Watch on YouTube

Video Background

Convicted fraud and self-confessed criminal Christopher Angus is kicking off a confidence series, providing free video tutorials on how to defraud investors. This third video is 22:36 & was shared on March 18, 2016. The criminal who shared these videos delivered over a 99% investment loss, as he simply stole the money and integrated it into other investment scams abroad.
https://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/18263036.christopher-angus-jailed-fraud-friend-philippines/
Crown Police never followed the money trail.

Christopher Angus is associated with Stella Huh and Timothy Barton, who stand trial in the United States on November 2, 2026.
http://www.seobook.com/stella-huh/criminal-case-docket-sheet%204-22-2026-(22-cr-00352).pdf

Video Highlights

• 0 minutes 40 seconds: did not do any trades because risk in market was too high, sat on hands
• 3 minutes 30 seconds: talks about how 5 point range in S&P 500 is absurdly tight & how normal range is 17 to 20 points
• 5 minutes 20 seconds: gambling is not what we do
• 6 minutes 20 seconds: difference between high volatility & low volatility markets in terms of margin of safety in entry and exits
• 12 minutes 5 seconds: does not believe in crystal ball & only trades reactively to good trade set ups
• 15 minutes 10 seconds: again talks about hedging any positions
• 16 minutes 20 seconds: vix at 20 is often a decent entry point to start buying
• 19 minutes 20 seconds: (over next 1 minute & 10 seconds) explains how low volatility makes entries harder & states he thinks options get too complicated. mentions most the smart people in options make money selling premium, which is writing options betting volatility will fall. then states he can't deviate from what he does, which works even in bad markets we still make money.
• 20 minutes 30 seconds: states importance of discipline & states people who lose it and start fooling around are basically gambling

A copy of this video is also available at
https://www.dropbox.com/s/6gk39go5yqwm9m7/video%202%202016%20mar%2018.flv?dl=0

Video Transcript

00:00 Christopher Angus: Okay, so just a quick recap. We didn't place any trades today as I suspected. I thought today was gonna be another horrendous day, and it was. This is just... Let me just go back a little here, what time is it? Let's see if I can...

[pause]

00:35 Christopher Angus: Sorry I'm just... It's not good.

[pause]

00:50 Christopher Angus: Let me do it like this. So yesterday we closed at down here. And once the cash opened, it basically would've just gapped up. That's not really a trade there. You would've just found the cash there, and then had to decide are we gonna buy it here, 'cause you ain't selling it there, that's for sure. And if you had decided to buy it, which of course I didn't 'cause I just... Instinctively, I knew it was gonna happen. I just watched it and it just fell off again and turned around and came back up. As you can see, it's so volatile just on the open from 9:30 US time to 10:00 that you always have these really big moves. These moves aren't really big enough to make decent kind of money. This one here is like around half a point, which would've actually been able to make money, but we weren't really in that frame of mind where we're trying to take half a point because you're not gonna get half a point. You're not gonna get it right on the bottom; you're gonna get it here, like at 17.2. And then as it comes up, you're not gonna get it at 16.2; you're gonna sell it something down there at like 17.4.

02:20 Christopher Angus: Plus, you have to take 0.1 into consideration, so 17.2 to 17.4's 0.2. And then there's 0.1 in commission that you're paying back. Of course we get some of that back, but in a sense we would've made 0.1. We would've made one tick on that. That's not really a trade. And this, of course, is not a trade at all. There's there's nothing in that like. You're not gonna nail this at 7.04, so 17.1, 17.30. They would've had to have complete precision to make 0.1 after you've paid your commission. And that's not a trade, that you would've not even broken even. So there's just been no opportunities. But like I said, we wanted to see the VIX drop-off. Thankfully, at the end of the day, it sort of dropped again.

03:15 Christopher Angus: Again, the contracts rolling over, the March contract is expiring. Which means that we can now get on and trade tomorrow because we may have been able to make a little money today if I'd really worked like a son-of-a-bitch. Wouldn't have been easy and I wouldn't have made a lot but, with the Fed stuff coming up, that's all Bloomberg's talking about, getting us ready for a June rate increase. No, a cut, sorry about that. Basically, no one's ready trading. Or people are trading, but they're just gently buying it. And you'll see some interesting stuff. If I look at the S&P, so S&P had a big gap down on the open opposite to the volatility, as you could see. And you could see everyone selling into the open here and then covering their positions at the close of the day. These people got short and I guess probably hoping for a breakdown or something. That didn't happen, so everyone just settled at the end of the day.

04:27 Christopher Angus: It would've been obviously virtually an equal number of buyers that wanted to fill this gap. So whenever there's a big gap, the algos are always gonna wanna fill the gap. It's a standard play, so the algos start buying it here hoping they'll get back here. And it didn't even do that. It was so lackluster it was unbelievable. If we look what happened on the open, we opened... Where's the open? Around 17.11, and we traded between 17.11 to 17.05. We closed at 17.15. It's a very, very tight range. No break out, just stuck. And this is really indicative of some really big upcoming news and... Oh, bollocks. If we look at the news that's coming up tomorrow, this the Forex Factory. It's like a Forex thing, but I use it because it lists all the upcoming events. Very, very important because that's when you get a lot of the volatility. And you can see, this is from like this an hour after the open tomorrow 'cause we're an hour ahead on Daylight Saving. That'll be evened up at the end of the week 'cause for some reason, the US changes an hour early compared to Europe, which is pretty cool for me. I wish it was always like this 'cause it lets me finish an hour earlier.

05:55 Christopher Angus: But over here, we can see there's all this, there's crude oil, there's all this FOMC, which is the Fed stuff. And it's gonna be a really kind of crazy day. And even now before the open here, we can see there's building permits which is really indicative of what the economy's doing. Not really, 'cause it's all bullshit anyway. They bend the numbers. But it does cause volatility in the market and the CPI. Tomorrow's a huge news day. Massive. Let's have a look at the end of the week. Unemployment tomorrow as well, and then the Philly Fed Manufacturing Index. Again, this is a lot of the industrial stuff and it gives an indication which way the economy is going or the industrial side because if people are not spending money on industrial goods, like investing in machinery and stuff, it's seen as usually quite a negative signal for the economy.

