10 Weird Things that Influence Customers Online
Sometimes what causes customers to change their behaviours are the strangest things in the world. At times customer psychology might make total sense, but at other times they can seem like a completely different species.
These are ten strange and bizarre things that can influence customers online. These are things you probably wouldn’t think to test for, but they make a difference.
1. The Phone Number They Never Call
A lot of webmasters have found that if they put a phone number on their website, it increases their web conversions.
What’s funny is that very few people ever actually call the number. Just the fact that there is a real person on the other end is enough for them to feel more confident about buying.
2. Putting a Period in the Headline
Sometimes being grammatically correct doesn’t pay. In numerous split tests marketers have found that placing periods in headlines and subheads almost always reduces conversions. Commas sometimes also have the same effect.
A period gets people to stop reading rather than continue reading. Even if it’s grammatically correct, you might want to consider dropping to period.
3. Credibility Buttons
You know those “As Seen on TV” or “Seen on Oprah & MSN” logos? Those do a lot for increasing conversions. 
What’s funny however is that consumers often don’t actually check who’s on the logo. A credibility button that says “As seen on Bing & Google” works almost as well as “As Seen on CNN.” And just about any site on the planet is seen on Bing & Google.
4. Big & Unusual Buy Buttons
When Amazon was first getting started, they tested all kinds of different buttons to see what got the best result. They found that the “Add to Cart” button they use to be most effective.
Today however, everyone is used to the standard buttons. What marketers are finding more and more is that big and unusual buttons tend to do quite well.
5. The Refund Timing
Did you know that the number of refunds you get tends to go down as the refund window goes up? 
If someone only has 30 days to return something, they’re more likely to keep close tabs on when the refund date is. If the refund date is 3 months however, they’re more likely to keep even looser tabs.
Some companies that offer one year refund windows have found that this window actually drastically cuts down refunds. Read more
Top 10 Reasons Why Your Link Requests Are Failing
Link requests can be an incredibly powerful tool that can shoot your rankings from nothing to the top 5 in no time at all. Unfortunately, people often make mistakes throughout the process that keep their link requests from working. Your link request must avoid many pitfalls to have a chance of success, yet few of us fully understand or plan ahead to avoid them.
If your link requests aren’t working, here are ten potential reasons why.
1. Your Subject Line Doesn’t Catch Attention
If you want someone to read your email, you first need to get them to open it. That’s what the subject line is there for.
Your subject line should be gripping and powerful and it should immediately demonstrate what’s in it for them.
2. Contacting Non-Relevant Sites
Another common reason for failure is contacting sites that aren’t really relevant to your website.
Yes, getting backlinks is important. However, Google only really cares about relevant backlinks. Furthermore, if you’re contacting sites that aren’t relevant to your industry, they probably aren’t going to respond.
3. Not Being Link Worthy
A link to your website is essentially a vote for the quality of your website. If you want other 
people to link to you, you first need to have a website that deserves to be linked to.
Make sure you have a well designed website with tons of content before you start asking people to link to you. If you only have a five page website, it’s unlikely someone will want to send their visitors to your site.
4. Not Personalizing Your Requests
Sending link requests is a numbers game. Chances are you’re going to have to send several hundred requests in a successful campaign. However, in order for these requests to work, they need to be personalized.
Each person who gets a contact from you should feel as if you’re talking to them. You should address something unique about their site, product or customer base when you email them. It shouldn’t seem like you’re bulk mailing.
5. Not Following Up
Often time’s people will actually want to give you a link, decide to do so and then forget. 
Remember, it takes effort to give someone a link. They need to open up Dreamweaver, find where the link goes, put in the a href tag, upload the file and make sure it works. (Or the equivalent in WordPress or any other CMS.)
Since it takes effort, people often put it off. Sending just one or two reminder emails could be all it takes to convert these people into a link. Read more
The 3 Most Critical Aspects to Consider When Choosing a Web Hosting Provider
Choosing a good webhosting provider involves balancing a variety of different features with their respective costs. A startup business with very little traffic will need very different web hosting solutions than an established business running complicated software with hundreds of thousands of visitors. Here are some of the most important things you should consider when you’re choosing a web hosting service.
Service
Service is a
n extremely important component of web hosting. If your website goes down and you don’t have an in-house tech, the technical support department of your web hosting company becomes the people you rely on. The technical support department of your web host should be both responsive and knowledgeable. There are a couple ways to tell whether or not your web host fits these criteria.
