Happy Landings

A Landing Page is the screen visitors arrive at after clicking on a link to your site, or enter a specific domain address (we’ll get back to this).

Depending on our plan, the landing page must demonstrate one or more things to get the prospect to stay, and continue.

Users want to know the following, and more.

The goal should be to give prospects the shortest path to filling out an online inquiry form.

Back to the definition of Landing Page. Long gone are the days of a single welcome screen. If your company provides products/services for several types of events other than weddings, then your website should entry points, each one optimized for that particular group of prospects. Bar Mitzvah mothers don’t care about wedding information. Corporate convention planners don’t care about weddings. High School committees and faculty are not concerned with anything but their dance or prom.

Each category of work demands its own landing page, with design and specific information for that customer. Properly customizing the content of a Landing Page should cause dramatic improvements in SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

Before you even spend time thinking about any website redesign, just shorten the path. If you having paid or free linking from advertising, organization directories, or reciprocal links, make certain they are linking directly to the wedding section of your site, bypassing the welcome screen. i.e. www.DesignerMusic.com/weddings.

One of the frustrations of wedding guide publishers is that it can be difficult to track their impact on traffic to your website. My recommended solution for this is a simple on. Buy an additional domain name, just to use in print ads (even if you only advertise in one print publication).

Using the same example, for Designer Music, I would see if DesignerMusicWeddings.com were available. Assuming it was not taken, I would register it, and point it to DesignerMusic.com/weddings. Using that strategy, tracking would show direct entry DesignerMusicWeddings.com which only could have come from reading a publication where the domain appeared in  your ad.

OK, that’s Lesson #1: Now, go out and spend $10/year on one more domain to point to your wedding section and update your print ads. We’ll work on the composition of Landing Pages in future posts.

Happy landings!

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: Andy Ebon, domain name, landing page, search engine optimization, SEO, website, wedding marketing, Wedding Marketing Authority, weddings

In the last few months, I’ve been super active on Twitter. I’m following about 2500 people/businesses, and there about 2800 following me.

Twitter profile graphic

In the real world, one cannot concisely follow 2500 people on Twitter; however, I make an effort to look at every single profile and company website, when someone chooses to follow me. That is where business identities either jump out at you, or don’t.

Are people and companies interesting/rare? Or do they just have a Bludomain website with a two or three big squares on the home page (Nice sites, but they are starting to look generic). Perhaps calling something nice is the ‘kiss of death.’

The first things that catch me on Twitter are business name and profile image. Good images for the small profile square are usually a good logo or an appropriately sized graphic. This graphic for Cupcake Rehab is a pullout from their logo.

The name of the business, Cupcake Rehab, gave me a belly laugh. The Twitter Bio was even better: “A 27- year old female and her tales of cookin’, bakin’ and beatin’ people with whisks in the York of New. With other stuff thrown in. Beware- I can tweet A LOT.”

Cupcake rehab logo: Designed by Mariloca.com

OK, now I was curious. This business owner, Marilla, clearly has a passion for what she’s doing. She has a big-time sense of humor and doesn’t take herself too seriously.

I click through to her website and find logo showing a Super Hero image of the Business Owner, armed with tools of her trade. Above her, the header reads: “Beating batter and people with whisks since 2007.”

One could over analyze the logo, but why? The designer, Mariloca.com, has captured the spirit of the owner and the business with full flourish.

The welcome page of her is too busy my standards, but it doesn’t matter much. One gets drawn in to her activities, interests, great photos and recipes on the blog. In this case, personality trumps everything.

I suggest you do a couple of things. Visit CupcakeRehab.com, spend some time reading the blog and poking around, generally. Then visit the CupcakeRehab Twitter page. Follow, if you dare. Remember, she Tweets a lot.

Closing Comment: Even from 2500 miles away, for me, this business has more than an identity. It has SOUL. It communicates its excitement, its product, and its vibe.

Can you say that about your business and you? If not, what are you going to do about it?

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Authority

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: Andy Ebon, Bludomain website, business identity, Cupcake Rehab, logo, soul, tweet, Twitter, wedding marketing, Wedding Marketing Authority

For those that are just joining the conversation, Bella Pictures is national wedding photography company in business since 2003. As a practical matter, Bella Pictures a booking agent for available wedding photographers in many major markets, across the country. (if you know the background, just skip down the page)

A thorough examination of online reviews, from brides, shows a random sampling of satisfaction. Essentially, satisfaction was a coin-flip. There were happy brides and miserable brides.

I became particularly aware of Bella Pictures about a year ago, when their VP of Business Development, Jenny Lefcourt held a couple of TV interviews on Fox Chicago and Fox Los Angeles. These interviews were incredibly misleading and minimized the value of other wedding professionals.

Yesterday, this blog reported that Bella co-founder and Chief Photographer, Bob Davis, had been forced out of the company in March 2009. His comments clearly indicated a difference of opinion in the direction of the company.

Part of the evolution of Bella Pictures is a ‘partnership’ with Marriott Hotels, as its preferred photography vendor. More recently, Bella Pictures has ventured into videography. I cannot speak to the success or quality of the videography division, as it is too new. From the description on its websites, the videography program follows the same model as photography.

A recent QuantCast report of Bella’s website activity shows about 150,000 visitors per month, among other details.

But yet there is more: Some careful research turns up a photography company called StudioBlue. The research and booking procedure, for brides, is strikingly similar to Bella Pictures.

There reason for that is because Bella Pictures owns StudioBlue. On the Privacy Policy screen, the first paragraph reads as follow.

This is confirmed at the bottom of the same page, and it is noted in the Domain Name Registration for StudioBlue.com.

Opinion and Analysis: One can only speculate as to the intentions of Bella’s creation of spinoff, StudioBlue.com. It certainly turns up the heat even more on local, independent photographers and creates yet more confusion of the bride, on her first search for a professional photographer.

And there is even more confusion:

From the photographers I’ve communicated with, who have worked with Bella Pictures, there is confirmation of the roller coaster service and widely varied experience of photographers assigned to its bookings.

As wedding professional peers, please study the mounting information, good, bad and indifferent, and form your own opinion as to whether their operations are favorable for the bride or photographers, at large.

Get informed. Discuss the matter with other wedding professionals. Have an opinion. Voice it.

Andy Ebon
The Wedding Marketing Blog

written by Andy Ebon \\ tags: Andy Ebon, Bella Pictures, Bob Davis chief photographer, booking agent, customer service, Jenny Lefcourt, Studio Blue Photography, videography, wedding, Wedding Marketing Authority, wedding marketing blog, wedding photographers