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6 Basic Landing Page Optimization Techniques

February 7, 2012 By admin

In a broad sense, a landing page can be pretty much any webpage on your site. Taken literally, it’s a page a person ‘lands’ on from another website or from a search engine results page.

For example, if someone uses a very specific term on Google, they may land on an article in your knowledge center discussing the topic they’re looking for.

For our purposes here though, a landing page is also a web page that “…allows you to capture a visitor’s information through a lead form.” This is a definition provided by a recent e-book from HubSpot on landing page optimization and conversion.

Good landing pages will target a particular audience – traffic from an email campaign or pay-per-click ad for example. It’s important you create a landing page for each offer you have. For example, you can either build a landing page designed to promote downloads of a new e-book or you can build one designed for the visitor to make contact, provide information or signup for an offer.

Landing pages are important because they allow you to convert more visitors into leads since these pages make the process of receiving an offer much easier. One main reason is because site visitors don’t have to spend time navigating your site to find your offer.

Landing pages also eliminate visitor confusion on what they must do to receive your offer. They eliminate frustration for visitors, guaranteeing you will see more conversions.

Continue reading for 6 basic landing page optimization tips everyone should consider.

1.    Use clear title, description and layout to convey the value of your offer. Create a strong incentive for your visitors to download, contact or sign-up.

2.    Minimize disruptions on your landing page, including navigation links you may have on other pages. Keep visitors focused on completing your form or reading through to the call-to-action.

3.    Include social sharing links like Google’s +1, Facebook’s ‘Like,’ Twitter, LinkedIn and so forth. This allows visitors to easily share your page/offer with their friends.

4.    If you’re using a form, design and structure it with the user in mind. Only ask for what you need to follow-up and qualify the lead. Don’t make it too long or invasive.

5.    Have a Thank-you page that appears once the visitor finishes downloading your e-book or completing the contact form. Maintain engagement by suggesting other pages/offers they may be interested in or next steps they can take.

6.    Track conversion rates and keep testing to find areas of improvement. Use metrics and A/B test results to refine your pages so they continue to grow.

Point 6 is especially important in that testing and metrics lets you see what works and what doesn’t. Having this information in hand gives you a tremendous advantage in building landing pages that work.

Check back with us again soon for more information on A/B split testing, conversion metrics and other important items you can consider to help maximize your landing pages’ potential.

Other Posts you May Be Interested In

Hooking your Readers – 7 Approaches to Great Headlines

How Minor Tweaks to your Headlines Can Boost Conversions

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

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

Hooking your Readers – 7 Approaches to Great Headlines

January 24, 2012 By admin

We spend a lot of time talking about content and its necessity. Your landing pages, site pages, blogs and knowledge center content are there to not only tell your story, inform and motivate readers, it’s there to build search rankings as well.

But search engine optimization and building search rankings go well beyond just keywords, an arbitrary amount of content and so on. It also has to be informative and interesting enough to be shared either through linking or the increasingly important social media mentions.

Simply writing generic content that doesn’t grab the reader’s attention won’t exactly yield a whole lot of benefit for your firm.

Headlines are how you grab this attention, which should intrigue the reader into continuing on for more.

Time is valuable….

Since we’re bombarded with so much information all the time, we’re only going to look at what really intrigues us and think will benefit us. Seeing a boring headline limits your content’s potential in this regard. And if it doesn’t see much in the way of traffic, links and mentions in social media, it won’t have the impact it can.

That’s why taking a few minutes to craft a headline that grabs your reader’s attention is so valuable. Headlines are an invaluable part of print media (…think about when you’re in the checkout line looking at the magazines). In the online world, headlines are doubly important due to the sheer magnitude of content that’s out there.

Nick Usborne has outlined 7 approaches to headlines that can grab readers’ attention and ignite their curiosity to keep reading. Using one of these will help you maximize the impact your content has on your bottom line.

Approach #1: Ubiquitous List

People love seeing lists, which are easy to scan and read. They are a lot of times a hit on social media. Lists can be especially valuable if you include some sort of benefit like “5 Ways to save on your Vacation,” or whatever is applicable to your business.

Approach #2: “How To”

Always a winner too…explaining how to do something will always draw a lot of attention. Be sure you say that in your headline (ex: “How to save 15% on your heating bill) so people will clearly see the benefit of reading further. Millions of people go online each day to find out how to do something – buy a car, pick a stereo, fix a flat, whatever.

