L’E-mail Marketing è una pratica pubblicitaria molto diffusa che permette una rapida diffusione dei contenuti attraverso l’invio di e-mail tergettizzate. Attravero l’utilizzo di tecnologia dinamica, è possibile collezionare indirizzi e-mail di navigatori web interessati a specifici argomenti, ed iviare loro lettere formato html per l’approfondimento di specifici contenuti. Se il tutto è bel pianificato, i vantaggi saranno evidenti per entrambe le parti. Vediamo con dei semplici suggerimenti come implementare al meglio una campagna di e-mail marketing.

Innanzi tutto, bisogna disporre di indirizzi e-mail, che sono in un certo senso la materia prima su cui lavorare. Questi possono essere collezionati attraverso l’iscrizione ad un blog (creazione di un account) oppure attraverso l’esplicita richiesta di iscrizione a circuiti di newsletter. A seconda dei casi, è bene suddividere le e-mail per categorie di interesse; è normale che ogni utente abbia i propri desideri di conoscenza ed è giusto lasciare loro la scelta degli argomenti da approfondire (viaggi e vacanze, offerte commerciali, aggiornamenti software, offerte di lavoro, giude specifiche, tutorial di qualsiasi tipologia…).

E’ poi importante (quindi) definire una finalità generale del progetto di e-mail marketing, come il carattere informativo o commerciale; allo stess tempo è bene far presente all’utente della tipologia di contenuti cui verranno sottoposti tranmite l’invio di e-mail personalizzate. Pianificare una campagna di e-mail marketing è un processo lungo e dispendioso…le variabili da considerare sono molteplici! Conoscere nel dettaglio i pubbico di riferimento si è sempre rivelata una variabile vincente nel mercato; per conoscere bene i profili degli utenti bisogna , nella maggior parte dei casi, chiedere informazioni aggiuntive, come l’età, la provenienza, il tipo di occupazione, gli hobbies. A tale scopo può rivelarsi utilissimo l’implementazione di un semplice sistema di votazione, o la possibilità di aggiornare/implementare i profili (tipica dei sistemi CMS); in alternativa, al momento dell’iscrizione, bisognerà rendere obbligatori determinati campi. In qualsiasi caso, dati e procedure sono differenti a seconda del mercato (pubblico di riferimento…B2B, B2C…)

Una volta definite ed organizzate queste informazioni di base (fondamentali), bisogna organizzare il messaggio ed i relativi contenuti. Il messaggio deve avere un grande impatto sull’Audience; bisogna far capire loro che le informazioni che ricevono sono utilissime ed implementano di molto la loro soddisfazione. L’azienda (sender del mesaggio) acquisterà così grande credibilità con conseguente fidelizzazione del lettore. Se il messaggio mancasse di elementi di “originalità” ed “utilità targettizzata”, il lettore cancellerà subito il messaggio senza neppure leggerlo! Inoltre è bene sottolineare l’aspetto grafico dell’e-mail; questo deve essere intrigante, chiaro, pulito ed il più vicino possibile alle impostazioni grafiche dell’azienda mittente. Logo, Riferimenti Societari, stili e colori sono importantissimi!

Inutile aggiungere che il contenuto è la cosa più importante che ci sia in tutto questo! La padronanza del linguaggio e la costruzione dei contenuti determinano l’efficacia complessiva della campagna. Suggerimenti:

• Utilizzare caratteri grandi (H1) per i contenuti essenziali del messaggio
• Suddividere contenuti differenti per aree tematiche all’interno della pagina
• Cercare di abbinare immagini a ogni specifico servizio
• Per ogni punto non scrivere più di 2 o 3 righe di testo
• Inserire dei call to action per ciascun punto chiave

Ultima variabile da considerare è il tempo! La continuità del servizio è importantissima. In molti casi c’è bisogno di diverso tempo affinchè si riesca ad ottenere il pieno apprezzamento del pubblico di riferimento. BUon e-mail Marketing a tutti!

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Personalization
You have probably heard that personalizing emails will get you more sales than genral emails. Give it a try in a small email split test sample. Doing this will provide you with a good basis of whether or not personalized emails are important to your subscribers or not.

