21 landing page tips shared in #CROchat this year

Image created by #CROchat contributor, @gatzseoIt’s been eight months since we all started gathering on Thursdays at 10am PT/ 1pm ET to discuss conversion optimization in #CROChat. We’ve shared advice on testing, design, personas and more in both the lead gen and ecommerce spaces. And now it’s time to step back and reflect.

#CROchat will be taking a brief pause through the end of the year, and will return with fresh energy and ideas in 2011. That doesn’t mean though we shouldn’t still use the #CROchat tag to talk with each other and share conversion marketing tips. We must never stop sharing and learning! I’ll still frequently be using the #CROChat hashtag and hope you will too.

Here are 21 of my favorite landing page tips shared in #CROchat this year:

1. Some very important things to measure on the landing page include: time spent on page, registration numbers, behaviors (both that lead to conversions and bounces), keyword performance, and number of pages per visit.
2. Some key micro-conversions to track: downloads, social engagements, and video views.
3. To track conversions that take place offline you can use: coupons, promo codes, and tracked phone numbers. You should also train your sales reps to track this kind of info.
4. Getting the wrong people to bounce is a good thing!
5. Test what you measure and see how that impacts the evolution of your campaigns.
6. Conversion rate optimization and SEO balance each other out. 
7. SEO should be followed up by conversion rate optimization. Rankings lead to site traffic, but site traffic does not always lead to conversions.
8. Highly specific conversion bait is likely to be much more specific than link bait.
9. Landing page pet peeves: wrong message, information overload, and poor design.
10. When implementing video, beware of auto-play and make sure your video loads quickly and smoothly.
11. Homemade videos don’t seem to hurt conversions. Test them!
12. When working within a shopping cart, only ask for what you need and store addresses in user accounts when possible.
13. Using a progress bar will help set user expectations when dealing with both multi-part forms and shopping carts.
14. Monitoring Average Order Value (AOV) helps show the quality not just quantity of online sales.
15. Data transparency works when it’s understandable by all and impartial; filtered data is always skewed.
16. Testing price points on the landing page is important because value is in the eye of the beholder.
17. After “what’s in it for me?” the most important question is, “how much?”
18. When it comes to price on the web, the competitor’s price is a search away.
19. Include trust elements and social proof on your landing page to increase conversions.
20. Segment your visitors to increase your ability to provide really targeted information and offers.
21. Analyzing behavioral analytics gives us insight into user behaviors that lead to and away from conversions.

I’m sure we’ll still see each other around the #CROchat watering hole during the next couple of months, and I’ll definitely still be tweeting with you about landing pages from the @ioninteractive account.

Happy tweeting and in the words of frequent #CROchat contributor, Carey Gatz: cro rulez.

Marketers: when you make a promise, deliver on it

I was at the Blue Glass Florida conference early this week, which was a ton of fun. Blue Glass is an online marketing conference that mostly focuses on search and social media. However, Brian Clark from CopyBlogger said something during his session on PR that that instantly brought me back into the world of landing page optimization:

“A great headline is a compelling promise. You have to deliver on that with great content.”

Isn’t that what we say about online ads and landing pages all the time?  You make a promise in your ad to deliver really specific information that will somehow work to resolve an issue or answer a question, and then you have to deliver on that promise. 

You can’t promise chocolate chip cookies and deliver green beans, say it’s all food, and expect the person who asked for cookies to be happy. You can’t write a headline that promises 5 new tips on conversion optimization and deliver the same old tips and expect people to visit your blog again. Similarly, you can’t write an ad that says you’re offering 50% off Widget A and take visitors to a home page that promises 25% off every item in the store and expect that visitor to buy. 

It’s confusing. It’s delivering green beans when someone asked for chocolate chip cookies. 

When you make a promise, whether in a headline, an online ad, or in person, deliver on that promise to build trust, credibility, and a good experience for all.

Do your higher ed lead generation efforts deserve an A+?

The higher education industry is an interesting position regarding landing page optimization—it was one of the first industries to have adopted landing pages.

