by Daniel Hadaway

In September, Google announced a new factor for landing page quality score that they will be considering when serving up paid search ads. This new factor is whether or not the website for the advertiser is mobile-optimized.

If your website is mobile-optimized, Google is more likely to show your ad higher up in the paid search listings. Google will be determining the quality of your site’s mobile experience based on several factors including:

• Basic Site Navigability
• Prioritization on Content
• Minimal Flash
• Simple Layout
• Mobile-specific Features
• Touch-specific Features
• Landing Page Load Time

The thinking behind this change is that a poor mobile experience will negatively affect a user’s opinion of a brand or company. According to Google, 61% of users are unlikely to return to a website (on a computer or phone!) if they have a poor experience with the site on their mobile phone.

If your website isn’t mobile optimized, and you’re running paid search ads, you may want to consider hiring a professional team to optimize your site. It will lead to more conversions for your business, and a lower cost-per-lead over time!

As crazy as it may seem, the holiday season is almost here. Right now, advertisers everywhere are getting ready to blast consumers from every angle, including online search campaigns. So, what does this mean for us?

The Skinny: It means that now is the time to optimize our campaigns to make sure that our ads aren’t lost in the impending barrage of our competitor’s campaigns. What has traditionally worked well in the past may not be good enough to compete during the holiday madness as the cost of bids are driven up, which can potentially push an ad’s page position down.

The Fatty: Saving a campaign begins and ends with smart campaign management and optimization. Here are some things to watch out for as well as some possible resolutions:

1. Low Click-Thru-Rate (CTR)

• Test multiple ads
• Make ad groups more focused
• Make ads more relevant to keywords and landing pages
• Add negative keywords

2. High Cost-Per-Click (CPC)

• Make sure landing pages are up-to-date and more importantly, make sure that they’re relevant
• Revise ad copy – mention special offers and use call-to-actions
• Lower bids
• Add negative keywords

3. Low Traffic

• Expand keywords
• Increase bids to improve page position
• Expand geographical targeting

4. Low Conversion Rate

• Use dynamic text in ads
• Revise landing pages to better match keywords and ad copy
• Increase bids on well-performing keywords

Keeping a close watch on the performance of running ads and making the appropriate adjustments is essential to having a healthy campaign. By using the above tips you can give yourself the edge over your competition by maintaining or even improving your page ranking and staying visible to your target audience!

While efforts can be made to lead a prospect towards doing business with you via Paid Search, Display Advertising, Social Media, and Email Marketing- none of them are as directly responsible for obtaining new customers as a landing page.

So, what makes a great (effective) landing page? While definitely not exhaustive, here is a list of the Big 3 indicators of landing page success. Get these three items in place, and you’ll be well on your way to a land filled with unicorns, double rainbows, and most importantly: full pockets.

1. Obvious Contact Info

It’s amazing how many aesthetically pleasing, and psychologically convincing landing pages are out there that miss out on this simple concept: Make it easy for customers to call or email you!

Many times a prospect is ready to jump, but has that one nagging question that is holding them up; “Can your product do XYZ?”, “How does your service compare to Company X?”. Answering these questions is often the last hurdle you have to overcome before a potential client turns into a customer.

Why not make it easy for a prospect to get that answer? You should put your contact info near the top (preferably in the header) in a large font, with conspicuous placement so it’s impossible to miss! Remember- with a landing page, you’re rolling out the red carpet for potential customers… Above and beyond is the name of the game here, (we can play Hungry Hungry Hippos later).

2. Clear Call to Action

What is it that you want from a prospect? Do you want them to sign up for an email list? Buy a product? Request a brochure? Something else?

Make sure it’s bold and plain-as-day what the next steps are for your prospects. Having a clear call to action is an easy way to achieve that. If you want people to sign up for your email list, you might say “Sign up for our email list!”.

Craft a clear and concise call to action, then place it prominently on your landing page.

