CNET新聞專區：Michael Kanellos 20/05/2004
安全廠商賽門鐵克週三宣布計畫以3.7億美元買下垃圾郵件攔阻工具商Brightmail。
總部設在舊金山的Brightmail曾在今年三月申請首次公開上市，根據該公司跟美國證管會申報的文件顯示，2003年營收為1210萬美元，獲利110萬美元。
賽門鐵克以Norton防毒軟體聞名，目前則盡力走向全方位的安全軟體、硬體與服務，也因此近年兩年來已經陸續進行多次收購，包括SafeWeb與On Technology。
賽門鐵克曾於2000年投資Brightmail，持股11%。賽門鐵克在4/12截止的一季中獲利1.17億美元，相當於每股35美分，相較之下， 年前獲利6800萬美元，獲利21美分。(陳奭璁)
fr.: http://taiwan.cnet.com/news/software/0,2000064574,20089596,00.htm
EDITOR'S NOTE: Before I begin this week's tip, I'd like to thank all our loyal, wonderful readers. Each week, at least one or two of you send me a personal email, telling me how much you enjoy and appreciate our newsletter, and that means the world to me. It's what keeps me going and inspires me to continue producing high-quality content for you all.
With that said (and speaking of high-quality content), I'm going to share with you some tips for writing for the Web and how it's different than writing for other mediums.
Navigation is Unpredictable
For starters, on the Web, you cannot predict how an individual will navigate a web site so you cannot assume that information stated on a previous page will have already been read. Although most people begin with a visit to the home page and work their way out from there, sometimes even the home page is not the page through which a visitor enters your site. That's why some kind of central, reappearing communication theme needs to come into play.
For example, our Web Ad.vantage web site has a standard masthead that appears on every page and on that masthead is the phrase, "Internet marketing strategies & solutions." At least this way, even if you were to enter our site on the Marketing Tip page, you could still quickly understand that we provide Internet marketing strategies and solutions.
Also, because navigation is unpredictable, it's extremely important to have consist navigational tools throughout a site. The more complex and deep the site, the more important navigation is. At the very least, top and bottom navigation bars ought to be implemented.
Transition from Anywhere
Don't rely on logic and navigation tools to communicate information to your visitors. Each page should present information in a thorough and understandable fashion, independent of other pages. Strong page headlines are a must, as they can also help "gel" information, page to page.
A good example of this technique can be seen on the web site for Good Technology.
Write in Bites
You've heard of sound bites, right? Well, on the Web, you ought to think in "information bites." People tend to absorb little chunks of information more easily, and with a great possibility of information overload on the Web, you'll be doing your reader a great service if you make information more "digestible" for them. Then, if they want more, they'll read on or drill down to a deeper page.
Utilizing sub-heads, hyperlink phrases, teaser paragraphs, bulleted information, and lists are good ways to accomplish this. eMarketer.com does a nice job of implementing these techniques.
Converse with Your User
Although debated, it's also generally accepted that using more casual, "conversational" language is ok on the Web. Instead of framing everything from a third person perspective (he/she/it/one/they), it's fine to say "you" or "we." Nielsen/NetRatings has identified Intuit's web site as one of the most usable business-to-consumer web sites, and it definitely uses more casual language.
Kill the Techno-Speak
There's nothing worse than reading a web page and still going, "Huh?!" when you're done. Droning on and on using hi-tech language is a quick way to make a smart visitor feel dumb...and to turn them away from your site. Write for the "everyman," making your site easily understood by all.
Don't Forget Calls-to-Action
Just because you've got great content doesn't mean that people are still going to do what you want them to. Obvious reminders along the way like "Click Here," "Buy Now," or "Contact Us" can be the difference between a site visitor and a site customer.
Keep "Must-Knows" Above the Fold
If there's something absolutely essential for a site visitor to know, be sure it's not buried 3/4 of the way down the page, which the reader would miss if he/she didn't scroll downward.
fr.: http://www.webadvantage.net/tip_archive.cfm?tip_id=119&&a=1
By Serge Thibodeau
Here's the scenario:
You have just completed a major advertising campaign in major newspapers, TV, radio or other media and now you need to accurately measure the results and ROI of all that spending. Meanwhile, not having any clear picture or any numbers to fall back on, your boss or company president is getting increasingly impatient as each day goes by.
