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Got traffic, but no conversion? Take action!

After the answer to the question “Where do I get visitors?” has been found, webmasters are faced with another one: how to turn those visitors into buyers?

The answer lies in landing page optimization, which is performed in several steps:

Preparation

• Measure the existing conversion rate and what’s desirable conversion rate for your site. The average rates often range 1% to 6%. For inspiration, look here for the examples of successful conversion rates.
• Research your audience: where they come from, what they are looking for, and how they navigate through your site. All in all, it will be easier for you to provide your visitors the information they need in the shortest time. For research, use Google Analytics tools or HitLens by Web CEO.
• Think about the type of conversion you expect from your visitors. What exactly should they do? Do you want them to subscribe to a newsletter/newsfeed, fill out a request form, download a file, or buy your product? Most of these targeted actions require from visitors to enter some private data that they may be reluctant to provide. The aim is to convince your visitors that you will give them exactly what they are after and that your site is safe for them to entrust you with their sensitive information. It is important to simplify this process as much as possible. In marketing terminology, you should facilitate your visitors’ movement down the sales funnel as smoothly as you can.

Improve your landing page’s structure and design to make it easy-to-read and follow by your visitors.

• The page should lead a visitor to the logical finish – conversion – so placing all important information in the middle of the page in one column is a smart move. Divide the content into small blocks.
• The font should consist of dark colors (better black) on some light background. Bright font colors on a bright background would be unreadable.
• Do not use brand-new or rare media formats and technologies – they may not be installed in your visitors’ browsers.
• Provide conversion exits several times on a page. If a visitor decides to complete your targeted action at some moment, make it easy for him to do that.
• If you are asking someone to fill out the form, ask for the minimum required information. Make sure not to have a Reset button, which is the first enemy of a good conversion. Captcha tests are the second enemy of a good conversion so try to avoid them. If it’s absolutely necessarily to use one, present a readable generator at all costs.

Look at your page’s contents with your visitors’ eyes.

• Triple check that your landing page link works from the email that you send? You will not only be completely wasting your time, but harming your company’s image if people click on a link and fail entirely to hit the landing page they were supposed to get.
• When visitors arrive at your landing page from a PPC Ad or from an email newsletter, they expect to get what they were promised, so your page should serve them perfectly.
• The contents of the landing page (especially the page title and headlines) should closely relate to or even coincide with the text of the advertisement.
• Teach visitors new things and describe how your product can help. Highlight all the benefits of your product and explain why they should buy/download from you, and not from someone else. Whenever it makes sense, address your visitor’s needs and refer to them as “you” and “your” and avoid the pressing “we”, or “our company”.
• To add credibility, publish your portfolio (for example, a photo gallery), client list or user guide. Include a few testimonials of your product. Take care not to lead the visitor out of your site.
• Try to use the “above the fold” area (the part of the page that ends before you have to scroll down) to place the most important information.
• Provide a clear call to action – use order buttons such as “buy now”, “free download”, and “subscribe to our newsletter”.

Pricing policy

• Your pricing policy should include discounts, special offers, freebies, bonuses and similar things to make it easier for your visitors to cross the threshold and become your customers. Announce your best prices on the landing pages – this will help a potential customer make a quicker buying decision.
• Offer something for free: a special gift package, free delivery, free subscription to a service, a gift token, bonus to account, a demo-lesson, or a demo-version of your product.
• Don’t forget to tell when you will deliver the order: people always want to know how quickly their order will reach them.

Payment options

If your conversion implies an order, think about providing various payment options: people use different services, so make it possible for them to pay as they are used to. This makes them feel safer. Besides, some people may want to pay offline. Include this possibility too.

Split testing

Our above recommendations are good for beginners, and will help you avoid serious mistakes. As you obtain experience, you may try different approaches and create different page versions to see which of them converts visitors better. Change the buttons placement, headlines, body content, and images. Google’s website optimizer is considered to be very good for split testing. Optimize, analyze, fix, and convert!

SEO Companies’ Visibility Rate

Are SEO companies as good as they claim to be on their sites? Will they return the efficiency they promise? Are their skills qualified? The only way to find it out is to check how they optimize and promote their own sites.

Here we share Top 10 SEO Companies according to their search visibility rate for July 2009.

Web CEO analysts use objective evidence to rate SEO firms according to their search engine visibility. SEO companies’ visibility rate is calculated using a special formula that considers the positions of SEO companies’ sites in search engines results pages for the keywords their potential clients use, popularity of these keywords and number of competitors. Learn more about the formula.

What experts say…

Think longer copy when you’re looking to close a sale. Think shorter copy for a subscription sign-up or something that doesn’t necessarily require a cash commitment.

Roberta Rosenberg,
Copyblogger.com