BradPace.com

One big theme of SES was getting user feedback on your site and doing usability studies. Before I get into optimizing landing pages I just want to note that it should actually be your site visitors that are designing your pages. The best page is not one the designer, marketing department or CEO likes best. It is the one that your site visitors like best. And they vote by becoming your customers.

First here are some mistakes to avoid when designing your landing pages.

1. Never ignore your baseline. You need to measure progress against something to know if you are making improvement. I have fallen into this trap before because I think I can remember when I make changes to the site and when I did it. But a week later I can’t remember where I started (or even what I am testing). So you need to keep some type of record. If you are using Google optimizer it will keep track of your baseline for you.
2. Not collecting enough data. Make sure you have a valid sample size to draw valid conclusions.
3. Forgetting about interactions. Interactions are how different elements of your page interact with each other. One headline may match up well with an image for example. And you need both to see the improvement. So don’t do multiple independent A/B tests on the same page. If you have more than one thing on a page to test do a multivariant test. This will test every combination and will tell you which is best taking into account all possible interactions.

Focus your optimization efforts above the fold. This is a mistake I often fall into because I love long sales pages. Long pages work well for single product-single page sites. But most commercial web sites have a much more complex decision making process. Conversions mirror eye tracking studies. So place your most important items where people’s eyes are naturally drawn.

You have to remember that most people on the web have a “blink of the eye” mentality. You only have a precious few seconds to convey your message and draw the user into taking the next step. Leave them a “scent” they cant resist. Before you can convert a user you must first get their attention.

Jamie Roche the president of Offermatica gave some great points on using personalization to improve your conversion rate. I touched on this in my previous post on personalization. But if you know what a user searched for in the search engine, then re-enforce that on your landing page when they get to your site. “You searched for X and we have it in stock!” Here are easiest and best ways that Mr. Roche suggests you use to get started with personalization:

• Give new visitors a different message than return visitors. This is easy to do with a site cookie.
• Affinity – If they enter your site in a specific category then show them information on that same topic the next time they visit.
• Time/Day targeting. Visitors to your site who come during business hours may be very different than visitors coming to your site during the evening or on weekends. Tweek your site experience to best capture these different users.
• Geo targeting. This can be an easy way of providing a personalized message. For example on World Vital Records we should highlight data that is close to where the user is from.
• Paid vs direct. If your user came from a paid source they may need different messaging than if they came from organic search listing.

Mr Roche really enforced that you just need to pick a starting point. Don’t let it overwhelm you. Start small and work into a fully personalized site experience later. But even though you may start small you need to still think big. Have a big personalization strategy and work toward it.

There are several approaches you can take to optimizing your landing pages and your site messaging in general. You can do it in a evolutionary manner where you start with what you have now and make small changes over time. Or you can take a revolutionary approach and test something very different. This method has the largest chance to greatly improve your conversion rates but also has more risk that your test may tank hard. He likes the revolutionary method.

The overall point is that you need to optimize your landing pages with the user in mind. An optimized page means that your site visitors find it more compelling and more useful. The user experience is better and thus the conversion rate goes up. So don’t get lost in the numbers and in individual tests. Think about the user and making improvements for them. Show them what they want and conversion rates will follow.