According to Katie Schmitt, in her post Digital Marketing and the Recession, “Paid search is the only form of marketing that fulfills demand, rather than creates it.”

I had to share the quote because PPC is definitely something that I believe in. It works and it’s really easy to track.

The post has some other great marketing tips for things to do during a recession.

You can check out the full post on Levelwing Media’s Web site.

Customized landing pages can play a very important role in whether or not a visitor to your Web site becomes a paying customer or bails out immediately. The goal is to match up your site’s content with what the visitor is looking for.

Website Magazine recently analyzed 10 different Web site landing pages (after clicking on sponsored links) that came up after searching for “ringtone.” After reviewing the 10 pages, they came up with 5 trends that all 10 pages shared:

Trend #1 – Limited paths for users
Think of your landing page as a funnel. You’re trying to push the visitor toward something (i.e. making a purchase). If you give them lots of choices, they could go down some other path or bail because they were overwhelmed with choices.

Trend #2 – Prominent Images
Displaying a prominent image on your page is commonly referred to as a “hero shot.” Depending on what you’re selling, you might decide to show your product or a lifestyle image of someone using your product. Testing is a good way to determine what works best.

Trend #3 – Strong Call To Action
Think about what you’d like visitors to do after coming to your landing page? Some possibilities could include making a purchase, signing up for an email newsletter or downloading an industry white paper. As mentioned above, it’s important to offer as few paths as possible. A clear call to action will help push visitors down the appropriate conversion path. Again, testing is a great way to find out what call to action works best.

Trend #4 and #5 – Data Collection, Content Teasing or Registration
Each landing page was either trying to entice visitors into checking out more content (teasing) or registering with the site to provide contact information.

We’ve decided to combine trends four and give into one, but it’s the most important of the group. The sites we reviewed leverage three very different conversion tactics. While some required registration to proceed, others either focused on a basic data collection (name and email) or what I refer to as content teasing.

Check out the full article (with screen shots of the 10 landing pages) at Website Magazine.