07:03 Christopher Angus: There's gonna be some massive volatility tomorrow and on Thursday, yay. Finally. 'Cause the last two days, I can't even remember shitty days like this. So, no trades at all. Didn't even bother. I was hardly interested 'cause I knew this is just a way to get caught under water as you try and buy this and then be unhappy. I know it. What did I wanna show you here? Let's have a look.

07:38 Christopher Angus: So I wanted to show you a time where we would hedge... Now we only would really hedge when we are selling volatility, when we buying volatility, there's not really a need to hedge because if it does run through your order and you to go under water you know it's gonna come back, especially if you buy it well. And the time when we would hedge is when we got it wrong on the sell. So let me just see if I can zoom in a little bit here give you a little example this is obviously not going to be... This is just a made up thing 'cause I haven't had to hedge but... So a hedge we would want to... We would think that the market was... This is well out.

08:31 Christopher Angus: Hedge would be once we'd be thinking that the market was going down, but actually what it did was it just turned around and went back up again. So over here last... No, give you a more recent example, yeah. So... See if I can make that a bit better. Okay, so here... It was at February, yep, alright. So we we we... Systems nearly fully automated now anyway. The hard thing is just trying to tell the system where the ranges are because we don't just buy at 14 or 15 and 16 and sell it 25. It depends on where the ranges are being established over a short amount of time. So this would be a really nice range to trade because like one point one point one point one point like it's very obvious, we wouldn't have been selling it here. We would have just bought it wait it bought it wait it... And so on.

09:49 Christopher Angus: Until it got to about here and then we would have sold it because that there becomes quite a clear place, but I want to show you a place where we would have had to hit. So what we do is when we buy volatility, we just buy it. We place it depending on where it is in relation to the bottom and this is very, very close to the bottom but depends on the size of our trade. So its a money management thing. Now, when we sell volatility, we have to have a hedge in place because volatility has unlimited upside. So say we wants to sell volatility here and have a hedge, wait what number is that... 19, have a hedge on 21. So we sell volatility and it doesn't, it goes against us and it hits our hedge, now our positions is Delta neutral. So we've locked in a loss, say we're like two grand down. Now we're gonna remain two grand down as it comes up here. Now, one position is going to be four grand up, for example, and the other is gonna be six grand down. Once it gets here, we'll start to break the hedge and take... Lift one of the legs and we would then lift some of the leg so that the... That the buy side of things has been... Is lighter than the sell side. So we now are going to start pocketing some of the profit.

11:31 Christopher Angus: This isn't a profit gain, by the way. Let's start pocketing some of that profit and start to remove it bit by bit by bit. So now, by the time it gets back here, we probably only have one side of the leg back on. In effect we'd would still be two grand down but our balance would be four grand higher. But we would still be running a negative position and then we would of just let it go through. That's a really over simplified version of how hedging works. It's never... It doesn't really play out that... As simply as straightforward as that because, as I said, there is a cost attached. There's higher transactional fees. When you lift legs, often you lift a leg... Say we started lifting a leg early, we might have to put the leg back on.

12:18 Christopher Angus: It gets, as I said really, really complicated and its something which we try hard not to do because what happens is you don't lose money but you end up focusing a lot on trying to unwind hedges and you have to unwind them very, very slowly because as soon as you take off big pieces in one go, you inevitably will have to be putting them back on because you don't want it to continue out. So that's fundamentally how we handle trades that don't work this... You would have seen the market turning. Okay, maybe it's turning... This is around the level which its turned. No it didn't, caught in a hedge, picked up a hedge here, lift the leg over simplified and then let it run down and if it had turned here we would have had to put it back on again.

13:12 Christopher Angus: Often make money from hedging just because you're picking it up, it's running back down, and you'd taking some money, then you take that money you take it out then you reduce your risk on the other side. So say we'd made four grand there but was six grand down, we could basically take... Make that position a lot smaller and then we would still be two grand down but our actual risk could be much smaller because the contract numbers would be much lower, if that makes sense. The position would be much, much, much smaller. So if there is a big rip, it's not going to be hurtful. There's many ways of doing it, that's kind of my way of doing it. Anyway, like I said, we fully automated the problem teaching the computer or the algorithm and trying to train it is to train it where the ranges are. And as I said, this is obvious as a human being because you buying selling wait, buy sell wait, buy sell wait. This is also a range which we were trading, was it we were trading for you here? I don't think so. But this is a range which we were trading.

14:17 Christopher Angus: This is arranged we... I think, we traded a little bit, but you don't make as much money. This is where you make lots of money. I think I said yesterday, these big one-way moves down or up. And this is not even a range. This is just like this needs some Viagra or something because it's like nothing's happening. Anyway, this one's a little easier because we kinda knew it was at the bottom anyway because of where it had been and what the broader markets were doing. Over here, you can see I'm a little bit more cautious because I know that it's highly likely to come down a little bit further. Because that's kind of [chuckle] what it does. And I wanna get a good position. Over here, we would have handled that in a different way and been a lot smaller. But I'm looking to really try and capitalize on this and do well for us here.

15:25 Christopher Angus: So, we'll have to see. As I said, tomorrow, it's very likely that we'll start trading again, pretty much regardless of what this does. I'm not gonna be waiting around too much longer because just after the stuff in the morning... Where are we? US time. It's evening for you. But just after the stuff at 12:30 UK time, that's at 8:30. That will cause some volatility. And almost certain you'll be wanting to trade there. If unlisted, it's just flat again. But this is gonna cause some incredible volatility. And I'm gonna eat that all up. Yummy.

16:12 Christopher Angus: And then again on Thursday, I've got some unemployment stuff. Yep. Thursday I've got unemployment in the US and that is wild. So yeah. Monday and Tuesday, zero. But I'm pretty sure at end of the week we'll be where we need to be. We're at 5% at least. At least. So that's the video. Not even that interesting I'm afraid because there's so little that's happened all day. It's just been a bit of just a zero day. Nothing. Nothing's gone on. But thanks for your patience. It will come good. And it's the right thing to do. I can't just start forcing on trades because I'm getting impatient or I feel under pressure, I don't. This is what we have to do. We've just got to wait, be patient, and on average, we'll make good money. Thanks a lot. Speak to you tomorrow.