3. Simple Means to Act

Once you’ve told a prospect what you’d like them to do via you newly-awesome call to action, it’s time to give them an easy way to do it.

If you have a form to fill out, make sure you aren’t turning people off by how long the form is, or the depth of information required. Only ask for information that is reasonable and necessary for your business to deliver on your end of the deal.

If your call to action is “Request a Free Brochure”, then have a form only asking for a user’s name and address, (or email address if sending it via email).

If you’d like people to visit your full website, make sure you link to it prominently with a button or some kind of contrasting element.

Bonus Tip: Studies show that users like to be led through what they perceive as a process. Try putting an arrow that points to the right alongside your buttons, links, or form-submit buttons. This small addition can have a huge impact on your landing page click-throughs.

While there’s much more to crafting a stellar landing page than just these three concepts, the items listed above are the bare-minimum to ensure some level of success with your landing pages. If your landing pages are missing these items, take a few minutes to add them. You may just find your bottom line growing – and you’ll finally be able to invest in that unicorn farm you’ve been dreaming about.

If you’re an auto dealership looking to shine a spotlight on your hot new 2010 mid-size SUV lines, then why fill the limited real estate you have for content on your landing page with general information about your brand and dealership?

Because it’s too tempting (and often much easier for busy business owners) to simply re-use existing Website content to populate your landing page. After all, it’s all about driving traffic … right?

It’s a tight-rope walk for most brands. While there is certainly value in establishing the positives that your brand offers potential customers via the content on your landing page, in the end the true value of a landing page all chalks up to relevancy. The more on target and relevant your message is to the solutions, products or services people are actively searching for, the more likely you are to increase your loyal customer base.

So while driving traffic is an essential first step, once you’ve connected with your audience your follow through is even more crucial to converting your audience into customers.

Here are three important questions you should ask before writing your landing page content:

How relevant is your landing content to your PPC ad copy?

Effective PPC marketing is all about relevancy. Creating a positive feedback loop on publishers like Google requires a simple three step process:

1. Keyword and competitive research to help you understand what your targeted prospects are searching for so that you can shift your PPC efforts and provide enticing copy that captures search demand.
2. Write engaging ad copy that is relevant to what your targeted prospects are searching for (if it’s tips on pet training, don’t focus all of your efforts on writing ad copy offering discount puppy chow).
3. Ad copy should be hyper relevant to the content on your landing page, creating a positive feedback loop with both user and search engine.

Relevant ad copy supported by relevant landing page copy = winning formula every time.

Are my headlines both keyword relevant and engaging?

An important litmus test for landing page copy is whether a) the primary headline grabs your attention and entices you to keep reading, and b) your headline is targeted and meaty vs. irrelevant and generalized.

Focus your headlines on the product or service that you are promoting on the landing page. Your headline should both engage the user and tell them exactly what to expect if they continue reading your content.

Am I talking too much about my brand instead of how I can help my audience?

General copy about your company history, while important in helping to establish trust with your audience, is not always best applied in the body of your landing page content.

Cut to the chase. Use bullets to present the benefits of your products and services. Separate chunks of copy into shorter paragraphs using sub headlines. Keep the copy concise and use your landing page content to build a case for conversion – from engaging headline to benefits copy to a stirring call to action.

Simply put, your landing page content should focus all of its energy on helping the user understand why this particular product or service can change their lives, solve a great need or concern, etc. Focus only on the higher points of your company/brand, and risk being relegated to irrelevancy bin ten fold.

After reading through the article, we realized that many of the principles driving these best practices are excellent principles for your business to follow in its online presence.

Here are a few of the best practices discussed and how they relate to an effective web presence:

Links should indicate where they will take the user.

People like to know where a road will take them before turning onto it. Think about how you would feel if you got on an interstate and followed the signs to Indianapolis, but at the end of your trip ended up in Dallas. Now, Dallas is a fine city, but it isn’t where you expected or wanted to go. That’s why it’s important to set proper expectations for your customers.

