Unfortunately, there’s one little problem – I’ve never actually bought anything from there. And judging from the curious yet empty-handed shoppers around me, they haven’t either. In web terms, this store would have a pretty low conversion rate. Sorry to disappoint the religious types out there, but this has nothing to do with a change in religion. (Though I do have a feeling the number of people converting to “Mysticism” after entering the store is also fairly low.) Rather, it’s the amount of people “browsing” that actually become paying customers. However, in the case of most websites, (and this shop) the problem isn’t what you’re selling, but how you’re selling it.

If you think of your website’s ads like this shopfront, your customers as me (I realize this would mean that you’d have an unusually good-looking customer pool; try and disregard this for the sake of the metaphor), and your landing pages as this shop, you’ll have a pretty good idea of why there’s more to making money than just drawing people to your webpage. And as much as it might be satisfying to have the average internet trekker admiring your site, I bet it could be even more satisfying to have that wayward traveler doling out some money for your services. Here’s a few strategies to turn website window-shoppers into eagerly paying patrons:

Figure out your current conversion rate. Ahh! Anything but math! Don’t freak out – no matter how many calculator-filled nightmares you’ve had recently (like that particularly scary one where you’re trapped inside the square root symbol), this math should be pretty elementary. All you need to do is divide the amount of people actually buying something from your website by the number of visitors clicking on the ad that led there. So if you’ve got 100 people clicking your ad a day (you popular guy, you) and five paying customers, that’s a conversion rate of 5%. Not too shabby.

Learn why some visitors paid for your services (and others didn’t). Whether you do this from quick little online questionnaires or telepathy (personally, I recommend the first option), gaining some intel on what people like and hate about your site and its landing pages is an important step towards improving your conversion rate. By asking questions like “Do you find us visually appealing?” and “Before you go, could you tell us why you didn’t stick around longer?” you’ll be well on your way towards learning what you can do to improve your webpage (and your marriage, for that matter).

Take a casual stroll past your competitors’ websites. While your gourmet Twizzler business may have once stood alone in the industry, expensive ways to get cavities is a growing fad. And even though no one’s arguing that you make incredible licorice, your competitors might have a landing page or candy-vending strategy that’s attracting all the customers. “Know thy enemy” applies well here.

Make some experimental changes to your website itself. Release your inner mad-scientist – this is your chance to get creative and make some edits to your layout based on the previous steps. (You’ve been following those steps exactly, right? I’ve got my eye on you.) Try for changes that make your website more user-friendly, more modern, and more tasty (assuming we’re still discussing your gourmet Twizzlers).

Observe, analyze, and repeat. After giving it some time (these things don’t happen overnight, you know), compare your current conversion rate to the one you calculated before. Any improvements? By trying out different marketing strategies on separate landing pages you should be able figure out which ones your customers like the most and which ones send them running.

Increasing your conversion rates can be easier than you think – all it requires is taking a look around, making some smart changes, and shaking the virtual hands of all your new customers. Good luck!

“Sure”, I replied, and he directed me toward the fridge. I yanked open the oversized door and realized that, to my dismay, Ben’s giant fridge also contained a giant jumble of food. And while a first glance yielded fruit, meatloaf, and an impressive array of cheeses, can of Coke was nowhere in sight. I feebly threaded my hand past some milk, brushing aside what might have once been Chinese food.

“Try the back left!” Ben called encouragingly, not realizing that the back left of his fridge had a surface area similar in size to my house. I made a final blind grab, coming up with a bottle of ketchup. Discouraged, I decided that this can of Coke wasn’t worth the trouble. Now, here’s what you may want to be asking yourself: do potential customers see your website like Ben’s fridge?

While I assume your website smells better, your site might be just as confusing and difficult to navigate. Are customers left to fend for themselves while they wander your site looking for a product or deal you offered? Internet shoppers (and can of Coke-getters) are notorious for having tiny attention spans, and a confusing or even just large website might have potential clients getting lost and not becoming paying customers. Luckily, there’s an easy solution: landing pages.

