When spending money in advertising online or offline it is important to have properly optimized landing pages that will convert.  No matter what your business goals are, testing is imperative to better understand the following:  what kinds of media provide the best ROI, what is the most appropriate call to action, how does your brand message impact your audience, do your web page visitors understand your product and are they compelled to convert, etc.

There are various ways to test landing page performance by using variations of the page layout and design, call to action, content variations, and so on.  There are many ways to accomplish this using both manual and dynamic methods.  Manual testing would simply require you to have multiple versions of your landing page and swap out the pages over time, track the result, and see what works best.  This can work well but can take longer and limit your insight.

The more technical and popular forms of testing landing page performance are:

• A/B Split Testing
• Multivariate Testing

A/B Split Testing:  A/B testing is about testing different verions of web pages to see which ones convert better.  A/B split testing can be accomlished in a few simple steps using free tools such as Google Website Optimizer.  Before you get started you need to have a few things accomplished.  (1) Define your conversion goals, (2) Develop your content and call to action to support those goals, (3) Create two versions of your landing page with some variations in design, layout, verbiage, and call to action, (4) Have each landing page on a unique URL and make sure to use some kind of “Thank You” page for tracking conversions.

Once you have your pages ready you will place code on the page that will dynamically serve them to different visitors.  Essentially, if you are testing to different pages, half of your audience over a period of time will land on one page, and half on the other.  Then you can set up various conversion goals for each page (i.e. registration form, PDF download, video view, etc.) and run the test for a couple weeks (depending on your traffic levels and what kind of data you are trying to collect).

Google Website Optimizer is a great tool for this because it can be accessed through Google Adwords or directly and it is simple to use.  It only cares about two things in regards to your visitors:  (1) what page did they land on, (2) and did they convert.  This tool is simply for collecting data, but you can use excel or other platforms for deeper analysis.  Keep in mind that if your pages are not receiving much traffic you will need to run your tests for a longer period of time in order to collect enough data to make any kinds of decisions.

Multivariate Testing (MVT):  MVT is about testing different versions of content within the same page.  So for example you might want to swap out tag lines, call to action, images, videos, etc.  Website Optimizer is also a great tool for this but there are more sophisticated platforms (but they are not FREE). 

When setting up MVT you are atually placing code snipets around each piece of content you want to swap out.  The interesting thing about MVT is the vast amount of combinations you can run.  Google Website Optimizer for example can provide you with 10,000 content variations but I would not recommend doing that.  Keep it simple at first and choose your most important pieces of content like your call to action, maybe a video, etc. 

Both methods are great to use and can easily be tracked by Google Analytics.  Proper testing can drastically improve ROI for paid search and prevent wasted ad dollars.

The Internet Marketing Inc. website development and design team is heading to Orange County this week for three full days of training at Google Seminars for Success.  We believe strongly in continuing education for our team, especially in the areas on analytics and optimization.  This ensures that we can continually be on the cutting edge in performing for our clients. 

This training is great for:

• Learning how to squeeze ROI from landing pages and conversion testing using Website Optimizer
• Refreshing and enhancing skills on Google Analytics and see the latest and greatest updates, reports and enterprise features
• Getting out team and new employees trained in one of the most cost effective options out there for learning these free Google tools

The first two days will be focused on Google Analytics and advanced topics/implementation.  The third day will be spent learning how to use Google Optimizer for landing page optimization and testing.  There are quite a few methods for doing this including tools and/or manual testing but the Google tool is a great platform for basic testing.

The leaders of the seminar are David Booth, Corey Koberg, Justin Cutroni, David Reichenbocher, Julie Ferrara-Brown, and Nick Lyengar.  We are really looking forward to some great instruction.   Next week we will provide some highlights from the seminar for our readers!

First, let’s define what a bounce rate is exactly.  A bounce is essentially when a user come to your site and leaves within 8 seconds.  Therefore, if 100 people come to your site and 50 people leave in under 8 seconds, your site has an 80% bounce rate. 

