Now that you know what NOT to do with SEO, make sure to check out the DO list at SearchEngineLand
There are some more great tips!

Matt McGee recently posted on SearchEngineLand about SEO “Don’ts”: 20 Fatal Mistakes You Must Avoid To Succeed.

While nothing on this list will be shocking to the SEO experts out there, this list is a great learning tool for the newbies and a good reminder that the experts should review from time to time.

The list continues in the comments so be sure to read all the way down.

Some of my favorites from both the post and comments:

Don’t wait too long to implement SEO - As many of you know I am big on action! All the research and ideas in the world are useless if you end up with a to-do list 8 pages long and have not even taken the first step toward implementing them. Research and tweaking is an ongoing thing, not something you cram for and then act on.

Don’t waste your time submitting your URL to search engines - it is just that…wasted time.

Don’t ignore usability - great, you are #1 on Google…now what? Make sure these active people CONVERT too!

Don’t obsess over Google PageRank - I confess…I am GUILTY of this one. Ten Hail Googles is my punishment.

Don’t put 10s of words/phrases into the meta keyword and description. I’ve this sooooo many times and of course the feedback was awful.

Are your titles too keywordilicious?

That is one of the questions asked by Jennifer Slegg, an SEM consultant in this post

Her post is a very interesting look at the rules and, as she calls them “thou shalt nots” of Search Engine Optimization.

There is not much I can say that she does not cover so go check it out

In the battle for literary supremacy on the web, it appears that numbers beat letters in a 7 round TKO. According to a new article by Jakob Nielsen: It’s better to use “23″ than “twenty-three” to catch users’ eyes when they scan Web pages for facts, according to eyetracking data. Traditional literary rules say that you should spell out (Four vs. 4) whole numbers from one to ninety-nine.

OK, I admit, this post is the first time since high school that I spelled out a number…they are NUMBERS after all, but I cannot argue with the experts.

Jakob is the expert on online writing though so I take his advice.

His full article is full of awesome information and background on the research (a bunch of fancy eye-tracking stuff), so check it out…Show Numbers as Numerals When Writing for Online Readers

Earlier this month, SEOMOZ released version 2 of Search Engine Ranking Factors.

37 leaders in the world of SEO, such as Danny Sullivan, Jeremy Schoemaker, and Aaron Wall, gave their opinions and insight on the most important factors in Search Engine Optimization.

The full article and results can be found here

Top Positive Factors included:

Keyword Use in the Title Tag, Global Link Popularity of the Site, and Anchor Text of the Inbound Links .

Top Negative Factors were:

An Inaccessible Server, Similar/Duplicate Content, and Low Quality External Links

Each factor is given a ranking by each of the panelists and ranked accordingly.

This article is a MUST READ! 

The Profit Seeks Network has published a very helpful e-book entitled “10 Ways to Write More Effective Ads”

For the most part (at least for the experienced marketer) it is full of common sense, no frills, tips for getting in the right frame of mind for ad writing and understanding the customer mindset. Consider it a refresher course if you are an expert and a great starter guide if you are a newbie.

Some of the more pertinent to insurance marketing (along with my brief comments) are:

Focus on Them, Not You This one speaks for itself. Focus on the audience and what they want. Remember, there is a pretty good chance you know 10 times more about your product than they do. Push Their Emotional Hot Buttons

Life insurance…kids starving with no family and no money. What a picture. Homeowners insurance…a house burned to the ground and a family with nowhere to go. OK, those are extreme. People buy when you CONVINCE them to buy, not because they have nothing better to do.

Incorporating Proof and Believability

My article about the biggest missing pieces on affiliate sites (how is that for shameless self-promotion) covers a bit about how to build trust with your visitors. Contact pages, privacy policies, SSL encryption, and the like.

This also means do not make promises you cannot keep. To be honest, no one is going to save $5,000 by using our service. They are not going to grow natural hair overnight or woo a supermodel either…trust me I have been working that for years now and it ain’t working.

Make real claims that are compelling. We WILL help you save money and we DO make a difficult process a lot easier. Being honest will get you more clicks and more conversions.

The More You Tell, The More You Sell Content is king! Hmmm…have I ever heard that before?  Tell them about what we do (see above) and make sure they have no questions left unanswered.
Write To Be Scanned Bullet points and tags and bolding, oh my! Content is great, but ridiculously long unbroken lines of text make me cross-eyed and lose interest.  Make your copy part outline and part detail.

Holly Buchanan writes a GREAT article about how to give your site “voice.” We all know that copywriting and appearance play an important part in the message you convey to your visitors. The wrong copy and look can send the wrong message and send your visitors fleeing!

Read more about finding your website’s voice.

Beginning today, we are increasing our payouts for agent referrals. We will now be paying $60.00 for every agent that signs up and will continue to pay 5% of whatever they spend with us, but with no cap on the amount you can earn.The average agent spends almost $3500 a year with us, so you can easily earn over $200 per agent in a year. Over 50% of agents will spend over 3 years with us, meaning you can continue to earn money for years after they sign-up!