Landing pages are a surprisingly simple concept with huge benefits, much like organizing your fridge or remembering to call your girlfriend on her birthday. Essentially, landing pages are straightforward, easy-to-read webpages that offer customers quick access to a specific buy or call to action. Ideally, you’ll want to set up a specific landing page for each marketing campaign or target audience – there’s nothing more frustrating to a consumer than stumbling through a complex website after clicking an ad.  Instead of ripping out their hair, here’s how to make a landing page that will give those new clients a pain-free experience signing up for your offer (unless, of course, you run an online body-waxing company and hair removal is actually your goal):

Make sure your ads lead directly to a landing page. As much as you might want to give customers the grand tour of your site, you’re likely to lose them if finding the page that has what you advertised is several clicks away. By linking directly to your landing page, you give your viewers no chance of escape, no chance to run as they’re slowly sucked into the subliminal depths of – ahem. You get the point.

Keep your landing pages simple yet vibrant. Much like making a first impression on a date, overloading your customers with navigation links and technical jargon can really distract from what you’re actually offering. Just like it’s probably not a good dating technique to immediately discuss your shrunken head collection, lots of extra information can sidetrack a potential buyer. On the other hand, you’re trying to grab the viewer’s attention – excluding the small ninja dating pool, wearing all black is unlikely to impress your date. Landing pages work on the same principle: go for big, energetic pictures and bold color schemes.

Include a way to reel in some contact information. I  call these a “Lead Magent”, this is one of those easy-to-fill-in forms that would at least include a name and an email address. Whether you’re actually selling a product through your landing page or offering some free stuff (eBooks, vouchers, free cake), the point is to get a customer’s contact information so you can get in touch with them again later.

Long story short, landing pages can buy you happiness. Well, not exactly. But they’re a great way to give customers a simple, efficient way to follow an ad and to compile some contact information. And while the concept of a landing page might not work so well with respect to fridge organization (I’ve since started bringing my own Can of Cokes to Ben’s place), your customers will thank you for the convenience and you’ll thank them for their money.

Essentially, backlinking refers to the other websites out there that have links to your own site. If OrganicGiraffeFood.com has a link on their site that leads to your giraffe raising blog, that’s a backlink. In Google’s eyes, this is a big plus for you – it means that another site approves of you and has given you some “street cred”. (On the downside, it’s getting really hard to fit all those giraffes in your garage.) Google, through use of some complicated algorithms and presumably the help of Santa, takes into account all the sites backlinking to yours when someone makes a search that has to do with your website’s content. Simply put, the more backlinks you have, the higher up you’ll appear in the search results. Of course, nothing is ever so simple – there’s more to backlinking than meets the eye. (And to giraffe raising, unfortunately – who knew you had to brush their teeth three times a day?)

Backlinking falls into the “Off-Page” zone of SEO, meaning it deals with the all the hubbub and gossip about your site rather than your site itself. If you thought your reputation mattered in high school, you’re in for a surprise – your site’s online “reputation” is a huge factor in how you rank in the search results. (Cheer up – at least your site doesn’t have to deal with your 9^th grade nickname “Mr. Bubbles”.) Google gauges your online status by the amount and types of backlinks you have leading to your website. However, search engines can be quite skeptical of a site’s credibility, and convincing Google that you really are a hip and popular dude among other sites can be a challenge. Here’s a few ways to make it onto Google’s VIP list:

Realize the importance of backlinks from well-respected sites. Just like Beckham endorsing a shoe brand will probably have more effect than the approval of your little brother’s entire rec soccer team, having one prestigious or popular site linking to your own will probably be more effective than a few hundred backlinks coming from random little outposts in the internet tundra.

Have backlinks with relevant anchor text. Anchor text, for all you landlubbers out there, are the actual words you click on that link you to another page. Anchor text that has something to do with the page it’s linking to will be far more of an effective backlink than one that just reads “Click Here!” Your anchor text can have all the exclamation points, bold font and shrimp cocktail you want, but the search engine is still going to go for the link with content-related anchor text. And besides, Google hates seafood.

