As a general rule, your homepage will be the first encounter a visitor will have with your business. Great care, therefore, should be taken to design and structure your homepage so that readers will digest and act on your business message.

Below we’ve identified certain qualities that compose an effective homepage. We recommend you spend a few minutes with this infographic to see if your homepage’s current state is effective. Special thanks to @keanrichmond and @onextrapixel.

Source: The Anatomy of an Effective Homepage Infographic

Did you hear about the Stars & Stripes sweepstakes scam, where newspaper readers get calls by someone claiming to work for the Federal Trade Commission who tells them they’ve won $470,000 in a contest?

You would if you followed the Better Business Bureau online.

How about the bank fee that eats almost all of the earned interest on a CD? You’d know about it if you read Bob Sullivan’s consumer blog, The Red Tape Chronicles, on MSNBC.com.

Back in 1997, Direct Marketing News estimated each of us sees more ads in one year than people of 50 years ago saw in an entire lifetime. Today, it could be argued that we see more ads in one year than people in 1997 did in a lifetime, had that number remained constant. By many estimates, we’re exposed to more than 3,000 commercial messages a day, through TV, radio, social media and billboards. You can’t turn it off.

And how do we counterbalance it?

We don’t. Instead of demanding actionable news about consumer issues, we – and I include myself in this group — click on the videos with laughing babies and cats playing the piano.

But just like in real life, where a diet of cream puffs and soda will eventually kill you, constant intake of fluffy, crowd-pleasing news will eventually turn you into an idiot customer.

Nothing can be learned from Tiger Woods’ divorce or Justin Bieber’s new haircut that will make you a better consumer. Today’s watchdogs are few and far between, and unless you support them, they may face extinction. Here are the sites I have bookmarked.

To keep on top of the latest scams

Better Business Bureau. I’m well aware of some of the criticism leveled against the BBB, but I read its blog not for critical information about its own members, but about scams. It keeps tabs on them because scams can affect legitimate businesses as much as they do customers, and this organization has a vested interest in keeping scam artists off the streets.

For product-related news and reviews

Consumer Reports is known for its no-holds-barred product ratings. A subscription is required to peruse its main content (and if you subscribe to just one consumer publication, this is it), but its blog, The Consumerist is free and it is a must-read for anyone who wants to keep up on the latest consumer news.

When I’m researching a story, I find myself clicking on Consumer World frequently. It catches some of the more obscure – but equally interesting – consumer news from around the Web. It’s not quite as slick as the more corporate BBB or the well-funded Consumer Reports, but it is no less important.

Issues-oriented consumer features

Written by consumer journalist Bob Sullivan, who is a former colleague of mine at MSNBC, the Red Tape Chronicles blog really digs into consumer issues in an in-depth way. His specialty is finding “gotcha” clauses and fine print – he even wrote a book on the subject – and translating it in a way anyone can understand.

WalletPop, an AOL-owned site has a fine collection of columnists, from Jean Chatzky to the “Consumer Ally.” It’s more of an issues-oriented site, and combined with Red Tape, Consumerist, and others, it rounds out my daily diet of consumer news. WalletPop’s posts are well-written and get to the point, which makes them very readable. Update: WalletPop’s content is being migrated to another AOL-owned site, DailyFinance.com.

Before I forget, let me also throw in a pitch for this site. I blog about customer service issues every week here on Mint.com, and on my customer service wiki, On Your Side (www.onyoursi.de). I hope you’ll consider bookmarking those sites too, because I take the very best of these five sites and try to offer good advice on being a better consumer that reflects the day’s most pressing consumer stories.

Know any good consumer news sites? Send me an email and I’ll include them in a future story.

Christopher Elliott is a consumer advocate who blogs about getting better customer service at On Your Side. Connect with him on Twitter and Facebook or send him your questions at On Your Side or by email.

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Here are sixteen SEO tips that have been cultivated from experts around the web. After these suggestions have been completed, rest assured that they will not be taken down, don’t stress over rankings flying up and down the SERPs, hand these links to clients in confidence, because these SEO tips are all white hat.

1.) Earn authentic tweets for your content.  In addition to creating outstanding content/experiences/resources/products that are worth sharing, you can go through Twitter’s paid tweet services to hire someone to tweet your company’s latest news.  If you want to educate popular tweeters in a desired niche about your incredible content use FollowerWonk to find them.

2.) Become a go-to resource in your industry.  Offer unique research, intelligent opinions, be a resource for news and trend analysis, and provide a platform for great discussions.  Find conversations on forums and websites that you can contribute to with BoardReader.com.

3.) You know that interesting, well done videos are popular, and will continue to attribute to link acquisition. Having a video XML site map on your site will enhance the chances of videos from your site to appear in the SERPs.  Go optimize your video XML site map right now.

4.) Visual Media and infographics are easily shared, they have not lost their link luster yet.

5.) A type of link bait that is quickly gaining on visual media and infographics is web based tools and software.  If your company can develop a tool that saves people time, it will be shared.

6.) Content with topical information, or current news will generally contribute to a higher likelihood of being linked to.  Try to combine this idea with number 4 and 5 for effective link building campaigns.

7.) Another straight forward, yet essential strategy for attaining quality links, is to employ talented designers when constructing your site.  Find talented designers, post here, and take advantage of great links from CSS design sites.

8.) Be a trust worthy website, make sure to have a robust About Us page.  People will be more likely to write about you if they can verify that your company is the real deal.  Add links to your company’s Facebook/Twitter/LinkedIn accounts.  Make sure there are actual people’s contact info on your Contact Us pages.

