Aleyda Solis Blog | Web Enthusiast and Internet Marketer

Whether you are managing a PPC campaign or optimizing your site to increase its conversion rate it is essential to develop effective landing pages.

To help you on this non-trivial process I have compiled a useful set of articles and guides:

• 11 Ways to Improve Landing Pages
• Landing Page Tutorials and Case Studies
• Let’s Talk Landing Pages
• Landing Pages for SEO
• Ten Tips for Lead Generation Landing Pages
• Top Landing Page Tips from the Pros
• The Landing Page Design Toolbox: 100 Tools, Tips and Resources
• A 10-point checklist for landing page design
• Seal the Deal: 10 Tips for Writing the Ultimate Landing Page
• Designing to Sell
• “Keep it Simple, Stupid” Applies to Your Landing Pages, Too!
• 7 Rules for Landing Page Optimization

You can also take a look at this excellent SMX Advanced presentation “Landing Page Myths”:

If you know of other articles that are missing in this list, just let me know to add them!

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I have been doing some research about Local SEO since it is getting more and more important in the SERPS and according to different studies, such as the one published last February by the Kelsey Group, that forecasted U.S. mobile local search advertising revenues will reach $1.3B in 2013.

So, what to do if you want to start ranking in the Local Search results? Take a look at the following compilation of guides and references!

• Local Search Terms and References
  • Google’s Local Search Patent Application
  • Google Local Search Glossary
• Local Search Ranking Factors
  • Local Search Ranking Factors
  • 10 Likely Ranking Factors of Google’s Local Search Algorithm
  • 10 Likely Elements of Google’s Local Search Algorithm
  • Ranking Factors in Google Maps - Cracking the Code SMX Local
• Local SEO Guides
  • Anatomy & Optimization Of A Local Business Profile
  • Local Search Marketing Guide
  • Best Practices for Local Success
  • Extreme Local Search Optimization Tactics
  • How To Get On Google Maps Without An Address
• External Local SEO Factors
  • What does a link campaign look like for Local?
  • Three Web Reference Building Tips for Google Maps
  • Local vs Traditional SEO: Why Citation Is the New Link
  • Back to the Local Search Engines: Google Maps and Yahoo Local
• Local SEO Tips
  • How To Create Effective Local Business Landing Pages
  • How to Use Yahoo Local to Rank in Google Local and Vice-Versa
  • Local Search Ranking Tactics - Steve Espinosa of ELocalListing.com
  • The Mother of All SMX Local/Mobile Recaps
  • Local SEO Tip: Google Maps loves Panoramio’s Geotagged Images

Please let me know of any other article about Local Search Engine Optimization you would consider helpful!

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Not a long time ago, in a galaxy not so far, far away there were Star Wars characters that could look a lot like Internet Marketers…

Black Hat Vader

You started as a good Jedi Padawan but the “Black Hat” force got you: you were confused, you needed to position sites for highly competitive terms… and didn’t know what else to do but to start doing web spam. Now you enjoy “playing around” with keyword stuffing, doorway pages, link farms, cloaking among many other “black hat” activities that in the other hand could get you into trouble, so you keep all of these to yourself.

Image by Big C Harvey

SEO Master Yoda

You are very well known and respected as a SEO with an excellent reputation: you were one of the first professionals in the field and have become an authority by providing effective SEO services to many high profiles companies and sites. You have one of the most read Internet Marketing blogs and are a frequent speaker in SEO conferences.

Image by Blakewest

Luke “Social Media-Walker”

You are part of the “new wave” of Internet Marketers that started in SEO but have continued by implementing creative social media actions that have become viral on the most visited online communities where you are a power user. You frequently read and comment on SEO Master Yoda blog and stay in touch with a high number of followers through Twitter.

Image by O’BrienDigital

“Spam” Trooper

You are not really a SEO, you were hired once by Black Hat Vader who taught you that “links were important to position sites” and paid you to built some. Since then you have passed many days and nights spamming blogs, forums and now communities, copying and pasting the links that are given to you. Since you don’t have a clue about SEO sometimes you don’t even include the anchor text your clients give you to use and add a lot of links in the same page since it is easier than to place them in different sites.

Image by Gaetan Lee

Which of these “Star Wars” SEO characters are you?

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This is the intention of major search engines Google, Yahoo and Live that have joined forces to accept the following new tag in a header’s page:

<link rel=”canonical” href=”http://www.example.com/product.php?item=swedish-fish” />

That will indicate the search engines which is the canonical URL, and avoid content duplication issues.

Nonetheless, at the moment this is not a “directive” but a “hint” that according to Google, they are going to “honor strongly”, so you may want to test first, before start deleting all the “noindex” tags.

Joost de Valk has already (how fast!) published a handy Wordpress plugin to add this new tag, and also links to Drupal and Magento plugins.

Let’s see how effective is this interesting “joined action” solving canonicalization problems!

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A couple of days ago Compete published the top social networks in January 2009 ranked by monthly visits where we can see how Facebook has taken the first position over MySpace and Twitter success is shown with his amazing third position (after being in number 22 a year ago). 

But what took my attention was to see that niche or vertical social network like LinkedIn (professional network), Flixster (movies reviews), blackplanet.com (african americans community), Cafemom (mother’s community) and fubar (bar & happy hour network) among the TOP 25. 

Is there room for more “vertical” or niche social networks that would attract a massive amount of visitors like these? What is the next step that these social networks will need to take to grow even more? … and how Facebook is planning to avoid its users to start using other “more specialized” social networks, that could fit their interests more specifically?  Because since little Doki has started using UnitedDogs he’s not using Facebook as he used to!

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2008 has passed by shockingly fast for me and looking back, I have the sense that this has been the year of Social Media: Every important media has covered Facebook rising -also featured along with Spanish social network Tuenti in this year Google Zeitgeist-.

Now Google is not seen as sexy and un-evil as before and social platforms like Twitter and FriendFeed have gotten more popular and have broaden their user base. Now it seems that Google also wants to get social with Google Friend Connect.

Other trends? The global financial crisis is already here and it seems that online businesses are also affected with less ad spending and trouble getting investment.

Will 2009 be the year of the crisis or a stronger social media year? There will be other kind of trend(s) starting this year? Let’s see what happens in future months…

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