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by Robin Nobles
We all know how crucial it is to create captivating titles and descriptions for our Web pages. Those titles and descriptions should contain our keyword phrase, of course, but the true value of titles and descriptions is the clickability of them in the search results.
If you take your time to create titles and descriptions that are meant to drag your potential customers kicking and screaming to your Web site, they may skip over listings above yours and choose your site instead.
Prove it to yourself. Search for an important keyword phrase. Study the titles. Are the titles captivating and designed to pull in traffic? Would you click on the #1 result? Or the #4.
Let’s study the current top six results for the keyword phrase “halloween flower arrangements” in Google without quotes. (Note: Understand that Google doesn’t always pull its description from the META description tag. It may pull its description from the ODP or from other areas of the Web page. It also depends on the keyword phrase being searched upon.)
Order Halloween Gifts- Halloween Flower Arrangements and Halloween …
Flowers for every holiday
Miami Halloween flowers and Miami halloween arrangements, Terra …
Halloween Flower Arrangement – Compare Prices, Reviews and Buy at …
Flowers – Select the perfect arrangement at MSN Shopping
Flowers – Select the perfect arrangement at MSN Shopping
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Can you see how you could easily create a better title and description for “halloween flower arrangements” than the ones we studied? Bring emotions into it. Make visitors want to click on that link!
Here’s an example:
Halloween flower arrangements in vibrant colors perfect for your spooky décor (title)
Order distinctive Halloween flower arrangements complete with spooks, goblins, witches, and black cats, intertwined with brilliant orange geraniums, shipped straight to your door. (description)
On to the Site Itself
Once you get visitors to your site, is the heading tag at the top of the page and the first paragraph written in a way to grab the reader’s attention? What words do you use? Are the words trite and overused? Are you painting a vivid picture in the visitor’s mind of the product or service, or are you slapping words on the page to hurry and get the page optimized and in the SERPS? Think about it.
If your heading tag and first paragraph don’t hold the visitor’s attention and direct them into the site, you’ve lost a sale.
Your keyword phrase must be something the potential customer would use when searching for your product or service. That’s mandatory. But beyond that, use muscle words, words with power and authority, to compel your customers into responding. Words are extremely powerful. Use that power – that muscle – in your content.
Let me give you an example.
How many times have you heard the phrase, “think outside of the box.” The first thousand times it was used, it was powerful. Now, it’s overused and rather trite.
What about saying something like, “a crayon box contains more colors than black” instead? It means the same thing, but it’s original.
Another example:
Everyone’s product can’t be the “best” or the “greatest.” There may be a time and place for those words, but try to substitute other words for those definitely overused terms.
What about “one of a kind”? Phenomenal?
Another idea:
Go through your Web site copy. Look for the word “very.” Delete it. If you need to come up with a stronger adjective or verb, do so.
Example:
This very old book is in perfect condition and has been kept in a clear plastic bag to protect it.
Change to:
This antique book . . .
This heirloom book . . .
This museum-quality book . . .
“Perfect” is pretty lame too. Change it to:
flawless
Change “clear” to “sheer.”
Our new sentence would read:
This museum-quality book is in flawless condition and has been kept in a sheer plastic bag to protect it.
Quite a difference, wouldn’t you say?
Let’s come up with a list of muscle or power words you can print out or save to your hard drive, words you can use on your site in your title and description tags along with your keyword phrase, and in your heading tags and your content. These words are descriptive words that draw the potential customer in . . . words that also sell.
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Think about it. The words we use now reflect the country (s) and era we live in. We’re concerned about security issues both nationally and internationally as well as on our computer systems.
We’re concerned about the economy, technology, and our health. However, we also have a part of us that holds on to our history and our past, to our childhood, and may we never forget what it feels like to be a child.
We don’t take things for granted. We have blogs that constantly keep the news media on their toes, who turn around and try to keep the politicians on their toes.
All of these things affect the power or muscle words we use on our Web sites in many different ways. Glance over the words above and you’ll see what I mean. It’s a whole new world.
In Conclusion . . .
Try using some muscle, or power, words on your Web site in strategic areas and see how your visitors respond. Put them in a nostalgic mood by using words that evoke those emotions. Then, sell them old CDs or videos they used to watch when they were kids.
Try them in titles and descriptions to increase your clickthrough rate. Put them in your heading tags and content to keep readers more engaged on your Web site.
Don’t let your Web site be dull and boring. Write content that is alive and breathing by using words that are virtually guaranteed to bring your customers into the reality of your Web site.
Copyright 2002-2006 Robin Nobles. All rights reserved.
This work is licensed
under a Creative Commons License.
Mobile commerce is the simple act of browsing and shopping using a mobile device as opposed to online shopping using a computer. Consumers are taking the plunge into mCommerce with enthusiasm, but the businesses that they support are lagging in defining strategies to support this new frontier.
From the advent of the commercial World Wide Web over twenty years ago, to the growth in eCommerce, users have driven growth and constant change in these electronic mediums. In fact, the eCommerce Report forecasts that Australians will spend $20 billion shopping online in 2010.