You have a great website that is well optimized for the major search engines and that brings in a fairly decent amount of quality, targeted traffic.
Everyday, you carefully analyse and evaluate all your web log files, closely watching for any clues of new traffic that could have come from your ad campaign. All you see is an increase in traffic, and a corresponding increase in sales, but you still have no way of accurately measuring exactly how much of it is directly related to your new ad campaign.
Before going into that major ad campaign, your site already had about 80% of its traffic coming from referrals of major search engines such as Google, AltaVista, Yahoo, etc.
How can one accurately measure the real ROI and have access to exact numbers while conducting an important advertising campaign? How can you separate traffic from search engine referrals from new traffic that is directly produced by a major ad campaign? It's very simple. The solution is to create a "landing page" system that will tell you precisely how many new visitors uniquely come from that ad campaign and, with the right tools, can accurately compute your final conversion rate.
How do "landing pages" work?
First, we need to know how landing pages work and why they are called "landing pages" in the first place. Under normal circumstances, most if not all the pages in a website are directly connected to the homepage and the sitemap. At least it is highly recommended that they be, in order for the search engine spiders and crawlers to be able to index all those web pages and include them in their database.
In the case of landing pages, and for their maximum effectiveness, they usually are not. To have accurate numbers, they need to:
Be disconnected from the homepage and the sitemap
Be prevented to be spidered by a search engine
Be prevented from being directly accessed by a visitor
In essence, landing pages actually break every rule of common sense on the subject of SEO! However, there are no other way of doing it, if you are to get effective and precise numbers that will satisfy you or your boss or company shareholders. So how is it actually done in the real world? Rather simply.
Let's use an example where a company embarks on a major national advertising campaign, wishing to promote two new products: White widgets and red widgets.
It would need to create two new pages on its website, one clearly labelled "white widgets" and the other marked as "red widgets". Those two new pages would NOT be linked anywhere else on the site- not the homepage, not the sitemap, not anywhere! Additionally, in the ad campaign, if the company uses the newspaper media or TV, somewhere in the ad would have to appear, in bold and large letters, the exact URL's of both the white widgets and the red widgets landing pages.
That way, when the server log files are analyzed, you can come to a clear conclusion that 100% of the traffic arriving on those two pages is the direct result of that specific ad campaign and nothing else.
To prevent the search engine spiders from indexing those two pages, install the robots.txt exclusion protocol. That way, the search engines will not be able to "distort" what would otherwise be perfect and accurate numbers of the real, true traffic resulting uniquely from your ad campaign.
Additionally, one must be certain not to "publish" those 2 URL's anywhere else but in the ad campaign itself.
Conclusion
When conducting any major ad campaign, be it local, regional or national, landing pages are the only truly effective ways of getting accurate results you can really depend on, if implemented the right way. The same principle can be used in other media. For example, a partner's website can be used in a similar fashion, again, using landing pages as the correct way of accurately calculating the real traffic coming from that unique source.
Additionally, special tracking tools or tracking software exist in the market place today to calculate the final conversion rate of these new sources of traffic.
The same principle can also be used to conduct user or client surveys, market analysis, consumer opinions or even conduct pre-marketing studies based on a very specific geographical location or the whole country.
Used in conjunction with professional search engine optimization and positioning, landing pages can in fact become very powerful tools to any web marketer's available means in staying a step ahead of its competition.
fr.: http://www.searchguild.com/article95.html
All too often there is a significant "disconnect" between an advertising message and the web page to which that message sends its visitors. Think about the last time you clicked on a banner or an email espousing some great discount or savings on a specific product, only to be taken to the main home page of the web site where that product is nowhere to be found. Betcha this has happened to you, right?
If you're the shopper in the mood to buy, you have a certain expectation. And when that expectation is not met, or worse, the site impedes your ability to buy, quicker than you can blink, you're outta there. On the Web, you may only have 30 seconds to make a lasting impression so you'd better make it good.
