Optimize Your Landing Pages, Increase Your Sales

One of the newest and most talked about Internet marketing strategies these days is Landing Page Optimization. Your Landing Page Design can make or break your conversion rate.

All the search engine optimization (SEO) Internet marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising isn’t going to create the sales you want with bad landing pages. You’d be just wasting your time and money.

And the truth is that almost EVERY page on your website is a landing page, except for your Privacy Policy, Terms of Use or Service, and possibly your About page.

I’ve seen websites more than DOUBLE their conversions with landing pages that are properly designed to convert traffic to conversions…those opt-in sign ups and direct sales.

Think about it — doubling your sales without increasing your PPC advertising or without increasing your SEO efforts! How much money could that put in your pocket?

When you take advantage of strategies like that, that’s when you start beating out your competition!

What’s Landing Page Optimization All About?

When searchers come to our websites from the search engines, they are in a path from one website to another.

We have to interrupt that process, drawing these searchers into our website and into our story.

We must balance the connection with our visitors and make an emotional connection, while offering them real substance, as well.

We MUST answer these questions:

1. where am I?

2. what can I do here (what is your offer)?

3. Why should I look here and STAY rather than click away? This MUST be answered in the top 4 to 4/12 inches of your Web pages (above the fold)

How Do You Begin Optimizing Your Landing Page Design?

First, start by clearly explaining what you want your website visitors to do and WHY they should do it.

Why should they buy from you or opt-in for future contact? What’s in it for them?

Why should they choose you over other websites they can visit? What separates you from your competition?

Essentially, what’s your Value Proposition?

You should be able to clearly explain the advantage to your website visitors in 2 to 3 short sentences.

Right now, if you’re not sure exactly how to describe your Value Proposition, you’re surely NOT alone! The great majority of people I coach with their websites are in the same boat, when they start out.

My suggestion: Start brainstorming and making good notes. It also helps to have the input of a Internet marketing consulting coach outside your business, who can help you clearly define and explain what you offer your website visitors in a compelling manner, without using your industry jargon and lingo.

Reduce Anxiety from Your Purchase and Opt-in Processes

Anxiety can also be defined as fear or concern. Now, you can never have a anxiety-free website, if you sell a product or service or if you seek an opt-in email address.

Anxiety occurs in opt-in sign up processes, when providing an email address. When making a purchase, providing credit card information causes anxiety.

But how can you REDUCE the anxiety to the least level possible?

There are many techniques you can follow to accomplish this.

One of the best examples is to post your Privacy Policy page link right next to your sign up button, for your opt-in contact. This helps reassure your visitors you aren’t selling their email address and will generate a higher opt-in conversion rate than not posting your privacy policy, all other things equal.

Other anxiety reducing techniques are:

1. emphasize credit card security when ordering

2. offer pricing guarantees

3. deal with product | service quality concerns with guarantees and third-party certifications, awards, etc.

These techniques must be used at the exact point where the anxiety occurs.

Next, Reducing Friction from Your Web Pages

Friction can also be defined as annoyance and irritation. To maximize your sales and opt-in conversion rate, you need to minimize the friction all across your website.

Friction occurs in the prospect’s MIND, not really on the page.

It is a Psychological resistance to a given element in the sales process.

So, how can you reduce friction?

One way is to limit fields to the minimum number needed for both purchase and opt-in forms. Friction = Length and Difficulty.

While space here limits a complete discussion of all the techniques you can take advantage of, another way to limit friction is to make your landing page design take advantage of natural eye movement, working with it, rather than against it. You’ve got to be careful with multi-column designs.

Wrapping it Up

Consider the value to you of an Internet marketing consulting coach, who can train you to maximize your landing page design, do-it-yourself and at an affordable cost.

Using Landing Page Optimization techniques will help you potentially DOUBLE your conversions…your direct sales and opt-in sign ups…without increasing your PPC advertising expenses and without requiring higher SEO rankings.

This is real money we’re talking about.

This could turn out to be the KEY element missing from your Internet marketing plan.

About the Author

Marketing online since 2004, Paul Marshall knows how to help you market on a budget. He’s an Internet Marketing Consulting Coach offering affordable Landing Page Optimization (LPO) services and d-i-y LPO Coaching. Receive your Free Introductory Consultation, just visit Strategic Web Marketing.net today!

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Landing Pages Examples

Email Marketing Software Boosts Sales with Landing Pages

Email marketing software has clearly proven itself as not only an important component of the marketing mix, but also as a pivotal medium for driving up sales. The Direct Marketing Association recently conducted a study that determined there is a return on investment of almost $50 for every dollar spent on direct email marketing. While that statistic is definitely staggering, it begs the questions: What key elements are important to convert emails into sales? And how do you use your email marketing software to achieve that amazing ROI?

