Website Landing Page Examples

Posted on May 15, 2012 by atomni

A website landing page is a webpage that is specifically targeted to converting a user that is inbound from an identifiable call-to-action. That is, you’re about to run a ‘Spring Time is Fun Time’ email marketing campaign so instead of pointing everyone to your plain-jane contact form, you make a pretty Spring-time themed page specific to that campaign that reinforces the marketing content within the email itself.

Don’t Send People Back to Square Zero

If you get a click-through from a call-to-action impression, guess what? You’ve already convinced the user the CTA is worth clicking! If you’ve done a decent job at describing what the CTA is offering, chances are if the user gets that when they land on the destination page you’ll convert. Seems easy enough, right? Wrong. Many times the fluidity of experience, especially in shopping, has a huge impact on conversion rates and is not as intuitive as integrating a Guest Checkout. Messaging consistency, tone, word choice, and graphical reinforcements to stitch your CTAs together with the destination landing pages blossoms the exposure you’ve already achieved with the CTA impression.

Make it Painfully Easy to Purchase

Internet users assume they have an infinite amount of choices online (even if this isn’t true) so any user experience friction that distracts them from their intended purchase will hiccup their entire thought process – leaving room from such ideas as, “Wait, is this the same website?”, “Wow, I didn’t realize what time it is…I’ll do this later”, or “Do I really need an executive hoodie?” which are all going to make your conversion rate suffer.

Landing Page Examples

Here are a few examples from around the web which we think really get it done.

HubSpot’s EBook Offer Landing

It should be no surprise that HubSpot is pretty good at this stuff. They coordinate the H1, the email campaign subject line, and the eBook title which provides a great sense of consistency to the user. They also hide their main navigation which stifles the user’s tendency to be flighty when presented with the data collection inputs required to download. Here they also leverage their social media efforts by assigning credibility to the resource by displaying how many other people engaged with this content.

Shall I Buy? Landing

Short, sweet, and to the point. Aesthetically pleasing and as engaging as a Times Square Billboard. This landing page does a great job of letting a visitor know extremely quickly what is available for them on the page and how to get it.

Live Chat Inc Landing

Live Chat Inc uses fun & playful cartoon design to lighten up their product offering. The branding and simplicity of the interfaces make the software product itself seem straight forward, easy, and fun to use. A large call-to-action for Trial Sign-up emphasizes ‘Trying it for Free’ and they’re client logos in the lower-middle exude consumer confidence.

LightSpeed Retail POS Webinars Landing

Arguably, LightSpeed wastes a lot of above-the-crease real-estate on this landing page. But they make up for it with a customized navigation just for the DIY trainers and user support. The packages, prices, and content included in the webinar curricula are clearly defined and lined up to not be overwhelming.

Marketing with QR Codes – Philly Tech Week

Posted on April 24, 2012 by atomni

Tonight’s presentation on marketing with QR codes – part of the 2nd Annual Philly Tech Week – will provide a framework for utilizing QR Codes in marketing initiatives. We’ll use a number of real world examples to illustrate how they can be used effectively to market to people with mobile-enabled devices, as well as some pitfalls to avoid that could otherwise potentially derail your business objectives. In case you can’t be there tonight, we will be posting the slide-deck, and hopefully a video as well as the a transcript of the presentation. Please check back or follow us on Twitter @atomni for the link.

As a warm up to the presentation, here’s a quick overview of the QR Code Marketing process. When we say QR Code Marketing what we mean is using Quick Response (QR) Codes in marketing collateral or advertising as a call-to-action for a brand-interaction on a mobile device.
1. A person with a mobile enabled device encounters a QR code.
2. They’re drawn-in, and somehow motivated to scan.
3. They take out their device, open their optical reader application, and scan the code, relying on their mobile device and wireless network to seamlessly route them to their destination.

4. With a little luck, they’re delivered a mobile experience that knocks their socks off, and drives them towards a conversion.

