Trends Talk 2013 Digital Marketing Slide Deck and Promo Video - Importance of a Digital Audit

The Importance of a Digital Audit - Trends Talk 2013 from James Loveys

Not the moon landing … but just as important: How to choose the right landing page for your ad.

First off, what’s a landing page? Well, it’s really simple actually. It’s the page within your website that your potential customers “land” on when they click on your ad. Often in Organic (unpaid) search results this would be your websites home page. But when it’s a paid ad, often you want to make sure that you are taking your potential customer to the exact point in your website they want. For example, if you are a restaurant and your ad is about a catering service your business supplies, instead of taking the consumers that click on the ad to your home page and them having to search the website for information on your catering service, have it land them on the page in your website that is dedicated to the catering service, or perhaps the order form they would fill out when hiring you. 

Selecting the right landing page for your ad can make or break the success of said ad. The less work you make the consumer do, the happier they will be and the more likely they are to become a customer.

The key take away is to make sure the landing page is relevant to your ad and not just your site's home page.

Here is a infographic that leads you through the do’s and don’ts of optimizing your ad's landing page   

Does Google +1 help your page ranking in Google search?

Every companies or brands goal is to be number one on Google. But how does one do this, and do it right. How do you get to the top of the Google search ladder without getting blacklisted? How do you make sure that you show up in the right search categories?  Well, your page ranking depends on a number of factors that Google’s computers analyze. Keyword density, anchor text, metadata… the list goes on. But in a recent study done by Stone Temple Consulting, one thing is for sure. Google +1 have no effect on your page ranking in Google.

 

Many companies and brands assumed that Google+ shares would prove their brand influence, therefore improving its page ranking in Google. So when Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts politely said that, no, Google +1 in fact did not help your page ranking, it sparked serious discussions in the industry. And when Stone Temple Consulting released the findings of its study, many were shocked that Cutts was indeed telling the truth.

In terms of discovery and indexing, Google +1 do help. But when it comes to your page ranking, Stone Temple Consulting found that they had no effect that they could see from the 6 articles they tested in the study. "We saw no evidence of Google+ shares driving ranking," Eric Enge said, President of Stone Temple Consulting.

Well, there it is. While Google +1 will help Google search find and index your website, it will not help increase your page ranking.

To get more information on the study, see New StudyFinds Google+ Shares Don't Cause Higher Search Rankings or join the Google Hangout hosted by Eric Enge entitled "Documented Google Plus Impact on Search Rankings" this Thursday (September 19^th) at 4 p.m. ET when he will discuss the study's findings. Joining him to discuss the study will be an all-star panel that includes Mark Traphagen of Virante, Pete Meyers from Moz, Joshua Berg of Google Plus SEO and SMO, and Marcus Tober of Searchmetrics.