Last updated on October 26th, 2010
Recently, I took the time to watch a webinar hosted by Marketing Experiments on optimizing landing pages. By landing pages, we mean any page meant to motivate someone to take action – no matter if that’s clicking a “buy” button, downloading a newsletter or filing out a contact form.
By evaluating different metrics and experimenting with different layouts, Marketing Experiments’ webinar outlined how you can drive much higher conversion rates.
It’s not about marketing intuition or a list of best practices…successfully driving higher conversion rates with landing pages is more about a framework or methodology. Think about it more from a sequence of thought perspective rather than mere optimization of words or images. In your reader’s mind, the value of every action you desire for them to take must outweigh the cost.
It’s like a see-saw – on one end you have cost, and on the other you have value. If the cost is high, fewer people will find the value in going further.
So how do I reduce “cost” in my landing pages?
To reduce cost, you must reduce friction by eliminating any unnecessary length or difficulty in the order path, or thought sequence.
Basically, the hosts (Flint McCaughlin & company) of the interview say you must answer two of the readers’ most critical questions very quickly – you have to do this within “four inches and seven seconds” according to Flint.
Not answering the questions “Where am I?” and “What am I doing here?” means more people will be clicking that back button.
Be sure your visitor knows where they have landed.
Also reduce cost by not having many form fields. Keep questions to a minimum.
Increasing your page’s value along with decreasing its cost is another way you can drive higher conversion rates. Carefully identify and communicate key factors that set you above your competition…offer “unique value” to your prospects.
Another way to increase value – use specific, quantitative and instantly credible language when describing benefits of your products or services.
Take about an hour or so and watch this very useful webinar. They provide great examples of their work so you can visually see how to structure a page for maximum benefit along with how you should approach what you say…I’m trying some of their tips now so I’ll let you know how it works out.