There are a number of places where these interactions can fall short, as well as a number of opportunities to help increase their effectiveness. Learn from your peers, as we dive into dozens of real-world examples, and consider what it takes to get the best return on your investment when marketing with QR codes.

Supplement Your Marketing Team with Online Experts

Posted on March 20, 2012 by atomni

As mobile and web technologies continually integrate into our daily routines, many corporations are leaning on their marketing departments to step-up and leverage the Internet to provide a hybrid online marketing services for the company. Often the management and continued development of the company’s main website is the sole responsibility of the marketing department. As web marketing continues to expand in both importance and complexity sometimes there is a gap in the available internal skill sets which is best supplemented with 3rd party service providers.

Web Marketing Skills Inventory

First step is to figure out exactly which skills you have at your disposal. Ask your resources what their comfort level is with web marketing, if they have any experience with Internet technologies, and if they’d be willing to spear-head learning (or better yet presenting) any new technologies for improving your marketing efforts. You might find you’ve got more talent than you think already sitting in your office: your summer intern might be a whiz at WordPress. At the very least you’ll know what you’ve got in your toolbox. One of the best channels for new online content is publishing the press releases, newsletters, and other material you’re already producing as a marketing department. Take what you’re already doing that could be easily distributed or supplemented with online media and add it into the mix. You might be surprised at what you’ve already got covered.

Fill in the Gaps with Online Consultants

Whether its designing a landing page, developing custom web applications, or using a combination of our proven strategies to craft a detailed game plan for maximizing your web assets within your industry vertical – we can support almost any ad hoc web services. Our qualified professionals work with your team to develop proven strategies that leverage web technologies to create business value.

Web Marketing Experts for a Few Days a Month

The economies of scale available by using technology are baffeling. With our unique processes and technology, in just a few days a month atomni online experts can provide the structure, campaign design, data analysis, & thoughtful management required to maximize the potential of your internal resources. Our analysis can provide your team detailed parameters for content generation, online advertising strategy, and sustainable organic optimization.

Using QR Codes for Web Marketing

Posted on January 24, 2012 by atomni

QR Codes are the DVDs of Barcodes.

Their scalable & pixelated patterns can hold an significantly greater amount of information than the typical UPC including images, messages, and URL destinations. Their adoption by the mobile phone industry had led to widespread incorporation of QR codes into most major brick & mortar marketing campaigns. It’s a pretty common practice at this point – driving individuals whom experience physical channels of advertising back to the web in order to close the marketing data loop – but effectively blending this into your own marketing efforts seamlessly can take finesse. Making sure you properly keep track & organize the QRCs that are active within your campaigns is a crucial step in the integration of QRC mobile marketing.

Test Before You Distribute

If you’re having fun mixing in your logo or corporate colors be sure to test your QRCs once actually printed on the marketing collateral. The difference of a few millimeters in size can be the difference of a ‘scannable’ or ‘un-scannable’ qr code. Many times the color balance, resolution, or gloss of a high-quality monitor will allow you to scan on-screen codes that will not work once printed. The entire point of QR codes is to make it easier for your target market to not only experience but interact with your brand – so if they’re unable to scan the code it sort of defeats the purpose. Don’t be afraid to include the actual destination URL as well in case someone without a QR code scanner still wants to manually navigate to the landing page or special offer.

It’s All About the Camera

Even with enhanced mobile technologies being prevalent for the last decade, there are still many shortcomings to some of the value-add features that have been incorporated over the years, such as the digital camera. If this is your first mobile marketing campaign using QRCs – you have no idea what types of devices will most commonly be used to scan. This means that someone using an iPhone 3 with barely 3 megapixels of detail will need to be very up close and personal with your mobile marketing collateral to make a successful scan.