Time
Believe it or not, but the time you send your email could be just as important as any other element in your campaign. Do an email split test and send one email in the morning, another in the mid afternoon and another closer towards the end of the work day. Doing this could take you a little time up front, but it will let you know the time of day that is most worthwhile for you to send your emails to subscribers.

Privacy
Another option is to send a test email on privacy. For example, send on email that has a disclaimer at the bottom assuring subscribers that their privacy will be respected and that their email address will not be used in any other way other than to send them their emails. Then, send another email that is identical, but without the privacy statement. See which one is most successful for you.

Call to Action
There are the common calls to action and then there are more innovative ways to get people to send you their information. Used your current method in one email and a completely different word in the next email. Doing this could affect your sales and give you an idea of what works for your subscribers and what doesn’t.

Buttons
Another option to try with an email split test is to use a link in one email that will take potential buyers to the product or service page they are interested in. The next email should use a button rather than a link. Then, the results must be calculated and it is important for future campaigns to find out what works early on.

There are actually many tests you can do to see what works for your product and service and what doesn’t. Remember, too, that it’s important to do the test yourself because each set of subscribers is unique to what they believe, what motivates them, and the like. Take this to your advantage and find out the email that will help you maximize your sales.

By: Aaron Goldberg

Brought to you by Aaron Goldberg. Aaron is an advocate for Interspire, a leading provider of ecommerce shopping cart software, content management software, email marketing software, and other web software solutions.

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The landing page is an integral component of your email marketing message. The main email text describes the main highlights of your product or service.The landing page consolidates and further reinstates what you have written in the main email text. This is the reason why the landing page being action-inducing is best left to stand on its own as another separate customized page. Traffic will tend to be directed, and the possibility of increasing conversion rates will be higher. Therefore, it is necessary to customize the landing page that will appear specific to what’s being offered in your email text offer.

To achieve good results , here are the tips for a good Landing Page:

(1) Be specific in details — Whatever is the intention of the landing page, it is best to place emphasis solely on the product or service in topic, as described earlier in the email promotional message. For example, if the promotion is for the registration of an educational course, then do not deviate from it. Direct all your efforts to only bringing in the registration traffic. Be focused and specific in the details and action taken.

(2) Be creative but synchronized — It is good to synchronize the appearance of the email text and that of the landing page. What is being used to make the email more appealing to customers should be used in the landing page. If the email shows certain colors being used, it’s best for the landing page to adopt similar colors. The main reason for this is that the attraction power that has worked for the email will filter to the landing page. Customers will stay on to read in the same creative background, without giving them unnecessary mental fidgets.

(3) Bring to mind the offer — When emails are being read, there are only two results. One is that the email is of no interest to the customer and goes to deletion. The other result is that the email appeals to the interest of the customer, and this goes on to be a click-through. Of absolute importance is the fact that the offer has to be reinstated for the sake of reminding the customer. The best way to achieve good results is to make the reinstatement within the headline itself. The headline sits at the top of your page, and it has be compelling in providing the unique selling proposition of the product or service. It must meet the needs of the customers in “What’s in it for me?”. It must convince their curiosity.

(4) Show off your selling skills — The landing page is where the customer gets to read the benefits of your product or service, and experience the best selling skills that you have. It is the opportunity for you to showcase to the best of your abilities what you can offer in terms of product or service excellence and benefits. Customers have gone this far clicking through to this landing page and you will be doing yourself injustice if they do leave because you have not offered them more freebies and benefits. One point worth noting is that there must be honesty and transparency as far as offers, freebies and benefits are concerned. It is strongly recommended that the pricing offers be simplified as far as possible; too much details and choices tend to raise confusion and can be damaging to the closing. To lend support to all these juicy pricing offers and benefits, a good testimonial preferably accompanied by a photo will do the job. You can increase your credibility by including a visual pop such as “As featured in SmartMoney”. Give your customers additional information using pop-ups to make them stay. They have to appreciate and understand more about the value of your offer and why they need to buy from you now.

