Rand's off at SMX Stockholm, so you all get the Divine Miss Kelley in some hot Whiteboard action this week. Rebecca and Jeff have been working with Carlos del Rio, second place finisher in the SEOmoz Landing Page Contest, from New Media Northwest to work on some of the SEOmoz Landing Pages. In this week's Whiteboard Friday, Rebecca shares some tips she's gathered on creating compelling landing pages. Enjoy!
Enjoyed the post Rebecca. Creating ad copy is a subject near and dear to my heart and I’ve done a great deal of real testing on this subject.
Generally speaking, an improved eye path and improved credibility factors (photo, credentials, and signature) will lead to overall conversion improvement. However, since no two companies customers are exactly the same, I’m a big fan of A/B split testing to validate ideas. Some suggestions I would make when creating and testing landing pages are as follows:
Create pages:
Generally, long copy out-pulls short copy for many sites, but in my personal testing for products and services targeted to marketing types, short copy pages generally performed better than long copy pages by a factor greater than 10%. However, when marketing to the real technical crowd – engineers, architects, etc., the converse is true.
I would also consider creating one version with the price shown, and one without. Again, from my personal experience, “no price” has generally resulted in users clicking deeper into the site, however conversion has dropped by a few percentage points (4-6%).
Most importantly, I would make an effort to understand your traffic. Define the major sources of traffic to your site and define the most popular click you are receiving and which page they are landing on. From the click-through information, identify the main reason they clicked through to your page:
Did you have the lowest price?
The best company rating?
The largest selection?
A special promotion or offering?
The highest ranking on a search engine?
A specific keyword from a pay-per-click campaign? Using this information design your landing pages specifically for the reason they clicked through.
Of course, there’s a great deal more to how to create landing pages but I hope this adds some to your already excellent post.
Thanks for sharing that!
Have you ever thought on writing a YouMoz article on the subject?
A few additional thoughts that I've found work well...
1. Ask and Answer Questions in the Copy - Visitors have questions that need to be answered, sometimes its best to explicitly do so.
2. Promise Privacy - Probably doesn't need an explanation, but people just don't want to be added to lists.
Todd -
Good point, espically the privacy one. I believe Google gives your landing page a better quality score if there is a privacy policy stated on it.
And yes, that is a Springfield Isotopes shirt I'm wearing. Springfield, Springfield, it's a helluva town.
You should have used Springy the Springfield Spring as your pointer instead of that lame-a$$ finger-trap ;) Then again, the spring might have been too distracting.
You had me at "blue sexy widgets"...
Now I need to go back and rewatch from that point on ;)
Okay, seriously now, this was a good diversion into more of a broader SEM area. I think the key point that is illustrated here and in the comments is the value of testing... B2B vs. B2C, early buy status vs. purchase ready, low cost vs. high cost, buyer sophistication level, brand recognition and authority, low-tech vs. high-tech-- both product and customer level, etc.
The real key is in diverting from the "formula" to match the environment (seller, product, customer, need), not simply plugging everything into the formula. And then test, test, test, test............
Get Landing Pages does some great landing pages, I've been using them for a few months now and I'm pretty happy with how the work turns out. https://www.getlandingpages.com
John, Can share more about your experiences with this co, or contact me directly?
I would be interested in finding more also about your experiences with them. Can you contact me also?
Very impressive that you had both an "Ace of Base" and a "30 Rock" reference in the post.
Rebecca -
Thanks for the whiteboard Friday. I am sure Carlos has talked to you about things like the colour of your call to action button and the language you use on it also. If not, in my experience, I have witnessed a significant improvement by simply adding a red call to action button (purchase now if e-commerce related).
Regarding navigation, I usually still keep one link back to the users site especially if the conversion is one that requires a higher level of research. that being said, the link is usually buried below the fold for a person to find, often in the footer. If your site has good calls to action on its inner pages, you can still end up converting the users after they have satisfied their need to research.
Love the t-shirt... Daaaaryl... Daaaaaryl
Great overview Rebecca but I wouldn't endorse the last point (no navigation) as a "best practice." Of course, you need to test.