Approach #3: Challenge

Another thing that compels people to read is a challenge. Do I know the answers or not? What don’t I know or what am I missing? Good example from Nick – “5 Things you don’t know about your teenagers.”

Approach #4: Intrigue

This approach is kind of like a brain-twister where the reader has to keep going to find the answer. “Body Found, Man Still Missing” is an actual headline from a newspaper. While searching for a missing person, someone else’s body was found.

Approach #5: Conspiracy

We all love a good conspiracy involving anyone in a position of authority (doctors, lawyers, politicians, etc.). Giving any indication they’ve hidden the truth will certainly entice readers for more. (Ex:  The truth about raw food diets)

Approach #6: Secrets of the Opposite Sex

People love delving into the mystery of what makes the opposite sex tick. If you’re targeting a specific gender, you will grab a lot of attention this way. (Ex: Why women love to shop or Why men love to watch sports)

Approach #7: Scarcity

Indicating scarcity of an offer or a closing window of time to do something will indeed motivate people to read further. People don’t like to miss out on something so their attention will be drawn by the prospect of a last chance. (Ex: “Last chance to get tickets” or “Deadline for applications soon”)

Examples of headlines are mainly from Nick with a few more thrown in there by me.

These 7 approaches to headlines will garner much more attention than regular, descriptive headlines. The result will be a much higher number of social media mentions, likes and shares.

Nick Usborne has an e-book on crafting killer headlines that I hope to obtain and read here soon. When I do, I’ll come back and share what I learned.

Have you taken one of these approaches in crafting a headline?

If so, did you see more conversions, shares and so forth?

Other Posts You May be Interested In

How Minor Tweaks to your Headlines Can Boost Conversions

Test Headlines with the ‘Breath’ Test

Beware of your Page’s Primary Purpose When Writing Content

10 Steps for Optimizing Web Content and Landing Page Copy

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

How Minor Tweaks to Your Headlines Can Boost Conversions

July 21, 2011 By admin

Recently, I had the pleasure of once again watching a webinar from Marketing Experiments, this time on headline optimization. The research firm, who also produces Marketing Sherpa, regularly shares their findings with online marketers to help us perfect our craft.

For this webinar, the research team at Marketing Experiments focused on headlines.

Headlines constitute the most important part of your site’s copy – landing pages in particular must have a strong headline in order to grab the reader’s interest. In the fast paced world of online marketing, you must construct a headline that succinctly describes what your page is about and what the reader can expect by reading more.

Headlines are also perhaps the easiest (…and most important) thing to change on a webpage. So if your site is loaded with landing pages, it shouldn’t take hours of your time to make some minor tweaks.

Doing so could result in dramatically more conversions, which is the holy grail of any webpage you post on your site.

In ME’s webinar, the team organized headlines from highest performing to lowest, which reveals certain patterns marketers can take away.

One such pattern is the more top-performing headlines emphasize what the reader will get by reading more. In technical terms, this is what ME calls a ‘value-centric’ headline. The other noticeable pattern for top-performing headlines is ones where the value point was positioned at the beginning of the headline.

Consider the following example from the webinar:

Get Paid to Take FREE Surveys vs. Take Online Surveys from Home

Which headline do you think saw more conversions?

According to the data, the first headline experienced over twice the amount of conversions because it emphasized what the reader will get.

From analyzing conversion data for 10 different headlines, the team at Marketing Experiments was able to derive two key principles to keep in mind when crafting your landing page headlines.

1.       Interests of the customer must be the central focus of all headlines and marketing messages. Emphasize what the reader will get rather than what they must do.

2.       Headlines can be compared to the opening scene of a movie in that each must ‘arrest’ the visitor’s attention at the beginning.

When considering these two principles, it’s best to use what ME calls a ‘point-first’ structure, meaning you place the value of what you offer right at the beginning of the headline.

One interesting comparison to consider, especially if you’re a guy trying to write landing pages, is the similarity between headlines and ‘pick-up’ lines. Every guy knows you can’t get the girl’s phone number immediately. You have to draw their interest and start a conversation, which is exactly what headlines and landing pages do.

That’s why you can’t rush your call-to-action. You can’t have a conversation before your opening line. And you can’t get someone to do something without having that conversation, which is exactly like trying to talk a girl you really like.

So to really develop headlines that work, use a ‘point-first’ structure and place the value of what you offer the reader at the very beginning.