(5) Emphasize the call to action — This is the finale for the landing page. After all the sales talk throughout the whole length of the landing page, it is time to emphatically stress the call to action. Even if there is a form to be completed, this must be made known to customers. The call to action should be written in clear powerful terms and should create impact upon customers. It should lead customers to taking immediate action. “Buy NOW before the price goes up tomorrow”, “Enjoy $100 discount. Don’t miss this offer. Sign up NOW! “. These examples of call to action clearly shows the strong directive for customers to take action immediately. Figures (e.g. $100) should be used to help customers realize the mathematical value of your offer.To create more impact, additional call to action buttons and links should be placed appropriately throughout the whole length of the landing page, with the minimum of one per screen view. To increase the confidence of your customers to buy from you, remove the element of risk and provide them with the assurance of guaranteed satisfaction.

The landing page is just too important to be given some slipshod construction. It will work if it is given due thought and consideration with meticulous planning. It may turn out to be the savior of your flagging business. Nevertheless, the customer must still be given the red-carpet welcome on your landing page!

Autore
For latest updates on how to increase traffic, raise page ranking, write effective articles and powerful squeeze pages, create explosive blog marketing system, learn about viral marketing, and bring in massive income from your internet marketing business, please Click here Webmaster: Jeremy Long Chia Teik.

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You need copy for your landing page but you’re not sure where to start. First let’s clarify what we mean by a landing page. A landing page can be a page that visitors come to after clicking on a promotional banner or link. Ultimately, the landing page must convince the visitor that they should stay on your site. You may also have a goal that you want accomplished, such as:

• Signing up for a newsletter or filling out a form
• Buying a product
• Reading informational pieces

What’s going to keep them there? The structure, the language, and the visual appeal all play a part of it. Check out these tips to create a great landing page, or reinvent the one you already have.

The structure

People arrive at your site looking for answers. They scan to see if they’re in the right place and assess whether it’s going to be a quick and easy visit or a long grinding one. Your landing page is the welcome wagon inviting them in and feeding them the information they need. The structure of the page will either pull them in and encourage them to fulfill your goal, or distract and cause them to cut out of there before getting the whole picture.

The structure of the landing page in general should be matching that of the banner, ad or link they clicked on to get them there. So for example, if your PPC Ad is targeting SEO articles, your landing page should discuss exactly that. If a Victoria Secret’s Ad for lingerie shows up and you click on it, you will be transferred to a landing page with the exact image and structure of the ad.

The visuals

• Copy placement – Strategic use of copy and graphics will catch the visitor’s attention. Don’t muck up the page with large, distracting graphics. Use plenty of whitespace and place your message in the central portion of the page rather than placing information down the sides, where the focus can be lost quickly. Keep the copy short. The visitor expects a precise message, so don’t choke it up with tons of mindless prose.

• Beauty is in the eye –Use a consistent color palate. If you have advertising or banners that link visitors to your website, make sure the concept and color scheme match across the board. It’s also a great visual indicator for the visitor because they can easily identify that they’re still in the right place.

• Simplify – Remove any distracting elements like advertising banners, links, or additional blocks of information from the page and get down to the specific message.

The goal

Before you design the landing page, decide what the goal of the page will be. If you’re looking for newsletter subscribers, the goal will be to have the visitor enter their information and become a member of your mailing list.

Be a sleuth

Do your research. Keep your visitors in mind when building your landing page and tailor it to suit their needs. By narrowing your options and focusing on your visitor, you’ll stay on target.

Keep your focus

Keep the focus on you. You’ve dangled a large poster board over their head and pulled them in. Now that you’ve got them, don’t give your visitors a reason to wander.

Use a call to action

A call to action, such as ‘subscribe now’ or ‘get this offer’ reminds the visitor why they are on your website. Place them toward the top of your page. For uses that want to click, it allows them to find it easily. For those who are still deciding, it’s a great reminder.

Many sites place the consultation form or contact form directly on the landing page, which may not be such a bad idea. Again, you need glaring calls to action. Don’t add several useless links on the page that will take the visitor back to your main site; rather include the links that will get them to actually purchase your product/service.

Write like a pro

No, you don’t have to hire one to look like one. What’s the best way to come off like a professional? Create landing pages with no grammatical or spelling errors. I recently hit a website offering ‘discount holideys.’ As I clicked out of there, I pictured the four-star flea-bag motel by the swampland I might have booked if I stayed.

Reassure

People get leery when they’re asked for their personal data. If you’re asking for personal information, make sure you have a credible privacy policy to back you up.