Watch on YouTube

Video Background

Convicted fraudster and self-confessed criminal Christopher Angus is kicking off a confidence series, providing free video tutorials on how to defraud investors. This first video is 13:55 & was shared on Monday, March 14, 2016. The criminal who shot these videos delivered over a 99% investment loss, as he simply stole the money and integrated it into other investment scams abroad.
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-8047311/Businessman-told-friend-hed-quadrupled-2-3m-investment-fortune-actually-blew-1-18.html
UK Crown Police never followed the money trail.

Christopher Angus is associated with Stella Huh and Timothy Barton, who stand trial in the United States on November 2, 2026.
http://www.seobook.com/stella-huh/criminal-case-docket-sheet%204-22-2026-(22-cr-00352).pdf

Video Highlights

• highlights how positions are hedged & runs tight money management. hedges are a cost that act like insurance.
• at 11:30 he talks about how he would dread the day of reporting a loss because it would be totally unnecessary because it would be caused by mental error.

A copy of this video is also available at
https://www.dropbox.com/s/p7s2sfe9np06luy/video%200%202016%20mar%2014.mp4?dl=0

Video Transcript

00:00 Christopher Angus: Okay, so just a quick video on why I'm just holding my nerve, so to speak, and not wanting to initiate a trade. This chart shows two things, the blue line is the S&P it's actually the SPY, but that's a mirror image of the S&P, the correlation is one, so it's identical, and then the pink line is volatility. As you can see, there is basically a 100% inverse correlation of one, inverse correlation. As the S&P drops, volatility goes up, and as the S&P goes up, volatility drops. So based on previous history, you can see here this is from 1998, the volatility is very close to the bottom. It's only really been down around, let's say, 11.85 when the markets were super, super high; sort of breaking record highs. Let me just put that there. So you can see when the markets were breaking record highs at every point that's when volatility was at its very bottom.

01:15 Christopher Angus: Now, the S&P's very far from actually breaking a new record high, over 100 points. So, volatility is basically at the bottom; you can see that dotty line there. I can't... If I move that up just a wee bit. It's way, way below its historic average. So, that means we're gonna take a very formulaic strategy of, buy low and sell high. There's only one thing we can do, and this is part of the strategy, and that is... Let me expand this out. It doesn't work that well there. We can't short the VIX now or sell it and then buy it back when it's lower because it's near the bottom. So there's basically nothing, no downside potential; there's no downside opportunity. So when you're obviously trading anything, you can only buy or sell, and if you short, you're obviously making when it goes down, when you buy, you're making when it goes up, obviously, as you know.

02:21 Christopher Angus: Now, since there's hardly any way to go down, because we're so close to the bottom, there's basically very, very limited opportunity. And there's obviously a much larger risk that if the VIX spikes and we are short, that could be kind of bad, so we'd have to run a hedge and hedges run a cost, and it just would be really, really stupid to short the VIX now. So that leaves us with one option and that's to buy. And because we're very close to the bottom, I'm waiting for a bottom to come in. I've got my orders ready and I'm waiting patiently and I'm very reactive, as I've said before, I'm not proactive because I don't know. I used to have a huge sign above my desk that I printed out in big letters that said, "You don't know." And it was just a reminder to me to say that anything can happen, basically.

03:14 Christopher Angus: So, what I'm hoping for and expecting to see is that the VIX will come to bottom around 16 or at, very close to 17 now, and we're actually got close. What was the bottom here today on the VIX? It doesn't say. I might have to get rid of that chart, I think. But the bottom of the VIX today was around 16 and a half, I think. So, we're waiting for something in the region of 16, maybe a little higher, maybe a lower before we go, before we start to go along. Now, this is a very good opportunity because it doesn't happen that often. It was a bit funky in November, but you can see that about once a month or so it kind of tries to bottom out and then you buy it and you sell it much higher. So that didn't actually happen in the last couple of months either, which makes it an even nicer opportunity, because when it gets down here, we buy it and we buy it hard. In the last month, you can see what we're actually doing is shorting the VIX and we're running upside hedges.

04:28 Christopher Angus: Thankfully we didn't have the hedge any other time, but if you do short the VIX and it rockets up 2-3 points, and you hit a hedge, the hedge has a cost then you're gotta unwind that hedge and you never make a full amount of profit. So the reason I'm pretty excited about this but also I'd like to see it happen, is that we don't need to run a hedge now. We're so close to the bottom no matter what happens, we'll be fine. And so if we've gotta wait a couple of days, it'll be fine. And also, we'll be able to really take a larger position, not like this where you've gotta run very, very tight money management, because the VIX has unlimited upside potential. So if you short the VIX, and it hits a hedge and you gotta unwind the hedge then you gotta re-hedge, it can get very, very complicated and costly, and it requires a lot of discipline and patience. And obviously, like I said, when you hedge things, hedge is an insurance, it carries a cost, and so you just start chopping away at the profits in a trade.

05:33 Christopher Angus: So I can't really articulate my happiness, that we're actually down here and we'll have a straightforward trade. Now its been a slow couple of days, I know, but that's because I have had no choice. The market's grinding up, the VIX grinds down, that's the way it is, and there's no more downside potential. Like here, we're making loads and you can see those but we had a few massive days. We're making like 2, 3%, or close to 3%, because the VIX was just a steamship down and we'll sell high and buy low or buy low and sell high. It's the straightforward market mechanics. Once it starts getting into these very kind of funky ranges like this, wasn't an easy time to trade over here, because it becomes a knife edge. Are you high or are you low? The VIX is at like 20, 21, 22; you don't know. So you have to look at other market data which is coming at you to work out what's going on at the market. Like some of the other stuff, like gold and the T-notes, which I pay very, very close attention to, because the T-notes, like volatility, usually give you a leading indication of what's gonna happen.

06:50 Christopher Angus: Of course, we are also on upside hedges all the time, and when we're short in the market if we're going up. But right now, there's no choice, we can only go up. I cannot go short the market and try and catch like, one point. It would be absolutely ridiculous. Why take risk going down when I can wait a little bit and catch a really; there is a opportunity to catch a really, really big move up? So on average, maybe we'll make nothing tomorrow either. You just gotta bear that in mind. But if we catch like a three or four point pop and we will be bigger than all because there's no, hardly anymore, downside to go and basically there's no risk, absolutely zero, zero, zero, zero, zero risk of actually hurting ourselves in any way. We may, if it does keep, if we buy at 16 and it goes to 15, we carry it overnight. It's not gonna be a big deal. However, I wanna wait. I'd rather catch it at 16 than catch it at 17 and watch it go to 15.50. I'd rather be buying it at 16 and then buying it at 15.50 again, and then catching it all the way back up to 20, 'cause it'll be a really spectacular day and week. It'll make the week, if not the month.

