This is pretty self-explanatory. Once you’ve uncovered any problems with your conversion paths, fix them. Patch holes, fill cracks in your web design or otherwise improve the performance of each step along the way. Use your analytics to identify problem areas and test different versions to see which performs better.

Step 5: Add or remove steps to create the most efficient path

Again, using your analytics, determine if there are places where steps need to be added or removed in order to make the conversion process more efficient. Your goal is to make the site as streamlined as possible. Add no more steps than are needed and no fewer than what it takes to get the job done.

Remember, each set of visitors is different. Some paths may be long, others short but you need to have the options there for each segment of your audience.

Step 6: Create and test new paths

Once you have tested, fixed and retested your original paths and everything is functioning as it should, it’s time to start building and testing new paths. Consider your users carefully here. The first pass at creating paths should have been designed to hit the majority of your target audience. Now it’s time to accommodate the rest. While the broader target is easier to hit, the smaller target is no less important. Build paths specifically for these users as they can be the source of many additional sales, and often result in higher conversion rates.

Step 7: Test new stepping stones

By this time your conversion process should be going strong and you have pretty solid conversion rates. Well, if it ain’t broke… fix it anyway. Never stop looking for new opportunities to improve your SEO Campaign and conversion process. Test, test, and test some more. Sometimes adding new steps in the process can help improve conversions with certain audiences. Just be careful to keep an eye out for any negative effects as well. The goal here is improvement, not to add clutter.

Building a cohesive path from your visitor’s landing point to the conversion goal isn’t easy. What makes it even more difficult is that you never know what any individual’s preference or needs will be. But by taking the time to know and understand your audience, you can find ways to build and improve upon the conversion paths that will satisfy the majority of your visitors.

Follow these seven steps and there is no doubt that you’ll find ways to improve your conversions rates. It may be incremental or you may find huge gains all at once, but every gain is a good gain.

The setup is quite standard, like most ranking SEO tools, you add your domains and keywords (with their appropriate groupings) and select your search engines (in this case 30 to choose from). Next you add your competitor’s domains, which is not revolutionary, but very useful to your SEO Campaign nonetheless. Finally, you have the option of connecting your Google Analytics account so you can tie together rankings and visits. This will help you decipher whether a rank 5 for one keyword provides more visits than a rank 8 for a separate keyword.

The way the dashboard is setup is quite unique. It provides a week by week by week comparison allowing you to see rankings at a very high level, for example: Total keywords ranked in positions 1-10, 11-20, 21-30 one week vs. another week. See example below:

SEO Rank Monitor also provides other reports (examples below), including Analytics Monitor (visits correlated by rankings) and Domain monitor (domain level data such as pages indexed and backlinks).

Split testing, also known as A/B testing, is commonplace for most pay-per-click (PPC) advertisers. The idea of testing two different ad copies or landing pages is nothing new, but I bet there are many advertisers that could dive a little deeper when it comes to split testing and discover a new level of clarity for their PPC campaigns.

First, here is a quick definition of split testing as regards PPC. With split testing, two or more items are tested side-by-side to determine which performs better at a specific metric. The importance of testing is critical to optimization. If you don’t test, you cannot improve your campaign. It is as simple as that. Most advertisers will find that the first couple of tests will have the most dramatic results, but it is important to continue testing various elements of your campaign at all times.

So what can you test when it comes to PPC? The most prominent thing to test is ad copy. Testing multiple ads for every keyword you are bidding on is essential to PPC success. Testing new headlines, description lines, display URLs, and destination URLs are all important areas to test when it comes to ad copy split testing. The idea of testing multiple ad copy translates very well to the content network also. Rich media campaigns are probably on the forefront of split testing and, if they are a component of your PPC campaign, you need to make sure to test new creative all the time.