First you can Google the web host for stories or reviews about their service. While this might not work for smaller hosts, larger hosts will have a deluge of user experiences online for all to read.
Testing responsiveness is easy: Just call their tech support department and see how long it takes to get someone to pick up. Ideally you should get someone within 3 rings. If it takes 30 minutes to get someone on the line, then you probably shouldn’t place your order.
If you really want to put their responsiveness to the test, try calling both during peak hours and in strange hours (E.g. 4am) to see if their 24 hour service truly is 24 hours.
Included Packages
You should check what comes included with your web host. Today’s web hosts usually offer unlimited domains and unlimited email addresses. However, beyond these two basics there are a lot of variations.
First thing to look for is cPanel. cPanel is what gives you an easy to user interface for managing your website. Many web hosts include cPanel for free, though some charge for it.
If you plan on running WordPress, PHPBB or other such common plugins you should also look for a one-click install system, such as Fantastico.
Finally, if you plan on writing your own code or running custom programs make sure the version of PHP, MySQL and/or Apache works with the software you plan on installing.
Your Processing Needs
The kind of hosting package you need to purchase depends in large part on how much processing power you need. Yes, it’s true that most hosting providers give you “unlimited bandwidth” even on a small shared hosting package. However, what’s not unlimited is the processing power you take up on the servers.
The primary limit of servers isn’t bandwidth but processing power. If you’re running an analytics system, custom software, dynamic websites and a variety of other programs that need to process every time a visitor lands on your site and you’re getting tens of thousands of visitors – Then you’re going to seriously tax the system.
With shared hosting, you’re usually sharing your processing power amongst 50 to 400 websites. With a Virtual Private Server (VPS) you’re usually sharing with between 5 to 25 people. With a dedicated server, you’re the only one with access to that computer’s processing power.
Keep in mind that if you’re on a shared server, you’re vulnerable to someone else using too much power causing your site to run slow. For example, if someone else’s site suddenly gets 20,000 people to their site in a day, maxing out the server’s capabilities, your own programs will run very slowly because you don’t have those resources anymore.
At the end of the day you need to make a decision about your own server processing needs, your need for stability and the price you’re willing to pay. Shared hosting is the cheapest option, followed by VPS then a dedicated server. Each gives you more power, but costs more money.
Making Your Decision
Start by choosing whether you want a shared host, a VPS or a dedicated server. Keep in mind that you can always move up. Then look at the potential hosts and see which one(s) have the features you want. Make sure they have the capability to install any software that you might want to use in the future. Then test their technical support by placing a test call to see their response time.
Finally, compare the different levels of pricing between the hosts you’re considering. At this point you can make a fully informed decision as to which host to go with.
As for our recommendations, we’re hosted with LiquidWeb using a dedicated server provided by them and we’d highly recommend them for their super prompt service. If you’re looking for a shared host, apart from LiquidWeb, we’ve also used HostGator who’ve been very good and they have some packages available in the lower price range for people looking to test things out.
Rethink Your Link Building Strategy – Targeting Long Tail Terms
If you’re using the old-fashioned method of getting backlinks to try and rank for competitive keywords, I’ve got news for you: You’re leaving the bulk of your traffic behind. Over the last few years, intelligent marketers have discovered that the money and the traffic simply aren’t in the big keywords.
When you conduct a search online, how do you go about your search? More often than not, you type a pretty specific search term into Google. That’s because you’re looking for specific information rather than generic information. These searches are called “long tail searches.” They’re searches that come from longer keywords rather than short two or three word search phrases. Search engine experts estimate that 70% of searches are long-tail searches while only 30% are high level and mid level keywords.
Aiming for the long-tail has two main benefits. First of all, they’re much easier to rank for. Instead of taking months or even years to rank for a competitive keyword, you can rank for a large number of uncompetitive keywords instead. Second, long tail searchers tend to be much closer to buying.
If you run a microwave oven and grill sales website, who would you rather have land on your website: Someone who types in “oven” or someone who types in “buy a microwave oven and grill” The latter of course. They’re closer to buying.
Now you know why targeting long tail is important. So how do you go about doing so? There are two main questions you need to address:
1. Which longtail keywords will be the most profitable to target?
2. How do you build links to and rank for these keywords?
Let’s address each question, one at a time.
