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Maximize Conversions by Following these 9 Tips for Writing the Ultimate Landing Page

December 8, 2010 By admin

In one sense, every page on your site is a landing page. Every page on your site should one, be optimized for the search engines, and two, should move the visitor along in whatever path you’ve set them on (…whether that’s a sale, downloading a newsletter, subscribing, etc.)

But you’ll be amazed at the number of sites that direct someone to the homepage that’s coming to the site from a PPC or some other ad.

Many leads like this are very valuable. However, dumping them off at the front door of your site with little direction leads to them leaving your site. That costly click got you nowhere.

To fully capitalize leads coming into your site, you need to develop good landing pages that clearly identify where the prospect is at and where they should go from there.

Continue reading for 9 tips you can use to ensure you write the ultimate landing page. By landing pages, we mean specific pages arrived at through either an ad or a particular online search.

1. Keep your visitor oriented and engaged by making sure your headline refers directly to the place from which they came or the ad copy that drove the click.

2. Provide a clear call-to-action – Whether you use graphics or hyper-text links, be sure you tell your visitor what they need to do. For a short landing page, use at least 2 separate call-to-actions. For longer pages, use 3-5.

3. Write in second person – Say ‘you’ and ‘your’ rather than saying ‘we.’ Prospective customers could care less about you. They want to know how you can solve their problem.

4. Write pages with a clear, persuasive message and not to showcase your creative abilities or how well you can come up with a catchy phrase.

5. It’s okay to write a long landing page as long as you keep it tight – Your reader will continue reading as long as it’s motivating them to act. Good rule of thumb – use longer copy for sales pages and use shorter ones for subscription pages that don’t require a cash commitment.

6. Be crystal clear in your goals – Keep to the point and make sure your copy maintains a logical progression from start to finish. Don’t add fluff or other ancillary elements…these digressions cause you to lose readers and conversions.

7. Keep most important points at the beginning of paragraphs and bullet points – Since most visitors are skimming through your copy, be sure they can easily get the main points without having to look very hard.

8. Keep paragraphs short but vary their length – Variable paragraph lengths help create visual dissonance and make it easier to read your copy.

9. Write to the screen – Or rather, take some time to figure out where your copy will appear on the page. Think about what will appear above the fold and make sure you place the most critical elements above the fold.

Following these steps and others outlined in this informative article from Copyblogger can help you generate landing pages that generate a high amount of conversions. These are great elements to get you started but you also need to think about critical design elements too (i.e. color, images, layout).

Video, audio and other elements need to be considered when it’s warranted to more deeply engage visitors and boost response. Each of these things merits a closer look and testing when it makes sense.

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , ,

One of the Most Effective Advertising Tactics – For Free!

December 2, 2010 By admin

Word of mouth advertising is the backbone of any fledgling enterprise. In fact, recommendations from other customers are the most trusted source of advertising according to research from Nielsen Associates.  It very well may be the most powerful way to grow your business – all without any financial outlay whatsoever according to premier web marketer Lisa Banks.

Many companies already know the power of this tactic – perhaps you’ve gotten some new clients through introductions by previous clients or you have a friend who has a friend.

Besides these kinds of introductions though, you can get much more exposure if satisfied customers like these and others discuss their experience publicly. And considering the fact that online reviews help strengthen relationships with existing customers, you’ve got two great reasons to take advantage of online review sites.

To get started, create an account or claim your listing on the following:

Once you’ve got your listings set up on these sites, let your customers know you would love for them to add a review of your business. You can notify them via email, status updates on social networks and when you’re talking to them on the phone.

Offer a special discount or giveaway for the first 20 reviewers to boost interest.

Positive reviews help weary prospects confirm that your business is legitimate and will work hard to satisfy their needs.

Of course, you need to be on the lookout for negative reviews as well.

While we all try to satisfy all of our customers, sometimes it’s just not meant to be. If you see a negative review, contact the customer right away and see what needs to be done to right the wrong. If it can’t be corrected, try and get some more positive reviews to counteract the negative one.

If you think a negative review is just outright false, you can contact the review site and contest the review…they may remove it but it’s really at their discretion.

Keep in mind though that an occasional negative review is a normal thing. Most prospects won’t be bothered by a poor review here and there… most realize it’s just a normal part of doing business.