What are Landing Pages?
Simply stated, a landing page is the page to which a link takes a visitor. Its essential role is to help expedite the sale as best as possible. Good landing pages should be built specifically to dovetail with an ad campaign which is expected to attract a particular target market. A landing page is intended to guide a site visitor into the desired action. Better still, good landing pages can help determine how many visitors come from your unique ads and use this information to subsequently help test and calculate conversion rates.
Effective Landing Pages
A good landing page should be simple, direct, and extremely targeted. Visitors don't want to navigate to find anything; they don't want to do any work. An ad directed them to the landing page and they expect to see related content that tells them what to do next -- make a purchase, place a phone call, complete a form, etc.
Reebok is currently running an ad on iVillage.com. The ad copy reads "Get ready to challenge yourself -- click here" and is accompanied by images of Reebok apparel. Clicking on this ad takes a visitor to a simple "iVillage Walk It Off Challenge Collection" landing page featuring the same apparel pieces displayed in the ad. The landing page is simple, direct, and extremely targeted.
The landing page should not only be consistent with the ad imagery but the ad copy as well. Say your company is trying to promote a redesigned SUV. You decide to use two different ads: one geared toward women that will be shown on web sites like Good Housekeeping; the other for men on sites like SI.com and MaximOnline.com. Because of the demographics, you'll want to use different ad messages for the campaign. Female consumers will most likely use the vehicle for family and errands. Men, on the other hand, envision that the SUV will be used for hauling and off-roading. Different requirements call for different ad copy which means different landing pages.
Finally, the landing page must repeat the offer and make clear to the visitor what his/her next step should be. The point is to move the visitor closer to completing the sale.
Performance Tracking - Rules to Follow To optimally measure the performance of your landing pages, follow these rules:
1. The landing page must not be connected to your homepage and sitemap. No links can be placed from any other source except from the intended campaign to your pages. NO sitemap inclusion or intertwined links with the rest of your site can be permitted.
2. Ensure that your landing page is not accessible to search engine spiders and robots. Contrary to regular Internet marketing practices, having good search engine placement for your landing pages is not a good thing. You want to know that So that the traffic to your page is solely from the specific ad campaign and nothing else.
This tag will prevent search robots from indexing your landing page: [meta name="robots" content="noindex"]
Only add this tag to pages which you do NOT want search engines to pick up.
3. Do not give other site visitors access to the landing page's unique URL. Again, this is to limit the source of the page traffic to the ad only.
Pros & Cons to Using Tools on Landing Pages
Web audio recorders, video, and discussion forums are just a few of the vast array of tools that can be used within your landing page to help increase interest and conversions. Not all sites should use them or even at all times. Here are some considerations:
* Selling Complicated Products: Some products/ideas are difficult to explain simply by words. In this case you may benefit from producing an online video or audio, and it may not even be difficult to do if you use online tools. Video and audio are also valuable in helping to build trust.
PBS (public television) has taken a creative approach to promote its new hands-on history series, Colonial House, on Salon.com. To pique a reader's interest, the ad shows a chicken running under the headline: Fast Food, 1628. This clever ad leads one to a unique landing page that shows a video clip about the series.
* Customer Service: Just like in the off-line world, a helpful customer service representative can make all the difference in a buyer's purchasing decision. Live online customer service chat systems can be used to help expedite the online buying experience.
* Know Your Audience: If your music label is promoting a young, new recording artist to the music- buying teen segment, having audio samples of his/her songs can definitely persuade the buyer to make a purchasing decision.
And if you implement a tool on your ad creative, you should probably consider using it on the relevant landing page, as well. Keep the theme flowing.