>Your website is the very first impression most people will get of your business. It’s important that what you present sets a realistic yet flattering expectation of your service or product offering.

Take a few minutes to look over your web site. Better yet, ask a few friends or colleagues to look at your site and tell you what they might expect. Then compare that to your real business offerings. Exercises like these can be invaluable to your business and the results you’re getting from your website.

Ensure Contrast – Links should stand out.

Are you truly standing out from your competition online? Ignoring colors and general layout, is your site all that different from your competition? Are you saying something different or more compelling than others?

Take a look through the lens of an outsider at a few competitors’ websites. If you aren’t sure your’s is standing out, take some steps to change that. It may be as simple as taking a look at what your company really does well and stating that boldly on your home page. Or perhaps it’s even as simple as stating exactly what it is that sets you apart. Don’t be afraid to tell your customers exactly why you’re the best!

Don’t Forget About Visited Links

Once your website has converted prospects into customers, make sure you don’t leave them out in the cold!

Many businesses think of their websites solely as a sales tool, or as a method for converting prospects. While this is a big part of an effective web presence, it isn’t all there is.

No matter how big or small, any company can benefit from offering some type of ongoing interaction with their customers. While there are many ways this ongoing interaction can positively impact your bottom line, one of the most compelling is maintaining top of mind positioning with your customers. If you can stay in touch with your best customers, you can turn satisfied patrons into raving fanatics!

Of course all of these ideas are based just around best practices in link styling on web pages. But it’s a great example of taking concepts from one arena and using them as inspiration for making a business or product better.

What inspires you to constantly improve?

So you’ve got a killer online display and paid search campaign; or maybe you’re starting to gain traction with an email marketing campaign. Congratulations, you’ve managed to create interest in your product or service and motivate prospects to do something very difficult: take action!

Your next challenge is to motivate your prospects to actually buy into your product or service. If the links in your other marketing campaigns are directing customers to the home page of your website, chances are you aren’t seeing the results you’d like from your marketing campaign.

But don’t worry! You can get the results you want through the use of a well-crafted landing page…

Click here to continue reading –

What is a landing page?

A landing page, also known as a lead capture page, is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. The page will usually display content that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link, and that is optimized to feature specific keywords or phrases for indexing by search engines. Basically, it’s a web page custom-tailored to customers coming in through an advertising campaign.

3 Tips to Maximize Your Landing Pages

1. Don’t Give Users a Choice!

While you may have 5 different product options or service plans, you should focus on one option that you will push on your landing page. Studies show that if people feel there are too many choices to consider, they simple won’t choose one at all.

You can still list other options, but make sure one stands out visually from the rest. That way, customers can still choose the option that suits them. If they’re confused, you’ve provided a suggestion that will keep them from choosing none of them!

2. Lasso Eyeballs!

Usability studies and eye-tracking research shows a clear pattern in the way people scan the contents of a web page. Their attention always goes first to the boldest or most contrasting visual element of a page.

What is the one element of your landing page that you want people to focus on? Take that element and surround it in a contrasting color. If you aren’t comfortable changing the colors on your landing page draw an arrow to it, put a circle around it, or put a big check mark next to it… Do something bold to lasso those eyeballs and make sure they see what you want them to see!

3. Show the Next Step

People lose interest fast. No matter how compelling your content is, people simply lose interest after a few seconds. Now, to clarify, they aren’t necessarily losing interest in your product or service, but they quickly grow weary of all of the content on a page if they feel it isn’t leading somewhere. Many people visiting your landing page are already sold on what you have to offer and just want you to get to the point.

A great way to cater to impatient readers is to prominently display the response mechanism that allows them to take the next step in the process. This can be a contact form, a phone number, an email address or even a coupon that can be printed out. This will make users feel as though they are moving forward in a process and are not just being sold to.

These are just a few little additions/changes you can make to your landing pages that will increase conversion rates. If you’d like help crafting your landing page or want a custom landing page from the ground-up, visit our website here and click “Contact”.