Traditionally, many schools had purchased student leads from cost per lead (CPL) vendors; however, the lack of exclusivity through vendors warranted the need for schools to start their own in-house lead generation efforts.  Because of this need, many in the education space started using campaign-landing pages when other industries were only just beginning to explore this aspect of online marketing.

Because higher education institutions have now been using landing pages for lead generation for a while, they’re seeing the benefits that come along with online marketing maturity. This marketing maturity means there are some great landing pages out there that have already been through multiple testing cycles, and are driving really high conversions. However, when anyone spends a lot of time heads-down in advanced landing page strategy, it can be easy to forget about the basic stuff that is still necessary for driving conversions.

From the ad to the landing page

One of the most important, basic elements you want to be able to check off on your landing page list is message match. Message match means making sure your landing page copy correlates directly with the ad that the visitor clicked on.  Message match is one of the essential foundations of highly successful landing pages. 

Here are some higher ed landing page examples that demonstrate message match (and message mismatch).

 

The example here does not show a strong correlation between the landing page and ad.  The ad reads “Further Your Career with a Computer Networking diploma” but landing page content is all about the school in general. Remember, you make a promise to offer certain information in an ad, and your landing page must deliver on that promise in order to build trust and credibility, and also to hold the visitor’s interest.

Here the correlation between the ad and landing page is stronger than in the first example. However, the ad promises information on “computer networking classes” so the landing page should mirror phrase that instead of discussing an “Information Systems” degree. 

Here, we see another opportunity for lifting conversions with tighter message match.  The ad promises information on a “future in Computer and IT,” and the landing page delivers information on different “Computer Studies” programs.

While you could make the case that a visitor would understand that starting a degree program in computer studies would lead to a “future in Computer and IT,” you should not expect visitor’s to make that kind of correlation on their own. In fact, most visitor’s simply won’t take the time to make that connection. You have mere seconds to attract and retain a visitor’s interest. Do whatever it takes to help them quickly draw a direct line from the ad that caught their interest to the information on your landing page.

From the landing page to the phone call

While none of these landing pages are particularly bad on their own, improved message match between the ad and landing page would likely increase conversions. That being said, getting the conversion and generating leads through landing pages only brings a return on investment if the leads are responded to in a timely fashion.

A recent survey published in Revenue Performance magazine and conducted by LeadQual, shows that only about 61% of landing page visitors who submitted a form on a higher ed landing page received a follow up phone call.  And for those that received a call, it came an average of seven hours after the form was submitted!  This is bad news for the higher ed industry since further research from LeadQual backed up a study by MIT, shows that:

• Prospective buyers fill out 3-5 lead forms
• The first to contact a lead increases conversion 238%
• Calling a lead more than 5 minutes after a lead submits a form has a 46% lower qualification rate than calling in less than 5 minutes
• Speed of response is the best predictor of a closed transaction

So remember: while using effective message match between ads and landing pages is crucial (as are the other 7 points on our landing page checklist), once that lead is generated, it must be followed up immediately.  After all, attracting the quality lead was the hard part.  The easy part should be contacting them to follow up.

Four Kinds of Keywords that Convert

This is a guest post written by Elisa Gabbert of Wordstream, Inc.

Elisa is the Senior Content Development Manager at WordStream, a provider of Internet marketing software, which includes an advanced keyword research tool for conducting keyword research and organization.

Different types of keywords accomplish different goals. Some keywords are great for driving traffic, others for establishing authority. But if you’re trying to sell a product or service, keywords that convert at a high rate are an enormously valuable marketing asset.

Unfortunately, there are no keyword tools that specifically deliver high-converting keywords. The only way to find those magic keywords that convert for your business is to do your research, test keyword opportunities in your web content, and analyze the results to see what works.

As you track conversions—both sales and other worthwhile goals—you’ll  begin to see patterns, and you’ll be able to predict the type of keywords that will likely drive conversions in the future. Below are four kinds of keywords that convert well for WordStream and might work for you too.