The first goal is always to get people to open your email marketing campaign. For the time being, however, let’s assume you already have a captivated audience that has eagerly opened your message. Once opened, we’ll assume you have spent an adequate amount of time creating compelling copy for your email campaign that clearly explains to your reader exactly what you’re offering. Now comes the important part, where you want to take them from your email and onto your website where you can complete the sale.

Many marketers will include big bold calls to action in their email marketing campaigns that explicitly direct the recipient on what to do next. For example, phases like “Click here now” or “Quick! Click To Buy Now. Limited Quantities Going Fast” are all good calls to action. Other marketers however, take a more passive approach and write something a bit mellower, like “Learn More” or “Additional Information”. Depending on your audience and the product you are selling, you will have to choose an appropriate method. But, if you find one doesn’t work in your email marketing campaigns, then you can always switch to the other.

Just getting them to click is only the beginning of the battle. One of the most important pieces of the puzzle that can make or break your sale and really drive home the effectiveness and ROI of your email marketing campaign is the page you bring the person to, also know as the “landing page”.

A landing page does not have to be your homepage. Most marketers have found that with email marketing, much like search engine marketing, often times a custom landing page just for the specific campaign is the most effective. This is not to say that your homepage is not a good source of information, but it may be so cluttered with other distractions (like other products) that the user gets confused.

A custom landing page for your email marketing campaigns should be directly related to the link that was clicked. For example, if the reader clicks a link talking about a certain type of widget you have for sale, then the landing page should focus almost exclusively on that widget. After all, intuitively we know the user expressed interest in this widget, so why would we take them anywhere else but to the quickest route to close the sale for the widget?

Good landing pages for email marketing campaigns have a few common elements:

1. Less Is More
You may have tons of products and many things you want to say, but please restrain yourself. The old marketing philosophy of “keep it simple” completely applies to landing pages. By the time someone gets to your landing page, they’ve already opened your email and clicked on a link, so the last thing you want to do is make them work even more to find the information they’re looking for.

2. The page is an Extension of The Link They Clicked
When someone clicks a link in your email marketing campaign, they should see information directly related to that link. If someone, for example, clicks on one of your call to action statements about a particular product, the moment they get to your landing page, that product should be staring back at them. If someone clicks a link and then finds themselves looking at totally unrelated information, it takes less than a second to close your website and, suddenly, you’ve lost the sale.

3. Don’t Oversell Your Product and Scare Your Customer Off
While this point does tie into the “less is more” philosophy, it does warrant its own section because all too often businesses will attempt to cram every teeny tiny bit of information onto a webpage. I refer to this as ‘overselling’ because you are presenting the user with so much more information than they need to make the purchase. In fact, it’s just hindering your ability to close the sale. We’ve all probably seen the sales pages on the internet that seem to scroll endlessly, touting benefit after benefit about why a certain product is the greatest product in the world. Those make for the worst kind of landing pages for your email marketing campaigns because every time users have to scroll, they get more time to give up on the sale.

Tell people what they need to know and then stop. If you want to provide a link on your landing page for detailed specifications, that’s totally acceptable, but don’t make your page intimidating because it’s trying to cram so much information into your customer’s mind.

4. Make It Obvious What You Want the User to Do Next
If the goal of your landing page is to get someone to click the ‘buy now’ button, then make sure that button is very obvious. There is absolutely nothing wrong with having a big button on your page that clearly tells the customer ‘I’m the next step’, like ‘Click here to buy now’. If, however, your goal is to generate phone calls, then make sure your phone number is prominently displayed. If people have to guess what the next desired action is, then they may guess wrong or, worse yet, not guess at all and just leave.

With the above tips, you will be able to create well crafted landing page that will help boost the ROI of your email marketing campaigns. Lastly, make sure you are using a quality email marketing software that will track the clicks in your email marketing campaign so you can get instant feedback on the action, from the point users open your email, leading up to the point they get dropped on your landing page.

About the Author

Robert Burko is President of EliteEmail.com, the premiere email marketing software for today’s small business. Robert has been featured on TV and Radio across North America and has consulted for both small & large organizations around the globe to help them achieve maximum results for their email marketing. EliteEmail.com is part of the EliteAnswers.com business solutions network.

Is this an example of symbolism?

I need a symbolism poem, and cant find one. is this an example? do you know any famous poets that use symbolism?

No, Emily Dickinson wasn’t a symbolist poet. Symbolism was a 19th century French phenomenon. Look up the works of Charles Baudelaire, especially his “Fleurs de Mal” (”Flowers of Evil”).

Landing Page Example

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