I’ve been spending a great deal of time lately reading about landing page optimization. What to do, what not to do, various factors, etc. Based on my research, here are a few factors to keep in mind when working on designing and improving your landing pages:

1) Keep Focused on Your Primary Objective
When writing your copy, laying out your landing page and considering multiple call-to-actions, keep your primary objective in mind at all times. You want to avoid placing strong emphasis on any secondary calls-to-action that draw visitor attention away from the primary objective. In addition, multiple call-to-actions (e.g. offers) can confuse visitors and lead to high drop-off rates.

2) Choose a Clear and High Visibility Headline Placement
Not only is it important to carefully craft your headline, it’s also important to select a highly visible location for your headline on the landing page. Always keep the headline relevant to the primary objective and connect the main text and headline to what visitors are specifically seeking. Don’t make it difficult or too metaphorical. Simple typically beats crafty.

3) Present the Call-to-Action Clearly and Vibrantly Right on the Landing Page
If your primary objective involves filling out a registration form or any other information gathering/search-related call-to-action, place the form clearly on the landing page in a prime real estate location. Draw attention to it via color, images and text. The use of white space is critical because you want visitors to feel at ease with completing the form. Don’t make it feel like a burden with long forms and with information fields that don’t appear relevant to the visitor’s main intent for being on the landing page; You can always get other information later on if you really need it.

4) Reduce Navigational Links
In most cases (e-commerce sites may be the main exception) the less navigational links the better. If you do use navigational links they should be call-to-actions that take the visitors to a second page with a new registration form (or related call-to-action) and some additional detail directly related to the alternative call-to-action link. These links keep the visitor on track with fulfilling your primary objective and help provide some research (e.g. customer insight) about what your main landing page content should focus on.

5) Use Crisp, Eye-attracting Images
Creating highly effective landing pages can be time-consuming to design and develop because of the high-quality images they employ. Landing pages that use crisp images, excellent visual hierarchy and strong relevant photos connect quickly with visitors. Relevant means being directly related to the visitors’ reasons for visiting your website in the first place.

These are just a few landing page optimization factors. Just like designing any new creative, it takes time and knowledge to get it right in a way that produces powerful results. Remember, always be sure to test potential factors to see what works best for your visitors in achieving your primary objectives.

Good luck to you on your landing page optimization!

Successful search engine optimization is very much like a game of tug-of-war; your team will be much better off if you all pull in the same direction. By the same token if you take the time to consider small details in your website’s structure and ensure that all of the details are working together, you will ultimately benefit. I’m going to cover a few of the key elements to successful SEO and show how synergizing your optimization efforts can work for you.

Key Components of SEO
Let’s begin by breaking down some of the key components to search engine optimization, which include the Title Tag, URL, Header Tag, Content, Internal Links, and External Links.

Title Tag
The bar at the top of your browser is probably the single most important component to search engine optimization. Most sites that you find on the Web will say something like “Company Name – Home” in this area. That’s great—if you’re very well branded and only want to be found for your company’s name.

Instead, try putting your most important keywords in this area, and keep it under control. It’s a good idea to try to keep the total character length to less than 68 characters, including spaces. For the purpose of this blog, let’s make up a page. Let’s say this is a website that sells pet supplies, and we’re going to focus specifically on the fish tank page. So, we have www.yoursite.com/fish-tank/. Your title tag is “Fish Tank | Aquarium Rocks | Fish Tanks.” The total character length is 40. That’s pretty short, but it’s concise, and it’s all the keywords I want to focus on for this page. (Please note that this is merely an example. I didn’t research the proper key words at all and so this may not be the best example. It is for the purpose of illustration and nothing more.)

URL
Google seems to be paying more attention to keywords in the URL, so if you don’t already have rankings, if your site is new, or if you are redesigning your site and will be creating new URLs anyway, consider adding some keywords here. Sticking with our previous example, the best choice is www.yoursite.com/fish-tanks/.

Header Tag
The H1 tag is another key element that must be in synergy with the rest. This appears to most Web visitors as the “title” of the page. This header is usually big, bold and describes exactly what’s on the page. Some sites don’t have a headline or title above the copy at all, but having an H1 tag is another key element to proper SEO. Using our example, the H1 of this page is “Fish Tanks.” Are you beginning to notice a pattern?

Content
One of the most obvious components to good SEO is content, and yet many sites are lacking in it. Write 250 words or so of copy that is relevant to that page. Make sure that you’re using the same words/wording as the Title tag, URL, and H1. It’s probably a good idea to use the words “fish tanks” here as well.

Internal Links
If you are going to link from www.yoursite.com to the “fish tank” page, be sure that you use the words “fish tank” in the anchor text on that link.

External Links
Be really careful not to get all “spammy” here. If you can find relevant websites that would link to product/services pages that are relevant for inclusion, that’s fabulous. But do not, I repeat, do not get too focused on one keyword. Get some links to your internal pages from external sites that have “fish tank” in the anchor text and have these sites link to your /fish-tank/ page. Then, go get some other links for the /aquarium-rocks/ page that have the “aquarium rocks” anchor text.

Details, Details!
The point of this is to show that taking a little extra time to create synergy with your title tag, content, headers and linking is the recipe to successful search engine optimization. Of course, this isn’t everything that you need to know for search engine optimization. There are probably around 250 criteria that a search engine might consider to determine which website to rank for a given search phrase.