9.) Brag, show people your testimonials and press releases.  Make sure there is a page that highlights your customer’s kind words on your site.  Go as far as to incentivize customers to contribute testimonials, especially on Google Places pages or your company’s Facebook page.

10.) Optimize the shopping experience for customers.  Make sure your purchase, or conversion, can be completed in under five clicks.  If the best route for your customers is not entirely clear for you, try utilizing Google Optimizer for A/B testing.  Another great website to assist you in the journey to determine the best version of your site is Unbounce.com.

11.) Ask real people what they expect to see from entering your key terms.  If you do not host their desired information, return to the drawing board.

12.) Optimize your website for local search, then make sure that once your site is ready to cater to your community, you register with services that will help you get noticed.  Here are a few suggestions:

a) http://www.bing.com/businessportal/

b) www.google.com/boost

c) http://getlisted.org/

d) biz.yelp.com

13.) Make sure your website and company are taking full advantage of free social profiles.  This is another tactic that will make real people, and Google, know you are a trusted brand.  Here are a few that you might not be aware of:

a) crunchbase.com – For tech companies

b) https://profiles.google.com/

c) http://www.quora.com/signup – Answer questions in your company’s niche, become an authority, get recognized.

d)  Wikipedia Profile page.  Also contribute to wiki pages that deal with your company’s industry.

e) And many more.

14.) Inspire potential customers to search your brand.  One way to do this is to tweet “Look at what customers are saying about us”, then give them a Google query link.  Make sure the Google query includes testimonials from your Google Places page, Facebook page, and other destinations that feature your testimonials.

15.) In order to find websites that are mentioning your company search “your company name -site: your company’s URL (exWpromote -site:Wpromote.com), and the query you will get back shows you all the places your company is mentioned, except on your site.  Reach out to these sites, and get links from these sites.

16.) Don’t forget about the real world, develop a presence at conferences in your niche.  Keep track of them with Lanyard.com

There are no tricks in these SEO tips, only habits that will increase your client’s presence online.  SEO companies need to get away from the mind set of building reports just to fill a quota, but instead, exceed your client’s expectations by utilizing every tool online to help them succeed.

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Email newsletters are a great way to boost traffic to your blog posts and grow a loyal readership. However, you better do email newsletters the right way or you risk having the recipients hit the unsubscribe button without looking back. There is a lot to creating excellent email newsletters and big companies who send them out have teams of writers, designers, marketers and computer programmers collaborating on the newsletter. This can be overwhelming for the one man or one woman blogger, but there are some tried and true methods you can use to quickly create email newsletters that make readers want to return to your blog.

Make It Look Professional By Using a Template

Unless you’re a coding ninja, save your time and sanity by using an email newsletter template. There are several free sources for these templates including MailChimp, CampaignMonitor and PatternHead. There are so many templates with so many different color, layout and theme choices that there is no need to personally customize and design your own newsletter in most cases. Plus, using a template ensures your newsletter will look professional and without misplaced lines of code, which is the most important factor.

Make It Look Not Like Spam

There are a couple key ways to make sure your emails don’t look like spam. First, only send an email newsletter when you really have something important to say. You never want to bombard your readers with meaningless emails and even if you think you have important things to say in daily emails, you still should send emails at most once every few days. Secondly, make it easy for a user to unsubscribe. Spam artists are notorious for not allowing users to unsubscribe or burying that option deep in an email where it’s hard to find. Although, this may sound tempting, mimicking spammers will only serve to decrease your readership.

Email Marketing 101: Getting Readers From Their Inbox To Your Blog

Marketing is a highly refined skill and it’s what will get readers to click on the links in your email newsletter that will take them over to your blog. While you can earn advanced degrees in fields of marketing, here are some of the basics of email marketing to get you started:

• Don’t give out all your information in the newsletter, give snippets: If you send out a nice long email with some great content and helpful information your readers will appreciate it and may thank you, but they have no reason to visit your blog again. Rather, display several information “teasers” that when clicked, takes your reader to the full article on your blog.
• Make your headlines and teasers outrageously interesting: Headlines and teasers are only a few words to a few sentences long at most. You only have a small window to grab a reader’s attention so you must make the most of it. Spend time crafting teasers that your reader’s can’t ignore. Some common teaser formats that work include any numbered lists, “top” or “best rated” lists or negatives, such as “the worst (product names) you should avoid.” These formats tend to spark interest most of the time, but anything that really relates to your readers on a substantial level or anything that’s truly creative will result in clicks to your blog.
• Use awesome clickable images: Pictures really are worth a thousand words sometimes. A great didactic, creative or humorous image can result in more return readers to your blog than you’d probably expect. Filling your newsletter with a few well-placed images and your readers are guaranteed to pay more attention to your email. However, do not use too many images, since users without the highest internet speeds will dislike this and do not rely on images alone, since some of your emails will undoubtedly be flagged as junk mail. These images will not load unless a user un-flags the email. In this scenario your headlines and teasers will be the end all be all of your newsletter.
• When all else fails give your readers incentive: Nothing encourages return readership to your blog like giving something away for free or offering something at a steep discount. Put forth a sense of urgency by saying the first “X” number of readers to visit after receiving this email can claim their free “ABC” product.

Track Visits After Sending Out Email Newsletters to Learn Your Readers

Pay careful attention to spikes in visitors shortly after you send out email newsletters. Inevitably, some letters will gain more visitors than others. Realizing which topics your niche readership favors the most will allow you to cater to them in the future, ensuring long term success for your blog.

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