If you are not sure how to create a link to the agent referral page, here is one to get you started:

https://www.hometownquotes.com/index.cfm?action=interestedAgents&affid=#affid#

Simply change #affid# to your affiliate ID and you are good to go! Or you can login and create the link using the link creation wizard on the Banners/Links page.

Also be sure to check out the suggested ads, keywords, and target locations.

As always, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to contact me!

The Dimano Marketing Blog had a recent post entitled 11 Quick and Dirty Ways to Increase Conversions
Some of these tips are not relevant to our insurance affiliates, so I have highlighted the relevant ones below.

To read the full post click here

Remove clutter Cluttered web pages are one of the most common mistakes on the Web. For some reason people like to jam all their information on one page. Clean things up by removing distracting, useless images, charts, or text. Provide users with information as they request it. You don’t need to put it all in front of their face at one time. The path you want the user to take should be clear from the homepage. When you stack up text and images, it dilutes the goal message, and can confuse users. Less is more!

Remove ads
If you’re trying to get people to buy a product or a service and you’re running Adsense or another ad system on your site you may be making a big mistake. These ads provide exit points for your traffic (and potential customers). Keep your customers focused on the task at hand. If they leave the site through an ad, “Great you made $.25,” but just don’t assume that person will hit the back button or ever return to your site. You may have just lost yourself a sale.

Not to mention, ads look extremely unprofessional on e-commerce sites. They are fine for blogs with no other means of monetization, but if you’re selling something do yourself a favor and leave the ads off.

Stronger calls to action
Evaluate your calls to action on a site-wide level. I just bet you find some great content or images that really pop, but lack a call to action. You may have come up with some outstanding copy about how special your service is and then left the reader hanging by not telling them to take the next step. You’re wasting your efforts if you aren’t telling your customers what they should be doing. I’m a fan of putting the word “now” on many calls to action because it implies a sense of urgency: “Order your money saving guide now!” This is just one example. There are many ways to form excellent calls to action. Find one that works well for you and stick with it.

Add reliability Indicators.
This another small step that can gain a customers trust. Consider adding brand-recognized logos “above the fold” on your site, such as the Better Business Bureau, and HackerSafe. Of course you have to actually join respective company’s services, don’t just put the logo up.

Security concerns such as using SSL to encrypt data are huge for web shoppers. Calm their fears by adding a security logo (maybe “Secured by Verisign”?), and a security policy to your policies page.

Also see my article on

The 4 Most Common Missing Pieces on Affiliate Sites

Test. Measure. Rinse. Repeat.
Okay, so this one isn’t quite “quick and dirty.” But trial and error is one of the foundations of usability testing. Try out different elements, such as different headings, one at a time. Then measure the effect through an analytics program. You should test one variable at a time so you know what change caused which effect. If you have some kind of multivariate testing program that can tell you what the effect of each change was, then by all means use it - its much faster that way. Keep whittling away at different page elements (”add to cart” buttons, headlines, page copy, image placement, etc.) until you are satisfied with the results.

An effective way to split-test is to point the same pay-per-click ad at 2 different pages, one with with your changed page and one with the current page to see if your changes were effective.

By Matt McWilliams, Affiliate Manager, HometownQuotes Insurance

There approximately 4 gazillion (unofficially) web sites in the world. Every teenager, mother, businessman, well pretty much everyone has a web site.

But you are different. You are monetizing your site, not trying to find a soulmate or post pictures of your latest fishing expedition. Your site should be clean, professional, and instill confidence in the buyer.

In finance and insurance, more than anything, you must gain the customer’s trust and confidence in your service. Unlike retail, flashy sites with bright colors and animation don’t work. Most of my suggestions below will apply mostly to the finance and insurance sectors, but lessons can be learned by all affiliates.

I have found that most affiliates (at least in the finance and insurance vertical) tend to leave the following four necessities off of their sites. Is your web site missing any of these important components?

To read the rest of the article click here

This is one of the more interesting blog posts I have seen in a while and is definitely worth trying out!

Many of you may already know some or all of the information in this post, but the “trick” is the cool part about this.

My explanation would be nothing more than repeating what was posted on ShoeMoney’s blog so here is the post from Jeremy Schoemaker (one the top affiliates in the world):

Google Adwords Arrow Trick To Increase Click Through Rates

Just caught this on the Don’t Click This Blog

Wordtracker now offers a free keyword tool that is much better than anything Yahoo or anyone else has to offer in its price range (free)

If you are not familiar with WordTracker, check out this post for our review of it.

For those of your not familiar with Jeremy Palmer, you need to know about him.

Jeremy is a top affiliate and is very helpful and open with other affiliates.

I got an email from him recently about some upcoming training sessions for MSN’s AdCenter

If you can, you should definitely sign up and learn from Jeremy!

Message from Jeremy:

I’m putting on a private webinar entitled “Mastering MSN AdCenter”. I’m holding four sessions over the next few weeks. This training is live, and will not be recorded.

As an added bonus I’ve secured a limited number of $100 credits for MSN AdCenter. Fore more details on this offer visit:

http://www.quityourdayjob.com/msn/

I only have a limited number of seats for this training, so make sure you sign-up right away.

To see an agenda and available dates please visit:

http://www.quityourdayjob.com/msn/