Some of the most important metrics I believe required to monitor your SEO efforts would be the ability to monitor Keywords, Rankings and Landing Pages. This data can always be manipulated with “Links to your site” data from Webmaster Central to monitor effects of link building.

There have been a couple of solutions on how to do this on the internet. Yoast had a post on how to track what page of google traffic came from along with keywords. This was good but it was still a bit awkward to read, i.e. the ranking report displays page 1 results as unset, (page: ), page 2 results as (page: 10) or (page: 11). Damon Gudaitis wrote a post on how to use Yoasts technique but how to make it more presentable, i.e. Page 1, Page 2, etc.

Again this was better but not quite there, it wasn’t actually tracking the ranking position. But then Google modified it’s referrer string for search queries and this was spotted by Patrick Altoft who immediatley realised it was now possible to track ranking positions.

Expanding on Patricks information using an example from James Morell, I’m going to show you how to setup Analytics to track keyword, ranking and landing page:

• Create a new profile in Google Analytics, and call it something like ‘SERP result and landing page.’

• Hit ‘Edit’ and add a new filter. There will be four filters in total.

• The first filter is for Google Traffic only. Set it up as follows

Select filter type: Custom filter
Check the ‘Include’ radio button
Select Campaign Source in the Filter Field dropdown
Type ‘google’ into the Filter Pattern
Select ‘no’ from the ‘Case Sensitive’ radio buttons

• Next, Create another filter called ’search term and rank filter’

Select filter type: Custom filter
Check the ‘Advanced’ radio button
Select Campaign Term in the Field A -> Extract A box. Enter (.*) in the text box
Select Referral in the Field B -> Extract B box. Enter (\?|&)(cd)=([^&]*) in the text box
Select Custom Field 1 in the Output To -> Constructor box. Enter $A1 | rank: $B3 in the text box
Select ‘yes’ from the ‘Field A Required’ radio buttons
Select ‘yes’ from the ‘Field B Required’ radio buttons
Select ‘yes’ from the ‘Override Output Field’ radio buttons
Select ‘no’ from the ‘Case Sensitive’ radio buttons

• Create a filter called ‘landing page’ to search for the landing page people are getting to:

Select filter type: Custom filter
Check the ‘Advanced’ radio button
Select Referral in the Field A -> Extract A box. Enter (\?|&)(url)=([^&]*) in the text box
Leave the Field B -> Extract B box empty.
Select Custom Field 2 in the Output To -> Constructor box. Enter $A3 in the text box
Select ‘yes’ from the ‘Field A Required’ radio buttons
Select ‘no’ from the ‘Field B Required’ radio buttons
Select ‘yes’ from the ‘Override Output Field’ radio buttons
Select ‘no’ from the ‘Case Sensitive’ radio buttons

• Finally, merge the last two filters together with one called ‘keyword, rank and landing page.’

Select filter type: Custom filter
Check the ‘Advanced’ radio button
Select Custom Field 1 in the Field A -> Extract A box. Enter (.*) in the text box
Select Custom Field 2 in the Field B -> Extract B box. Enter (.*) in the text box
Select User Defined in the Output To -> Constructor box. Enter $A1, LP: $B1 in the text box
Select ‘yes’ from the ‘Field A Required’ radio buttons
Select ‘yes’ from the ‘Field B Required’ radio buttons
Select ‘yes’ from the ‘Override Output Field’ radio buttons
Select ‘no’ from the ‘Case Sensitive’ radio buttons

To get value out of this report, go to Traffic sources, Keywords and select User Defined Value in the Dimension drop down. This will give you something like this once it has run for a few days:

So try it for yourself and see if it helps in monitoring your SEO efforts!

When you first get involved in Affiliate Marketing you will come across a lot of new terminology. One of the words you’ll come across is Landing Pages. Landing pages are where people go to once they click on an online advertisement or natural search listing. Landing pages are designed to be highly relevant to the advertisement or search listing and encourage users to complete a “call to action”.

There are two types of landing pages, reference and transactional. A reference landing page or webverts marketing goal focuses on lead generation and interaction with the visitor. A webvert is not ‘transactional’ in nature. A webvert is a reference based, ethical landing page.

The traffic is driven from Google Adwords and is designed for two specific marketing tactics;

1) To attain high Google Adwords landing page quality scores, the benefit being any Adwords campaign costs are minimized.

2) The webvert has a clear call to action, usually a reply form.

The visitor traffic is immediate as the webvert relies on Google advertising to drive visitors to the webvert.