08:06 S1: So it just requires a lot of patience. Sometimes it can get frustrating. You don't earn for a couple of days. That's just the way it is, and when it gets low like this, it really becomes a money printing press for a very short amount of time, because you catch it low, there's no downside, it's like someone giving you an insider tip saying, "You know, this stock is going up because some of the rating agencies, on an insider tip has... " And if this was a credible, as the markets are bent like that with hedge funds, if there was an insider tip, as soon as those insider tips, those rating agencies say, "Buy." Or, "Out perform." Or whatever they say, the stocks rocket. They go up like 10-20%, and that's kind of the position we are in now, is that we're just waiting for this to happen and then we're gonna jump on and it's going to be big, it really is. It'll be the best day that we've seen, with no downside. So just be a little more patient because with the Fed announcing something on Wednesday, probably warming the market up for a rate cut in June, that's why the market's kind of doing this kind of choppy, grind, chop grind grind grind grind chop chop chop grind grind chop.

09:32 Christopher Angus: And also, there's two futures contracts, which we trade. The March contract which is expiring on Wednesday. We can't trade that. Now, the downside is not being able to trade that because it expires on Wednesday, we have to wait for that one to go away, and for then for April and May to come in, is that March follows the VIX cash very closely. Like it's almost one to one. It is a little bit more benign. So say, the VIX was at 16.50, the cash would be at 17. Sorry, the cash was at 17, the March contract will be at 16.50, and then say so the cash goes up 4%, the first VIX, the front month, the March VIX month of March, would go up 3%. Now then the April one might go up like 1.5%. So the movements are much more benign and lazy in terms of actual making proper moves. So we're not able to really trade any instruments which are moving with any vigor because we can't trade the March future now. It's two days, basically one day, 'cause we're at the end of play, oh I think we've closed already actually, because we're an hour early, because we'll catch up at the end of the week, but there's one day left to trade with the March contract and we can't, because if we run a small loss, say 2000-3000 loss because we buy it at 17 and it goes to 16 or something.

11:15 Christopher Angus: And at the close of play, halfway through Wednesday, lunchtime Wednesday, that contract rolls over, or it goes away, expires, we would absorb that entire loss. And, we try not to make any losses here. I dread the day when I have to report one, because I think it would be a mistake and I would have made a mistake and be unnecessary. But I would have had some brain fuck up, that would have happened because they're totally unnecessary. So, for those reasons, the market's grinding higher, the VIX is grinding low, I can only buy. So, I'm waiting to buy better. Two; the Fed is making the markets go in higher and choppy and it's up and down, up and down. I think on Friday the S&P was caught in a seven point range. And number three; I can't trade the March contract. I would have to trade the April contract because March is expiring on Wednesday and April hardly moves until March expires then April attaches itself to the VIX's cash more, which makes it a little more correlated. And then the May one comes into play, but it's a lot more benign. I hope I'm articulating myself correctly. But those are the three main reasons, the grind higher and there's no more downside for the VIX, I can only go up. So, I have to buy, but I'm waiting for a good spot.

12:33 Christopher Angus: The Fed, and then that's what everyone's waiting for. That's a painful grind higher. And number three, the VIX contract expiring on a Wednesday. So, those are the three reasons I'm basically stuck until Wednesday. I will trade the April contract, which won't roll over, or expire, if we get a major pop. But the mark, we're done for the day. And there was fuck all at what happened. So, Wednesday's the day. And I have to say, just be patient. And I'm sorry to not make any money today, but it's... I'd rather buy better on Wednesday and have a 10-15% day and week, because these things hardly ever come along. It's to catch it right at the right time, not to be in a position so you can actually put some size on. We're in a very fortunate position at the moment. And I think tomorrow's gonna be... It may be okay, but I'm really banking on Wednesday being a good day. So, I hope that explains where I'm at at the moment, just waiting for a good set up to make, to hopefully end, or start the middle of the week, having a very, very strong middle of the week. That's it for now. I'll catch you on Skype. Cheers. Bye.

Once upon a time, I was sitting in my office looking over data for one our new clients and reviewing the conversion project roadmap. The phone rang and on the other end was the VP of marketing for a multi-billion-dollar company. It is very unusual to get an unannounced call from someone at his level, but he had an urgent problem to solve. A good number of his website visitors were not converting.

His problem did not surprise me. We deal with conversion rates optimization every day.

He invited me to meet with his team to discuss the problem further. The account would be a huge win for Invesp, so we agreed on a time that worked for both us. When the day came, our team went to the company's location.

We started the discussion, and things did NOT go as I expected. The VP, who led the meeting, said, “we have a conversion problem.”

“First-time visitors to our website convert at a rate of 48%. Repeat visitors convert at 80%!”

I was puzzled.

Not sure what exactly puzzled me. Was it the high conversion numbers or was it the fact that the VP was not happy with them. He wanted more.

I thought he had his conversion numbers wrong. But nope. We looked at his analytics, and he was correct. The numbers were simply amazing by all standards. The VP, however, had a different mindset. The company runs thousands of stores around the US. When someone picks up the phone and calls them, they convert callers at a 90% rate. He was expecting the same conversion rate for his online store.

Let's face it. A typical e-commerce store converts at an average of 3%. Few websites are able to get to anywhere from 10 to 18%. These are considered the stars of the world of conversion rates.

The sad truth about a website with 15% conversion rate is that 85% of the visitors simply leave without converting. Money left on the table, cash the store will not be able to capture. Whatever way you think about it, we can agree that there is a huge opportunity, but it is also a very difficult one to conquer.

The Problem with Conversion Optimization

Most companies jump into conversion optimization with a lot of excitement. As you talk to teams conducting conversion optimization, you notice a common thread. They take different pages of the website and run tests on them. Some tests produce results; others do not. After a while, the teams run out of ideas. The managers run out of excitement.

The approach of randomly running tests on different pages sees conversion rate optimization in a linear fashion. The real problem is that no one shops online in a linear fashion. We do not follow a linear path when we navigate from one area of the website to the next. Humans most of the time are random, or, at least, they appear random.

