We Do Search Engine Optimization.

The creation, organization and refining of landing pages is the key to pay per click marketing and online lead generation. Landing pages are audience specific, and an automotive site landing page that converts 10% of users cannot be copied to a campaign selling insurance.

Users respond differently based on the time of day, offer, price point, demographic, education level, style preferences and past experience with your brand. Thankfully we can test and design for most of these variables.

Your landing page, or squeeze page is useless if the visitor can’t immediately find what they are looking for, and take appropriate action. The page needs to be scannable, use visual elements and be well organized.

There are several essential elements that make up a successful and effective landing page and increase your conversion rate.

Simplicity

The visitor must be able to understand the content of the page in less than 10 seconds, preferably 5. The longer s/he must try to comprehend your offer, the less likely they are to complete it. Your landing/squeeze page needs to be appealing to your visitors without distracting them from the goal.

Legibility

The text should be easy to read and the correct size for your audience. Text should be broken up and use lists. Some people prefer long sales pages, others prefer graphics and minimal text. Test this on your products to see which one works best for you.

Contrast

Create high contrast between background and text because to increase legibility, but be mindful of flashy backgrounds. A landing page is not a banner ad. It is a focused message encapsulated in a single page.

Links

Most landing pages have no navigation, and no extraneous links on the page. This gives the visitor only 2 options: complete your action or click the back button. You have a 50% chance of success.

What are the best web design conversion elements to implement on your website?

I’m looking to compile a great list of conversion elements that can be included in a website. This is not for landing pages (although it could be used for them) but regular site pages, with emphasis on the homepage.

I approach every site design with conversion in mind – your design should help the visitor take desired action on your site. Keep out the fluff that will distract or alter the focus of your visitor.

Actions

• phone call
• completing a contact form
• subscribing to newsletter
• buying product
• tweeting/sharing page with friend
• downloading free ebook/whitepaper
• anything that captures an email address

I am defining conversion elements as anything that will strongly persuade a visitor to remain on your site and want to learn more about you.

Conversion Elements

• testimonials
• 3rd party logos: BBB, truste, D&B, chamber of commerce
• logos of good sized companies you have worked with or places you have been quoted: latimes, any inc5000, hollywood reporter etc.
• stats showing success: client sales increases, new orders, new engagements
• large and clear contact button – can be tastefully animated
• photos – (founder, real staff, highly targeted to your niche)
• short sales video
• phone number/address

For shopping sites that sell products directly, the required elements to gain users trust are more specific. Below are elements that increase online sales in descending order of importance.

E-commerce Elements

• product overview
• merchant guarantee
• availability
• image quality
• customer service available
• product specific description
• long description
• size chart
• toll free phone
• ratings & reviews

The above list is from the e-tailing group/ARS ecommerce

Your landing page on your website has an important job to do: Convert Traffic

The objective is to keep new users focused and have them complete the desired goal. A landing page is tailored for a specific visitor and should only contain information directly relevant to them. A successful landing page will have one prominent call to action and use every text and image element on the page to direct the user to completing this goal.

Landing Page Goal Examples

1. Newsletter Signup
2. Subscribing to a Service
3. Purchasing a Specialized Product
4. Filling out a Form
5. Making a Comment
6. Giving you their e-mail/phone
7. Calling for more information
8. Send to a Friend

Your site visitors could arrive at your landing page from these online sources

• A banner advertisement link prepared to appeal to your specific niche audience;
• An optimized link contained in your Pay Per Click (PPC) ad from the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Microsoft;
• A related affiliate sales page or an offer to subscribe to your mailing list,
• An internal link contained in your email campaign,
• A blog post or comment, forum posting, or social media link;
• Organic search engine results.

Maximize Your Investment

Design the page so that your visitors can immediately find your offer and any additional information about your product or service that helps them take action.

Optimize Your Landing Page

Once the visitors arrive at your landing page, they must immediately see the keywords that relieve their pain. Use keywords on your landing page to provide a customized solution that makes your visitor accept your offer.

Make Your Landing Page like Plymouth Rock

Keep your visitors on your website long enough to hear your elevator pitch.

