No more excuses when it comes to A/B testing

A/B testing, running slightly different messages, buttons, functions etc. to see which is more effective is the best way to increase conversion rates on your website.

Now, thanks to Optimizely you can run A/B tests using Javascript that requires no changes to your site. The service also includes analytics, and plugs in with Google analytics so you can test the effectiveness of small changes.

Hit parade: email marketing

As part of my continuing series called re-posting the blog entries from the old version of www.travislarson.net, here is a few thoughts about email marketing

A quick look at the small things that can help make or break an email marketing campaign.

1. The “From” line: If you look at all the top direct marketers, they almost always put a name in the from line. The reason is simple - people prefer to hear from people. So even if you work for a big faceless corporation, I would try and convince them to try and use a name (of a real person) in the company. Split test this in your next direct mail, and start checking the results. If it works, stick with it.

2.     Sender’s email address: here is the place to do your branding and use the company name loud and proud. You might also consider adding the words “no-reply” (so the email address is something like “no-reply@companyname.com". Why? Because then you have a much better case when some asswipe tries to sue the company because he tried to unsubscribe from the newsletter by hitting the “reply” button instead of clicking your “unsubscribe here” link. Sounds crazy? I’ve seen it happen. Never underestimate the appeal of suing.
   
   
3.    The subject line: do not repeat the name of your newsletter here. Do not put the date. Do not put anything irrelevant here. The subject line is for one thing only: an interesting appeal that will make people want to open the mail. As always, you should try at least 2 different appeals in your test mail, and choose the one with the best results when you scale up to a full mail. And if you aren’t sending test mails (about 10% of your total email list is a good rule of thumb), start immediately! 

Hit parade: SEO

I'm reposting some of the old blog posts from my site that were lost in the upgrade.


A lot of people sell expensive services to get a website a top ranking. And for the business with a lot of cash to burn, it might be worth it.

But for those of more modest means, search engine optimization (SEO) can be done fairly simply. Here are some tips:

Pick at least one search term that you want people to be able to find your site by. For me, it’s my name. For a friend, it was the name of a lake that he is trying to save from pollution. It’s a good idea to check the search volumes for the term (more about this in a later post).
              
You then want to use this term NATURALLY on your site. Don’t force it. After all, you still want people to read your texts, not get frustrated by your weird habit to use your search term several times in a sentence: “Travis Larson was really happy that he was given the name Travis Larson by his parents, also Larsons who liked the name Travis and thus bestowed it on their son, the aforementioned Travis Larson.” Google looks at a lot more than the number of times a search word appears, so you don’t need to go crazy. But make sure your site is RELEVANT to the search term you use.

2) A good place for your search term is your site’s meta description (that’s the short text you see when Googling something). It is an important sign post for people to know if this is the right page to click. My site uses my name and a brief description of what I do and where I am based. The idea is to help users know which Travis Larson I am (the one from America who lives in Finland). If you do not have a meta description, Google will pull text from the site that seems relevant. However, this text will almost certainly end with ellipses (...), and Google results where the description end in ... get lower click through rates! So this is another good reason to write a short, useful meta description.

NOTE: Google does not appear to use the meta tag for ranking your site - this is really just for the convenience of readers.

3) DO NOT stuff the “alt” tags (description of pictures in the HTML code) with your search words. Google pays about as much attention to Alt tags as Meta keywords (another waste of time - the description is enough). The Alt tags should only be used to help the visually impaired navigate your site. You often see people resort to strange language in order to stuff the Alt tags with their name (i.e. “The phone number of Travis Larson” - yes, I am talking to the guy in Florida). This is not only an obvious attempt at SEO, it is useless.
              
The end result of simple SEO tips? www.travislarson.net is number 2 on the search results with a small hobby site, only behind the Travis Larson Band. Which, by the way, is awesome.

The other lesson learned? Always double check your language. I just noticed a typo in the meta description. Time to go fix that....

Saying everything in one sentence

Everyone should follow this advice when it comes to selling a product or service: explain what it does, for who, and how in one sentence. 

Difficult? You betcha. That's why most elevator pitches run to a page and are full of useless buzzwords and explain nothing. It's much easier

But if you want to ever be effective, you need to be able to tell your prospect what your product or service does, simply, and in a sentence. 

The best way to do that is to write something long. Then ruthlessly cut unnecessary adjectives, buzzwords, sentences until you are left with your 1 sentence. 

And for those who don't want to click a link, here is Messi's Mad Libs approach to making a good elevator pitch: 

"(My company) has a (defined offering) to help (a target audience) (solve a problem) (with our secret sauce)"

Making my life easier

I noticed I was never updating my blog on my website (www.travislarson.net). There was a reason for that.

Although iWeb is incredibly fast for designing a site, it is a pain to update. So now my thoughts on marketing will now be housed here, on blogspot.

My first thought on the new platform will touch on something that all marketers should keep in mind: when the basic product is terrible, there is not much you can do to fix that, even with a snappy and quite frankly revolutionary advertisement.

I am course talking about Christine O'Donnell's "I'm not a witch" ad. Great buzz. She still lost by 15 percentage points.