What does that mean?

The right approach to increase conversion rates needs to be systematical, because it deals with irrational and random human behavior.

So, how do you do this?

The Four Steps to Breaking to Double Digits Conversion Rates

After ten years of doing conversion optimization at Invesp, I can claim that we have a process that works for many online businesses. The truth is that it continues to be a work in progress.

These are the four steps you should follow to achieve your desired conversion rate:

Create Personas for Your Website

I could never stop talking about personas and the impact they have on your website. While most companies talk about their target market, personas help you translate your generalized and somewhat abstract target market data into a personalized experience that impacts your website design, copy and layout.

Let's take the example of a consulting company that targets “e-commerce companies with a revenue of 10 million dollars or more.” There are two problems with this statement:

• The statement is too general about the target market (no verticals and no geography, for example)
• I am not sure how to translate this statement into actionable items on my website or marketing activity

You should first think about the actual person who would hire the services of this consulting company. Most likely, the sales take place to:

• A business owner for a company with annual revenue from 10 to 20 million dollars.
• A marketing director for a company with annual revenue from 20 to 50 million dollars.
• A VP of marketing for a company with annual revenue over 50 million dollars.

Now, translate each of these three different cases into a persona.

So, instead of talking about a business owner for a company that is generating annual revenue from 10 to 20 million dollars, we will talk about:

John Riley, 43 years old, completed his B.A. in physics from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor. He is a happy father of three. He started the company in 2007 and financed it from his own pocket. His company generated 13.5 million dollars of revenue in 2014 and expects to see a modest 7% increase in sales in 2015. John is highly competitive, but he also cares about his customers and thinks of them as an extended family. He would like to find a way to increase this year's revenue by 18%, but he is not sure how to do so. He is conservative when it comes to using new marketing techniques. In general, John does not trust consultants and thinks of them as overpaid.

This is an oversimplification of the persona creation process and its final product. But you get the picture. If you are the consulting company that targets John, then what type of website design, copy and visitor flow would you use to persuade him to do business with you?

What data points do you use to create personas for your website? I would start with this:

• Market research
• Demographical studies
• Usability studies
• Zip code analysis
• Existing customer surveys
• Competitive landscape
• AB and Multivariate testing data

A website or a business should typically target four to seven personas.

Add Traffic Sources

So, you have the personas. These personas should impact your design, copy and visitor flow.

But how?

Let's start by looking at analytics data. Look for a period of six months to one year and see the top traffic sources/mediums. If your website has been online for a while, then you will probably have hundreds of different sources. Start with your top 10 traffic sources/medium and create a matrix for each of the personas/traffic source/landing pages:

Now, your job is to evaluate each top landing page for each traffic source through the eyes of your website personas. For each page, you will answer eight questions.

The persona questions: Eight questions to ask

• What type of information would persona “x” need to see to click on to the next page on the website?
• What would be the top concerns persona “x” have looking at the page?
• What kind of copy does persona “x” need to see?
• What type of trigger words are important to include on the page for persona “x”?
• What words should I avoid for persona “x”?
• What kind of headline should I use to persuade persona “x” to stay on my website?
• What kind of images should I use to capture persona “x” attention?
• What elements on the page could distract persona “x”?

As you answer these questions for each of the personas, you will end up with a large set of answers and actions. The challenge and the art will be to combine all these and make the same landing page work for all different personas. This is not a small task, but this is where the fun begins.

Consider the Buying Stages 

You thought the previous work was complex? Well, you haven't seen anything just yet!

Not every visitor who lands on your website is ready to buy. Visitors come to your website in different buying stages, and only 15-20% are in the action stage. The sequential buying stages of a visitor are:

• Awareness stage (top of the sales funnel)
• Research stage
• Evaluating alternatives
• Action stage
• Post action

A typical buying funnel looks like this:

How does that translate into actionable items on your website?

In the previous exercise, we created a list of changes on different screens or sections of your website based on the different personas. Now, we are going to think about each persona landing on the website in one of the first four buying stages.

Instead of thinking of how to adjust a particular screen for John Riley, now you think of a new scenario:
Persona “x” is in the “evaluating alternatives” stage of the buying funnel. He lands on a particular landing page. What do I need to adjust in the website design and copy to persuade persona “x” to convert?

Our previous table looks like this now:

Next, answer all eight persona-questions again, based on the different buying stages.

Test your different scenarios

This goes without saying; you should NEVER introduce changes to your website without actually testing them. You can find plenty of blogs and books out there on how to conduct testing correctly if you are interested in learning more about AB testing and multivariate testing.

For a start, keep the five No's of AB testing in mind:

1. No to “Large and complex tests”

Your goal is NOT to conduct large AB or multivariate tests. Your goal is to discover what elements on the page cause visitors to act a specific way. Break complex tests into smaller ones. The more you can isolate the changes to one or two elements, the easier it will be to understand the impact of different design and copy elements on visitors' actions.

2. No to “Tests without a hypothesis”

I can never say it enough. A test without a good hypothesis is a gambling exercise. A hypothesis is a predictive statement about a problem or set of problems on your page and the impact of solving these problems on visitor behavior.

3. No to “Polluted data”

Do not run tests for less than seven days or longer than four weeks. In both scenarios, you are leaving yourself open to the chance of inconsistent and polluted data. When you run a test for less than seven days, website data inconsistencies you are not aware of may affect your results. So, give the test results a chance to stabilize. If you run a test for more than four weeks, you are allowing external factors to have a larger impact on your results.

4. No to “Quick fixes”

Human psychology is complex. Conversion optimization is about understanding visitor behavior and adjusting website design, copy and process to persuade these visitors to convert. Conversion optimization is not a light switch you turn on and off. It is a long-term commitment. Some tests will produce results and some will not. Increases in conversion rates are great but what you are looking for is a window to visitor behavior.

5. No to “Tests without marketing insights”

Call it whatever you like: forensic analysis, posttest analysis, test results assessment. You should learn actionable marketing insights from the test to deploy across channels and verticals. The real power of any testing program lays beyond the results.

If you follow the steps outlined in this blog, you will have a lot to do.

So, happy testing!

About the author: This guide was written by Khalid Saleh. He is the CEO of Invesp, a conversion optimization software and services firm with clients in 11 different countries.