Landing pages can essentially make or break a sale. Why invest all your time and energy solely on the creation of your advertisement without putting as much thought, if not more, into where that ad is taking its respondent?
fr.: http://www.webadvantage.net/
Have you ever gone to a web site and unexpectedly come across a waterfall of seemlingly endless sales copy. You're forced to read miles of copy, sometimes several pages worth, before even ever getting to the price or the opportunity to buy. You've seen them: sales pitches for ebooks telling you how to "get rich quick on AdWords" or software that will submit you to "thousands of search engines and drive unlimited traffic to your site." For someone like me who just likes to get to the point, these long web pages of sales copy just drive me nuts. It's like a bad baseball game: long wind-ups and pitches but you just keep waiting for the hit. What exactly is it about these long pitches with their multiple questions, highlighted text and endless testimonials that entices users to convert to sales? Do pages like this really work at generating sales? And is there only a certain type of online shopper who is attracted by these pages? The answer might surprise you. Read on.
Rather than let our own bias get in the way, we decided to talk to some top successful veterans of the entrepreneurial Web world and find out just exactly why such marketing tactics work. Our list of experts includes:
Willie Crawford - Willie hosts teleseminars as well as the annual "Internet Marketing How-To Workshop." He also runs an Internet Business Success Course at WillieCrawford.com and owns the shopping cart system ProfitAutomation.com.
Randy Cassingham - Randy is the author of THIS is TRUE and the creator of the TRUE Stella Awards.
John Skorczewski - John is the CEO of Market-Tek Enterprises, Inc. which specializes in search engine traffic and entrepreneurial web marketing. John also is the publisher of the "WebPromotion-Weekly eZine" and also the creator of Submission Spider software.
Andy Henry - Andy is the editor of the "money making newsletter" StartBiz, which focuses on ebooks, newsletter publishing and affiliate marketing. Andy also runs Learn-SEO.com, a search engine optimization tutorial site.
Paul Myers - Paul is the Editor of TalkBizNews, a business-oriented newsletter, who makes his living by writing and producing web books and sales letters.
So here's what we at WebAdvantage.net (WA) learned when we talked to these experts:
WA: There's obviously something to these pages of long sales copy. Can you explain why they work?
Willie: I use long copy of most of my landing pages which are generally set up to capture email addresses of first time visitors. The pages are designed to sell them on the value of joining my list, and I don't believe that you can provide TOO much proof of the value of what you have to offer. It is critical, though, that you provide links at numerous places on the page where they can take action when ready.
John: Long copy is the ONLY way to go. In virtually every test we've ever run that has been the case. It just makes sense. You're selling over the Internet...the words you convey are the only tool you have to convince a potential customer to buy your stuff. (Well, now people are using audio...but that's still long copy in script form.) The more information a person has about your product, the more comfortable they will be in deciding to buy it.
Paul: A few points on this: Quoting Gary Halbert, (I think) "Copy can never be too long. Only too boring." If you read fiction or even newspapers you'll know that people will read whole books **if they're interesting.** If the copy shows a reasonable chance of offering a solution to a problem, the person with that problem will read it. All of it.
Randy: To be sure, there ARE people out there who don't like long copy, no matter how well-written it is. Just like there are those who "need" or require a long explanation, or to be convinced.
I tend to make up my mind pretty quickly, and tend to write quite concisely -- whether in content or in marketing. (And, certainly, you can't always tell the difference between the two!) Thus, my web site is pretty to the point, but there is usually a link after the short copy that says, "Why *should* I subscribe?" and clicking thru to that page is long copy! And it's written in a pretty entertaining way, if I may say. And I get a "lot" of subscriptions from that page.
Would I have lost those new subscribers without the long copy? Dunno, but my guess is "certainly some of them. Bottom line: let the customer decide how much info they need.
Andy: I have also asked myself your same question on many occasions and have always found it to be the case that longer sales letters are much better at communicating important details about a product's benefits. Having said that, needlessly "padding out" a sales page just to make it longer will not result in more sales.
I've concluded that most people (myself included) tend to quickly skim over a sales page to pick out key benefits and decide whether the particular need they have in their life/business will be addressed by the product or service being described.
WA: What works for you? What tools or techniques do you use when creating these long pages that help your success?
John: Well, we use as many testimonials as we can. I've used highlighted text before but not seen much significant change in response rate. Also I keep my paragraphs short (1-3 sentences) with bolded and centered sub-heads every few paragrahps...and lots of white space between paragraphs (which makes the text easier to read).