Don’t spam the internet with 100’s of backlinks to your site. As much as they might seem similar in knowledge and girth, Google is not your grandmother. You can’t just pull a fast one and hope they’ll turn a blind eye (if your grandmother is actually blind, I apologize). It’s a bad idea to create a bunch of artificial links to your site – not only will Google see through this sneaky little ruse, but it might result in your site getting temporarily banned from the search results. This dreaded sentence, a sort of virtual keel-hauling if you will, is referred to as being “sandboxed”. (Coincidentally, keeping me in the sandbox was my grandmother’s favorite form of punishment.)

Gathering your backlink reputation can be a slow process, both in getting other sites to link to yours and in persuading Google that you’re worth a spot on its already overfilled plate. But in the long run, it’s worth it – maybe one day you’ll be the website others swoon at the idea of a backlink from. Hand them out wisely.

In addition to being the name of my heavy-metal band (the Silk Eggplant Odors), SEO can be the difference between your website’s success and having it slowly decompose in a lonely corner of the internet. SEO stands for “Search Engine Optimization”, and essentially refers to getting your website to show up when people make relevant searches on Google.

People often overlook the importance of SEO – sure, having a cool and interesting website can be a big plus. However, unless you’re lucky enough to be maintaining a telepathic connection with your potential clients (a rare yet useful skill) then helping people to find your site in the first place should be a priority. That’s where SEO comes in handy.

“Fine,” you’re probably saying, as you slowly sip your latte. (Mocha? Nice choice.) “If this SEO thing is so important, how does it work?” Luckily enough for you and your beverage, it’s pretty simple to put into practice – SEO is all about making yourself look your best in Google’s eyes. (Your website, that is – you already look stunning. Do you work out?) Think of Google like the middle-school diva that controls the social scene. She’s got a rep to keep up, so she’ll be choosing the “popular crowd” based on two main factors: good looks and social connections. (Shallow, I know – Google never was the sensitive type. Don’t worry, by high school she’s gained 30 pounds and eats lunch in the corner.) Seeing as you desperately want to start having a presence in the middle school halls (and in internet search results, if you’ve been following this metaphor), making yourself “desirable” for Miss Google is going to be your best bet.

First, let’s talk about the obvious – Google is looking for a website that looks good. Or, more precisely, Google is trying to find a website that looks like it matches up with the search that it’s conducting. The more “relevant” your site appears, the more attention Google will pay to you, and the higher up you’ll see your site appearing in the search results. Clearly, it’s time for a makeover. Editing the content and layout of your site itself is called “On-Page SEO”, and is one of the most effective ways to make it more attractive to Google. In our secondary school metaphor this would involve getting rid of your bowl-cut and telling your mom it’s time she stopped dressing you. In website terms this means filling your site with effective keywords/keyphrases, having relevant titles, and streamlining the layout of your site. Of course, even a preteen supermodel will still be a nobody if they don’t have friends – social connections are the next step.

Google, being the all-knowing entity that it is, will rate the value of your site partially based on how much it thinks other sites like you. This is called “Off-Page SEO” and is determined by whether or not your site was invited to the annual May Day “Website Pool Party”. (Didn’t know there was one? There’s your problem.) Actually, Google mainly rates your site’s relevance and popularity by the amount of links to your site from other websites. If another site links to yours, it generally means they’re giving you their stamp of approval, much like how one the rugby team giving you a high-five might mean you’ll only receive a normal wedgie today (as opposed to the customary “Ultimate Wedgie”). Google sees these links and adjusts how you rank in the search results accordingly.

Of course, optimizing your webpage for both On-Page and Off-Page SEO can be a fairly in-depth process. However, with a little bit of time, creativity, and improved content you’ll be well on your way to a date with Miss Google herself.