Streaming Apps

Google recently announced app streaming, where they can showcase & deep link into apps in the search results even if users do not have those apps installed. How it works is rather than users installing the app, Google has the app installed on a computer in their cloud & then shows users a video of the app. Click targets, ads, etc. remain the same.

In writing about the new feature, Danny Sullivan wrote a section on "How The Web Could Have Been Lost"

Imagine if, in order to use the web, you had to download an app for each website you wanted to visit. To find news from the New York Times, you had to install an app that let you access the site through your web browser. To purchase from Amazon, you first needed to install an Amazon app for your browser. To share on Facebook, installation of the Facebook app for your browser would be required. That would be a nightmare.
...
The web put an end to this. More specifically, the web browser did. The web browser became a universal app that let anyone open anything on the web.

To meaningfully participate on those sorts of sites you still need an account. You are not going to be able to buy on Amazon without registration. Any popular social network which allows third party IDs to take the place of first party IDs will quickly become a den of spam until they close that loophole.

In short, you still have to register with sites to get real value out of them if you are doing much beyond reading an article. Without registration it is hard for them to personalize your experience & recommend relevant content.

Desktop Friendly Design

App indexing & deep linking of apps is a step in the opposite direction of the open web. It is supporting proprietary non-web channels which don't link out. Further, if you thought keyword (not provided) heavily obfuscated user data, how much will data be obfuscated if the user isn't even using your site or app, but rather is interacting via a Google cloud computer?

• Who visited your app? Not sure. It was a Google cloud computer.
• Where were they located? Not sure. It was a Google cloud computer.
• Did they have problems using your app? Not sure. It was a Google cloud computer.
• What did they look at? Can you retarget them? Not sure. It was a Google cloud computer.

Is an app maker too lazy to create a web equivalent version of their content? If so, let them be at a strategic disadvantage to everyone who put in the extra effort to publish their content online.

If Google has their remote quality raters consider a site as not meeting users needs because they don't publish a "mobile friendly" version of their site, how can one consider a publisher who creates "app only" content as an entity which is trying hard to meet end user needs?

We know Google hates app install interstitials (unless they are sold by Google), thus the only reason Google would have for wanting to promote these sorts of services would be to justify owning, controlling & monetizing the user experience.

App-solutely Not The Answer

Apps are sold as a way to lower channel risk & gain direct access to users, but the companies owning the app stores are firmly in control.

• Google is being investigated by regulators in multiple markets over their Android bundling contracts. And while bundling is a core feature of the OS, others who bundle are given the boot.
• Google Now on Tap embeds Google search in third party apps.
• The low pricepoints for consumer apps in app stores makes it hard for businesses to justify selling B2B apps for a high enough price to offset the smaller addressable audience.
• It has become harder to sell consumer apps as the app stores have saturated with competition.
  

  2008 I'll sell apps for $2.99 & make millions 2010 At $0.99 I'll make $1000s 2012 Ads might cover my rent 2014 Kickstart my app 2015 Hire me— Nick Lockwood (@nicklockwood) August 3, 2015

• Exceptionally popular apps are disabled for interfering with business models of the platforms. Apps and extensions can be disabled at any time, even after the fact, due to violating guidelines or rule changes that turn what was once fine into a guideline violation. In some cases when they are disabled it is done with no option to re-enable.
• The Amazon app on iOS allows you to buy physical goods, but good luck buying an ebook in it. Even Amazon was removed from Google's Play store after allowing digital purchases. Apple TV doesn't support Amazon Prime Video. In turn, Amazon has stopped selling some streaming items from Apple and Google.

Everyone wants to "own" the user, but none of the platforms bother to ask if the user wants to be owned:

We’re rapidly moving from an internet where computers are ‘peers’ (equals) to one where there are consumers and ‘data owners’, silos of end user data that work as hard as they can to stop you from communicating with other, similar silos.
...
If the current trend persists we’re heading straight for AOL 2.0, only now with a slick user interface, a couple more features and more users.

You've Got AOL

The AOL analogy is widely used:

Katz of Gogobot says that “SEO is a dying field” as Google uses its “monopoly” power to turn the field of search into Google’s own walled garden like AOL did in the age of dial-up modems.

Almost 4 years ago a Google engineer described SEO as a bug. He suggested one shouldn't be able to rank highly without paying.

It looks like he was right. Google's aggressive ad placement on mobile SERPs "has broken the will of users who would have clicked on an organic link if they could find one at the top of the page but are instead just clicking ads because they don’t want to scroll down."

In the years since then we've learned Google's "algorithm" has concurrent ranking signals & other forms of home cooking which guarantees success for Google's vertical search offerings. The "reasonable" barrier to entry which applies to third parties does not apply to any new Google offerings.

And "bugs" keep appearing in those "algorithms," which deliver a steady stream of harm to competing businesses.

From Indy to Brand

The waves of algorithm updates have in effect increased the barrier to entry, along with the cost needed to maintain rankings. The stresses and financial impacts that puts on small businesses makes many of them not worth running. Look no further than MetaFilter's founder seeing a psychologist, then quitting because he couldn't handle the process.

When Google engineers are not focused on "breaking spirits" they emphasize the importance of happiness.

The ecosystem instability has made smaller sites effectively disappear while delivering a bland and soulless result set which is heavy on brand:

there’s no reason why the internet couldn’t keep on its present course for years to come. Under those circumstances, it would shed most of the features that make it popular with today’s avant-garde, and become one more centralized, regulated, vacuous mass medium, packed to the bursting point with corporate advertising and lowest-common-denominator content, with dissenting voices and alternative culture shut out or shoved into corners where nobody ever looks. That’s the normal trajectory of an information technology in today’s industrial civilization, after all; it’s what happened with radio and television in their day, as the gaudy and grandiose claims of the early years gave way to the crass commercial realities of the mature forms of each medium.

If you participate on the web daily, the change washes over you slowly, and the cumulative effects can be imperceptible. But if you were locked in an Iranian jail for years the change is hard to miss.

These sorts of problems not only impact search, but have an impact on all the major tech channels.

iPhone autocorrect inserted "showgirl" for "shows" and "POV" for "PPC". This crowd sourcing of autocorrect is not welcomed.— john andrews (@searchsleuth998) November 10, 2015

If you live in Goole, these issues strike close to home.