Shorten URLs for Higher Contrast

Shortening the URL contained within the QR code means there is less information to store within the code’s surface area – which means bigger squares and a simpler pattern for lower resolution smart phones to recognize. Services like Bit.ly will shorten URLs and create QR codes for each of the URLs you enter – although you need individual URLs for each QR code you’d like to track. Another service which doesn’t require multiple destination URLs for mobile marketing data tracking is QR Create which will shorten your destination URL and serialize any number of QR codes.

Serialize and Close the Mobile Marketing Data Gap

Once you’ve added QR codes to your marketing campaigns, the next step is capturing all of the data associated with when, where, and what collateral is scanned. Using QR Create you can assign labels or individual contacts to each QR code. When your QRCs are scanned you’ll receive a summary email letting you know which specific code was scanned, approximately when & where as well. You’ll know within a moments notice what trade shows are paying off, who your top salesperson is, or which store has the most mobile-enabled customers.

For more ideas on how to integrate QR codes into your mobile marketing campaigns, or to discuss bridging the brick & mortar marketing gap – please contact us anytime at atomni

Capitalize On Long Tail Search

Posted on January 10, 2012 by atomni

It’s Probably Never Been Searched

Long-tail search refers to the majority of keyword phrases, that is a unique combination of characters typed into a search engine, which reside in the ‘long-tail’ of the normal probability distribution curve – basically there are more keyword phrases that are searched very few times (or never again) than there are keyword phrases that are searched a many times by multiple individuals. Between punctuation, spacing, capitalization, plurals, & tense – the large majority of search queries that take place have never been searched before, and won’t be searched again.

A Big Fish In Lots Of Little Ponds

Most high volume keyword phrases – the short tail – are very competitive and expensive to pursue in organic or paid search campaigns. By focusing on long-tail keyword phrase opportunities & emerging trends within your industry often you can gain a competitive edge on your competition. Coordination with on-site analytics, online advertising data, and eCommerce transaction data can provide detailed information about which keyword phrases are worth pursuing. By combining this data with the content you create – you’ll be growing your website to align with search trends.

What Searchers Want, When They Want It

Developing a large catalog of useful content that targets a wide variety of potential visitors is a great way to give everyone what they want. As search engine algorithms become increasingly refined, it will be increasingly difficult to optimize a single web page for performance across a range of keyword phrases. This is yet another great reason to begin developing individualized web pages targeted at your top-level search optimization objectives.

The Early Bird Gets the Worm

By identifying potential long-tail targets for which to optimize your website, you can take advantage of the unique and low volume search queries that your stakeholders are searching but your competitors aren’t yet wise to, while incrementally increasing the number of traffic generating keywords and indexed URLs that indirectly build relevance for the more competitive high-volume keywords. You’ll be getting to the virtual real-estate people are searching for before your competition – staking your claim as the oldest and most authoritative resource on the topic.

Turning the Corner with eCommerce

Targeting specific products or category-verticals will allow you to segment your respective search market and attack otherwise extremely competitive keywords within individualized niches. Answering common questions, addressing customer service requests, & other consumer engagement opportunities are great ways to build a catalog of useful content and keep the cost of customer service down.

Keyword Engineering

Posted on January 3, 2012 by atomni

What Search Crawlers Look At

Keyword engineering consists of the hypothesizing, testing, & refinement of the textual content used on-site with respect to optimizing for search engine crawler consumption. When optimizing your website for organic search rank it is important to consider all of these elements as variables in the search authority equation. Your search engine results page (SERP) rank depends on the authority and weights associated with the URL, Page Title, Meta-tags, on-page content, & usage data of the page itself so each of these component contributes to the overall quality asserted by search engines. Since usage data (time on site, bounce rate, pages viewed) enhancements are really a side effect of quality user experience enhancements, we’ll focus just on the text-based variables in this post.

SEO Friendly-URLs

Beyond root domain authority, creating a URL structure for your website that aligns target content with traffic-driving keywords is one of the best ways to increase your website’s authority for specific keyword phrases. Use tools like Google’s Keyword Tool to find out what people are actually searching for and organize your URLs for better ranking.