Willie: Testimonials do an excellent job for me and I use as many as I can on many of my pages. I gauge how many to use by page size and load speed. To lend credibility to testimonials, I use lots of photos and live links to other web sites. I configure the links to other web sites to open in a new browser window so that I don't lose the visitor.
I [also] have hundreds of autoresponder sequences for fully automated follow-up. Some of my autoresponders have up to 30 messages in the sequence. I have not tried video yet but have seen it used very effectively. Audio and video have to both be used in a way/place where they don't pull the prospect out of the written message.
Paul: B2B products tend to rely more on reviewer testimonials than B2C offers. This is so prevalent that when I asked a few people for critiques of one book, they all responded with testimonials. I had to go back to them and emphasize that I really wanted criticism, and wasn't fishing for testimonial comments.
WA: What sales page techniques have you tried that have bombed for you? What audience would you not recommend long sales copy for?
Paul: Technically-minded folks are much less likely to read MOST long copy, because it contains words and refers to feelings with which they're uncomfortable.
Marketers are often more intolerant of adjective-laden copy, because they think they understand the psychology of selling in print, and they read adjectives as attempts at control. These folks are rarely accomplished at any form of advertising, as folks who know understand that verbs sell far more effectively than adjectives.
Andy: Before I'd learned about the power of sales copy and the right and wrong ways to do them, I put up a series of pages which had far too much information about the product but didn't explain the benefit that those features would have. Benefits sell; features are used to justify the purchase.
John: One thing that once bombed was when I created a sales letter with nothing but a headline and a long page of many testimonials. The headline was something like, "I Can Describe This Product to You but I Thought I'd Let Our Customers Do It For Me..." Then, I listed the long page of testimonials and at the end put an order link.
WA: What advice would you give to a mainstream online business that is interested in improving conversions by testing these kind of long sales pages?
Andy: There are a lot of people getting this process wrong, but I've found (and I believe there are those who agree) that each page should be focused and limited to achieving only the purpose it serves. Diluting your message by doing anything more than pre-selling and/or obtaining subscribers is more than the job of a single page. The more options you give people, the less likely you are that they'll do whatever the primary purpose of your page is.
Paul: If the benefits proffered are enticing, or well presented, they'll read the long copy and not be aware that it's long. Much of what I've written in the past few years has been for info products in the $1,000-$25,000 range. For more expensive items, copy is no more or less important than for lower priced stuff. The credibility of the producer, though, is a MUCH more important factor in cases where the price is significantly above the usual.
Here's a little-mentioned secret to selling more expensive items. It works well for any kind of non-commodity copy, but it's amazing what it does for sales of higher priced items:
**Get the reader's imagination involved.**
Specifically, craft the copy in a way that causes them to create their own scenarios for how they'll use and benefit from the product.
This is how we sold a $1,000 software and audio package with no tech support, no guarantee, minimal documentation, and 30+ products, each of which should have had a sales letter of its own.
No matter how well you know your market, you'll never be able to pinpoint the absolute best and most important use of your product as well as the end user will.
Willie: Long copy can work on mainstream business sites too if the product lends itself to it. The primary reason a lot of copywriters use long copy with lots of bulleted benefits is that you never know which benefit will be the hot button, which triggers the buying decision.
If the page has a lot of white space, easy-to-scan sub-headings, and a logical flow, then long copy will work in any product category. If a person is really interested in a topic they will read a lot.
It is critical that they can find the order link when they are ready and that there is a quick summary somewhere near the bottom of the page for those who just skip to the bottom.