Autore
Ayat is the Director of the writing department at INVESP. She manages a team of writers that offer business writing services such as Grant writing, webcopy writing and optimized SEO article writing.

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The dog is now quite happy after a nice long walk which set me thinking what it is that would make someone opt into your subscription on your landing page? For one, if it is a really good product that the visitor wants to see you are in a winning position.

In most instances though you will just have a slight curiosity when the visitor lands on your page and getting them to the point where they really want to give you their information will be up to you and your writing skills.

Here is a rough outline for you to apply on your landing page.

Break it up into these four words. Hey, You, See, So.

Where “Hey” is your headline. This is where you call the visitor. You grab their attention by stating a predicament they might be in or making a proposition.

“You”, is where you make the visitor part of what you are saying and leading into the subject matter of your page. This is also your sub headline which should be the lead out from your headline and the lead in to your subject matter.

“See” is the section where you will tell the visitor about the product reiterating or proving your headline and sub-headline. State all the benefits they can expect either through a review of the product if you own and use the product, or leave out your story and explain each of the main advantages proving your headline and sub-headline.

A review is always a good option to use as the content for your landing page. If you are using a specific product and it has helped you to find answers or solve problems saving you time and ultimately money, you will have a passion for that product.

Now this passion is not the same as for ‘dearly beloved’ but I think you do get the point. Depends on who does the dishes of course. Well let’s not go off on a tangent and get back to the subject at hand.

When you write your review on the product tell a story, we all love stories, and if you don’t believe me ask your parents what they had to do before bedtime when you were small. We will never grow out of it, the story just becomes more refined.

Don’t be afraid to mention weakness, snags or something you had to go through to achieve success with the product, by doing so you will gain more trust from your readers because you are honest.

Sell them what you believe in and then offer them something in return for their email address like a guide to the use of the product, or a free video that you made on getting the most from the product. Use your imagination and put yourself in the visitor’s shoes, personally I would not go for the socks.

Use bullet points and white space and remember your content should be just long enough to create an itch; the sales page will do the scratching.

“So”, is your final analysis where you will reiterate all the main benefits in bullet points and a call to action. Do not forget, or be afraid to ask. If you do not ask you will not receive. Well time to walk the dog again and get some inspiration, and maybe some coffee.

Autore
Now you would make me, the dog and dearly beloved very happy if you visit the link. www.yourenterprize.com/squeeze/spd.php

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A lot of thought must go into your landing pages, both from a search engine perspective and from a customer perspective.

From a Search Engine perspective:

This is covered in Search Engines 101 Paid Vs Natural Search so I am not going to go into detail here.

From a Customer Perspective:

Your landing page has to do one thing, answer the questions that the searcher had in mind when he typed in his key words. The searcher type in his search terms because he has a problem, needs a solution or is in some kind of “pain”. You have about two seconds to convince him that you understand what he is going through and what he needs. The last thing a searcher wants to see is that you can jump higher, run faster and do it better than the competition. He just doesn’t care (yet). Besides, most of the websites that he already visited probably stated that they do that. The challenge is to show the searcher that you have the answers to his needs. How do we do that?

1. Think of as many questions as you can that might be on the mind of a visitor to that specific landing page.

2. Choose one of the questions to be the title of that specific landing page. Use the other questions as sub points or topics in the outline of the page.

3. The content underneath each heading will be a description of the problem. It is very important that when you describe the problem you do it from your client’s perspective.

4. After describing two or three scenarios that your client may fall into closeout with the paragraph that describes your qualifications for dealing with the above scenarios. This is where you put in how me years of experience, the combined experience of your team or your experience in the marketplace.

5. The last thing is to have a call to action. The idea is that if your client falls into one of the scenarios described it would be natural for them to do the call for action to get help with their problem.

For example, if someone is doing a search on long-term care insurance they may only have a general idea of what you’re looking for. When they come to a landing page that has a question like “what happens to your nest egg if you suffer an illness or an injury that requires long-term care?” Then in the description of the problem they read that one year of long-term care can cost between $90,000 and $130,000 and as a result of this high costs it will either force you into bankruptcy or dependency on your children or family to take care of you. (Not a pretty picture.) After you add your qualifications, whatever they are, you put in your call to action. It could be something like “for a free quote and help in understanding what your options are fill out form below and one of our experts will contact you within the next 48 hours”.

