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You'll be surprised how many people spend thousands of ad dollars in PPC marketing without taking into consideration that the page which is being landed on is made to convert a click into a lead/customer/sale. If the company is trying to use someone who doesn't know squat about online marketing, I don't really fault them, but they will be very disappointed with the results if they don't have the right landing page. Let's put it this way…it's not even easy converting with a good landing page.

I was browsing around to get some content on landing page conversion for a client because instead of writing a whole descriptive email about what a landing page is, there is great content out there on what and how landing pages should look and be designed. Obviously, it also goes case by case.

Image From: www.webdesignaffinity.com

Zac Johnson, a well known affiliate marketer, has a great landing page optimization article. One thing affiliate marketers have to understand when joining the game, it is crucial to create your own landing page and content in order to be successful with Google due to quality score guidelines. He shows a great example of a quick and easy landing page he made for a campaign and you can actually download the template.

I also found 10 great tips on landing page optimization from e-Consultancy which I will list here:

1. Brevity
Keep it short and to the point. Paragraphs should be no longer than three lines, if they are used at all. One idea per paragraph is plenty of information fodder.
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The IAB has announced what I think is very good news for us online marketers…or maybe bad news? Online ad spend has reached $5.8 billion in the first quater of 2008, which is an 18.2% from last year and said to be the second highest quater recorded after the previous quater.

Sure, as the digital age grows and the internet becomes the substitue in marketing for companies rather than television, newspapers, magazines, and radio, it will become more and more competitive. As an online marketer who works on my own projects and managing certain clients, as much as the saying that competition is good goes, it probably is better when there isn't so much of it.

Ask people advertisers who compete in Google for debt consolidation or life insurance if competition is "good". What is a good sign is the increasing understanding of small to medium size business owners of the importance and power of online marketing and the impact it can have on your business. A good PPC campaign or good SEO results can take your business to the next level. Its 2008 and we now live in a globalized world where a product consumers are looking for are just a click away. Are you in the mix?

You may not think much of it as a business stand point, but you should. Going green is becoming important to many people, as it could even make or break their decision to buy from you. As “Going Green” is becoming an important trend to many. If your business is “green”, they may just buy from you because of it compared to your competition.

Ever since Al Gore’s movie, “An Inconvenient Truth”, the awareness to save and preserve our planet has been a very important issue that has caught the attention of the world, young to old. As many can make many efforts to make some changes in your home and personal lives, many are taking these same practices to their business. If you have, you should show it, capitalize on it. It matters.

Here are some tips to green your business I’ve got from different sources:

- Cut Water Waste (leaking faucets, etc.)
- Use Better Paper, and Less of It
- Turn off lights and unplug electronics
- Buy less toxic cleaners
- Set computers to sleep and hibernate when inactive, and lose the screen savers.
- Stock bathrooms with postconsumer recycled tissue products.
- Reduce commutes
- Open the windows or doors
- Replace high-energy-use light bulbs, fixtures, and equipment.

You can do a lot more by getting creative and find ways to minimize electricity and use environment-friendly products.

As you try to be or you are a green company, make sure you let your consumers know. You can state anywhere on your website that you are a green company or get certified as a green company by getting a seal on your website. One company that does this is the Green Business Alliance.

You can also check out GreenBiz.com for more info on going green and green business practices.

…AND IM BACK IN THE GAME! Anyway, haven’t blogged in a while and it’s mostly cause I’ve been so busy that I couldn’t really get around to blogging the length of post I’d like but what the hell, short post are just as good, right?

So…TRAFFIC. Everyone talks about traffic and how important traffic is to the success of a campaign. No traffic…no sales/leads. Agreed. Here is the deal, if you’re not delivering targeted traffic to your site or offer; it’s just as good as nothing. Sure, any traffic is great but if you’re spending money for that traffic, you damn better be sure that traffic will convert for you.

There are several ways of attracting traffic of course but let’s focus on paid search, which is what most of us, at least reading this blog probably do. You want qualified traffic correct? Here is the thing, you don’t necessarily have to have targeted keywords…you need targeted ads!

Using keyword insertion as the title of your ad can kill you with crap traffic if using it without caution, so make sure your ads are very targeted and detailed to what it is you are offering.

For those of you who don’t know, CPM stands for cost per thousand. Google Adwords has options for you to run ads on websites with this model as well as the largest ad networks in the world.

I was never a fan of the CPM model myself. Pay for every 1000 people that see my ad? I guess that’s the only model newspapers offer if you think about it, you can’t really perform an action from a newspaper ad unless you call or visit a website.

Advertising.com, AdDynamix, and others use this model and they do well at it. To be honest, I would have thought this would be a fading model for advertisers since we’d all rather pay per click (CPC) or cost per action (CPA).

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I’d like to wish all Palatnik Factor readers a great 2008, may this new year bring you lots of traffic, links, and good rankings. I think 2007 was a good year for me, professionally. I started this blog which was just something to have and start-up to see what happens. I have to say, so far, so good.

Things look on the up & up. I think we’re in a booming industry and it’s something to be excited about, I know I am. That’s what motivates me to blog. This industry changes constantly (I’d say almost daily!) so it’s never really hard to write content.

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