Nov 29
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The image you use is just as important as the rest of the text layout and color scheme. In today’s advertising world, we are all aware of the fact that sex sells. You see the TV commercials, billboard ads, magazine ads, even ads that are on the side of a bus that showcase a beautiful model. Oh yea, I almost forgot along with that model there is some product or service that someone is trying to sell. The same concept applies to online marketing, people take a beautiful woman and showcase them on there landing page in hopes that it will help the viewer convert. That is not always the case, and I am afraid that people end up changing there text and colors around more then they might have to on there landing pages in hopes to have it convert better. I bet you have never thought about changing your image though now have you?
Here we have two images of the same person, the only difference is the direction she is looking. With the first image she is making eye contact with the viewer, and in the second image she has here eyes focused to the viewer’s right. Many people make the mistake of using faces that are looking straight at the viewer, as to make eye contact with them and hopefully hold there attention. Problem with that is the image is not the one that needs all the attention, your contact form, special offer, the product itself should be getting the attention in the effort to convert the viewer.
The better image to use is the second, for the eyes are focusing on the viewers right side. It is human habit to focus on the eyes and then direct your attention in that same direction. The problem with the first image is her eyes are focused right back at yours because she is staring directly at you. With the eyes looking to the right, you are able to put what you are trying to sell or your capture form since in most cases the viewer’s eyes will be diverted in that direction. Remember using a pretty face is a nice touch, just make sure that the face is focusing the attention on what you are trying to sell. By having the face focus right back at the viewer, you are taking away the viewers habit to look in the same direction that the face is. So next time you are wondering what changes you can make on your landing page or creative, look at what type of image you are using.
This article was originally written and posted on SEMSpot.com, a Search Engine Marketing Blog. If you like the article please sign up to our RSS Feed.
Nov 28
When starting any internet marketing campaign, you always want to use clean and crisp images to have a professional look. Using clipart or trying to resize images that are to small looks bad from the viewer’s standpoint. Using bad images just gives the viewer one more excuse not to go through with what you are trying to offer them. They will stand back and say to themselves, “man this website looks horrible, there service/product can’t be any better”. So to take that though away from your viewers, you want to use the best images possible. There are royalty free image sites, however they can charge hundreds of dollars just to use a small set of images from there collection. Here I have compiled a list of free stock photo websites that you can use when creating your sites.
http://www.openphoto.net/
http://www.morguefile.com/
http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/graphics/photos/
http://www.pachd.com/free-images/index.html
http://www.freeclipartpictures.com/
http://www.freeimages.co.uk/
http://www.hooverstock.com/
http://geekphilosopher.com/MainPage/photos.htm
http://www.freefoto.com/index.jsp
http://www.123rf.com/freeimages.php
http://www.imageafter.com/
http://www.fws.gov/pictures/
http://images.jsc.nasa.gov/
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/
http://www.usda.gov/oc/photo/opclibra.htm
http://pdphoto.org/
http://www.stockvault.net/
http://www.fotogenika.net/modifica/igallery.asp
http://www.mayang.com/textures/
http://freelargephotos.com/
http://yotophoto.com/
http://www.bigfoto.com/
http://www.wpclipart.com/
If you have other sites like these, please list them here to share with everyone else. Tomorrow I will be going over a tactic that everyone should take into consideration when using people and there faces when creating your landing pages.
This article was originally written and posted on SEMSpot.com, a Search Engine Marketing Blog. If you like the article please sign up to our RSS Feed.
Nov 09
The site will be a little slow in the next two weeks, I will be taking the family up to New York for Thanksgiving to see my side of the family. I will be still be writing on the site, just the number of posts will be a little lower since I will not be working full time while I am away. The laptop will be with me so I can get some work done, I will be back November 25th. I wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving!
Nov 07
Imagine being lost and almost out of gas, you get off at the next exit in hopes of finding an open gas station to ask for directions. The only gas station open is a self serve with no attendant inside to ask for directions. You begin to fill up on gas so you can find a nearest store to ask for help, low and behold you see the Google icon on the touch screen. First thought is damn I need to spend less time thinking about how I am going to increase my SERP’s with Google. Your second thought being why in the hell am I seeing there logo at a gas station. You pause, expecting to hear Matt Cutts voice come out and start talking to you about the nofollow tag and why hasn’t Danny or Barry told me about this damn gas pump before? I want to rank #1 at this gas pump now, this could be my chance!
The pump stops as your car is now full on fuel and the gas fumes fade away. Your mind returns from the quick day dream and you press the screen to see what it is. Low and behold it gives you driving directions! Yes you can now find your away back home and start to work on ranking #1 at the gas pump…oh wait, that was that stupid day dream. The gas pump does not offer the full scale search engine, and it does not allow you any custom direction searches. It simply gives you directions to local hotels, restaurants, shopping, entertainment, etc. The other neat thing about the system is it will NOT carry any Google advertisements, I mean why in the hell would I care about mortgage or viagra crap while pumping gas? Instead the system will allow you to include your own coupons to offer to the user. The coupons, along with your driving directions can be printed out right from the gas pump.
Gilbarco Veeder-Root is the company behind this new gas pump system and they are scheduled to start with 3,500 of these Google Gas Pumps as stated by CNN. No date has been made public as to when the first Google gas pumps will be introduced to the public, but I bet some black hatters will try and figure out how to coupon cloak now! bwaahhahahaaahaaa…
This article was originally written and posted on SEMSpot.com, a Search Engine Marketing Blog. If you like the article please sign up to our RSS Feed.
Nov 05
As of today, SEMSpot is no longer nofollowing there comment links. We are encouraging you to post on our blog and interact with what we have to offer for you on our site. We will still monitor the comments to not let the spam get through. This is just another way of saying thank you and giving you a link out from our site. The debate of nofollow tags will go on for months to come, however I believe there sole purpose was to help combat against blog comment spam. Now Google is using nofollow to combat against the problem of selling text links, which was an industry they themselves created with there PR on the toolbar. Anyhow, that is another story among itself and I will not get into that at the moment. Does your blog still use the nofollow tag on your comments? If so, why do you still have it setup that way?
