Back to the Basics with Testing for Internet Marketers

It seems like business owners have forgotten the fundamentals of marketing and that it includes testing. “Almost any question can be answered cheaply, quickly, and finally by a test campaign, said Claude Hopkins the author of Scientific Advertising (1923). Although the book is dated, scientific advertising is critical to SEO, Pay per Click, Website Design, and Email Marketing. It is not just important to determine what works but also learning what doesn’t work to helped the business get to the point of generating leads and converting them into sales. In today’s environment, web analytics and conversion optimization are linked to scientific advertising or marketing. Continue to test your landing pages, ad copy, and call to action.

For more information, read “Always Be Testing” for tips, guidance, and tools.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Myths & Misconceptions that the Best SEOs Rank at the Top of a Google Search for SEO

While it's very hard to convince some people otherwise, with the exception of top level SEO consultants, the results for "SEO" at Google are substandard. Even SEOToday was ironically not listed on the first page of Google on October 16, 2010, and several of the United States Top SEOs were not listed within the first 3 pages of Google. Why not? SEO considers the company, branding, messaging, and positioning statements. SEO consultants look to identify keywords and phrases that not only increase visibility, but also increase the probability of conversions (leads or sales). This request intensive keyword researches both quantitative and qualitative data usually in the form of web analytics, keyword tools and customer feedback. SEO starts with keyword research, which leads to an understanding of your client’s goals, objectives, strategies, and target audience.

This is a job for an SEO or SEM agency, not for a web design firm. In some cases, web design firms can provide most businesses with a title, keywords, and descriptions; however, the lack of expertise or human resources to allocate time and applied knowledge to keyword research, conversion optimization, keyword ranking monitoring, crawling issues, continuous on-page optimization and link building for a campaign can be detrimental. In general, their area of expertise is in creativity, user experience, and developing great user interfaces, not developing or enhancing a site for search engines. There is an evident difference, one is more creative and one is more research-oriented or analytical. You would not ask an artist to analyze and diagnose your businesses financial statements, would you?

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