With the holiday seasons coming up I hope everyone has their campaigns in order but one of the most overlooked portion of a lot of campaigns I see is the landing page.  Tim Ash presented a Google Website Optimizer Webinar (which they’ve now posted on their YouTube Channel here) which talked about the ‘Seven Deadly Sins of Landing Page Design’.  Overall the video was really well done but pretty long, over an hour, so I took out the 7 sins and Tim’s recommended fixes and posted them below.  I also included links to the direct time in the video where he talks about each one. 

Seven Deadly Sins:
-Unclear Call to Actions – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erdEZvOq6wo#7m36s
    -should be clear and draw the eye
    -placement of CTA should be above the fold
    -de-emphasize competing CTAs

-Too Many Choices – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erdEZvOq6wo#14m20s
    -don’t present detail too early in the process
    -group choice into small number of categories
    -visual shortcuts to reduce reading

-Asking for too much Information – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erdEZvOq6wo#17m10s
    -ask only for absolutely-requred information
    -collect the rest at a later date

-Too Much Text – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erdEZvOq6wo#21m28s
    -Use clear headlines and headings
    -put important stuff first – “inverted pyramid” style
    -do not write in complete sentences
    -Edit and shorten text

-Not Keeping Your Promises – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erdEZvOq6wo#25m05s
    - Repeat the ad-test or keywords on your page
    -Provide clear access to information from the ad

-Visual Distractions “Make It More Boring” – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erdEZvOq6wo#29m40s
    -Don’t compete with the call-to-action
    -Remove colorful page elements and animation/motion
    -Replace generic photos with specific relevant images

-Lack of Credibility & Trust – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erdEZvOq6wo#34m14s
    -Feature well-known trust symbols prominently
    -Use client logos/brands/media coverages as badges on the site
    -Remove anxiety with generous policies & guarantees

Mistah F.A.B., a rapper from the west coast has went and put out a song specifically about Twitter and it’s actually pretty entertaining.

source Raindrophustla

according to SERoundtable you can view the story here

Thanks Google

This is pretty unheard of.  My daily routine of firing up Firefox and checking email then Adwords was cut short this morning when I got the following error message that Adwords doesn’t support FireFox 3.5

What? Seriously? Hey Adwords, at least give me the link to switch to the old interface which would be much easier then me hunting down an older version of Firefox.

Sheesh..how lame!

Google is slowly rolling out the recently announced new UI for Google Adwords.

Get yours by signing up here

PS- I’m back from South America and will hopefully be posting a little bit more here.

If you log into your adwords account today you may receive a pop-up alerting you that a new ‘Beta Interface’ is available. If you don’t have the notification look to the upper right hand corner for a ‘Beta Interface’ link and it may be there for you..

You can see the interface in the screen shot which looks like a mutation of Google Adwords and Google Analytics. This is a much needed improvement in usability and efficiency. I love the ease in which you can navigate through the campaigns and ad groups, the graph and the expanded view.

I thought things would be different.  Our first black President is supposed to help us move past racial barriers not build up walls around our http-requests.  Apparently, the folks over at Black Bird Browser didn’t get the memo and have released a browser specifically for the African American community.  No, I’m not joking.

Blackbird is the web browser for the African American community.  Blackbird was developed by a team of African Americans to allow you to connect to what’s going on in the African American community.

As it appears to be a rebranded version of Firefox, the browser’s site states that it contains
“Black Search, Black News Ticker, Black Bookmarks, Blackbird TV..” as some of its African American focused features.

The racial browser wars don’t stop there as I have also stumbled upon White Bird Browser

White Bird is the web browser for the White American Community. White Bird was developed by a team of white people and is in no way related to the Blackbird project.

It’s obvious that the creator of Whitebird took quite offense to the Blackbird project and wanted to make a point. As I spent time investigating each site, i noticed something interesting. The Black bird browser was only available on Windows platforms, whereas, as if by design, the white bird browser was available on multiple, including windows and mac. Perhaps white people use both.

I will close with one final thought on this debacle, both are a proud people and seek to advance their own well being, at whatever the cost. Perhaps in this case, while the browsers are free, it is their dignity that was sold.

Ever since Google’s official acquisition of DoubleClick Perfomics, lots of people in the search community protested about conflicts of interest on Google’s part. They also are worried about their competition, DoubleClick Performics’ Search Marketing, not playing fair. It seems like Google decided to do the right thing. They’re keeping the affiliate marketing side of DoubleClick, and selling off the Search Marketing unit.

This move is definitely good for Google’s reputation. But if Google didn’t sell off Doubleclick’s search marketing department, personally, I think the only “unfair” thing about them would be the fact that DoubleClick’s sales people can persuade potential clients to pick them over another major agency because they are the only search marketing company owned by Google.

But as far as the effectiveness of SEO goes, I don’t think they have a major edge comparing to other agencies. As I’ve stated a year ago,

So…….if you have inside knowlege about Google’s algorithms, spend
a year disecting every little line, what conclusion would you get?
“We need more quality back links with keywords as anchor text!”.

All is fair; SEO isn’t a “secret”, there isn’t much “insider
knowledge”, I think we know what it takes to rank well for specific
keywords for specific sites.

On the subject of “playing fair”, I don’t think Google will give
Performatics special treatment. Google refused “manual manipulation”
when “Miserable Failure” hype came around, it certainly wouldn’t
manually put their clients first for specific keywords.

Google put into effect its new Adwords policy where your display URL has to match the destination URL today. Make sure yours match!

“Important Change to URL Policy Enforcement
Starting in April, display URLs for new ads will be required to match their destination / landing page URLs, without exception. Please adjust your URLs accordingly when creating new ads.”

here’s the WMW thread with more discussion

Barry at SERoundtable noticed video’s embedded in the SERPs in the ads section. This is something that is pretty important because a video is a great way to illicit a emotional response from a potential customer. The connection a user gets from the text ad alone pales in comparison to what a video can provide so I’m really excited to be able to try this with some of my accounts. Imagine opening up a newspaper and being able to see that ad for the golf sale in motion (Copyright!), it would be more likely to get you off your but and into the store. Read more on the story at SER

PS – if anyone can figure out that newspaper video technology, i’ll license my copyright