Landing Page Testing 

The Pierce Brosnan Strategy

Does your landing page look the part? Before you get to the meat and potatoes of keyword density, design strategy and optimization bets practices, your landing page has to appear worthy of the customer’s business.

It may sound superficial but, the fact is, the average bounce rate for websites is over 50 percent. That means over half of the people that see your website pages are going to take a glance and, almost immediately, “bounce” to another site. The overall look of your site has to be impressive enough to get users to stick around to see your content.

The Helen Mirren” Strategy
Now we get to the actual process of landing page testing. There are many tried-and-true strategies that all webmasters know will work. Without these proven methods you will not be able to get your foot in the door.

The great news for business owners is that Google has a profound grasp of these practices and is more than happy to share their expertise with you. The rundown of strategies reads something like Mirren’s perfectly-honed talent and timing.

• Headlines – The headlines you use have to be attractive, either emotionally or practically. Short headlines are okay at times but, for the most part, longer headlines are more effective because they are your chance to pull the viewer in before they leave the page.
• Body – You have to reinforce and backup the promises and material that you stated in your headlines. This may seem obvious but you must understand that web users are extremely cautious of spam sites and spam webmasters are equally clever at designing tricky pages. This means your body has to convince the user that you are not only legitimate but trustworthy and a great source of reliable information.
• Call to Action – And once you have their dedicated attention, follow through with the perfect look and delivery. Make it easy for the viewer to act how you would like them. What I mean is, the fewer the number of clicks required to make a purchase or register for mailouts, the better.

Google, like a great movie director, has a great landing page testing tool for trying these strategies on your pages.

The Ricky Gervais Strategy
Beyond the standard tools, it is sometimes a good idea to go outside the box. The key here is to listen to your users; don’t just decide on your own that the idea is great and stick with it through thick and thin. Make it easy for them to provide feedback, make the desired improvements where necessary and then take more feedback.

If there are two ideas your considering, put them both up and let the users tell you, through clicks or votes or money, which they like better. Then listen to what they say and implement it. What it comes down to is being open-minded and creative to come up with something effective and entertaining.

Of course, this is just a short overview of some landing page testing strategies. What you should take from it is that you must test your page and be open to making changes. Don’t be afraid to be original but only within the context of what web users will appreciate.

“What is a landing page?”

It’s always an adventure when I attempt to explain the internet, the computer, well, anything technological to her. She’s an intelligent woman but, for some reason, simply can’t grasp the ins-and-outs of the worldwide web. As such, I’ve had to become a bit creative when addressing these subjects so she can understand what I’m talking about. But more on that in a minute.

If you own or operate an online business, you have probably experienced the joys and pains of watching traffic and sales go up and down without any discernible pattern. Traffic is not a direct measure of sales because it can consist of such a wide range of users that you don’t know who they are and why they are/aren’t buying. It’s a bit like trying to guess how many people have visited your home by counting the number of cars that have driven past your house. Or, at least that’s how I explained it to my mum!

When you invite someone to your house you always give them a specific address and usually a time and date to be there. For example, if you have a dinner party, the visitors are coming for a particular purpose so you wouldn’t just tell them the name of your neighbourhood or tell them you’re having dinner, when really you’ll be serving breakfast! The same is true for online businesses.

Getting Specific Users to Specific Places

We’ll use Pay-Per-Click programs as an example but these rules hold true for all other types of online marketing as well. When a visitor clicks an ad you’ve posted on an external site, they have done so because they are interested in the exact service or product on the ad. To stick with the above metaphor, they’re not just coming to see the holiday lights on your street. Your website didn’t attract their attention; your ad did. If you send them directly to a landing page that pertains to that purpose, you’ll convert a higher percentage of them to customers and they’ll have a better experience on your site. Simply because you’re addressing what interests them as a visitor.

Importance of Not Sending Them to Your Home Page

To put it shortly, the reason online businesses exist is to make sales. You want to catch traffic that will turn into buyers so you have to provide the means for them to do so. Your home page should be a well-designed guide to your site but, in this instance, you can skip that step because the ad you posted has already filtered the traffic for you. They’ve already told them what they want to see. If you send them to the home page, you’re making them do that all over again.

