Will your site survive Google Instant Previews? I’m sure many publisher sites out there are full of rich content for SEO, banners to bring in extra revenue, Opt-in links here, contact us links there… Now Google users have the ability to see a small snapshot preview of your site before actually clicking through. So all of these “extras” could actually be hurting your chances of getting customers to land on your site and actually convert. Design is now number 1, your site better be clean and to the point. Clear out some of the banner ads, clean up your font and color choices to make your site cohesive. Have a catchy headline since this is about all your customers will be able to read from the snapshot.

Go check out your site today using Google Instant Preview and ask yourself if you would click through based on your snapshot!

If there weren’t enough search engines to try and keep up with, there is now one more to try out- BLEKKO. Digitaltrends.com is reporting that this new search engine is certainly unique compared to the others out there. Do you ever search for something on Google and a bunch of unrelated/unimportant websites appear in your search results? I know I have and now this new search engine is promising that this sort of thing is not going to happen when you perform your searches. Using “slashtags” is what is being said will differentiate Blekko from the other search engine’s search results. These slashtags will help to improve results in the initial search categories: health, colleges, autos, personal finance, lyrics, recipes and hotels. For example, you should be able to search amongst the millions of websites and be able to pull up sites that are not spam or unrelated websites. Blekko is currently in beta mode, but try it out. Looks like something totally different than Google!

There are many challenges when it comes to email, what converts for 1 list may not convert for another. Lets look at 5 ways to increase your Click-through.

1. Text-only email: Majority of the emails people deem important are text-based emails from family, friends and co-workers. If you are currently only sending flashy HTML email creative try and A/B test on your next drop.

2. Story Format: You must provide something of value to your audience to gain their attention. Tell a relevant story to create interest in your topic.

3. Big Button: If your offer is compelling enough sometime all you need is somewhere for people to click. A “Learn More” button will bring in more clicks but less qualified traffic then a “Shop Now” button.

4. Multiple CTA’s: When mailing to large aggregated lists including multiple calls to actions can help increase click-through on the basis that different people may be interested in different aspects of a topic.

5. Digest: If you are offering a lot of content in your email newsletter try a digest format where you have several links at the top f the article navigating users to sections of your content.

I hope some of these tips help increase your email ROI!

We hear so much news about social networking sites and all the changes that are going on with them. However, I would have thought that reports would show internet users tend to use social networking sites more than content related sites. That does not seem to be the case. DMNews is reporting that users are actually spending almost twice as long on content websites versus the social networking sites. I found that very surprising. According to the reports, “Consumers spent an average of 6 hours, 58 minutes on content sites, while they spent about half of that time on community sites: 3 hours, 1 minute.
Consumers spent an average of 2 hours, 40 minutes a month on e-commerce sites; communications — e-mail and instant messaging — sites commanded 4 hours, 54 minutes; and search took up 57 minutes. Compared with 2008, time with content rose slightly, while communications, community and commerce slipped a small amount, and search jumped by a few minutes.
In terms of share of online time per category, people sent 42% of their time on content sites, down 2% compared with 2008. They spent 13% of their time on e-commerce sites, down 19% vs. 2008; and 13% of their time on community sites, up 63% compared with last year. Time spent on searches remained flat at 5%.””
So actually when looking at the numbers the community sites/social networking sites had increased which now really makes sense. In future years, this report I am guessing will continue to show a rise in the social networking sites year after year. I would also have guessed that e-commerce sites would have been higher because a lot of people purchase products online. Maybe because of the status of our nation’s economy has made an impact on the figures for that category? Either way, this is pretty interesting information for all of us that are looking to know where consumers are.

A daily conversation that myself and others in the affiliate marketing world deal with is the question of the form/ad/banner sizes. Leadpile is a perfect example of someone that has revolutionized a “smaller” version of forms and banners with the Microclick form, but is it more effective? ….OR is it more effective to have a larger leaderboard size banners or ad? How about a full size form on a website that does not allow as much content on the site, is that better? According to the Bizreport.com, banner size could in fact matter with the effectiveness of it’s message and goal.
Ultimately, all of us that are in the lead generation business and want to maintain longevity must always keep the user experience in mind to maintain effectiveness. The bottom line is consumers need to feel a sense of security when clicking on or filling out any form. Maybe having more content around the form instead of the larger form/banner occupying a large part of the site, might be a better idea for the consumer. The jury is out on what really is more effective, but I will say Leadpile Lead Exchange believes a form/banner like the size of the Microclick form is the most effective for the consumer’s experience.

Ladies and gentlemen, your current laptop computers will become worthless in 12 months. Say hello to the era of “Ultra small laptop computers”. And I mean Small! Did I also say cheap? Oh yes, that too. They will be dirt-cheap. Can you say Small and Cheap 200 times? So how small and how cheap you ask?

Being that this is a blog and we have an interest in other bloggers, I thought I would point out Time.com’s 2nd annual top 25 blogs for 2009.  Unfortunately, Leadpile missed the list this year, however this list is a very interesting list I thought I would share.

Many Leadpile Lead Exchange publishers are looking at monetizing a blog/website, or are looking for some new content for their sites.  These blogs might be a great place to take a look at for some ideas.

1.  Talkingpointsmemo.com- great source for news
2. The Huffington Post- political blog
3. Lifehacker.com- place to look for tips on making life easier
4. Metafilter.com- blog about anything readers deem important to share with others
5. The Daily Dish by Andrew Sullivan- very opinionated political blog
6. Freakonomics.com- economic theory and how it really relates to real life
7. Boingboing.com- geeks writing about wonderful things and presenting can’t believe it photos
8. Got2begreen.com- everything green blog
9. Zenhabits.net- blog about ways you can become more productive
10. The Conscious of a Liberal-economist with a lot of great views to share

and more………

Blogs, like all of these, are a great source for information and keeping up to date on current events.  Take a look, you might learn something new!