When designing a conversion optimization strategy for any website, it is important to first define the goals of the website.  And to define the goals of the website, you must determine the true business goals.  The business goals (i.e. revenue and profit for example) will define the website goals, and the website goals will determine the conversion goals that must be set. 

Any business would naturally want to reduce their bounce rate as much as possible right?  The longer a user is on the website the more likely they are to convert right?  This is somewhat true in many case but again it goes back to website goals.  So is a high bounce rate really a problem?  In some cases, not so much.  Here is why:

Scenario 1:  A home page for example might receive a high volume of search traffic due to great organic rankings from broad search terms.  Often broad search traffic from short tail keywords drives “unqualified” traffic or people simply browsing the web.  If they do not see what they are looking for they might leave quickly, but this does not necessarily mean the page is not well optimized for your target audience.  Your conversion rate for the actual users you care about might be higher then you can tell from the overall bounce rate. 

Scenario 2:  In another case, a page might do a fantastic job of communicating your brand messsage or product offering, but might simply be receiving less targeted traffic.  In that case people will quickly understand what you do without having to stay on the page longer or dive deeper into the website.

A high bounce rate can of course be a huge problem.  If your website is essentially getting the right kind of traffic and the page is not meeting your defined conversion goals, this will negatively affect your business goals.  But don’t just use “reducing the bounce rate” as your conversion goals for A/B testing or multivariate testing.  You should still use your revenue goals as the benchmark.

Here are some examples of how using bounce rate reduction as your only goal can hurt revenue:

• Removing pricing from the page can reduce bounce rate but negatively affect conversions (having unqualified users digging deeper until they find out they can’t afford your product)
• Having too many special offers, discounts, or FREE services can improve bounce rate but potentially hurt revenue because the people that are converting are buying at a discount or getting free services
• Adding too much content or too many additonal tabs to the page that will keep the user longer but distract them from the end goal – in this case it can often be a good idea to put the bulk of the additonal content and resource below the fold and focus on the calls to action above the fold

When considering conversion optimization as it relates to PPC landing pages you must consider Google Quality Score guidelines.  To achieve a high Quality Score, many things are factored but landing page quality is high on the priority list.  The days of simple pages from brand new URLs with limited content and only a large call to action are over.  Google wants to see that the page is relevant, that there is good supporting content, keyword association, good domain history, etc. 

Here are some very basic tips to acheive a higher quality score as it relates to your PPC landing pages:

• Use a URL with good domain history – for example instead of creating a new landing page for a product launch by using the product name, create a new sub page under the main company URL.  If your company website is AwesomeMedicalSupplies.com and you want to launch a PPC campaign for a new product launch (your product is “Spiderman Band Aids”), you should host the page on AwesomeMedicalSupplies.com/Spiderman-band-aids/ instead of a brand new URL unrelated to the main website.
• Have compelling content – these days PPC landing pages should have a decent amount of content especially if the URL or website is newer.  If your business is a large recognized brand, you probably won’t have to worry about quality score if your pages are set up correctly.  But for newer sites and pages, content is important.  Video content in fact is a great way to engage the users and becoming a very popular form of landing page content.

Here are some general conversion goals that are tied to revenue that can be used in a conversion optimization strategy:

• Revenue per user
• Reducing CPA (cost per acquisition)
• Return on Ad spend
• Registration conversion rate
• Click to call conversion rate
• Software download
• Whitepaper download
• and the list goes on and on…

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.  JetSelect 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”

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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All of your marketing components need to compliment and support one another.  This is increasingly true for print advertising.  Most searches online are prompted by some type of offline stimulation.  Print advertising, the oldest and most traditional form of media placement, is also now one of the most expensive forms of advertising.  In this economy, you need to carefully consider every ad placement to ensure that you will generate a good return on that investment.  You have to spend money for your business to grow – but spend wisely.

Designing the perfect print ad can generate fantastic results for any campaign but it is only one piece of the puzzle.  There is a lot of preparation that shou