Hey gang, we’re staring down the barrel of February and hopefully it’s been a productive month for everyone. A lot of folks are starting new jobs and one friend of mine is even moving to Argentina to start a new career, that’s pretty major! Here at the Resonance Blog though, we’ll keep bringing you the best articles of the week in the content marketing space. Happy reading!
How to Formulate A Smart A/B Test Hypothesis
We all know that landing page optimisation is crucial for conversions, the power of the first impression is not to be underestimated. However the actual nuts and bolts of what should change is something of a black art, and it can be hard to know what exactly needs improving as such. Michael Aagaard (@ContentVerve) walks us through a smart and logical approach to testing different landing pages and how to interpret the results.
– An intelligent testing environment will save the business money and man-hours.
– A very basic understanding of human psychology will shed vastly more light upon your results.
– A test should always have a specific variable to measure; simply changing everything and seeing if it helps is not useful.
Are You Winning the Attention Auction?
A fascinating look at the facts behind getting eyes onto pages. It’s an unavoidable fact that the deluge of content available online is still growing exponentially and as the volumes increase, it becomes harder and harder to make your voice heard. By establishing a working knowledge of how eyes move across the internet you can gain an advantage on how to optimise your pages so that attention flows in the direction you want it to. As people become more fiercely protective of their most valuable commodity, time, you as a marketer will have to work harder to earn it. (@ajkohn)
– The internet is overflowing with content.
– Simple psychology hacks can reap great rewards when it comes to customer behaviour.
– As always, the best lead generator is great content.
Matt Cutts declares the death of guest blogging for SEO
In move that will shock absolutely no one, Google’s head of Webspam and SEO brainiac Matt Cutts has officially announced that spamtastic “guest posting” is no longer an acceptable means of improving your SERP standings. The entire digital marketing industry has seen this coming for months now so while it can taste a little bitter for webmasters who were making legitimate use of this method, in 99% of cases this will improve the quality of SERP listings and is another step forward in the war on spam. Who knows where the next battle will be fought.
– Guest posting is not actually dead as such, but it’s power to boost SEO will likely be severely nerfed.
– If you’ve relied on authentic guest posting for your SEO this is probably not good news, but Google will of course attempt to tailor their response in such a way that it minimises the impact on legitimate websites.
– Hopefully this will result in a better online experience for everyone.
B2B IT Buyers Favour Search And Social Media, Survey Reveals
A comprehensive survey undertaken by IDG Connect has revealed the decision making habits of those holding the cash in the B2B marketplace. Naturally, understanding how they think is fairly important when your job is to sell to them. It seems that Facebook actually carries a surprising amount of weight in terms of being a resource to inform the opinions of buyers, although they make good use of other platforms, especially LinkedIn. The report in it’s entirety can be found here.
– Buyers are looking to social networks for opinions and feedback on a potential purchase.
– Increasingly, the company’s own sales pitch is less important. (not to say that it isn’t important!)
– Likewise editorial information looks to be carrying less weight. Buyers are turning to trusted colleagues and friends to inform their decisions.
3 Surprising Benefits of Retargeting
We at Resonance are all about promoting remarketing as an effective and efficient way of improving your sales figures, so when we read gems like this we can’t help but smile a little. Larry Kim (who is on quite a hot streak lately) sets out the facts about ways that retargeting could benefit your business that you may not have even realised on the face of it. Mr Kim is going to invest at least as much effort and funds into retargeting as he is into other digital marketing methods, looking to strike the perfect balance.
– Better brand identification; more exposure to the brand will cement it in the customer’s mind.
– Improved engagement and time-on-page.
– Much improved conversion rates, retargeted customers are more likely to convert.