Page Titles for SEO

Since page titles are the primary information and anchor linkage text in most search engine result listings, it is crucial that they are optimized and properly describe their respective pages. Like most text-based variables in search, the authority for any given keyword in a page title is computed based on percentage of the total title string and it’s starting position within the title string. This means for the keyword “SEO” the following page titles would rank in the following order: “SEO Company”, “The Best SEO”, “The Best SEO Tips”. The density parameters for page titles vary depending on the keyword phrase.

Meta-Tags

Meta-tags are HTML elements contained within the head of the page. Two of these that are used by search crawlers to determine the contents of the page are page description and keywords. Keywords were once highly considered by search engines for authority but now due to improvements in full-text crawling performance are largely downplayed for the actual textual content of the page. The description is displayed underneath the title hyperlink on most popular SERPs and used for keyword authority assignment so it is important to exude consumer confidence and authority with this tag.

On-page Tagging Structure

In general, headline tags (h1,h2…h6) should be used for outlining a framework for the page’s content – much like chapter titles within a book. Typically search engines decrement any page with multiple h1′s, but other h tags can be used multiple times within a page without consequence. These tags can be used to highlight tieriary keyword phrases supplementary to the primary target included in the URL or page title.

Optimized Content

Search engines are continually putting more emphasis on usage data for qualifying authority. This means providing useful web content, resources, & other information on your site that engages new users and commands a retentive audience is increasingly important in your overall web marketing strategy. Use data tracking and analysis to capture which keyword phrases are driving qualified traffic and provide content for those users.

If you’d like to continue the dialog about keyword engineering and it’s place within a thorough online visibility strategy, please contact us anytime

QR Code Serialization & Web Marketing

Posted on December 13, 2011 by atomni

Quick Response Codes

One of the latest technologies to hit mobile web marketing is the Quick Response (QR) Code. These square mosaics act like extra dense bar codes which can contain much more information than a basic SKU, such as a URL. That’s where the potential for integrating web technologies into your brick & mortar marketing campaigns presents itself. These codes can provide the data transparency and traceability that is often absent in traditional marketing campaigns.

Mobile Data Transparency

Because QR codes allow you to abstract the destination URL, it can be unfriendly – this means you can pack a whole bunch of data into a little square which can help mobile data tracking as users begin to scan. Keeping track of your marketing efforts at trade shows, print marketing campaigns – even the performance of individual salesmen – has never been easier. Be careful with trying to use basic query string variables to track your qr codes since the code pattern becoming increasingly dense as the information it needs to contain increases. This is bad news for older smart phones with antiquated, low-resolution cameras. Basically the shorter the URL, the smaller the little pixel blocks in the QR code, so the easier it is to scan with lower resolution cameras. You can use a tool like QR Create, a QR Code Creator to create serialized QR codes for a variety of applications, from Location performance-tracking to a high-tech scavenger hunt.

It’s A Tool, Not A Fad

QR codes are one of the newest trends in mobile marketing – but don’t let this be the reason for your company to jump on the band wagon. Consider what opportunities your current marketing efforts provide for potential customers to experience your brand and if those opportunities warrant providing them additional, situation-specific information or contact points. Remember – the idea is to lower the barriers to brand interaction and capture data you’re otherwise losing, so customers will have to be compelled to scan them to ensure an effective campaign.

Mobile Specific Landing Pages

Think about it, if a user is scanning a QR code they’re using a mobile device. Consider this when you’re deciding what the destination URL will be – you may even want to create a brand new page that is optimized for a mobile-specific experience. Integrating QR codes into your marketing efforts has the ability to extend the time you have in front of a potential customer so make sure you capitalize on the extra face time with quick load times, cross browser testing, and some intuitive information targeted at an on-the-go market.

For more information on QR codes, QR code serialization, and how atomni can help you integrate traceability into your marketing campaigns – please contact us.