So the question remains, are your landing pages flypaper or trampolines? If you are not sure give us a call and we will do a free evaluation of your site. This will help determine whether or not changes or in order.

Autore
Terry Stanfield is a SEM consultant with over 15 years of sales and marketing experience. His company, Clickadvantage, manages PPC and SEO efforts for his lead generation and ecommerce clients. For more information: Landing pages, Flypaper or Trampoline?

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Landing pages are simply web pages where visitors are directed to whenever they click a result in a web search or whenever they click a web ad. For affiliate marketing, landing pages would refer to the web page where you, as a merchant, would want your potential customer to be directed after clicking your ad on your affiliate’s website. Landing pages are, at most times, nothing really different from other web pages in a particular website, especially if the said website is an e-commerce site. Some online businessmen would even use the homepage of their websites as the landing page for their ads. Are these businessmen making a big mistake? Or should you follow their method in creating landing pages for their ads?

Well, you can always follow what most online retailers do, directing their potential customers to the homepages of their websites. But if you want to achieve something more from your online business, and if you want to earn a lot of profits, you better create a special landing page for your web ads. Why? Here are a few reasons why you need to use landing pages for your web ads and why you need to create a great landing page.

Reason no. 1: It is the only way you earn conversions in an affiliate marketing program.

There are a variety of affiliate marketing programs today, but most of these programs let the merchant pay the affiliate in a pay per click basis. Basically, all you have to do is sign up with the program and submit your ad. The program owner would then distribute your ad to various affiliates who would then place your ad on their websites. Whenever your ad is clicked, a visitor will be directed to your landing page and you will have to pay the affiliate for his service.

As a merchant, you earn in an affiliate program through conversions — that is whenever a visitor that is directed to your site actually buys a product on your site. Without these conversions, you actually earn nothing from the program. Also, the more visitors that your affiliates have directed to your site, the larger your expenses. The only way that you can recover from these expenses is through conversions.

Now, you sure won’t get any conversion if you have posted an ad on your affiliate’s site without an actual landing page for the potential customer to be redirected into. It’s just like advertising a product without actually having a store to sell your product. Your advertisement may be enticing enough to encourage people to purchase a product, but without the landing page, how will they know how to purchase the product.

It is therefore important to have landing pages for your ads because it is the only way for you to earn something in an affiliate program. Without landing pages, all you do is spend money paying your affiliates without actually getting anything in return.

Reason no. 2: Other web pages may just not be enough.

Many people make the mistake of using their website’s homepage as the landing page for their ads. The same is true for those who make use of other pages like a “contact us” page or a product page. Homepages are often designed to serve multiple users and contains a lot of links to other pages or to other websites. The same is with the other two pages mentioned. If you want to be successful in an affiliate program, we’re sure that you don’t want your landing page to cater to the needs of various people, most of which may not be really interested with your product.

When choosing a landing page, you must always have the customer directed to the exact page that sells the specific product or service. Therefore, your landing page must be relevant to the keywords and the contents you placed on your ad. It is also important that the landing page can induce your visitor to take action — that is to purchase your product or at least provide leads for potential customers.

Final Word

You probably entered into an affiliate marketing program with these things in mind: to save on advertising expenses and to gain more profit. But if you get into an affiliate marketing program without actually having a landing page, you’ll end up paying too much without getting anything in return. So if you still don’t have a landing page for your ads, you better start creating one now. Make sure it’s a great landing page too, to ensure you provide your potential customer with a call to action.
Autore
To get your free ebook ‘Article Marketing Avalanche’, please visit http://www.articleland.co.uk. Steve Sharpe is the CEO & Editor in Chief of http://www.informationbooth.net and http://www.articleland.co.uk. He has been in internet marketing for a number of years and can be reached for further information at his websites.

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1. Have A Compelling Reason

Its important to tell someone in 2 secs why they should opt in to your list. Speaking in terms of the interest of a new comer is crucial because on the internet, we only have 2 seconds, (some say 8 second, I think less) to catch someones interest.