fr.: http://www.webadvantage.net/tip_archive.cfm?tip_id=421&&a=1
CNET新聞專區：Stefanie Olsen 24/05/2004
新聞分析：Google若打算將網路搜尋業務移植至桌面上將面臨一大挑戰。
Google傳出要推出一版下載軟體，可讓用戶搜尋儲存在電腦硬碟中的資料，此舉將可讓Google延伸搜尋觸角，與微軟展開正面競爭，而微軟目前也已經緊鑼密鼓開發自家搜尋工具，打算進軍Google擅長的網路搜尋領域。
「這很明顯是打預防針的舉動，」Highland Capital創投資深合夥人Richard Desilva表示。
雖然Google不願承認這項Puffin專案的存在，但產業觀察家認為這是遲早的事情，因為自從該公司宣布要以27億美元募資上市後，Google便不斷企圖進軍新市場以增加營收。
跨入桌面檔案搜尋後，Google既有的兩項業務將連帶受到部分影響。首先，該公司將首要營收來源的網路廣告帶進有廣告支撐的桌上型應用，這會讓Google變得類似Claria(Gator前身)或WhenU這類備受爭議的廣告廠商，消費者對於所謂廣告軟體(adware)與spyware(間諜軟體)已有逐漸反彈之勢。
第二，Google將把從企業搜尋應用所學到的技術用到消費市場上。這可不是件容易的事，因為Google在2002年九月引進Google Search Appliance後並沒有引起企業很大的迴響。該產品目前僅佔了公司業務極少部分。
微軟效應
不過桌上型檔案搜尋畢竟跟網路搜尋相差甚遠，該公司要擊敗作業軟體商並不容易，尤其是諸如微軟，全球PC有九成以上都採用該公司的Windows作業系統。
Google在呈交給美國證管會的申請書中，就將微軟列為潛在敵人之一，在整體風險評估上，Google臆測微軟有朝一日會干預該公司針對部分網路文件的檢索能力。
這類威脅未來在桌面上只會更加明顯，因為微軟在自家產品上將比其他對手更具優勢。
紐約時報是在上週報導Google將推出一款桌上型工具，可搜尋硬碟中的多種格式檔案，包括email、多種格式的文字檔案、音樂與照片檔案等。消費者雖然是首選目標，但這類工具也可輕鬆進入辦公室場合。
微軟的下一版Longhorn版本Windows作業系統將可讓用戶在多種應用中直接搜尋文字、檔案與網路，只是該版本至少要到2006年以後才會有初步的實現。
部分人士表示，Google雖然在網路搜尋上成功避開了爭議，但若在桌上型工具錯估形勢的，可能導致消費者反彈。
廣告軟體廠商如Claria與WhenU便不斷推出新的桌上型應用來吸引消費者。Claria與WhenU一開始是江廣告軟體掛在熱門的檔案共享應用上，這些廠商會追蹤網友的瀏覽習性，然後根據這些資料來傳送廣告。但此一作法也讓他門招致挨告上法庭的下場。
不過網路搜尋廣告與廣告形式的桌上型工具已經有逐漸重疊的跡象，例如Yahoo旗下的Overture最近就與Claria與WhenU簽約遞送小型的純文字廣告。
Google在兩年前就推出可搜尋企業內網路與桌上型檔案的應用，但此一軟體目前僅佔公司業務的5%不到，依據Google在IPO文件中所揭露的，這相當於去年到不到4800萬美元；該公司雖然已經有上百家企業客戶，但這方面與網路搜尋廣告相比還是略微遜色。
Google之所以熱門在於它能快速找到相關準確的搜尋結果，但這套模式依賴網頁連結的結構，不太可能轉移至PC環境中，因為PC中的檔案與文件並非以連結模式存在。
解決方法之一是讓用戶可在文件與應用上標示關鍵字，這會有助於文件檔案的搜尋，目前包括Adobe與微軟都已在開發這類工具。
另一項作法則是微軟還在開發階段的模式，採用所謂XML智慧檔案連結，這可讓用戶將資料輸入某份文件中，然後再將資料傳送至其他相關訂用。搜尋工具可內建，如此便可找到不同應用中的相關資訊。
包括Autonomy、Convera與Verity目前都已著手解決這些企業搜尋問題，這些公司目前提供的技術也比Google來得成熟，Google向來著重簡單，且與HTML相關的文件。
「Google真正的挑戰在於採用率：如何讓大家願意下載並安裝，」獨立分析師Matthew Berk表示，「為了能搜尋硬碟機，你所安裝的軟體勢必得非常深入機器的核心不可。」(陳奭璁)
fr.: http://taiwan.cnet.com/news/software/0,2000064574,20089688,00.htm
Colorworkshop Series -
Search Engine and Internet Information