Google Chrome Passes Mozilla Firefox as #2 Web Browser

Posted on December 9, 2011 by atomni

The web statistic aggregator StatCounter announced this month that in their most recent pole of global internet browser marketshare, it seems the Google’s Chrome has replaced Mozilla Firefox as the second most used Internet web browser, after Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. While Internet Explorer still maintains a dominant position in the market, its marketshare – currently 40.63% as reported by StatCounter- has been on the decline in recent years as security, cross-browser compatibility, and user-experience issues have eroded monopoly that Microsoft had developed. When combined with Chrome & FireFox’s marketshare – 25.69% and 25.23%, respectively – the top three browsers account for more than 91% of global marketshare, and in the US it is even more concentrated.

In 2012, its important to keep these user trends in mind. Check Google Analytics (or where ever your track your web performance) and monitor your user’s browser preferences. Look for increase in the use of Chrome, and growth in mobile browsers usage as well. As more users use these alternate browsers to access your website, its increasingly important to ensure that your site is cross-browser compatible so you’re brand can be experienced consistently no matter how your stakeholders access the internet.

To learn more about how cross-browser compatibility can improve your web performance, contact atomni.

Online Brand Visibility

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Mike Angstadt

Divide and Conquer

In any serious search engine optimization campaign, there are a lot of moving pieces. This stands to reason – as search algorithm complexity increases, so does the problem of catering to their whim. There is so much real-time data being generated at any given time, even tracking & reporting with software tools can quickly become a daunting task. With all of the different facets of optimization, many times some great opportunities are overlooked without approaching campaigns from an organized, methodical perspective and focusing on the real goal – increasing online brand visibility.

Increasing Brand Awareness

All search optimization efforts should be attributed back to increasing awareness surrounding a specific target keyword phrase. This target could be describing your product, product name, article topic, or a phrase describing your service – but the unified goal of increasing the quality and breadth of your brand’s exposure to potential customers is consistent across optimizing for any of these.

Sometimes taking a step back and approaching the task of increasing online brand presence yields unintuitive results. We find many clients who begin seeking a pure play SEO solution to their brand visibility problems tend to craft campaigns that eventually incorporate a blend of efforts, both internal and external to their main website, in order to facilitate the online culture they want to promote & foster.

Using Strategy to Define Scope

What type of strategy will best suit your company depends on many factors, we typically look to identify specific targets to enhance with a campaign then gather research to create the scope of resources required to achieve the desired results.

Target identification should be achieved by aligning your traditional marketing techniques with supporting web offerings that drive conversions. Two of the most common parameters for scope definition are industry and competitive search landscape. These both impact the overall allocation of resources necessary to make a significant impact in the space. By selecting targets with attractive search opportunities and generating new targets to provide for emerging search markets – you too can work on improving your online brand visibility.

Please contact us to find out more about how atomni online visibility strategies can positively impact your online brand, increase qualified web traffic, and maximize web marketing investment.

10 Ways Non-Profits Can Capitalize on $11,000+ Per Month in Free Services

Posted on December 10, 2010 by atomni

Non-profit benefit from Freebies

The following list is 10 products and/or services that can be leveraged, some only for NPO’s, to capitalize on well over $11,000 per month in complimentary services. I have personally had experience with every product or service on this list and can stand behind them. These are great organizations out there to help great organizations.

Google Grants

Perhaps the king of the list, Google offers $10,000 per month (yes per month, that’s $120,000 per year!) of in-kind advertising dollars to qualified Non-Profit Organizations. There are, of course, requirements and guidelines. First off you must be a registered 501(c)(3), you must have a website, and your website cannot display revenue generating advertising, other than that its a pretty simple process; fill out the form, answer some questions, and you’re on your way. Read more about the eligibility requirements and when you’re ready complete the application form.
Vertical Response