And there are almost no counter-forces to the well established trend:

Eventually they might even symbolically close their websites, finishing the job they started when they all stopped paying attention to what their front pages looked like. Then, they will do a whole lot of what they already do, according to the demands of their new venues. They will report news and tell stories and post garbage and make mistakes. They will be given new metrics that are both more shallow and more urgent than ever before; they will adapt to them, all the while avoiding, as is tradition, honest discussions about the relationship between success and quality and self-respect.
...
If in five years I’m just watching NFL-endorsed ESPN clips through a syndication deal with a messaging app, and Vice is just an age-skewed Viacom with better audience data, and I’m looking up the same trivia on Genius instead of Wikipedia, and “publications” are just content agencies that solve temporary optimization issues for much larger platforms, what will have been point of the last twenty years of creating things for the web?

A Deal With the Devil

As ad blocking has grown more pervasive, some publishers believe the solution to the problem is through gaining distribution through the channels which are exempt from the impacts of ad blocking. However those channels have no incentive to offer exceptional payouts. They make more by showing fewer ads within featured content from partners (where they must share ad revenues) and showing more ads elsewhere (where they keep all the ad revenues).

So far publishers have been underwhelmed with both Facebook Instant Articles and Apple News. The former for stringent ad restrictions, and the latter for providing limited user data. Google Now is also increasing the number of news stories they show. And next year Google will roll out their accelerated mobile pages offering.

The problem is if you don't control the publishing you don't control the monetization and you don't control the data flow.

Your website helps make the knowledge graph (and other forms of vertical search) possible. But you are paid nothing when your content appears in the knowledge graph. And the knowledge graph now has a number of ad units embedded in it.

A decade ago, when Google pushed autolink to automatically insert links in publisher's content, webmasters had enough leverage to "just say no." But now? Not so much. Google considers in-text ad networks spam & embeds their own search in third party apps. As the terms of deals change, and what is considered "best for users" changes, content creators quietly accept, or quit.

Many video sites lost their rich snippets, while YouTube got larger snippets in the search results. Google pays YouTube content creators a far lower revenue share than even the default AdSense agreement offers. And those creators have restrictions which prevent them from using some forms of monetization while forces them to accept other types of bundling.

The most recent leaked Google rater documents suggested the justification for featured answers was to make mobile search quick, but if that were the extent of it then it still doesn't explain why they also appear on desktop search results. It also doesn't explain why the publisher credit links were originally a light gray.

With Google everything comes down to speed, speed, speed. But then they offer interstitial ad units, lock content behind surveys, and transform the user intent behind queries in a way that leads them astray.

As Google obfuscates more data & increasingly redirects and monetizes user intent, they promise to offer advertisers better integration of online to offline conversion data.

At the same time, as Google "speeds up" your site for you, they may break it with GoogleWebLight.

If you don't host & control the user experience you are at the whim of (at best, morally agnostic) self-serving platforms which could care less if any individual publication dies.

It's White Hat or Bust...

What was that old white hat SEO adage? I forget the precise wording, but I think it went something like...

Don't buy links, it is too risky & too uncertain. Guarantee strong returns like Google does, by investing directly into undermining the political process by hiring lobbyists, heavy political donations, skirting political donation rules, regularly setting policy, inserting your agents in government, and sponsoring bogus "academic research" without disclosing the payments.

Focus on the user. Put them first. Right behind money.

Back in 2009 Google executives were scared of not being able to retain talent with stock options after Google's stock price cratered with the rest of the market & Google's ad revenue growth rate slid to zero. That led them to reprice employee stock options. That is as close as Google has come to a "near death" experience since their IPO. They've consistently grown & become more dominant.

In November of 2009 I cringed when I saw the future of SEO in Google SERPs where the organic results were outright displaced & even some of the featured map listings had their phone numbers removed.

Investing in Search

In 2012 a Googler named Jon Rockway was more candid than Googlers are typically known for being: "SEO isn't good for users or the Internet at large. ... It's a bug that you could rank highly in Google without buying ads, and Google is trying to fix the bug."

It isn't surprising Google greatly devalued keyword domain names & hit sites like eHow hard. And it isn't surprising Demand Media is laying off staff and is rumored to be exploring selling their sites. If deleting millions of articles from eHow doesn't drive a recovery, how much money can they lose on the rehab project before they should just let it go?

Breaking spirits works!

"If you want to stop spam, the most straight forward way to do it is to deny people money because they care about the money and that should be their end goal. But if you really want to stop spam, it is a little bit mean, but what you want to do, is break their spirits." - Matt Cutts

Through a constant ex-post-facto redefinition of "what is spam" to include most anything which is profitable, predictable & accessible, Google engineers work hard to "deny people money."

Over time SEO became harder & less predictable. The exception being Google investments like Thumbtack, in which case other's headwind became your tailwind & a list of techniques declared off limits became a strategy guidebook.

Communications got worse, Google stopped even pretending to help the ecosystem, and they went so far as claiming that even asking for a link was spam. All the while, as they were curbing third party investment into the ecosystem ("deny them money"), they work on PR for their various investments & renamed the company from Google to Alphabet so they can expand their scope of investments.

"We also like that it means alpha‑bet (Alpha is investment return above benchmark), which we strive for!" - Larry Page

From Do/Know/Go to Scrape/Displace/Monetize

It takes a lot of effort & most people are probably too lazy to do it, but if you look at the arch of Google's patents related to search quality, many of the early ones revolved around links. Then many focused on engagement related signals. Chrome & Android changed the pool of signals Google had access to. Things like Project Fi, Gogle Fiber, Nest, and Google's new OnHub router give them more of that juicy user data. Many of their recently approved patents revolve around expanding the knowledge graph so that they may outright displace the idea of having a neutral third party result set for an increasing share of the overall search pie.

Searchers can instead get bits of "knowledge" dressed in various flavors of ads.

This sort of displacement is having a significant impact on a variety of sites. But for most it is a slow bleed rather than an overnight sudden shift. In that sort of environment, even volunteer run sites will eventually atrophy. They will have fewer new users, and as some of the senior people leave, eventually fewer will rise through the ranks. Or perhaps a greater share of the overall ranks will be driven by money.

Jimmy Wales stated: “It is also false that ‘Wikipedia thrives on clicks,’ at least as compared to ad-revenue driven sites… The relationship between ‘clicks’ and the things we care about: community health and encyclopedia quality is not nothing, but it’s not as direct as some think.”

