We have talked a lot about conversion optimization for websites and landing pages associated with any Internet marketing strategies.  Here is another great page used for paid search campaigns.  Each PPC campaign will have different conversion goals depending on the company’s needs.  The landing page below is designed to increase room bookings for the Tropicana in Las Vegas.  PPC will be used to drive the traffic. 

Google Quality Score parameters are becoming much more strict.  Notice the amount of content on the page.  Landing pages now must have quality (and relevant) content in order to gain a good quality score and have a productive PPC campaign.  Many landers tied to new URLs with no history require even more content in order to meet Quality Score standards.  It can often now take time to build the score, so keep adding good content to your pages!

Many companies using Internet marketing strategies out there drive most of the traffic to their home page or possibly another internal page of their website.  The optimization of any online marketing campaign should focus on both the traffic drivers as well as where the traffic is sent.  This is especially true when using search engine marketing strategies like Pay Per Click advertising in any search engine. 

It is now crucial to use a landing page for PPC advertising in Google because it wll have a direct impact on your Google Quality Score and conversion success.  The idea of consversion optimization is pretty simple but the purpose should be understood in order to execute it correctly for your webpages.  The main idea of course is to always be improving your ROI.  There is no point in spending tons of money in online or offline marketing if you are just planning to drive traffic to your home page (unless of course your home pages acts as a well optimized “landing page”).

Here is an example.  Jet Select Aviation (a premier private jet charter service) has performed various form of marketing (online and offline), including Yahoo PPC.  All the traffic was being channeled to their home page and results had been fairly dismal.  They were recieving about one or two leads a month.  Here is an example of the home page:

Once the marketing campaign started, aggressive Googe PPC was added and four landing pages created.  The ad copy for the ads was written according to their direct business goals.  It is important to understand Google Quality Score guidelines in order to properly optimize your PPC campaign for the best possible results.  Here is an example of one of the landing pages created.  Notice the update in design, graphics, clear calls to action, simple booking engine right at the top of the page, and simple information (there is more content below the fold). 

Landing pages can really be as simple or content heavy as you want (in my opinion).  What matters really is what is above the fold and how the call to action is designed.  Of course, this all depends on your conversion goals and what you plan to obtain from your landing pages.  Those goals should be defined first before designing the page or launching any marketing. 

The initial result of the properly optimized PPC campaigns and well designed landing pages was going from one or two poor quality leads per month to five to eight high quality leads per day.  The results will of course vary depending on your business, industry, and specific goals. 

Either way, you must use landing pages with great content ands clear calls to action in order to get the most bang for your buck from your Internet marketing strategies. 

You just can’t by with an “old school” website anymore.  And yes, your company/brand will be judged on the appearance of your website.  You also can’t get by anymore by just having a site that serves the purpose of being your “online business card”.  Every company, no matter what industry, no matter what size, should have a website with clear goals.  Conversion goals that is.

Conversion optimization takes all aspects of your website into consideration starting with your core business objectives.  These need to be clearly defined and your website should be designed (or redesigned) to support these goals.  You should also have a solid understanding of your analytics so you can set some benchmarks:

• Where does our traffic come from?
• What are our bounce rates?
• How long do people stay and what pages do they go to, leave from?
• Do visitors convert?

What happens in 8 seconds.  A “bounce” is defined as a user who comes to your site and leaves in under 8 seconds.  Therefore a bounce rate is the ratio of people who leave in under 8 seconds VS those that stay.  Anything under 50% is pretty good.  Conversion goals are different for every website but examples are capturing information like name, address, phone; a sale; a download; a phone call…you get the idea.  So let’s take a look at the various elements that need to be considered when building a website that converts.

THE INITIAL HOOK

You must have a clear call to action, or a few key action points.  E-commerce sites usually have promotions and offer things like FREE shipping.  Everybody likes and deal and wants to be incentivized.  If your goal is to get a user to download your whitepaper, tell them why its valuable and give them some incentive for doing so. 

DESIGN

Once you have defined your goals, the site needs to be designed so that the call to action is prominent and focused on encouraging the user to act.  Using larger fonts, bold colors, simple but compelling design concepts, less content, and plenty of open space usually fall under the best practices category.  It is usually recommended to use separate landing pages with clear calls to action to support online and offline marketing efforts.