Click the image below and watch the webinar for more. Or click here to see the webinar in other formats. And feel free to let us know how this works for you. We’ll be changing a few headlines here and there and report back on our own findings.

Click Image to View Webinar (opens in a new window)

Related Posts

Maximize Conversions by Following These 9 Steps for Writing the Ultimate Landing Page

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

Test Headlines with the “Breath” Test

Getting Rid of Conversion Killers in your Copy

Beware of Your Page’s Primary Purpose When Writing Content

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development Tagged With: , , , ,

34 Things You Must Do When Redesigning your Website

April 21, 2011 By admin

Every so often, it’s a good idea to give your organization’s website a fresh new design. Doing so makes your company look active and dedicated to giving your customers the most advanced products and services.

But considering the fact many websites contain hundreds, maybe even thousands of pages, it can be a daunting task regardless of how careful you are. Proper planning helps ensure it all goes smoothly…no or very little planning can turn it all into a big nightmare.

Pages can get mixed up, deleted or otherwise not be available on the new site, which can end up costing your company thousands of dollars.

To avoid this calamity, you need to consider the following factors before, during and after. Continue reading to learn about all of these considerations you need to keep in mind when redesigning your website.

Before doing anything though, you need to get some baseline information and backup your old site just in case something goes awry. Load time, conversion rates, search rankings, bounce rates for your top landing pages and a list of important inbound links is information you need to have in-hand before you even get started.

Once you have all of this, it’s time to start your site re-design. Taking the following 34 steps during this process will ensure it all goes smoothly and you begin reaping the benefit of a new website as quickly as possible.

Prior to New Site Launch

1.       Have the old site available to put back online immediately if something goes wrong.

2.       Retain your existing URL structure if possible so you can minimize impact on search rankings.

3.       Address methods to eliminate duplicate content to prevent it from occurring in the first place.

4.       If you’re unable to keep existing URL structures, have a plan on how you will handle switching to the new file structure, including 301 re-directs, updating links, marketing materials and PPC ads.

5.       Keep a copy of the old site on-hand just in case.

6.       Use a link checker utility like Xenu to scan your new site and find any broken links.

7.       Take a moment to review titles and meta descriptions on your new site.

8.       Before launching, check your new site manually using multiple web browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari and Chrome). Many differences exist between these browsers.

9.       Update XML and HTML sitemaps so search engines can easily crawl your new site.

10.   Verify all web forms and other interactive features are working properly.

11.   Protect your site from competitors and search engines during development. The best way to accomplish this is to develop the site locally and internally to your firm.

12.   Review existing RSS feeds

13.   Verify your new site will work properly with traffic tracking codes like Google AdWords and Google Analytics.

14.   Develop a plan to add current analytics tracking to your new site before launch.

During new site launch

15.   Did you back up your old site? If not, now is your last chance.

16.   Update your .htaccess and robots.txt files so any 301 redirects will work properly.

17.   Be sure AdWords and PPC campaign pages are updated and working properly.

18.   Update payment gateways or other important sites if your server’s IP address changes.

19.   Test all email address and make sure they’re working properly.

20.   Remove any temporary no-index tags, robots.txt and be sure any other robot control tags are updated in case you had something blocked off during the development process.

After new site launch – catching any mistakes

21.   Run your spider/link finder once again to catch any broken links you may have missed.

22.   Test your new site’s load time. Google has claimed load time is now a big ranking factor.

23.   Make double-sure you put tracking codes/scripts on your new pages

24.   Check server logs for any 404 or other server errors.

25.   Look at your Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster accounts to see if the search bots are spotting any errors.

26.   Update any broken inbound links at the source of the link or through a 301 re-direct.

27.   Verify PPC ads are still correct.

28.   Make sure your XML sitemap is up-to-date.

29.   Compare bounce rates for the new site vs. the old one.

30.   Monitor how newly indexed (…or re-indexed) pages are ranking.

31.   Now that your site is live online, test it once again with all web browsers and even a mobile smartphone if you’re able to.

32.   Manually test all web forms and other interactive scripts.

33.   Check where your site is in the search results after the search engines have indexed it once again.

34.   Go to Google and Bing and type “site:yourdomain.com” in the search bar to see if the number of pages indexed has improved over your previous numbers.

Taking these all important steps helps ensure your site transition goes as smoothly as possible. Also, they help you spot any errors and allow you to make those corrections before any negative consequences arise.