So there you have it – word of mouth advertising and customer reviews are perhaps one of the best ways to market your business – for free!

Tell us about your experiences and how you’ve used customer reviews to grow your business.

Filed Under: Online Marketing, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , ,

Usability and your Website – Make Sure Your Website is Easy to Follow

November 30, 2010 By admin

In recent weeks, I’ve begun exploring the concepts of usability and how they relate to the web. While we constantly evaluate sites for clients for ease of use among other things, I hadn’t spent much time discussing the concept of usability on our blog.

In short, a site with good usability is able to answer four important questions in a matter of seconds without the user having to think. Three seconds is a good rule of thumb. Those questions are:

  • Where am I?
  • What can I do here?
  • What do they have here?
  • Why should I be here and not somewhere else?

Websites who do not answer these questions immediately do not experience their potential. If someone has to think very hard about how to navigate or even have to expend mental energy trying to figure out what you’re about, they’re most likely going to leave and never return.

Good web usability also makes it easy for a person to find out where they are in a site. Say for instance a visitor is on a product page deep within your site but wants to start over at the beginning. Good usability allows them to do that in one click without having to put much thought into it.

Speaking of the homepage – it’s very different than the rest of the pages on your site – different in that it must address each type of prospective customer that visits your site in a short space.

For homepages, the following guidelines are a good place to start. Remember, guidelines are more like suggestions so these are not meant to be all inclusive. Some may not work for the type of business you’re in or you may find yourself needing to add something else.

Regardless of that, below are some of main elements your site’s homepage needs to have in order to answer the four questions above for any type of user.

Site Identity and Mission – Include a unique tagline and value proposition in the top left area of your page. A person who reads this should be able to figure out what you do just by reading these few words.

Site Hierarchy – Make your site’s hierarchy is clearly visible and navigable. Top or side navigation helps users find out what you offer and channels them to the place they’re looking for.

Search – Some people just like to search rather than click links to get from place to place on a website. Like a search engine, a site search box allows you to type in a keyword phrase and find all documents within the site that include those words.

Teasers, promos, etc. – Encourage users to interact with your site and spread the news to their friends. Teasers, promos and discounts draw readers’ interest and provide them with a tangible benefit to choosing you over someone else.

Timely Content – Farther down the homepage, you should also include snippets of relevant and timely content. Doing so builds your credibility as a trusted source as well as gives users not too familiar with what you offer the opportunity to learn more.

Include Shortcuts – Shortcuts can be used to provide users easy access to popular pages. Perhaps someone already knows what they’re looking for. Give them the opportunity to get it in just one easy click.

Of course, there are many other usability conventions you have to be aware of for all of your pages. Clear, clickable links is one example that comes to mind. Links must be clearly identifiable or else a visitor will search around for a link and then leave your site.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be adding more information about usability and how you can design a website that’s easy to navigate, figure out and requires little to no thinking. We’ll also provide some names and resources for you to learn more.

Until next time!

Filed Under: Site Architecture, Tip of the Day, Usability Tagged With: , , ,

8 Ways you can safely sell Links on your Website

November 23, 2010 By admin

If you’ve had a blog for awhile, you may be getting inquiries from potential advertisers and others about paid links. It’s one benefit of building a blog for the long term – others will pay you for advertising links.

As you can imagine, this can become quite lucrative over time.

In many respects though, Google frowns upon this practice and penalizes sites it sees as unnaturally manipulating search results. What they do (as well as Bing) is use link-based analysis to determine the quality of a site and its relevance to the keyword in question. Google believes buying and selling links circumvents this process and makes results less relevant and helpful to its searchers.

However, if you read Google’s Webmaster Guidelines, you will find that not all paid links violate their rules. In fact, if links are bought/sold for advertising purposes and not to pass on PageRank and manipulate search results, then it’s totally okay.

If you’re getting inquiries about advertising links, there are 8 ways you can safely sell links on your site without being penalized Google.

1. Add a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the link

Adding this code into the link adds the link to your site but prevents your site from passing any “link juice” to the other site – basically it ensures the other site only receives traffic from the link and not a PageRank boost. This suggestion comes directly from Google so you can be 100% sure that it’s okay.