Notice the example below has a very clear purpose (sorry the picture is kind of small).  This page is designed to bring people back to the site, capture their information, and offers an incentive to do so.

SITE FUNCTIONALITY

This is very important because the more user friendly your site is the better your consversion rates will be.  Seems pretty obvious but can take a lot of focus to get it right for any specific site.  Many times bounce rates and lack of conversions are simply due to poor functionalty, poor design, and a “sales cycle” that is just too long.  Streamline the process, only capture the information you need, and keep the steps simple and fast. 

You can use technology and custom tools to enhance the experience and go beyond your competition.  Just remember, it all starts with defining clear goals first and then developing a plan.

Does your website perform they way it is supposed to?  Do your visitors see the content you want them to and take action?  Web design and conversion optimization is all about maximizing your website’s potential to convert traffic into some kind of attainable and measurable goal.  Whether the goal is to collect emails, registrations, downloads, or purchases all the same rules apply.

Make your message clear

Make it simple

Make it easy

Here are a few suggestions to enure your visitors take action and become customers! 

Use simple but compelling language to communicate your message and its value.  Then compliment that message with a large and noticeable “call to action” so the user understands what the next step is.  The image below shows a good example of this:

The use of space, color, and page layout are very important.  Below is a great example of a good blend of color and space.  The more space you have around the call to action “buttons” the better.  Studies show that the more cluttered a page is the more likely the user is to get confused and not understand what you want them to do.

Notice how clean the page is and that a couple options are given.  The use of space is done purposefully to provide clarity and simplicity.

Other suggestions to improve conversions on websites and landing pages include:

• Trust factors – let the user know it is safe to enter their information or download your product
• Simple bullet pointed content – don’t make the user read to long paragraphs, keep them moving
• Compelling design and images – the pages of course should look clean and compelling to keep bounce rates low
• Large buttons – size does matter
• 3 to 5 step process – using a simple “step” process helps clarify what the user needs to do to complete your “sales cycle”

It seems so easy to “stick out” in the media today. Online it is 100% different going online to use or buy a service or product. You cannot just walk into a store and feel what you are purchasing. There is no sales person online – your website is your sales person. So you need to convey your business to the website visitors. You need them to feel comfortable and trusting while surfing your website. The first part is getting people to your website through internet marketing. Next keep them on your website – make them use your service.

I visited 3 different Salon websites. Beside the 3 very different design types there are a couple of things I noticed right away. They all said the same thing:  they all tell you they are the best in town with the logo of an award they won, they tell you the services they offer, and what products they use.
Well this is all wonderful information but I got the same information from all three of their websites. So none of them really enticed me to choose their salon and give them a call. You need to make your business “Stand Out” and capture the users attention! What makes your company different than all of the other ones on the market? On all these 3 websites I looked at they said the same thing, what are the differentiators? Why would I pick A over B? Especially in today’s market you need to make sure you are setting your business apart for others. Consumers are doing more and more research before making any decisions. This means you need to tell them about your business and what sets you apart from the rest.

There are a few simple ways to do so:

Statistics:  all companies keep some type of statistics. This is very useful to spread throughout your website. Make sure to do this a little throughout your websites be careful of cramming to much information in.

Stories: If your company has a great story behind the foundation or name tell the consumer. If you do hair for the stars tell them.  If you are Jessica Biel’s hairdresser tell them.

Samples: This is a great piece to have on any website. Add testimonials – before and after pictures – client pictures etc. this is great to let the consumer k now what your style is. It amazes me that there are so many salons that don’t even have before and after pictures on their website. Or pictures of clients they have worked with that came in what a sob story and ended up looking better than ever when they walked out!

With the economy today you need to make your business stand out in a crowd. So use these simple tips and make sure you are adding new information to the website to attract people and have them coming back.

So you are ready to take the next step expanding your business online and embrace your internet marketing efforts. You no longer have to have a physical storefront to do business anymore. Today some of the most profitable businesses are online and only have an online presence. There is such a wide range of shopping cart solutions how do you choose the right one for your online venture?  The most basic and important features of the shopping cart are 3:

-    The Shopping cart allows the user to interact with the store and add items to their bag. This should also calculate taxes and shipping and charge the user while staying on your website.