I recently posted my thoughts including a case study on navigation for landing pages.
Very true, Jonathan--it's just something that we're currently experimenting with. Obviously, I only had time to highlight a few landing page tips, so I'm glad to see people chime in with their own suggestions in the comments.
Where'd the video go?
I do currently have the ADs drop them right on the product page which has a prominently featured Add to Cart button.
Example: https://www.fs4sports.com/buy-1Nike-Sphere-Elite-Batting+147
As usual informative, practical, brief and to the point. Speaking of which I took the liberty of designing the ideal SEOmoz presentation pointer. I call it the "SEOmoz-thumbs-up-thumbs-down-pointer" or the "STUTDoP".
The main points (sorry) are thumbs up and thumbs down thumb/finger pointers. With a simple flip of the stick you can literally point to the subject on the board and at the same time indicate that it is a positive or negative point (sorry again).
If a protoype of this were to appear on Whiteboard Friday I'd wear a big grin all day and probably rush and go premium. Almost definitely.
Home pages are a trial for us. We lose a lot of business on our home page. We can see that when they click through they buy, but often they don't make it that far....
-OT
The video is avaliable again!
What is best to do if your target are people with experience on internet, do landing pages or not?, this question is because I have not success why landing pages for expert users but a lot of success with newbie users.
Thanks in advance.
I just got done telling Aaron Wall this: Please go back to using iFilm or someone else. Google keeps yanking videos left n right from Aaron and now I see they're doing it to you as well.
UPDATE: nevermind I guess you didn't get it yanked because now it is no long saying "this video is no longer available"
Thanks Rebecca! Just what I needed.
Wouldn't you want to also include some type of secondary conversion information on the page as well? Sort of a "yes your on the blue widget page, but did you also know we have green widgets and yellow widgets?"
I asked Carlos about that, and he said that if someone is searching for blue widgets, keep the landing page's focus to be primarily on blue widgets in order to satisfy your user's expectation. For our Tools landing page, we highlighted our tools and simply listed a few of our other Premium features without getting too in-depth.
Great Post, Rebecca.
I agree that directing the user to the most wanted action for that page and eliminating all distractions is absolutely essential to higher conversions.
If your dealing with B-2-B lead generation, take Rebecca's advice and in addition to that, promise a packet of information, coupled with a deal. Watch your conversions increase tremendously.
Did you ever get the fancy Chinese Finger trap off? I know how tricky they can be when typing....
That feels like an appropriate question coming from "imnotadoctor." :P
If I'm doing this for an e-commerce site would you recommend that I have the ad linked to the product page minus the header/menu navigation?
I will definately put the tip of using the same ad copy in the product title on the landing page. I hadn't thought of that. :-)
Zegron, I'm of the opinion that the least amount of choices you give the user - the better. I'm not saying you should limit their choices, but limit their choices to what would be helpful.
For instance, you generally don't need navigation to the whole site from a landing page (or in some cases, even a product page).
And if you're landing page is set-up to drive them to a product page - I would just redesign the product page and send them there directly.
I tend to agree, though have had to debate the point of whether to drop global header / footer navigation i/o of landing pages, and also steps in conversion funnels like shopping cart processes etc., with peers a number of times...
Anyone have any deep details / war stories on that point to share, i.e. having done measured test(s) on it specifically?
Carlos Del Rio is no joke. I met him at the pre-funk party and the after party when I went out to the SEOmoz seminar. I would like to work with him, but you folks as SEOmoz are probably keeping him too busy. Can you please share!!!
Thanks for the complement. I am available, feel free to call me.
Great information, thanks. I have looked at several different links on my main page to determine how best to engage the users, this helped, thanks. Scott
Great tips. Thanks. I never thought about the way how to engage the user (with you and so on ....). Updated one of my landing pages and will see how that works.
One question though - what software do you use to do the videos? Just wondering .....
Thanks.
I edit in Sony Vegas Platinum.
paraphrasing: ...don't lead them with "sexy blue widgets and then talk about little ponies on the landing page".
Yes, I can see where that makes sense, although some might perceive the little pony as a "bonus".
Overall, a good landing page 101 primer. Thanks.