MMM 4-20-09 Landing Pages, Ten Ways to Keep Your Visitors from Jumping
Has anyone ever told you that your list can make you king of the mountain or bottom of the pit! So how are you getting those names for your list, especially our e-mail list. Most experts will tell you that a landing page specifically designed to capture information is key.
10 Tips on Landing Pages: Keep Your Visitors from Jumping!
1. Follow the layout that works
My mother always used to say, “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So in other words, if you find something that works, be careful what you mess with. If it doesn’t call for fancy, don’t get fancy. Find a template that works for your industry, and duplicate it.
2. Research
Who are the people in your industry, sevice or profession. Google search to find landing page sites on their web sites. You can use Alexa to check out the pages ranking, someone once said anything under a million is good, closer to the thousands is biblical. The combination of this will allow you to see what works for your industry content wise. My friend Becky from Up a Notch Marketing, calls it swipe and deploy. By all means do not plagerize, however you can certainly take the idea and make it your own. Keep the profile of your visitor in mind, when adding content, and target that specifically. Also remember to add keyword rich content.
3. Create a Great Offer
Everyone likes to get something for free. When you are giving something away to inspire prospects to opt in to your e-mail list, it disarms them to the fact that you are also trying to get their money by converting them from suspects to genuine prospects. But make sure it is something good. A great free report not only will get them to opt in but it may get passed around and get others to find you or opt in.
4. Don’t add what isn’t needed
Remember, the purpose of the landing page is to do one thing – and that is get the email address and name of the visitor so that you can build a relationship with them. Distractions can destroy your conversions. Don’t add any other links, and give them a clear message as to what you are offering, and why they should subscribe. That is your only purpose. The only way out, should be to leave, or subscribe.
5 Make sure they know you are a real person!
Don’t know about you but I really like to know what the person looks like that I am doing business with. So by all means ad your picture, if it’s a kid-friendly business, add a family photo, so that prospects know that you know about kids. If you are selling speaker training that add a picture of your speaking.
6. Solve a Problem or Add the Benefits
A great way to get good conversion is to use your text wisely. What problems can you solve? What amazing benefits can you provide? Why is this a can’t live without it offer? You want people to have an iron clad reason to opt in.
7. Eye-line strategy
• What images make your content Pop?
• What is the focus of the page? (i.e. Where is the eye drawn to on the page?) That’s where you want your opt-in button!
• Is the focus on the correct section or item? If not, how can you change the focus? (e.g. change the colour of a call-to-action button to stand out from the page)
• Where is the eyeline on the page? (the eyeline is the line of site that the eye follows on the page when scanning it quickly – e.g. top left to bottom right, right to top left then down the sidebar, etc.)
• What do other MAJOR websites in your industry look like? Once again, look at the most successful websites and “swipe and deploy.” In many industries there are generally accepted designs for particular website types, like journals, newspaper sites, encyclopedias, forums, etc, and if you are designing one of these sites then you MUST take into account what is perceived in the industry to be a credible website.
• You want their eye, to go to the Opt-In
• . In addition, you want all critical information to be above the screen line or virtual fold (the bottom of the screen before scrolling).
• This is not the place for ads, sidebars, navigation bars or much of anything, except getting to the point.
8. You want visitors to know you will not spam them or sell their information.
Make sure you make them immediately aware that you will not use their list for any other purpose than what they are opting in for. You won’t rent, sell, or do anything that would compromise your relationship with the person who now gave you their trust.
9. Opt-in Basics
Optimize your opt-in by making sure you don’t ask for too much. If you are using autoresponders as your campaign to keep in touch, just get email and first name. If you have a high-end product that may require some personal communication, then also ask for a phone number. But in general, less is more.
10. Make it urgent
You want the visitor to think if they don’t opt-in, and pay attention to your offer, then they are missing out on some very important information. You must make the need for them to opt-in time sensistive and get them to feel if they don’t do it now, it’s going to go away. Limited time offer. Ten only or Free to First 100. Also, add additional opt-in bonus for a particular group. First 25 will receive exclusive report on…………… Not only will this increase your conversion rate, but remember everyone likes to get something for free.
Pop Quiz: Market Test and Revise
Make sure that you have a statistics catcher on your landing page with respect to the number of visitors, and the number that opted-in. Pay attention to this and redo and Your landing page should be a work in progress until it works. You should continue reworking your landing page until you get an opt in rate that is helping your business to grow?
These are some questions you can ask yourself about your landing page!
• Have you kept a singular focus so that your reader will not be distracted?
• Have you created a “can’t live without it” offer or reason for guests to opt in?
• Do you have all of the critical elements?
• Have you made sure that your visitors don’t have to scroll beyond the fold?
• Is there any information that you don’t need and is distracting?
• Is this page consistent with your brand?
• Does the whole page make sense and form a thought pattern that works?
Remember your list is king and a great, cohesive, urgency creating landing page can seriously increase your domain.
This blog post can be reproduced in its entirety with the following information:
©, 2009 Joanne Quinn-Smith, Monday Morning Marketeer™ 412-628-5048
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Joanne Quinn-Smith is the Creative Energy Officer of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and an expert on Web 2.0 Branding.
Joanne has also been designated by the 2009 U.S. Small Business Administration as the Small Business Journalist of the Year for her work with information relevant to small business.
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