2. Only link to intermediate pages that include a robots.txt file

Robots.txt blocks search engine spiders from crawling a page. Most websites want their pages to be crawled. Therefore, you can redirect links to an intermediate page that includes this characteristic. Using an intermediate page strips the link of any PageRank benefits and ensures the link is for traffic only…this is another one of Google’s recommendations.

3. Avoid “link farm” schemes

Link farms are websites whose only purpose is to pass PageRank and link to other sites. While you probably would not use one, you need to be careful that your site doesn’t appear as one. Understandably, Google does not like link farm sites at all. In order to avoid looking like you’re a link farm site, embed links within relevant content and avoid having them all in one place.

4. Negotiate link sales for the long term

Consistent rotation of links is another red flag for the search engines as they make your site look like a link farm. Therefore, to fly under the radar, you should select paid links carefully and keep them consistent for as long as possible.

5. Don’t advertise that you’re selling links

This is advice that usually isn’t heeded online. If you advertise you’re selling links, you will get a lot of requests from spammers and banned sites. While the money may be tempting, be patient and wait for quality advertisers to come to you. This will give you better link partners and reduce your frustration.

6. Use HTML links only

Some link buyers may be using JavaScript or some other code in order to update or change the text and URL of the link at a future time. Avoid this by sticking with HTML based links.

7. Only link to relevant sites with quality content

Relevancy between links and keywords is the first thing search engines look for. Therefore, you should be sure that links you’re using point to quality content. Doing so helps search engines achieve their #1 goal, which is delivering the most relevant content to their users. In turn, they’ll reward you for it.

8. Be selective on who you partner with for links

Carefully evaluate sites before linking to them and ask yourself if you want your visitors going there. Do a site:yoursite.com search in Google on the company and see if they’ve had any penalties in the past that may hurt you if you partner with them.

One good rule of thumb when dealing with paid links – only deal with sites you would link to without payment. Doing so ensures you only sell links that are of use to your visitors. Selling links shouldn’t be your main source of income but they can provide a nice bonus.

Remember, Google frowns on selling links for PageRank and other purposes. However, you can do it safely by following the 8 steps mentioned above.

Filed Under: SEO Technology, Site Architecture, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Eyetracking Studies Reveal Users Read Webpages in an F-Shaped Pattern

November 18, 2010 By admin

Don’t be shocked by this – most users will only read a fraction of what you write on a webpage.

Now I’m by no means implying that web copy is useless. But considering the fact that readers typically scan a page for important points, you have to setup your content in a way that reflects this reality.

An experiment by usability expert Jakob Nielsen evaluated over 230 users and how they read a webpage. He found readers’ behavior was fairly consistent across different types of websites, exhibiting the following three general characteristics:

1. First is a horizontal movement that usually occurs across the upper parts of the content area, which forms the top part of      the F-shape.

2. Next, users go down the page on the left side a little bit then read horizontally again for a bit, forming the middle part of the F-shape.

3. Finally, users will scan the copy’s left side slowly to the bottom of the page. Depending on the user and the content, this is either a slow and systematic scan that appears as a solid streak on the heatmap or a fast scan, which is evidenced by a spottier heatmap. Either way, this forms the stem of the F-shape.

Of course, this is just a generalization as users may take a third scan across the page (making an E-shape with the eyetracking heatmap) or only read across once at the top (making an inverted L-shape with the eyetracking heatmap).

And as the eyetracking heatmap shows below, users interact with pages differently depending on what’s included on each. But as you can see, each of these roughly follows the F-shaped pattern.

The middle image for instance, an e-commerce site, includes products and prices, which is why the second horizontal part of the F-shape is lower down on the screen.

On the third image, a search engine results page, the second horizontal line is a bit longer than the top since the second headline is longer. While the second headline seemed more interesting and was longer than the first headline, users typically don’t read secondary headlines as much.

What does all of this mean for your content?

As we’ve said before, users won’t read your copy word by word. Most will scan the page to pick out important points and see if the site answers their questions and addresses their concerns.

Therefore, you need to include the most important information in the first 2 paragraphs. In all likelihood, users will read the first paragraph more closely than the second.

Also, start sub-headings, paragraphs and bullet points with “information-carrying” words. Since users typically scan the left side of the page (as shown by the eyetracking studies), you will want to be sure you include high-impact words at the beginning to draw their interest.

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Site Architecture, Tip of the Day, Usability Tagged With: , , , , , ,
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