On an ad copy level, split testing should run for a minimum of one week, but running for one month is ideal. Every day has different characteristics, and each week has variances (think about pay weeks). Ads should attain a minimum of 300 clicks, but 1,000 is ideal. You need to allow for enough data to accumulate for each ad before making any decisions regarding how effective it is. You also want to let every ad gather at least 15 conversions. Each advertiser will have a different set of results. This is simply a rough guideline.

Landing page testing is another very important aspect to test when it comes to any online marketing campaign, PPC included. Testing new layouts, copy, fonts, colors, forms, and shopping carts are just a few things to consider when split testing your landing pages. Knowing how much weight your landing page has in regards to quality score and conversion rates, you should spend ample time testing out countless versions throughout your SEO campaign.

A few other things you should make sure to split test are: match type, ad position, max CPC, time of day, day of week, and month of year. Look at it this way, anything you have an option for should be tested. This also applies to testing elements. Click-through rate, conversion rate, total conversions, cost per conversion, page views per click, cost per click, and total cost are just a few outcomes that most PPC campaigns test.

Make sure you take that deep dive when it comes to split testing within your PPC campaign. It is a large ocean and even though surfing the waves may be appealing, you don’t want to miss out on what lies beneath the surface.

In some SEO Campaigns, directories as an online tool have seemingly taken a backseat to blogs, wikis, and social media properties. The Google factor has also affected directory popularity since it can recognize paid links and has been known to harshly penalize low quality and duplicate directories.

The decreasing popularity of directory listings actually makes them a smart choice for link acquisition – as rival sites are unlikely to count the same sources in their own inbound link reports. If you know how to effectively target directory links, you can build a quality list of referrals that your keyword competitors probably won’t have. With the right SEO campaign, these directory listings can help you increase your website’s page rank and guided traffic.

Despite the consistent and long-term benefits, directory submissions should not form the bulk of your link acquisition strategy. Instead, they should be thought of as a secondary tool that can add value to an overall off-site search engine optimization campaign.

These following tips are what we use to help you achieve the best results from directory submission activities:

Relevancy is Key

The first and easiest way to ensure a directory link adds value to your overall optimization activities is to weed out the bad directory sites and identify only the most relevant sources. This is particularly important if the directories you are targeting use the paid listings model, because even a small number of irrelevant links can end up hurting you if they don’t deliver relevant and serious traffic.

If you have a very specific target market, it’s essential to identify those directories that are most relevant to that group. SEO Professionals spend a large amount of time researching this – usually this includes talking with existing clients to identify any directories they prefer, staying up on industry journals and relevant blogs, or even conducting competitor research to see which directories they use.

Choosing a Category

Once you decide on the directories you want to submit your site to, you must also consider which category your site falls under, and there are 1000s to choose from. If your website offers a variety of products and services, this seemingly simple decision will end up requiring a considerable amount of thought, as the category could make or break the success of the directory listing. If you categorize your website correctly, you will then be exposed to the targeted traffic searching that section of the directory site. If you categorize it incorrectly, obviously you lose that potential for exposure.

If you aren’t sure which category to submit your website under, try a few different ones and then keep track of which categories get submitted and which get denied.

Read The Fine Print

The majority of directories will request a reciprocal link back from your site. That’s understandable, as even directories need to link-build and place their URL in front of as many viewers as possible. However, an explicit demand for a reciprocal link should raise red flags to you. If proof of a link is requested before the site will process your submission, take your directory submission somewhere else.

Link Quality

If a directory cannot satisfy the search engine’s requirement for relevance and quality, then the links you gain from the directory will most likely be worthless. This is not only true for inbound link value, but also true in terms of the quality of the directory-referred traffic. Before submitting your site, it’s important to verify that the links are well organized and relevant to their category. Do a manual check of a few random categories within the directory and click on the links within. Ask yourself if the listings honestly relate to the area they are listed under and check out the quality of the sites themselves. If the sites are mostly poor quality, again, take your submission somewhere else.

When checking the quality of the links, be on the lookout for any spam-related content (like casino or medication links). Again, the presence of this kind of content is an indication that the directory is low quality and should not be used.