2. Have a Bold Headline That Spells Out the Compelling Reason

A Bold Headline is key to doing this. Font size you can use is anywhere from 16 to 28. Font type is Georgia or Impact. There are other types of fonts such as Angelina that give a human handwriting form. Nice though it may be, such fonts don’t always display well on everyone’s computer. So its better to stick with the tried and proven fonts.

3. Have a Single Call To Action

Some landing pages have adsense, Banner ads all plastered around the landing page. This can kill conversion. Usually, a single call to action is important, because when there’re too many options, people can get sidetracked and leave before opting in to learn what you can offer. If you’re doing PPC to drive traffic to a landing page, then you don’t want too many ads, especially if the keyword bid is very expensive.

4. Have a reliable list maintainance service

I’v tested about 5 email list service. This is probably the most important. Some emails can end up the in the spam folder of AOL, Gmail, Hotmail and Yahoo. Since most people use free email, the last thing you want is for your welcome email to end up in someones bulk or spam folder, even after they opted in. So be sure to use a reliable email list service that you can trust to deliver your emails.

Hope these quick tips improve your awareness and profit in your internet business!

Autore
www.shermanchoo.com/ezine.php Sherman Choo is the Internet’s Top Recurring Internet Income affiliate. “Who else wants to turn a measly $10 biz into $11,737/mth?” Go to: www.shermanchoo.com/ezine.php

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A landing page is a web page that visitors from a specific traffic source land on. They are heavily linked to individual marketing campaigns – for example, the landing page for a PPC campaign is the page that visitors land on when they click your PPC ad. All marketing techniques lead visitors to a specific page and, as such, each could have a different landing page. The performance of a landing page is essentially tracked by the rate of conversions that it generates and there are numerous factors that combine to create an effective landing page.

What Should A Landing Page Do?

In short, a landing page should convert visitors to perform your desired action; this desired action could be the purchase of a product, clicking on a link, or signing up for a newsletter. Landing page success is a measure of conversion rate expressed as a percentage. This is the number of conversions as a percentage of the number of visitors. Simply tracking the number of conversions is not an accurate measure because many other factors also determine the number of conversions you will receive – a popular ad will generate more visitors but it is largely the performance of your landing page that makes up its conversion rate.

What Makes A Landing Page Successful?

. Accessibility — A landing page has to be accessible. Good loading times are an absolute must and the most effective marketers know that while Broadband Internet speeds have become more popular, many users are still connected to the Internet via a 64k modem. Pages should also be tested on various browsers, using a number of screen formats, and on different operating system formats. The more people that are prevented from properly viewing your site, the greater your bounce rate. Another facet of accessibility concerns users that are physically disabled including those with poor eyesight.

. Usability — Page usability has become even more of a factor since the obvious rise of Web 2.0 websites. Surfers expect more interaction with the pages that they visit. The important thing for the website owner is that any and all applications and features on the page must work and work well. They should also facilitate an easier or more enjoyable or information stay on your site. Shopping carts, contact forms, and other applications are considered normal practice and they have to be simple but effective to improve conversion rates.

. Persuasive — The web page copy should be concise and persuasive. It should be geared specifically towards the visitors that are most likely to land on that page, and it should convey the benefits of your product and service to those users. Identify and promote your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and CTA (Call To Action). Once you have persuaded visitors the copy and page content should then take your visitor to the next relevant stage in the process.

. Brand Development — Your website brand is important and the home page provides an exceptional opportunity to develop, promote, and maintain your brand. This is done through good design, the use of an appropriate narrative voice, and through other online branding techniques.

. Relevancy — Everything about the landing page should be relevant to the visitor. This is perhaps the most important facet of an optimized landing page. First, you should determine the likes and dislikes, as well as the wants and general requirements, of the visitors to that landing page. Then write the copy, include relevant links and applications, and ensure that those visitors are able to quickly and effortlessly navigate around all of the elements.

Optimized Landing Pages Improve Profits

There’s a time and a place for indirect selling techniques and a time and a place for the direct sale. Depending on how visitors land on a page on your site, it is vital that you determine whether they are looking for information or are more likely to want to delve into the purchasing process and then take action. Optimizing your landing pages will improve conversion rates and, therefore, help increase your profits and performance levels.