As always, if you’re unsure of a major change that you’re about to make, please consult with a SEO professional. Reckless changes to a website can have major effects on rankings and ultimately, your bottom line.

On Tuesday July 10th ScanAlert will be releasing its latest research report regarding consumer conversion cycles. I have yet to look over the full report, but from what I’ve gathered thus far it looks like consumers are taking longer these days to convert—80% longer, in fact. According to the report, consumers are now taking an average of 34 hours and 19 minutes to buy products they have found on ecommerce sites, up from 19 hours when the same study was conducted in 2005.

This is surprising news to everyone in the ecommerce industry and should definitely be considered by anyone who is currently measuring their conversion rates according to immediate sales; that kind of instant gratification shopping seems to be a thing of the past and does not give a full picture of one’s sales success. Online shoppers are getting smarter and savvier these days and ecommerce sites need to step it up if they wish to lessen the time gap between first click and sale.

With competition only a few clicks away consumers are now doing a great deal of comparison shopping, and they’re not just looking for the cheapest deal anymore. Studies for the past seven years show that price is rarely the main deciding factor in making the sale. Shoppers are more interested in factors such as shipping speed, guarantees, on-site merchandising, merchant name-brands, and trustworthiness to name but a few.

There are many things you can do help prevent conversion delay. Anne Holland, Content Director of MarketingSherpa.com suggests becoming more human to potential customers. The importance of merchant brand cannot be stressed enough, so it’s wise to place “about us” sections in conspicuous places, and not just on the site’s homepage; with good SEO and SEM, the homepage is often bypassed completely. I suggest placing drop-down menus with the “about us” option on all pages so that it can be accessed from whatever pages are initially clicked from the search engines. Make it personable. Be smart. Be funny. But whatever you do, be memorable.

Really stress the reasons why someone should buy your product or service as opposed to that of your competitor. Do you have any big clients worth noting? Did your company receive some kind of special recognition in the past that might impress potential customers? It’s also wise to include photographs of your company in action because, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words. Also, pictures provide tangible evidence of a real, thriving business which can be helpful in this day and age of rampant internet fraud. Alleviating consumer fears by creating an environment of trust is key and can ultimately lead to quicker conversions.

In addition to having a decent “about us” section, it is also a good idea to collect consumer email addresses as soon as possible rather than at the typical time of checkout; if the consumer doesn’t make it all the way to that point, chances are you’re too late. You can’t rely on consumer memories to get them back to your site. Even if they try looking at their browser history they can easily confuse you with some of your competitors that research shows they’re definitely looking at. And you certainly don’t want them to re-do the search in some engine and click your sponsored link for a second time when you’ve already paid for them to do it the first time, especially when grabbing their emails in the first place is so easy to do. Perhaps you can entice new users with special discounts via email through a DHTML overlay, that way they’ll have a link to your site in their email inbox along with specials that make you stand out. As Anne put it, “If you wait to ask for email permission until the actual checkout, then you’ll miss the opportunity to promote fleeing shoppers.”

It is also a good idea to have some worthwhile content on each of your pages. While not every shopper reads all of the product information provided on an ecommerce site, it’s still wise to provide it. This is especially true if you’re selling big-ticket items; people don’t want to spend a ton of money on a product they know nothing about. The key is to give more information than your competition gives, and this can be anything from product reviews to shipping/in-stock data and everything in between, but don’t rely solely on data feeds from the manufacturer. This is usually not enough information to create conversions. In this case, more is better—always. Even random trivia can do the trick. You can also provide consumer forums where your potential customers can get real, honest product reviews from your past customers. They’ll probably appreciate the honesty which will contribute to that warm, fuzzy atmosphere of trust I spoke about earlier.

Another way to get a leg up on the competition is to offer unique extras and specials that are exclusive to your company and to your website. For example, you might consider offering free gifts to those who purchase a certain amount of your top-selling product, especially if you’re in the business of selling a product that truly can’t be found elsewhere. According to Anne of MarketingSherpa, the “extras” can be as simple as providing PDF format eBooks that have some kind of practical and/or entertainment value to them. Some examples include how-to guides, simple recipes, or expert advice. The trick is to provide gifts that won’t add to your shipping costs (hence the suggestion of downloadable eBooks.) You can also offer up coupons and discounts for subsequent purchases, or anything else that extends your brand. Get creative for the best results.

These are just a few things to think about. Surely more will come up for you when you get a chance to read the full report by ScanAlert when it is released tomorrow. If you have a better understanding of eConsumer behavior, chances are you’ll be able to win the battle against sluggish conversion rates, if not the war.

This has absolutely nothing to do with wholesale, marketing or even the internet, but I feel that it must be said: When you end up playing phone-tag with someone (namely, me) and you are merely returning a missed call, don’t leave a voicemail saying that you’re calling me back. I already know that you’re calling me back from the little message on my phone that says “1 missed call.” Not only is it ridiculous and redundant to leave such voicemails, it’s a waste of my anytime minutes, not to mention my precious time. I know I can’t possibly be alone on this one. It’s like walking into a public restroom and announcing your intention to tinkle. It’s asinine! Don’t do it! Thank you.