Double, perhaps even triple check your site to make sure everything is working properly. If not, you’re certain to suffer devastating setbacks in the search engines as well as eroding good will of your site visitors.

Remember what Thomas Edison once said – “Good fortune is what happens when opportunity meets with planning.”

Filed Under: Site Architecture Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Images vs. Copy – Finding the Right Balance

January 6, 2011 By admin

Recently, I had the pleasure of watching an hour long webinar on images and copy on a webpage. The presentation was by our friends at Marketing Experiments.

And while this webinar is a little old now (originally airing in November), it contains some great commentary on how web marketers can approach and find the right balance between images and copy on their webpages.

Perhaps the biggest take-away I got from the webinar was this – “People don’t buy from websites, they buy from people”

This is perhaps one of the most insightful comments on web marketing I’ve ever heard and will do my best to remember it going forward. But for now, let me give you a quick review of the presentation and invite you to take an hour to watch it yourself – you certainly won’t come away disappointed.

Starting out, Marketing Experiments director Dr. Flint McGlaughlin explained how a lot of things common to websites pose impediments to conversions. Perhaps you know what he’s talking about here – many websites contain or don’t contain elements that prevent you from getting the maximum amount of conversions.

That’s where the Principle of Congruence comes in, which requires every element of a page state or support your page’s value proposition.

Say your value proposition is custom-made products shipped fast – do all of the elements of your page work to support this value proposition?

Images or Copy – Which do I focus on more?

When approaching this question, you need to ask yourself what communicates value more effectively – images or copy – according to Flint and the researchers at MECLABS.

The effectiveness of any webpage element to communicate the value proposition can be measured by the following two capabilities:

1.       Ability to communicate value with force

2.       Ability to communicate value with precision

When considering images and copy, keep in mind that images have a greater potential to communicate value with force and copy has greater potential to communicate value with precision.

Images

The force of an image is directly related to three things:

1.       Relevance – an image’s force increases as the connection between the image and perceived value becomes clearer. Images are great for communicating brand.

2.       Reality – an image’s force increases with its authenticity. Images can reduce the distance between the actual value and the reader’s perception of that value (see example in slide #23).

3.       Relative Weight – an image’s force increases as its relative graphical proportion increases…or in layman’s terms, images that look different than other elements on a page get your attention. This naturally draws the reader’s eye-path. Therefore, if the image provides proper relevance and reality, it will bring more force to bear on the inherit value.

Copy

In short, copy has two distinct advantages over images.

First of all, copy has the ability to include specific, quantifiable detail to your webpage. Secondly, copy gives your site personality and has the ability to include a tone that matches your visitors’ motivations.

Of course, there’s a right way and wrong way to use copy. You don’t want to use phrases that make you seem arrogant – examples include “Your Hunt is Over” and so on.

Also, be careful about your call-to-action copy. In their example (slide #30), a form has an intimidating tone that seems to imply that you will receive incessant phone calls from sales people once you complete it.

What about SEO?

Last but not least, Dr. Flint and the team at MECLABS explored the impacts all of this has on search engine optimization. How do you balance landing page optimization (LPO) with SEO?

In a sense, SEO is a secondary concern. You first need to work on maximizing conversions and then worry about boosting search rankings afterwards. There are many examples of high-ranking pages that fail to convert because the site owner focused solely on SEO, which according to Dr. Flint is just a channel to get people to your page. In other words, it’s a means to an end, not the end itself.

They outlined some questions to consider when identifying the proper balance between SEO and LPO:

1.       Where does your traffic come from? If it’s organic, how well does it convert visitors into customers?

2.       What are your needs in terms of LPO and what’s its potential impact? Are the needs radical or minor? How much will these changes affect your bottom line?

3.       What contributes the most to your SEO ranking – content or authority?

4.       Can you measure the impact of page changes?

After discussing some ways to identify the proper SEO/LPO balance, Dr. Flint and the team evaluated a couple of sites given to them by one of the webinar’s original participants and offered tips on how to strike the right balance between images and copy to maximize conversions.

In the end, the webinar is well worth the one-hour it takes to watch it and take some notes. I’m sure I’m leaving something out since it was so extensive and informative. Watch the video or tell us about your experiences in using images and copy and how well your balance worked to increase conversions.

Click image to see video presentation

Click image to see video presentation

Or listen to an audio version here.

Until next time…

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Site Architecture, Usability Tagged With: , , , , , , ,