Optimize Your Site: Tips From Testing to Landing Page Conversion
Landing Page Optimization for Lead-generation Sites
Landing pages for lead-generation sites typically should focus on a single, specific goal: getting the user to register or submit a lead. These types of landing pages should have a minimum of unrelated navigation or content, and should present only relevant, reassuring messages that encourage visitors to immediately and efficiently take the next step in the registration process. There are many similarities to direct mail. Every piece of literature, every page, every image and every word in a direct mail piece serves a very specific purpose. There’s no waste. Everything is focused on getting the recipient to respond. Same goes with lead-generation landing pages.
For Transactional Sites
Transaction sites typically are more involved in nature than lead-generation sites. Often visitors simply are shopping for products/services and haven’t yet reached the stage in the buying cycle where they’re ready to buy. These sites should do their best to steer customers to content that’s relevant to their original search query.
One of the most common mistakes made by SEM marketers is to treat the regular homepage as if it were a landing page. This is tantamount to asking a store clerk where to find “ball-peen hammers” and having him point you out the store’s front door. So visitors’ search engine query for “Panasonic TVs,” for example, could land them on a category or brand page within an electronics retailer’s site. Once visitors are within the relevant part of the site, it’s time to “message” them with such targeted content as buyers’ guides, reviews, cross-sell items, promotions, etc. Unlike a transaction site, the goal of the homepage is to engage visitors, regardless of which stage they’re at in the buying cycle.
Visitors at an early stage (“research”) will almost certainly shop around to other sites. So presenting clear promotional messages, as well as third-party validation (think HACKER SAFE, Better Business Bureau, etc.), will greatly increase the probability visitors will come back again once they’re done shopping around.