Separate Landing Pages for Each Channel

Let’s return to the question of, “What is a landing page?” To make it easier to understand, you may refer to them by their other name: lead capture pages. It is a page that is designed to give the user the information they want, provide them with a call to action and get them to follow the act to the end. With this in mind, each product or service needs its own landing page because they need to be dedicated, simple and straight to the point. If a page has too many products or features, break it into more than one page so the experience is focused and simple.

So, “What is a Landing Page?”

Landing pages, therefore, are the time, date and address for your online dinner party and they will bring you the gifts of higher conversion rates, increased sales, decreased marketing costs and a better reputation.

Still curious as to what is landing page optimization?

OK. Lets break it down in easy to understand terms. When a potential customer clicks on an web banner or search engine result, it takes them to a webpage. This webpage is called the landing page.

The optimization part is the act of making more people do what YOU want when they hit that page.

See, told you it was easy to understand! So lets carry on and relate it to an example.

Let’s say that as a business owner you get 100 people to “land” on one of your pages and 1% of those BUY or pick up the phone.

Cracking, you made one sale out of a hundred, good start.

But then lets say we change things around a bit on the page that they land on. Maybe a new headline, different images, some testimonials and with the new re-design 5% buy…

Holy Cow!

That now means 5 people have brought, and you have increased your sales by FIVE times just by taking the time to switch a few things around.

Now take note, your makerting / advertising costs have stayed the same but you are getting 4 more sales in every 100 with NO extra visitors – good eh!

Imagine if you tweaked your page a bit more and got 10% or 20% of people to covert or buy. With no extra marketing costs your rapidly increasing sales and lead generation.

So in a nutshell, landing page optimisation is the testing and tweaking of your website pages to make sure you get more sales – simple!

So what can you do to optimize your landing pages?

There are several ways you can improve your landing page without paying a small fortune or reworking your entire website.

First of all, consider what your potential client is looking for or what your target audience is wanting. Once you have this information, you can use it to customize your landing page to those specific needs. This will allow the potential customer to find what they were originally looking for on the landing page. If the customer has found the information on your landing page, it is less likely they will hit the back button and move on to your competitor’s website. In addition, when optimizing your landing page refrain from overly obvious sales pitches. Most customers find these annoying and will simply look elsewhere (such as your competitors) to spend their hard earned cash.

Since you now know what is landing page optimization you are probably asking yourself where you should use it?

Our advice is use landing page optimization whenever you can control where the potential client is coming from. For example, always use landing pages on page linked to from your banners, ads, sponsored links, pay per clicks, registration and sales. Furthermore, do not forget to optimize the landing page linked to from any offline campaigns that you might be running. Using urls on ads such as www.examplecompany.com/TV on a tv campaign is a great way to get potential customers to a specific page that you can highly optimize for conversion or lead generation.

In a perfect world each of your marketing channels or campaigns should have it’s own landing page, to make sure that visitors are getting the exact information they want as soon as they hit your site. As an example let’s take a clothes shop targeting the following PPC keywords:

Search term “T-shirts” – Should land on a generic T-shirt page

Search term “Mens T-shirt” – Should land in the mens t-shirt section

Search term “Mens Blue Tommy Hilfiger shirt” – Should land on the specific product page

Since you now have a little more knowledge on what is landing page optimization, take this information and compare it to your business’s website. Are your landing pages designed with the needs of your costumers in mind? If not, than you are missing out on potential sales and earnings.

When an Internet user lands on your business’s website, that user will stick around for only a few seconds before deciding either:

A) to stay and continue looking around or

B) to click away.

While a strong headline on a landing page, blog post or other piece of copy will capture a reader’s attention, prompting that reader to choose option (A), a weak headline will have readers scrambling for option (B).

Of course, as your business’s objective is to boost conversion rates, and – in turn – boost sales, option (B) must be avoided at all costs.

