Well have you tried pop-ups?

The Marketing Experiments research laboratory recently revealed dramatic test results for a lead-generation opt-in form on a credit counselling site. The pop-up version attracted 63% more leads than the control version, which was a standard opt-in form on the web page.

The Marketing Experiments people figured this was a pretty radical experiment because they knew how much website visitors hate pop-ups.

We’ve never been quite so leery about the things.

Our own long experience at the Internet Marketing Center shows that pop-ups can easily yield double-digit improvements in opt-ins and click-throughs, as long as you don’t overuse them.

Yeah, of course you hate pop-ups… but get over it. The in-your-faceness that makes them so irritating is the very thing that makes them so effective. For at least couple of seconds, they cannot be ignored!

Or at least, they can’t be ignored if they’re actually seen. Pop-up blockers see to it that any old-style pop-ups don’t pop up. But the alternative, Hover Ads, are actually part of the web page being viewed, so pop-up blockers have no effect on them. (Our own Hover Ad Creator software is on special at up to 50% off right now.)

So if you’ve been avoiding pop-ups or Hover Ads just because everybody hates them, why not grit your teeth and test them out? You might just find that more of your visitors will do exactly what your call to action tells them to… even though they hate pop-ups too.

When you’re readdressing your on-page SEO there are a few things you need to remember:

• The spiders determine what your site is about by looking for keywords in your text and in the HTML code behind your site.
• Your keywords need to relate to the content on the page.
• Spiders automatically follow links between pages, which is why it’s important to get links pointing to your website from other relevant sites. The links from page to page within your site can also help the spiders.
• Spiders are attracted by new content. Once your site has been indexed, they will return whenever you update or add something new.

To make it easy for you to quickly check your on-page SEO, here’s a handy list you can work through. Tick off what you’ve done and make a note of what needs to be addressed so you can start bringing those spiders back to feast on your content!

• My website is peppered with keywords and synonyms.
• My top-performing keywords are in key positions on my web pages, including all of the following:
  • My domain name
  • My title tag HTML code
  • My headlines and subheads, complete with proper <h> tags in their HTML code
  • My web page content — where they’re often bolded or italicized
  • The source code behind my images — both image tags and alt text
  • The anchor text on links to my other pages 
  • My description and keyword meta tags
• I have a well-organized XML sitemap (If you don’t know where to start to build an XML sitemap, try the free generator at: http://www.xml-sitemaps.com.)

Remember, the more traffic you get, the more sales you can make — so taking a little time to update your on-page SEO can mean more than just better search engine rankings