-    Shipping:  This is the only delivery method for online shopping carts. You need to be able to integrate the cart with your preferred shipping provider this will alleviate many hassles in the future and will streamline your processes from start to finish. This is very important because if your shipping methods are not efficient you will end up needing to charge higher shipping prices in the future.

-    Accepting online payment: No one likes to be limited. You need to be able to offer your clients several ways to paying. So make sure your shopping cart is able to integrate with various payment gateways and accepts several forms of payment. One of the easiest is over the phone and all you have to do is offer them a phone number to call.

There are 2 main components in a shopping cart the front end which is what the user sees and interacts with and the backend or the administrator’s area. When choosing a shopping cart here are a few tips to keep in mind for uability:

Offer a Guest Checkout: not all people like to sign up for an account when shopping. Especially for first time users to the store, or people that are shopping for gifts.
Security symbols: Make sure that your website is secure and not susceptible to hackers. No one wants to put their credit card number onto a website that they do not think is safe. Make sure to have your SSL certificate correctly installed and it is also a good idea to include the SSL providers logo on checkout pages.
One page checkout process: this facilitates the user through the checkout process.
These are just a few quick tips to making your shopping cart more user friendly and what to look for when choosing which to use!

You’ve created a great website!  So you think, but your website analytics reveal a high bounce rate.  The question at hand is: WHY?  Have you optimized your website effectively for your audience?  When you optimize your website it is wise to approach it with a strategy.  One thing to remember is: it’s all trial and error.  Another question to ask yourself is: Are you giving your visitors what they’re looking for?  This is very difficult to gauge especially if you do not have a full scale in-house marketing team to analyze your target market’s behavior.

So lets talk Split Testing.  Split testing is a process to test the effectiveness and conversion potential for variations of the following:

• Different elements on a web page (multi-variate) – i.e. forms, call to action buttons, images, headliners, content, color etc.
• Web pages (A/B) i.e. landing pages
• Complete websites (A/B) i.e. re-design

Split testing equally randomizes each variation.  It will tell you how many times the variation was visited and how many conversions were met for each variation.  The results will show which of the variations has a better chance for conversions.

Split testing is the easiest way to optimize your website.  It does not require in depth technical know how.  It’s also easy on the budget.  For example, before investing on a complete web page change ensure to test out different pieces of the page for what works and not works.  This will save you time and money of having to redo the work again.  There are additional benefits to split testing:

• You’ll understand your target market’s website behavior and what you need to convey on your website even more!
• Eliminates the guest work on what converts better for a Split Testing provides stats and numbers.
• Lessens episodes of hells kitchen of having too many cooks in the kitchen.
• Find trouble spots on your website.
• and importantly maximize your conversion rates!

Conversion optimization was born out of the need of lead generation and e-commerce internet marketers to improve their website’s results. As competition grew on the web during the early 2000’s, Internet marketers had to become more measurable with their marketing tactics. They began experimenting with website design and content variations to determine the layouts, copy text, offers and images will improve their conversion rate. – Wikipedia

Conversion optimization is more important than ever as companies move more of their marketing budgets online seeking more cost effective ways to achieve their goals.  The approach has two angles.  The first starts with researching the industry and target markets of the company in need of improved conversions.  Once the data has been collected, a more targeted marketing message can be planned.  Secondly, comprehensive testing such as A/B testing is done to monitor results and make adjustments to continually improve the conversion rates. 

Conversion optimization is about achieving business goals and gaining the best possible ROI from the marketing efforts.  Here is a chart that outlines the basics:

The foundation behind conversion optimization is website design.  Once you have the marketing message put together and before you start running the campaign and testing results, you have to design the site and landing pages accordingly to achieve your goals.  Like anything esle there are some best pratices to follow when putting together a landing page.  The basics include the following:

• Keep it simple and focus on the message
• Message must be associated with ad campaign
• Keyword association
• Clear and obvious calls to action
• Simple content (bullet points)
• Trust factors
• Short registration forms
• Must be well designed and compelling

The bottom line is that a good Internet marketing company will first help you define your business goals, then help you assemble the message, and then put together the campaign, launch it and test results constantly.  Continually updating your landing pages will improve results dramatically which will lead to a well spent marketing budget!