Average conversion rates for business websites range between 5 and 10 percent. For many business owners, such figures seem pretty decent. However, if you refuse to settle for conversion rate mediocrity, creating killer headlines can help your business achieve rates of 15 percent, 20 percent, 25 percent and beyond. When coupled with engaging, persuasive website copy, headlines can help conversion rates sky rocket.

Below are some headline writing tips and tricks for boosting conversion rates on your business’s website.

Keywords Are Key: In addition to boosting search engine-optimization (SEO) — so that potential customers can find your business’s website copy more easily when searching the web — incorporating keywords into your headlines will let your audience know that they have found what they’re looking for. For example, if you’re writing an article on how headlines impact conversion rates, “headlines” and “conversion rates” should be right in the headline (see above). Don’t make obscure references to the subject matter: spell it out so your audience knows what they’re in for (otherwise they might not continue reading).

Incentive, Incentive, Incentive: Keeping with the notion of spelling it out for your online audience, a strong headline needs to give your audience an incentive to continue reading. When crafting a headline, put yourself in the shoes of a potential customer and ask, “What’s in it for me?” A headline that boosts conversion rates will succinctly explain how your products/services can benefit customers and/or why your products/services are superior to those of your competitors.

Lights, Camera, Actionable: To ensure that your headline captures the attention of potential customers, avoid using passive phrases. Instead, your headline should be actionable and contain verbs and action words. For example, while customers will know what to expect when they read the passive headline “Copywriting Tips,” they will — very likely — be more drawn to an actionable headline that reads, “Learn How to Optimize Your Copywriting by Following These 5 Steps.”

Powerful Prose: Never shy away from your expertise when crafting a headline. If you want to boost conversion rates, you need to show your audience that you are an authority on the topic that you are writing about. To do this, avoid wishy-washy terminology and use “power” words like “must” and “best.” For example, a powerful headline could start with the phrases, “The Top 3 Things You Must Know About… “ or, “The Best Solutions For …”

Landing Page Lingo: For boosting conversion rates on landing pages that are directed from pay-per-click (PPC) ads or other forms of advertising, make sure that page headlines reflect what those ads promised (otherwise, potential customers might not realize that they are in the right place). To ensure that an ad phrase and its corresponding landing page headline sync up, you could repeat the ad phrase in the headline or answer a question in the headline that is asked in the ad phrase.

Transcribed from video:

Hey, guys. How is it going? It’s Charlie here from Hutchinson Web Design. Today what we’re going to take a look at is something called lead magnets. This is on the back of some work we’ve been doing for a customer recently, trying to get more people to opt in to their main list so that they can follow up them up with sort of like automated email campaigns as well as just making sure that they can extend their prospect list really of people that they can follow up with to sell their services too.

So I’m not too sure how much everyone is aware but roughly the average conversion rate, if you’ve got some sort of lead form or lead capture on your website or webpage, if you’re driving traffic via something like pay per click, SEO, Twitter or something like that, you’re probably looking at about a conversion rate of five to eight percent which obviously if you’re spending money to drive traffic to a site, get in like less than half or less than one in every 10 people signing up. The numbers don’t necessarily always work out depending on what your method to get the traffic there.

So this was the trouble that one of our clients were facing. They came to us wanting to get more bang for their buck on what they were doing online as I said so they could build up a bigger list and obviously make sure they could get more follow-up as well. Now what they did have, they did have some sort of general opt-in stuff or newsletter form on their website that wasn’t really doing too much. But what really interests us was the pretty strong Twitter following.

Their Twitter account had about 2000 followers on it. They were updating that everyday with tweets pointing out to different articles and reference points and whatever it might be. So it’s a pretty good account with a pretty solid following on it as well and all of this time, the stuff that they were tweeting out were getting retweeted by their followers as well. So it gave us a good indication that the actual people that were following them were fairly engaged with what they were doing.