In an almost similar vein, Vertical Response offers 10,000 complimentary emails per month to qualified NonProfit Organizations. Perhaps the best part (besides receiving $120/month in free email marketing) is that if you wish to purchase additional credits you can do so at a 15% discount. Not to mention that signing up with Vertical Response is insanely easy, the only qualification is that you are a 501(c)(3), that’s it! All you need to do is fill out the application form, VR will verify you are not fibbing about your Non-Profit status, and you are in for 120,000 free emails per year.
FreeConferenceCall.com

this is another insane deal if you ask me, and this one isn’t even exclusively for Non-Profits, this service can be enjoyed by ANYONE (atomni has been a subscriber for nearly 2 years). You literally go to this page, enter your name and email, check a box, and you have access to your own toll-free number, with dial in and host access codes, calls are archived, and can even be recorded!
Join.me

Okay so not to be biased, but this is probably my favorite service of 2010. It is extremely new, so new in fact that they have not really had a formal launch yet, but this is brought to you by the folks at LogmeIn. Join.me is a free screen sharing / screen-casting service that allows for individuals to share there screens for webcasts just like the big expensive programs (GoToWebinar & WebEx) which can cost between $600 or as much as $15,000 per year, depending on how many licenses, attendees, etc. This product is also not JUST for NPO’s, and can be utilized by anyone who wants to share their screen without paying for it.
SlideShare

You may have already heard about this one, but this is a great service for uploading and sharing, either publicly or privately, presentation decks. This is an extremely useful tool for Non-Profits who are trying to get there message out there. Not only does it empower your organization to present remotely via hosted presentations, SlideShare has a widget that quickly generates an HTML snippet so you drop your presentation anywhere you like just like a YouTube video (and SlideShare handles the bandwidth). On top of this they have dedicated applications for both
Facebook and LinkedIn.
Network for Good

If you are here reading this post than you are most likely an active member of the Internet community, and have already heard of Network for Good. Just in case you have not, this organization is a marketing/web service truly dedicated to sharing and cultivating marketing knowledge for Non-Profits. They offer an incredibly informative (and Free) newsletter as well as an online donation service allowing Non-Profit Organizations to accept online donations right through their website or NetworkforGood.com.
Ad Council

A very well known and well respected organization, the Ad Council operates a number of campaigns on behalf of NPO’s fitting this basic criteria. Each campaign is sponsored by a national non-profit organization or a federal government department / agency. They also offer an additional way to partner through the use of endorsed campaigns, and you can go here and apply to become an endorsed campaign.
Yahoo! Create for a Cause

This is so cool – you can be the advertisement that millions of people see when they access Yahoo’s login screen. But you only have one week from the date this post is published to get on this boat (if you are reading this after the campaign has expired I apologize, but I am sure Yahoo! will be running subsequent campaigns). The way this works is you take either an existing (pro-bono) campaign or come up with a new one, tweak it to fit Yahoo’s login page specs, and enter for your chance to win ad space on Yahoo’s login page. For more detailed information and to check out some creative mock ups, download the PDF.
TechSoup

Maybe one of the most influential software advocacy groups on the planet, TechSoup is a phenomenal resource for NGOs to gain necessary software at affordable prices. As a Non-Profit you may also be eligible to get your hands on software donated by the big boys, companies like Microsoft, Adobe, and BetterWorld have donated copies of there enterprise software suites to be used by member NonProfit’s.
Grassroots.org

Their mission statement says it all “to serve as a catalyst for positive social change by leveraging modern technologies and best business practices.” These guys offer a bevy of free services for NonProfits including things like web hosting, website building, web design, SEO consultation, and the list just goes on and on. And all you need to do to gain access to this wonderful toolbox of free services is meet the requirements and agree to the terms.

I really hope you found this information helpful. In the true spirit of Non-Profits I hope you will help to get this information out there by spreading this around to you friends, colleagues, and family members – anyone you feel could benefit from free business services like these. As always, for more great tips on how to leverage the power of the Internet, subscribe to Web Success, and thank you for reading.