A transactional landing page seeks to persuade a visitor to complete a transaction such as filling out a form or interacting with advertisements or other objects on the landing page, with the goal being the immediate or eventual sale of a product or service. If information is to be captured, the page will usually withhold information until some minimal amount of visitor information is provided, typically an email address and perhaps a name and telephone number as well – enough to “capture the lead” and add the prospect to a mailing list.

So What Makes A Good Landing Page?

In a previous life I used to do graphic design and printing of flyers. I immediately found comparisons between landing page design and flyer design. Below I have listed the main aspects to consider when designing your landing pages which I got from econsultancy.com’s blog. I have also shown an example of a flyer I designed a few years ago and an example of a landing page I downloaded from zacjohnson.com.

1. Brevity
Keep it short and to the point. Paragraphs should be no longer than three lines, if they are used at all. One idea per paragraph is plenty of information fodder.

2. Relevancy
In the case of PPC landing pages you need to match the offer to your text ad copy. Keywords should be highlighted or displayed prominently. Keep it relevant to that person’s search query, because that’s all they care about.

3. A direct approach
Bullet points work well online, to help communicate the benefits of a product or service. Keep in mind that people skim read on the web. Use bold text to reinforce key messages.

4. A clear call-to-action
That potentially means a big Buy Now button, above the fold…

5. Fact over fiction
Stick to the key facts and be transparent, especially when the landing page is related to an ad campaign. Do not hide the price. Avoid flowery prose. This ain’t a press release. Product features, product features, product features.

6. Persuasion
Persuasion means removing any links that might distract, focusing the consumer’s mind on the end goal: the checkout. This means writing compelling copy. Persuade visitors not to drop out by limiting their options - remove link navigation, for example. Prominently display delivery options and costs. Sell the goddamned product…

7. Clear scent trails
How easy is it for a novice web user to get from A to B? You need to encourage visitors to walk / run down that conversion path. Conducting usability testing on your landing page templates may also provide you with some answers.

8. Grammatical accuracy
Its important, innit? Because people dont like spelling misteaks and stuff like that. First impressions count.

9. Reinforcing credibility
Testimonials, press, kitemarks, partners, visible customer support options. All these things convey trust and respectability. They ease the mind of the prospective buyer, who might not know your brand. Trust is very important.

10. Good use of images and colour
Presentation (eg: colours, graphics, icons) can play a big role in reinforcing purchase intent. Avoid clutter. White space and big fonts. Smart layout.

In this flyer you can see straight away that the benefits to the perspective client are listed on the right hand side in almost bullet point form. The copy is kept short for scanability. The opening headline is backed up by a background image of the service they provide. Credibilty is added by listing the national health companies of where they are registed. The call to action in this case is their contact details which are highlighted prominintly at the bottom of the flyer and also in the map provided.

In the above landing page from zacjohnson.com we can see that the headline is backed up by the image on the left of the girl with the tape measure. All of the benefits of the product are listed in bullet points. Credibility has been added by listing the t.v. programs the product has appeared on and also through the use of client testimonials and before and after pictures. There is a clear call to action in the “try it now” buttons.

So remember the next time your looking for inspiration for your landing pages look no further than the flyers that come through your front door.

On a side note, another succesful affiliate marketer that has taken his experience with flyer marketing and transfered it to online success is Yaro Starak from entrepreneurs-journey.com . Check out his blog post about flyer/poster marketing

PPC Web Spy

PPC Web Spy is a firefox plugin that will show you the destination url of any adwords. It will allow you to spot affiliate urls in PPC Advertising. In the below example I’ve highlighted where it’s showing an affiliate url:

The next nice feature is you can view some of the other keywords they are bidding on:

In the above example it shows that the affiliates are using direct linking, where they aren’t using their own landing pages, the next tool I’m going to show you will allow you to analyse an affiliates landing page:

SpyFu.com

SpyFu.com allows you to analyse an affiliates landing page and see what keywords they are bidding on and what they are spending in google adwords on a daily basis. For this example I’m going to use an affiliate website I came across call getdietsolutions.com.

When we put this site into SpyFu we get the following results:

Now straight away we can see that this is a big affiliate, they are spending between $500-$2500 daily and they have a keyword list of over a 1,500. The free version of spyfu only shows 10 keywords but the paid version will allow us access to all the keywords.

I hope you find these tools useful. If you know of any other tools as good as these please leave a comment!

So how do you use myipneighbors.com for Competitor Analysis?

Well for an example I’m going to use Collin de Ruyck who was on the Top Affiliate Challenge. Collin was great on the show and I have a lot of respect for what he has achieved. His website is www.feedflare.ca.

So when we put feedflare.ca into myipneighbors.com it will list all other sites sitting on that server:

Now we have a list of all Colins sites and landing pages, we can see what he’s advertising and how he’s advertising:

If you like this trick, please leave a comment!