So the company that we’re talking about, it’s a company called Studio HDRI Maps and what these guys do is they sell into the 3D or like CG arena. They have an online store where they sell sort of like digital downloads. Now these are maps that go into a lot of 3D applications that their customers use. So what we suggested they did was they started with a promotional giveaway giving away three of these HDRI maps sort of like a taster in exchange for an email address; the obvious idea being they can then follow up these customers or these potential customers with some sort of sales process.

So they were onboard. They were game. We thought rather than to do this to the website, they get quite a lot of visitors to the website already. Let’s track and see what we could do on Twitter. So what we did was we set up a schedule of tweets to go out over a seven-day period. The first one being, “Want free HDRIs? Download three on us for free,” with a link going to a landing page and then the second one was, “We’re in a good mood. Three free HDRIs on us,” again with a link going through.

As I said, this link pointed to a specific landing page which was this one here. So all traffic ended up here and in total, I think we sent 1245 visitors to this page from these links. As you see, it’s a very, very simple landing page. Nothing to do with the main website and it’s purely about this offer that we’re talking about and no external links go anywhere else. So once someone is on this page, they’ve either got to take action or they’ve got to leave the page altogether.

As I said, very simple page. The key elements of  which is a Twitter exclusive badge which makes anyone think that they’re coming from this link that is purely for the Twitter followers. So it’s not open to the general public which again gives a nice message to people landing and we’ve got a nice big headline here again through that we talked about and all we ask for is a name and an email address and then a big massive call-to-action button underneath.

Now once they click this button, they go through and they have to confirm their email address for the double opt-in. Now on the back of that with 1245 visitors, double-opted in, we had 584 people complete that process. That’s 584 names and email addresses of people within a week from that 1245 visitors.

So what does that acquaint to? In general terms, that is roughly a conversion rate of 46 percent all because of the free giveaway and the fact as I said – not the most – not probably the best-designed landing page out there but the key elements were there. Nothing too fancy but it did the job. So as I said, a 46 percent conversion rate on that compared to your typical five to eight percent.

So I guess the moral of this story is if you’re looking to try and catch your visitor information, leads or whatever it might be from your website, even if you’re trying to get people to fill out a quote form, make sure there’s some sort of incentive for them. It could be a free ebook, a few sample of your product. It could be like a three hours consultation or whatever it might be or it could be a free voucher, 10 percent off your first purchase or whatever it might be. But as I said, this sort of incentives are fantastic for getting people to take action and obviously if people take action on this sort of style form here, what is going to happen is you are going to then follow them up using their credentials.

So that’s it. As I said, the moral of the story is if you want a better conversion rate, get someone to a page where they can get some sort of incentive to download, where you can follow them up at a later stage. It’s a great technique to use. As I said, the numbers speak for themselves.

As always, any questions, feel free to get in contact. Leave them in the comments section below. We look forward to hearing from you. Thank you very much.

Transcribed from video:

Hey guys! How are things going?  This is Charlie here from Hutchinson Web Design.

What we are going to today is take a look at a landing page that we recently designed for a voucher download for the pub, UK pub rent Chef and Brewer.

Basically what we are going to do is talk through the page layout, why is it set out like it is and why everything is laid out like it is.  It might seem like a simple thing for download page.  Pretty much you would think you need a big button, but (laughs) but, that is not necessary.

The case here today, we are going to take a look at the anatomy of the landing page why is it set up and hopefully you guys can take something away from what we are going to do.

So here is our page.  This page will be visited by people who get sent an email on their opting list.  So people there will get offer this, this offer which is 5 £ off of a food bill when they spend 20 £ or more.  So people get the email.  They will click the link in the email, then they get presented with this page where the goal is to get them to click this button and once they click that button they will get automatically will be able to download a PDF for their voucher which they can then print and take into the pub and receive their discount.