Autore
Omaro Ailoch is a senior software engineer, an internet marketing expert, and the founder of OC IT Services http://www.ocitservices.com/ a highly skilled California based web development, design, and search engine optimization firm. OC IT Services has successfully improved ROI for small to large businesses and corporations through the successful streamlining of core business practices and the implementation of SEO strategies.

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Ideally, you should be driving your traffic to a landing page that focuses on conversion. This site should be independent of your main website and its sole purpose should be converting traffic.

A landing page is a single page focused on a single idea. The focus is the action you want the user to take. This action defines your conversion. A conversion could mean a purchase, an email address in a lead generation campaign, or some other clearly defined action.

This article outlines a few guidelines to consider when designing a landing page, but there is no substitute for testing. If you can measure it, you can improve it. You can dramatically increase conversion rates through testing with the Google Website Optimizer.

Layout

Landing pages work best when designed as a single column. You should also ditch any navigation elements. The only choices a landing page should offer a user is to move forward through the conversion process or to leave.

You want to keep momentum moving forward, and not have the eyes wandering all over the page. Multiple columns and navigation kill forward momentum. Other momentum killers are graphics and copy unrelated to the offer.

Keep your critical elements above the fold. The visible elements that the user sees when landing are critical. Research shows you have 8 seconds to convince users to stay on your site. What they see must convince them they are in the right place and give them a reason to stay.

Make sure your call to action is above the fold. Your call to action should repeat for each screen full of data that the user sees while scrolling down the page. Above the fold is also the best place for your hero shot, or product image. Images work best to the left of text.

Headlines

The headline may be the only thing a visitor reads before they leave. This makes the headline the single most important piece of copy on the page. It should be compelling and match the ad copy from the lead, whether the lead is a PPC ad, and email campaign, or a banner ad. Visitors must know in a glance that they have landed in the right place or they will bail.

Most visitors will scan your entire site before deciding whether to read your copy. Design your landing page with scanners in mind. Do your headline and subheads tell your story? Try going through your copy and reading only the headlines and subheads to make sure they are compelling.

Subheads should be included for every major information point. This serves to break up copy and makes reading look like less work. The copy written under each subhead should mirror the major points.

Bullet points are essential for any lists. Don’t just string lists of information between commas in never ending paragraphs. Turn them into bullet point lists.

Forms and Buttons

Never ask for more information than you absolutely need. People are hesitant to give out personal information. Make sure the information you are requesting is relevant and tell the user why it is relevant. Having a visible privacy policy next to any form copy will also help. Whatever commitments to privacy you make you should be prepared to keep.

Test you buttons. Experiment with graphical elements and with button copy. Make sure the copy is compelling. “Submit” is not compelling. Try “Buy it Now” or “Download White Paper”. Just as with link text, button copy should tell the user exactly what happens when they click it.

Testing

The Google Website Optimizer is a free and powerful tool that can measure the effects of different elements on its ability to convert. You should definitely use this tool.

Testing is vital to know what elements work. Guesswork is not an option. Measure your page and tweak elements to increase conversion.

Which Elements to Test

The beauty of multivariate testing is that you can test multiple elements to see what works. But this doesn’t give you license to take a shotgun approach. Here are a few things that can have profound impact on conversions and should always be tested and tweaked:

• Headline Copy

• Calls to Action

• Caption Copy

• Button Copy

• Form Design and Length

• Graphical Elements

• Body Copy

If you’ve done no prior testing I guarantee you that testing and tweaking these elements will at least double your conversions.

Conclusion and Resources

Web landing pages are probably the most critical element in the conversion funnel. Focus on tweaking and testing key copy and page elements. Match the lead copy and the landing page copy, and make a clear and compelling call to action.

The two best resources I can suggest for landing page design are Marketing Sherpa’s Landing Page Handbook and Google’s Website Optimizer. The Landing Page Handbook is a bit pricey, but full of valuable information. The Website Optimizer is priceless and costs you nothing. Be sure and see my article on increasing conversion rates with the Google Website Optimizer for tips on landing page testing.

Autore
Jeff is a copywriter and runs the online marketing agency AdLab Direct. He also publishes the online marketing and copywriting blog AdGeek (http://adgeek.typepad.com).

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