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When you are designing redesigning a website there are several things you want to keep in mind. With all of the technology and studies we have about website design there is a lot to think about when creating a conversion optimized website. What draws people’s attention on a website? What makes people more likely to convert? What makes them turn away? What gives the user a sense of assurance while purchasing? These are all things you have to think about with your website design. With all of the information we have it is not longer acceptable to just make a “pretty” design. Here are a few tips about creating a great website design that converts to sales/leads.

• Stick out what you’re about – User that come to your website are looking for both text and images but the first thing that captures their attention is text. The user wants to know what your website is about. So have your tagline above the fold and in bold.
• Start at the Upper Left  – The first thing that we look at when we navigate to a website is the upper left hand corner. This is an important factor when building a website so keep the users eye pattern in mind and build your website from upper left out.
• Follow the F – It is widely known that people visiting a website always seem to look at the upper left hand corner first. What happens after that? After much research the F pattern seems to be the way we search.  Starting at the top of the website then down content or to the next topic that interest us then down again. Many people will not stop to read every single bit of information you have on your website but it is more likely for them to read information near the top of the page.
• Make your Sub headings relevant – It might seem superficial to say but looking at several websites I feel that many don’t get this. If you want people to keep on reading down the page. Keep the headings relevant  and exciting, make the user want to read more. The user will only keep on reading if they
• To Banner or not – Today there are many websites that are full of banners – some that rely on banners to make a profit. The truth is that not many people are focusing on banners. They ignore them to get all of the pertinent information they want form your website. So designers need to get more creative about where banners are placed and how they look. Do not leave the Whole left side of your website to banners. You are only losing great real estate for yourself and the users trust. So use that space and add in small banners in between videos, images and content that are relevant to the information on the page.
• Keep it Simple and Clean – Cut out all of the elaborate fonts and colors. Keep it to a specific number of colors and fonts on your website. To attract attention to headers use bold, underline, and larger fonts and keep the script fonts off your website. If there are too many large different fonts and a variety of colored letters people tend to see this as ads.
• Use numbers not letters – if you are going to insert the actual number like 7 or 190. Most of the visitors you get to your website are just scanning the content and will stop when they see something they are looking for.
• There are many many more things to learn about the users experience and what we can do while building your website  to make is easier for the visitor to use and to increase conversions.

Having a tracking and reporting tool installed to your website is a very important factor for conversion based websites and your SEO strategy. Make sure you have a tracking code on your site to track visitors and their behavior on your site. For example the bounce rate tells you how many people are coming to your website and leaving within 5 seconds this way you are able to identify which web pages are turning away the most visitors and which are making most conversions.

With today’s internet marketing technology you can run tests on different pages of your website and let your visitors decide the best version of that page. A – B testing serves the user 2 different versions of a particular page on a random basis. This way instead of just going with a gut feeling you will actually have the statistics from your users to prove usability.

The first step is to think of 2 variations of your page. The current one as the first and the second you can make a few small changes to the page. Maybe try changing photos or making links into buttons using large calls to action. Using tools like the Google website optimizer you can test your changes by randomly showing different visitors different versions of your site. These tools will then report back to you about the conversions and goals reached by each design. From these reports you can decide which design had the most valuable conversions dependant on the goals you set for your pages. These can be sales, links clicked, forms filled, etc.

Many think that there might be too many aspects of the website to change so why test at all? This is true there are many different components to each and every website but you can just start with your current most prevalent call to action on your page. Try changing simple links to buttons with calls to action. Try cleaning up the page to not be text heavy and insert some great images relevant to your business.
• Have a friend take a look! If you have a friend that doesn’t know your business very well have them take a look at your website. Give them 10 seconds to look and then ask them what you think the site is about?

• Give, Give, Give! Tell the user why they should stay on your website. Tell them the benefits of being your website: to look younger, to be healthier, to save money.

• Make your website relevant! Make sure that all of your client see your website as relevant starting with the content and pictures on the site! Make them personal and relevant to your website and your brand.

• Users love to shop and that is why they are on your website don’t make them search. Make it easy for the user to find what they want and make it even easier for the to convert. If you are basing your conversions on sales make the “buy Now” prominent if your conversations are tracked by sign ups make sure to have a quick and easy form on every page!