Choosing Longtail Keywords to Target
Start by looking through your Google Analytics data. If you don’t have analytics installed, install it now. In addition to long tail data, you’ll get a wide range of valuable information.
Google Analytics will tell you exactly what longtail keywords people came to your website through. Record these and look for patterns, frequent searches and buying keywords.
Bounce Rate and Exit Rate – What is the Difference and Why They’re Important
Two of the most important metrics in internet marketing are bounce rate and exit rate. Many people find it a bit confusing to know the difference between the two. If you are one of them then this article is for you as it is intended to take the mystery out of your website’s bounce rate and exit rate.
Bounce rate refers to the percentage o
f visitors who view only one page of your website before leaving. In other words, the visitor ‘bounces’ on and off your particular page. Exit rate is defined as the percentage of visitors who leave your site from a given page based on how many visits that the particular page has received. This visitor who leaves or exits could have been on many pages of your website but simply exited on the specific page. An example would be a visitor who has found your site after conducting an organic search, clicks a page inside your site and then leaves from that page.
In contrast, if this visitor simply landed on your site from the organic search and did not visit any internal pages, it would be considered a bounce. Generally speaking, an ideal bounce rate to shoot for is between 20% and 25% provided you are targeting relevant, core keywords. If your bounce rate increases past 35%, you should look at the usability factors of your website. Of course, some search queries do generate high bounce rates such as in the cases of specific informational queries like ‘what flavors are available in Sam’s Coffee?’
A high bounce rate
on a home page is usually an indicator that something is wrong so if you find that most of your visits are only to your homepage and nothing more, you will need to optimize your site by improving its functionality, user-friendliness and/or by providing nicely written content visitors will find very helpful and very informative.
5 Must Do’s to create a “Sticky” Website
Having strong online presence is necessary for any business in the current global scenario. However, just having a website is not enough. In our last post, we discussed the importance of “sticky content” in reducing the bounce rate and thereby improving your search engine rankings.
So while it’s already been established that having a “sticky” website is necessary, the million dollar question pending an answer is, “how do we go about creating sticky content?” Well, we feel that there are 5 absolutely essential must do’s for your site, if it has to stand any chance of being “sticky” enough to engage your users.
1. The content should be authoritative and engaging
Usually people browse the Internet seeking information. They are under the impression that who ever has created the website is an authority on the subject. You need to make sure that your content is well researched. It should provide relevant and in-depth information to the visitor. For example, if you have a website on pet health, you need to ensure that you have all the relevant details about the subject. 
If you just publish a list of pet care products with pricing, the visitor is not likely to spend much time on that page unless you could also save them the trouble of providing enough information about each product. Before working on your content, list all possible questions people may have about the subject. Ensure that your content answers all these questions. It is also important to ensure that you engage your visitors. Most of the time visitors reach the landing page, read the content and move away. It is advisable to have something on the web page which would encourage them to take further action. For example you may help them with how to go about ordering a product. You may even have a poll or a small quiz. However you need to make sure that all these are relevant to the subject.
2. Provide links to reputed sources
It is advisable to pro
vide links to trusted and reputed sources. It adds to the credibility of the website. It alsoconveys to the search engines that you intend to provide the best information to your visitors. For example, if your website is about photos of nature or animals, you may have reference link to websites like the National Geography. To put it simply, your content should convey that you are the authority on the subject. Also allow users to share the information they find on your website. This can be achieved by integrating social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook into the web page.
Improve Search Engine Rankings with “Sticky” Content
As a website/blog owner, you know by now that you must make your site as search engine friendly as you can so that it gets indexed well. You also know that your website/blog must be as ‘people friendly’ as possible so that the visitors who land on your site stay there long enough to take a desired action which is most likely to buy a product or service from you. That’s what we’ve all read and know and it is indeed true and just as important today than it ever has been.
You should be striving to create a “sticky” website. The “stickiness” aspect of a site is its ability to keep users on the site for a sustained period of time. In addition to being able to retain visitors, a sticky site could rank better in the search engines if effective SEO techniques are used on the website. You can brag all you want about the high number of visitors who land on your site, but if they only stay there for two or three seconds, clearly they are not being fulfilled.
It is essential that your site is filled with the right amount of unique content that basically answers every question a visitor to your page may have about the topic they went searching for. Your content should be authoritative in nature and the type of content you would like to find if you conducted a search for the type of information you have on your site yourself.