How-To Keywords

If your company’s offering helps people do something (be it managing leads, making iced coffee, or cleaning a pool) how-to keywords could be a big winner for you. For example, WordStream sells keyword management software that helps search engine marketers find, organize and manage keywords for organic search and pay-per-click advertising campaigns; accordingly, some of our highest converting keywords come from people who are searching for something to help them accomplish those tasks. One keyword that resulted in a sale, for example, was “how to create keyword groups.”

How-to keywords are valuable because they reveal a high level of intent—specifically, they indicate that the searcher is looking for information or solutions. You can address this need in a number of different ways, depending on the type of business you run:

A keyword like “how to make iced coffee” will convert at a higher rate than “iced coffee” alone or even “buy iced coffee”  because it prequalifies visitors, ruling out people who are looking for brick-and-mortar coffee shops.

Long-Tail Keywords

How-to keywords are just one subset of the vast world of long-tail keywords that may trigger conversions. All long-tail keywords reveal more intent than so-called head terms, and as such, we can often find pockets of long-tail keywords that are more often used by people that are late in the buying cycle. Notice how the longer this keyword gets, the more we know about the searcher and what they want:

tea —> herbal tea  —> caffeine-free herbal tea —> buy caffeine-free herbal tea —> where to buy exotic caffeine-free herbal tea

Of course, not all long-tail keywords are necessarily going to work for you. A good way to find viable long-tail keywords is by using the broad match option in your PPC campaigns—just be sure to use negative keywords as well so you don’t waste a lot of money on irrelevant queries.

“Best” Keywords

We’d all like to believe that we’re the best at what we do, right? Believe me, your customers would like to believe that too. No one wants to feel like they paid good money for the third best product on the market, at least not at that price point.

A lot of people search for “the best” version of whatever product or service they are looking for. For example, one WordStream customer searched for “best free keyword organizer” – perhaps dispelling the myth that “free” keywords never lead to sales?

Consider working “best” keywords into your website copy and bidding on “best” keywords in your PPC campaigns. “Best” versions of the above examples might include “best way to learn AdWords,” “best CRM software,” “best hotel deals,” or “best cold-brew coffee makers.”

Brand Keywords

Maybe it’s stating the obvious, but your own branded keywords do convert—especially for organic search, but occasionally through paid search as well. When someone searches on your brand, they have obviously already learned about you, either through previous visits to your site, via your social media efforts, or via links, reviews, or testimonials on third-party sites. Whatever the reason, the searcher has decided they are ready to buy and want to go directly to your site to do so.

To turn brand searches into conversions, make sure you own the real estate at the top of the SERP for those queries. This is important, because searches for a particular brand can sometimes lead to conversions on a competitor’s site! You’ll also want to make sure that once a visitor arrives at your site from a brand search, there is a clear path to follow the desired course of action.

We would love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment below or send a message to @ioninteractive and @wordstream!

An example of e-commerce landing pages with segmentation

Last week we showed you an example of segmentation by role and situation, now we’ll preview segmentation for e-commerce. 

Iomega produces external, portable and networking storage drives and disks. Their product line ranges from basic storage for home users who want to save music and movies, to office units that can provide full network backup. 

A home user looking to save a few CD’s isn’t likely to need a large 2 or 3TB external hard drive, so why even inundate them with those choices? Similarly, office users are unlikely to be interested in small 500GB drives. In order to be super relevant, offer only the choices that make the most sense. 

Iomega Allows users to segment themselves in order to receive highly targeted product options. 

Here are two landing pages that segment users:

Once the user places themselves into the right bucket, they are presented with a pitch page that speaks specifically to their needs. The pitch pages allow users to add products straight to a shopping cart. 

For example, if a user clicked the office option he or she would see this pitch page:

This specific messaging relates the Iomega product to the user’s needs - resulting in really powerful persuasion, and high conversion rates.

To see larger versions of these pages, check out our Iomega portfolio.