So let’s have a quick look at the main elements of the page.  We have got to look at here, a big headline, obviously a download button, some sort of hurry message and then what the customer needs to do and a bit of credibility the buttons for those people that don’t have the PDF so far.  So with those elements in mind why is everything laid out like it is?  For those of you that run away we sort of view a webpage in an F type pattern.  So we normally, so I will start here, we will come across this way down the page, across a little bit, down further and then normally back up here.  So this is a lot of pattern that with some of your webpage and so everything is sort of set out with this F shape or F pattern in mind.  So people there will quickly scroll in the site.

This is how they are all path for moving.  This is how where they will look and fill.  So with this in mind, let’s take a look at why things are set out, I will quickly change the color of this pen as we can keep on top of this here and see where people are moving.

So the first thing they are going to see or people are going to is this big image here.  Now what this really is, we are just trying to enforce a message that the offer is about 5 £ of your food bill and so what we are trying to do is give a very clear image.  This is about food.  It is about a new menu so something looks nice and nice gallops and like what we are trying is to make sure when the visitor lands on this page the instant he will realize they are in a right place.  He will see some nice lovely food and that is going to be the first thing to look at it.  It just gives a confidence in the user or the visitor the webpage that they are in a right sort of place, very, very easy to understand.  Brain picks up on images quickly so as I said it is just nice and subconscious there for the people when they land.

So moving then to the left we then have a big message here and a big 5 £ off so, what we are trying to do here is really enforce the same message and the same word that has been sent out on the email and what this basically means is the customer then again it is all about reinforcing the message they have seen already.  They are familiar with what they have seen.  Soon as they move across they are seeing the food, they think it is message and it is reinforced and they are in the right place.  This is for their 5 £ off their food bill.  Obviously reinforces the headline and the offer as well with a 5 £ in big letters like this.  Again what we are doing is reinforcing the message and what the voucher is that people can download.

What will people then do, then so they are moving down, they are going to see a download button here.  They probably glance over that the first time.  They will then come over to this message here.  So offer ends 5^th of November, 2011.  Now this basically what is there, there is to a bit of scarcity to the landing page obviously what we want people to do is when they get to this page is to download that voucher right away.  We don’t want them to get on the page and think … Ah! I can download that a later stage or might be I will download that next week, next year or next month or whatever it might be.

So by placing this scarcity there and having the arrow I want it basically people to think right that I might also download this here while I am on the page.  The arrow which is here, basically what we are then doing is forcing people back to have a look at the voucher so.  They come across this way down over to the hurry message and then we use the arrow to draw they all back to download voucher page and then from there what we do is we bring that right down to this here, which is how to save message.

Now basically this is just to enforce some sort of instruction I guess to the visitor to make it easy for them so they understand what is going and what the process is, what we are trying to do is enforces instant download message.  So because the customers come from the email we don’t want them to think that they have got more steps to take so we go right fantastic, here instant download is very, very simple.  Download your voucher, print it off and then take it to the pub to enjoy three simple steps and again you just make him show the user, knows how easy is to do, they download that voucher right away without going anywhere else.

So as I said once they have seen that they come down here to Adobe and read a message again.  The logo is there it is ready therefore for people who haven’t got the PDF they can go over Adobe PDF reader, they can download if they want to.  But, also by having the Adobe logo here and this sort of recognized, it sounds about a bit of credibility to the message and builds confidence in your visitor.  So as I said once they are down there this will go normally top to bottom and then the Adobe they will come straight back up to a nice big clear download voucher button which again is supported by this instant download message again to reinforce the idea here that it is an instant download.  They will download it right away.  They don’t have to fill out any more forms, give any more details; it makes it very, very simple for them.  As I said it is just trying to enforce that confidence in your visitor and again we got this message right next to that with the, this sort of an arrow again making sure they download it right away.  So that is it.

I mean as I said fairly simple page with just a download button on, but as I said the actual form and consideration that goes into this and then why everything is designed and how it is worded is quite substantial.  So, hopefully as I said you can take advantage of this F pattern and this eye movement when you guys are designing your pages or looking to design pages for your clients.

Thank you very much.  It is Charlie Hutton again from Hutchinson Web Design.  We are looking forward to speak to guys again.  Cheers!