How to Use Google Places for Your Business
It is a well-known fact that the vast majority of consumers turn to the internet when looking for local businesses. Google has also told us that ¾ of all online activity is related to local content. This is of vast importance for local businesses which depend on the search engine giant to drive people through their doors, to generate phone calls and to increase the awareness regarding their brands.
Most local businesses spend a good deal of money and time fine-tuning their paid search campaigns and SEO strategies. However, many are not realizing one of the most valuable and cost-free tools Google has, is Google Places. This service was first offered by Google two years ago this fall to replace the Google Local service. The nice thing about Places is the fact that it is totally free and quite easy to set up.
To get started with Google Places you will have to submit your basic info including your business name, website URL, description of your business, category, hours of operation, telephone number, payment options you accept and a photo or video which highlights your business. You are allowed to add up to ten images and five videos. The more info you enter about your business the better your organic rankings will be in Places but avoid keyword stuffing as Google could remove your listing. It’s also important to be specific when adding your business description. Avoid saying things like “we’ve been in business for over two decades” or “we’re the best dog groomer in the city”.
Once you have set
up your account and have finished entering your business information, Google will send you a PIN verification number by mail (postcard) SMS or via a phone call, the choice is yours. You will need to log into Places and enter your Pin next to the business listing you created and then you’re done. It will take Google 30 days from the time you enter your PIN to verify your business.
It’s important to know that Google Places only lists seven businesses per search with its red place markers marked A through G. This means that those business similar to yours which have listed themselves on Places before you did get the place markers. Listing your business as soon as possible is the way to go so that you can claim one of the coveted 7 place markers. Another way to get into the top seven is to encourage customer reviews because the more reviews you get, the more likely you’ll land in the top seven.
You can check to see if your business is listed in Places by searching for your phone number in Google maps. If it shows up, then that’s great! There really isn’t any reason not to use Places as it provides a great way for customers to find you which will most likely convert into sales and business prominence.
Review of Directory Maximizer by Dave Jenyns
We are excited to share with you this video by the noted Dave Jenyns where he has reviewed Directory Maximizer & has given his views on our service!
Dave, who is one of the youngest & best keynote speakers in Australia, gives a brief Directory Maximizer review and explains how and why people can use our service in their businesses. Watch the video to see why Dave finds our service fit to be approved by him!
Before ending, let me leave you with a small excerpt from his review of Directory Maximizer where he shares his views on Directory Maximizer -
“The fact is, Directory Maximizer is an amazing tool that every internet marketer should have in their toolkit.”
Need we say more?
Everything You Wanted to Know About the Bing Business Portal
If you own a business, having a strong online presence is crucial to make sure you are available to all your customers all around the world, 24 X 7. To streamline your business’s online presence and to make the most out of it, take a look at the all new Bing Business Portal from the famed Microsoft Corporation that was launched on 11 April, 2011. The new Bing Business Portal (BBP) has been created in place of the older Bing Local Listing Center (LLC) and with BBP now in place, all previous, existing listings on LLC have been moved over smoothly to the new BBP platform.
The new version of the Bing Business Portal is Microsoft’s answer to Google Places, Google’s business listing platform. The beta version of this Bing Business Portal packs in a lot of punch for the local business owners to help grow 
their business.Businesses can now develop and organize all of their Internet listings, among other things. This single action can help ensure your customers and users can easily track you on the Internet, and boost traffic to your website.
How, you ask? Well, with the improved listings on the Bing Business Portal you can enter a good amount of essential details that are new about your business such as supplementary keywords, links to your social profile pages, a link to you core business website, your corporate logo, images of your premises (especially beneficial to the hotel industry where you can showcase the ambiance, parking etc), accepted modes of payment and other business specific information (a glimpse of future service offerings or current services). Businesses can enter up to six additional categories and keywords, this helps to paint a more accurate picture of the business for prospective customers and enhances the relevance of their Bing listing. In so doing, the Bing Business Portal helps businesses to attract a targeted audience.
Not only that, business owners can now easily offer tempting deals on the Internet and promote these deals and all their other offers on the Bing desktop as well as on the mobile platform. That too, without having to pay a single dollar for it.It doesn’t end there, the BBP lets you display crucial additional details and offers about your product, service or brand that can help your business in search results and drive hits to your business site.
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