Most likely the relationship *is* quite direct, but there is a lagging impact. Today's major editors didn't join the site yesterday & take time to rise through the ranks.

As the big sites become more closed off the independent voices are pushed aside or outright disappear.

If Google works hard enough at prioritizing "deny people money" as a primary goal, then they will eventually get an index quality that reflects that lack of payment. Plenty of good looking & well-formatted content, but a mix of content which:

• is monetized indirectly & in ways which are not clearly disclosed
• has interstitial ads and slideshows where the ads look like the "next" button & the "next" button is colored the same color as the site's background
• is done as "me too" micro-reporting with no incremental analysis
• is algorithmically generated

Celebrating Search "Innovation"

There has been a general pattern in search innovation. Google introduces a new feature, pitches it as being the next big thing, gets people to adopt it, collects data on the impact of the feature, clamps down on selectively allowing it, perhaps removes the feature outright from organic search results, permanently adds the feature to their ad units.

This sort of pattern has happened so many times it is hard to count.

Google puts faces in search results for authorship & to promote Google+, Google realizes Google+ is a total loser & disconnects it, new ad units for local services show faces in the search results. What was distracting noise was removed, then it was re-introduced as part of an ad unit.

I'm confused didn't Google pull authorship cuz faces in the SERPS was a bad experience for the users? pic.twitter.com/mI2NdyGzd7— Michael Gray (@graywolf) July 31, 2015

The same sort of deal exists elsewhere. Google acquires YouTube, launches universal search, offers video snippets, increases size of video snippets. Then video snippets get removed from most listings "because noise." YouTube gets enlarged video snippets. And, after removing the "noise" of video stills in the search results Google is exploring testing video ads in the search results.

Some sites which bundle software got penalized in organic search and are not even allowed to buy AdWords ads. At an extreme degree, sites which bundled no software, but simply didn't link to an End User Agreement (EULA) from the download page were penalized. Which leads to uncomfortable conversations like this one:

Google Support: I looked through this, and it seemed that one of the issues was a lack of an End User Agreement (EULA)

Simtec: An EULA is displayed by the setup program before installing starts. Also, the end user license agreements are linked to from here http://www.httpwatch.com/buy/orderingfaq.aspx#licensetypes

Google Support: Hmm, They do want it on the download page itself

Simtec: How come there isn’t one here? google.co.uk/chrome/browser/desktop/

Google Support: LOL

Simtec: No really?

Google Support: That’s a great question

Of course, it goes without saying that much of the Google Chrome install base came from negative option software bundling on Adobe Flash security updates.

Google claimed helpful hotel affiliate sites should be rated as spam, then they put their own affiliate ads in hotel search results & even recommended hotel searches in the knowledge graph on city name searches.

Google created a penalty for sites which have an ad heavy interface. Many of Google's search results are nothing but ads for the entire first screen.

Google search engineers have recently started complaining about interstitial ads & suggested they might create a "relevancy" signal based on users not liking those. At the same time, an increasing number of YouTube videos have unskippable pre-roll ads. And the volume of YouTube ad views is so large that it is heavily driving down Google's aggregate ad click price. On top of this, Google also offers a survey tool which publishers can lock content behind & requires users to answer a question before they can see the full article they just saw ranking in the search results.

"Everything is possible, but nothing is real." - Living Colour

Blue Ocean Opportunity

Amid the growing ecosystem instability & increasing hypocrisy, there have perhaps been only a couple "blue ocean" areas left in organic search: local search & brand.

And it appears Google might be well on their way in trying to take those away.

For years brand has been the solution to almost any SEO problem.

I wonder how many SEOs working for big brands have done absolutely nothing of value since 2012 yet still look like geniuses to executives.— Ross Hudgens (@RossHudgens) August 7, 2015

But Google has been increasing the cost of owning a brand. They are testing other ad formats to drive branded search clicks through more expensive ad formats like PLAs & they have been drastically increasing brand CPCs on text ads. And while that second topic has recently gained broader awareness, it has been a trend for years now: "Over the last 12 months, Brand CPCs on Google have increased 80%" - George Michie, July 30, 2013.

There are other subtle ways Google has attacked brand, including:

• penalties on many of the affiliates of those brands
• launching their own vertical search ad offerings in key big-money verticals
• investing billions in "disruptive" start ups which are exempt from the algorithmic risks other players must deal with
• allowing competitors to target competing brands not only within the search results, but also as custom affinity audiences
• linking to competing businesses in the knowledge graph

Google has recently dialed up monetization of local search quite aggressively as well. I've long highlighted how mobile search results are ad heavy & have grown increasingly so over time. Google has recently announced call only ad formats, a buy button for mobile ads, local service provider ads, appointment scheduling in the SERPs, direct hotel booking, etc.

And, in addition to all the above new ad formats, recently it was noticed Google is now showing 3 ads on mobile devices even for terms without much commercial intent, like [craft beer].

I like how this new-ish search box takes up a ton of space and puts all these ads right in the prime viewing area pic.twitter.com/CcYdW118gf— Jared McKiernan (@jaredmckiernan) August 18, 2015

Now that the mobile search interface is literally nothing but ads above the fold, early data shows a significant increase in mobile ad clicks. Of course it doesn't matter if there are 2 or 3 ads, if Google shows ad extensions on SERPs with only 2 ads to ensure they drive the organic results "out of sight, out of mind."

Earlier this month it was also noticed Google replaced 7-pack local results with 3-pack local results for many more search queries, even on desktop search results. On some of these results they only show a call button, on others they show links to sites. It is a stark contrast to the vast array of arbitrary (and even automated) ad extensions in AdWords.

Why would they determine users want to see links to the websites & the phone numbers, then decide overnight users don't want those?

Why would Google determine for many years that 7 is a good number of results to show, and then overnight shift to showing 3?

If Google listed 7 ads in a row people might notice the absurdity of it and complain. But if Google only shows 3 results, then they can quickly convert it into an ad unit with little blowback.

You don't have to be a country music fan to know the Austin SEO limits in a search result where the local results are now payola.

Try not to hurt your back while looking down for the organic search results!

Here are two tips to ensure any SEO success isn't ethereal: don't be nearby, and don't be a business. :D