speed

Check the size of your page sizes and their load time. You can use Google’s own site speed testto do this. Site speed is a ranking factor, so follow any improvements Google recommends as closely as you can.

6. Mobile friendliness

Is your website mobile-friendly. Frankly it’s very difficult not to building a multi-device compatible website in 2016, but just in case, here’s a handy checklist to ensure your website’s mobile-friendliness.

7. Compatibility

Check to make sure your website’s pages render well in common browsers. Browser share is a moving target so to help prioritize efforts, here’s a site that continually examines it.

8. Fonts

Sometimes font codes get dropped into a page inadvertently and make a letter or a word look funny. Check to see that the formatting is consistent, and look for odd blips in the copy.

9. Navigation

Test the navigation to breaking point. Make sure every single possible journey through your website leads to wherever its meant to without any broken links or wrong pages.

Makes sure your on-site search works, and it delivers accurate results, and if there are any zero-results that you’re providing navigation to other relevant pages.

For the Web Developer

10. Live URLs

Often, sites are built at a URL (uniform resource locator) that isn’t the website’s final destination. When a site goes live, the URLs are transferred from a staging area to production. All the URLs change at this time, and they need to be tested.

On small sites without any tools, you can navigate to each page to make sure they all work. On a site with fewer than 500 URLs, you can use Screaming Frog SEO Spider Tool for free to find bad URLs. For larger sites, there is a modest annual fee.

11. Sign up to Google Search Console

Google Search Console (previously Webmaster Tools) is an invaluable tool for all webmasters. This is where Google will communicate with you should anything go wrong (crawling errors, manual penalties, increase in 404 pages, malware detected, etc.)

Search Console is also where you can monitor your site’s performance, identify issues, submit content for crawling, remove content you don’t want indexed, view the search queries that brought visitors to your site, monitor backlinks.

You should also sign up to Bing Webmaster Tools.

12. Minify

This is a technique that combines and compresses website code into smaller chunks to speed up your site. You can read more about it at Google. Then, look at the website pre-launch to see if the site is using minify where it can.

13. 404 pages

When a 404 (“page not found”) error occurs, make sure you have a custom page to help your visitor find something else of use, even if it wasn’t what they were looking for. Do you have an HTML sitemap there? Does the 404 page include a site search?

14. Favicon

Favicons are those little iconic images that show up in the address bar and tabs of your browser. How does it help? It’s a small branding opportunity that lends credibility to your site. It’s nice to have one when you launch.

For the SEO team

15. 301 Redirects

Sometimes content is repurposed or gets moved to fit the new navigation structure of a site. If you have an existing site and you are changing the URL structure with your new site, you’ll want to make sure you’ve mapped the old URLs to the new ones.

The Screaming Frog spider mentioned earlier can be run on both the old site and the new. An Excel spreadsheet is a great way to document this effort. Column A has the old URL, and you place the new URL in Column B. Each row represents a redirect from old to new. On launch day, it’s time to execute.

16. Title Tags/Meta Data

This may sound like old news to some, but this easy-to-fix mistake happens every day. Make sure every page has a title tag, and make sure they are unique.

Also make sure each has a meta description. Although these snippets used in search aren’t necessarily a ranking signal, they will help a searcher decide whether to click-through or not.

17. XML Sitemaps/HTML Sitemap

Make sure your new website has an accurate site map in both XML and HTML format. You canupload your sitemap to Search Console, however most CMSs such as WordPress will automatically build a sitemap for you.

18. Analytics

Make sure Google Analytics or the analytics package you’re using, is set up and ready to go from day one so you can measure and analyse traffic to your site.

19. Structured markup

If you’re using Schema markup or any other structured data, is it rendering correctly in SERPs? You can check any errors and how to fix them in the structured markup section of Search Console.

20. Accelerated Mobile Pages

If you’re using Google’s AMP project to provide mobile searchers with faster loading web pages, you need to make sure these are rendering properly. Here’s a guide to implementing Google AMP on your website.

21. Social media integration

Do the social media icons on the site go to the correct pages? Do you have the right buttons and social plugins installed for what you are trying to accomplish and what you want the user to be able to do? (For example, does it ‘share a post’ rather than ‘Like’ your page on Facebook.)

22. SERP Display

Are the search engines displaying your pages correctly in the search engine results pages? Did you write proper meta descriptions, but they aren’t being used? Thoroughly investigate your visibility in Search Console.

23. PPC Setup

Make sure if you’re running any PPC campaigns that they’re set up and ready to go with the site launch. To avoid a lapse in service, if you have a Google PPC rep, you can set and pause all your campaigns to the new URLs prior to launch, and instead of the ads getting disapproved, your rep can approve them manually.

For the Network Administrator

24. Monitoring

A site monitor checks pages regularly to make sure it is available for visitors. Basic monitors check if the page is working.

Important pages within the site should have enhanced monitors that test if a completed form behaves the way it should. Enhanced monitors are more expensive to setup and keep running so the page in question needs to justify the additional expense.

25. Backup System

Have you thought about what happens if the server goes down? Make sure the backup system is configured properly, and the recovery process has been tested so you know it works.

26. Traffic Loads

Think about what might happen to your site if it gets an influx of heavy traffic. There are load test software tools that allow you to simulate heavy loads. If you are expecting big crowds, this is a must.

27. Protected Pages

Does your site have pages that require user credentials to view? If so, do the credentials work? From the opposite angle, also check to see that the pages can’t be viewed without proper credentials. Make several attempts to get to those URLs without proper credentials to make sure the security is working as expected.

28. Secure Certificate

If your site is ecommerce, or you’re using encrypted pages to protect visitor privacy on a form or elsewhere, you’ll want to check your certificate on launch day.

To do this, go to the encrypted section of your site. When the lock appears in the address bar, right click on it and read the message your visitors will read. It should have your name on it and state that it’s valid. If the lock doesn’t appear or the name isn’t right, let your provider know.

Christopher Ratcliff is the editor of Search Engine Watch and a writer at ClickZ. You can follow him on Twitter: @Christophe_Rock

How to test a website before you launch: a 28 point checklist Author Christopher Ratcliff.  Available from <https://www.clickz.com/how-to-test-a-website-before-you-launch-a-28-point-checklist/106011/> [Sept 20, 2016]