Minter Ellison further predicts that mobile commerce, or mCommerce, will grow in part due to the global financial crisis as consumers look for bargains. Similarly, organisations unable to reach previous year’s profit levels are looking to leverage new platforms or technology. The idea behind this strategy is to look for ways to bridge that profit gap by being able to target a consumer group more efficiently, as well as making that shopping experience more efficient for these consumers^.
Yet despite this increased online spend and the exponential take up of mobile technology, an amazing 80% of over 400 eCommerce companies surveyed by SLI Systems have no strategy with regard to mobile commerce.
Creating a cohesive strategy as opposed to one-off tactics will be an important focus. This connection of multi channel approaches to market will connect both the in-store buying behaviour with the online experience.
There are those who only browse, and those who browse and shop using mCommerce. For the browsers only, a mobile presence can be crucial to drive these customers through the doors of your bricks and mortar outlet. Utilising mCommerce applications to compare prices, availability and store location allow your prospective customer to be on the move whilst sizing you up.
Those that are time poor also have the advantage that geography becomes unimportant and 24/7 shopping using mobiles now glued to their hands is their experience. These consumers do everything mobile.
Can mCommerce reinvigorate relationships with retailers that were sorely tested when eCommerce came about? Consider the plethora of mobile applications that now abound, creating again a feeling of connection and community that is not apparent via your computer. Social customer relationship management will become the norm for business utilising social connections to re-connect with their customers.
For each of these customer groups, there can be defining demographics and lifestyle preferences that organisations can use to create targeted offerings to connect more intimately with their customers on a level in which they are comfortable.
Imagine you have access to the web on your mobile device. Your screen allows you to type your address or use a search engine to find the shopping experience you are searching for. The good part of this phenomenon is that you have access to everything and anything on the web just as you would from your web browser on a computer. The negative is that the screen layouts, navigation and screen load speed would be designed for a computer screen and not a mobile. So whilst the Mobile web can give you access to all online store communities and is totally flexible, it can be cumbersome to utilise.
Your alternative in the mCommerce world, is to make use of the huge variety of specific native applications. These are designed specifically to work on specific mobile handsets. Native applications enjoy the distinction that they actively reduce the number of clicks to finalise a sale, have quick content loading and reduce the incidence of customers abandoning the sales process. Increasingly the benefit of this solution is for the customer, they will enjoy a well delivered, tailored shopping experience albeit somewhat limited.
Overall, both responses to mCommerce are useful and can be used side by side. This message has a positive impact for retailers, so needs to be considered for any overall mobile sales strategy.
Christmas shopping is obviously the busiest time for retailers, whilst this year may not yet herald in a complete commitment to mobile purchases, it will be the biggest in mobile commerce so far and will be a touchstone for those organisations who have factored in a tailored mCommerce strategy approach.
It is worthwhile for businesses to recall the growth in eCommerce in the last decade as it has become a mainstream sales channel, it would be naive to think that mCommerce cannot achieve the same this year and into the future.
Mobile phone manufacturers and application developers are spending millions of dollars and time investing in mCommerce, it’s time for retailers to join them in this new adventure.
References
^ http://www.minterellison.com/public/connect/Internet/Home/Legal+Insights/Articles/A-TMT1-Technology+predictions
No matter how competitive your keyword phrases, you need every edge that you can get over your competition. You need to know what can affect your rankings so you can do something about it.
But remember: You don’t need to use tricks or cheats in order to compete in the rankings. Tricks and cheats will get you banned from the search engines — not top rankings. Play it safe, and you’ll come out a winner in the long run.
Don’t spam! So, you need to learn of any “red flags” that might get you labelled as a spammer by the engines. Some of these red flags used to be common practices in the past, so it’s important to cover them in detail here. You certainly don’t want to get in trouble with the engines and get banned from their indexes. Some SEO’s believe (based on their experiences) that getting banned for spamming leads to a life-long penalty even after your site is let back into the index. In other words, your site may be allowed back into the index, but your rankings will always suffer as a result of being banned. Don’t spam — it’s NOT worth it.
In many cases, you’ll feel like you’re walking a very fine line with the search engines on what could benefit your site’s rankings and what they consider to be spamming. You must be extremely careful.
More and more search engines are cracking down on what they consider spamming techniques used to gain top rankings. Legitimate webmasters must be careful not to get put in the same category as the small minority of spammers who submit millions of pages and present off-topic material in irrelevant categories.
Also, techniques that weren’t considered spamming several months or a year ago are now “red flag” areas that the engines monitor closely.
Don’t spam! Folks, it’s just not worth it. Don’t spam. It’s as simple as that!
However, before going this route, what do you have to do? (Let’s think about this for a moment.) You have to make sure that you have given the search engines plenty of ways to FIND those links. Don’t ever give the search engines just ONE way to find links to your pages. Every page on your site is a potential window or entry way into your site for a visitor or a search engine. So, if a search engine enters on one particular page (ANY page), can the search engine find links to all of your other pages through that one page? In other words, is there a link to your site map on that page? Is there a link to your home page on that page? Are there links to the main pages of your site on that page? Make sure that you provide clear navigation to all areas of your site on every page of your site, because you have no way of knowing where a search engine or a visitor is going to enter your site.
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