Learn more about the design and testing of landing pages. Know the essential elements of successful landing pages.

Go beyond search engine optimization. Let your landing pages do a better job, convert more traffic and encourage repeat visits. Find out how other people have increased conversions 100%.

More Landing Page Resources

Let’s Talk Landing Pages

Top 5 Best Worst Landing Pages

Landing Page Tutorials and Case Studies

Convert Customers With a Perfect Landing Page

11 Ways to Improve Landing Pages

The Art of the Sign Up Page

Aligning Keywords and Landing Pages

Organic Landing Pages: A Case Study

Google Website Optimizer

25-Point Landing Page Optimization Review

Create Different Landing Pages for the Same Product

10 Factors to Test that Could Increase the Conversion Rate of your Landing Pages

The Landing Page Design Toolbox: 100 Tools, Tips and Resources

In a great piece of research from the Search Insider Summit in Park City, UT showing the disparity of spending between pay per click and natural search engine optimization campaigns.

Even though SEO is more cost effective, drives more traffic and is sustainable for the long term, it receives less of the marketing budget than paid search.

• For every 1 click on a paid search result, the organic results generate 8.5 clicks (this is on a keyword parity basis, not counting those search results that have no paid ads)
• Based on action/conversion tracking, paid search clicks convert, on average, at 1.5X the rate of organic clicks (no surprise, since that ad text and landing page is custom optimized by the advertiser)
• From the numbers above, we can see that the opportunity from organic search is 5.66X that of paid search

Across the board ad spending (via SEMPO):

• 2004 was 85% PPC vs. 12% Organic
• 2005 was 87% PPC vs. 11% Organic
• 2006 was 87% PPC vs. 12% Organic
• 2007 was 88% PPC vs. 10% Organic

Pay per click marketing budgets are increasing while natural search budgets are slowly declining.

• Spend on SEO is 1/8th of PPC
• Paid Search Agencies earn, on average 10% of their clients’ PPC spend (this number may actually be low)
• By this logic, SEO Agencies earn 1/45th {1 / 5.66 x 8} as much as paid search agencies (from a direct keyword-to-conversion path perspective)

PPC is easier for clients to value and agencies to measure. As a result, online marketing agencies are devoting the lions share of their budget to Adwords, Adcenter and YSM and businesses are spending more dollars to get that traffic.

This should help convince SEO firms that they bring true value to the internet marketing world and easily prove it is a good long term investment.
other studies with traffic studies

• Hitwise
• Enquiro
• Comscore

See the full report from SEOmoz here.

The kind folks at Omniture.com have created an informative webinar focusing on landing page optimization. This is a service from the Omniture Marketing Experts On-Demand series 2008 summit.

Keyword and langing page strategies are key to paid search campaigns and PPC ad budgets.

Landing Page Optimization Strategy depends on a detailed knowledge of all the keywords in your campaign and how well they convert. Generally, keywords should be directed to a specific landing page.

Watch the video

Checkout the new book “Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions”. This was written by Tim Ash from SiteTuners.com the search engine marketing firm. This book covers the strategy and tactics of optimizing for conversions from PPC. It examines the skill-sets necessary, as well as the internal company support needed to make conversion testing a success for paid search.
How much money are you losing because of poor landing page design? In this comprehensive step-by-step guide you will learn all of the skills necessary to dramatically improve your bottom line:

• Identify mission critical landing pages & their true economic value
• Gain insight on customer decisions & make your pages friction-free
• Uncover problems with your page & decide what elements to test
• Understand the power & limitations of common tuning approaches
• Develop an action plan & get buy-in from all key players
• Avoid common real-world pitfalls that can sabotage your test

With pages of case studies, practical strategies, a detailed review of Google Website Optimizer tool, this one-of-a-kind resource will help you make your landing pages more profitable. Get this book now.

Paperback: 384 pages
Publisher: Wiley Press – Sybex (January 29, 2008)
ISBN-10: 0470174625
ISBN-13: 978-0470174623

Want to improve conversions on a landing page 20% by adding 2 words? Many of your customers won’t click on images unless you tell them to. Add the text click here and watch your conversions soar.

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This is a report brought to you by Grok Dot Com.