The Ideal Society of Landing

No, not that kind of landing. There is a lot of that here too though! Now, I speak of specifically the Landing Page Utopia:

Lets take a look at some Tips & Tactics to bring back for landing pages optimization and conversion.

First up, Scott Brinker on Landing Pages 2.0:

Landing Page Management Software President, Scott, says “Everyone seems to repeat the same factoids and best practices.”

Its becoming cookie cutter. Heading, CTa, etc.. Landing pages of the conventional format are traditionally not bringing double digit conversion.

Landing pages are looking the same as 5 years ago. We are trying to change that today. Landing pages are bounded only by your imagination.

3 Unconventional Ways to Look At Landing Pages

1. More Than 1 Page – Its an experience you are directing the user to. Conventional wisdom tells us that more clicks = less conversion BUT you can get more info to customize the landing “capture” page for the user.
2. Post Click Segmentation
   • Have 1 click set segmentation for each category.
   • Introduce a headline customized for segmentation.
   • Reduces the number of fields to fill out for the user.

   The bounce rate on a landing page will significantly change as well because you are getting a highly segmented audience which is 4 times as valuable.

3. Widgets & Social Media
   • Your landing page respondents create affinity groups.
   • Plug n play applications for functionality

Next up… Frans Keylard, Director of Marketing at Widemile, with

5 Steps To Maximize Seasonal Campaigns:

1. Seasons Matter
2. Know Your Existing Customer
3. Find a New Audience
4. Favor Offers Over Branding
5. Build seasonal landing pages and optimize them with MVT (multivariate testing)

Alyssa Ruehl with Apogee-search.com followed with

10 Landing Page Proverbs

…for those of us who are looking for the “Rules of Thumb” for Landing Page Utopia. She reminds us that We are all special cases.

1. Don’t Look A Gift Horse In The Mouth
   • Lead forms are a gift.
   • Don’t have too many requirements.
   • Keep it short.
   • Don’t Pry
   • Do not require users to give a mailing address unless you absolutely need it to send them what THEY want or have requested.
   • Don’t have them repeat their email address. Test it if you’re worried. If you must, ensure your tabbing in order makes it the very next step to confirm. Its just plain annoying if not.

2. Are You Going Out Dressed Like That!
   • Forms should be clean and functional
   • Use single column or 2 columns. If you do use 2 columns, ensure you have sensible tabbing order.
   • Use the right size fields
   • NO “clear” or “reset” button!!!!

3. Brevity Is The Soul Of Wit
   • Have a good title
   • Make it short & Sweet
   • Use search keywords when possible
   • Be careful with dynamic keywords insertion though
   • Avoid ALL CAPS AS WELL. Its not easy to read. And it LOOKS LIKE YOU’RE YELLING

4. Tide & Time Waits For No Man
   • Check you site’s loading time. It will affect your rankings!
   • To check your load time, use websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze

5. A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words
   • Even B2Bs need images
   • Images of products are key!
   • Real people are better than stock photos
   • Check your file size. High resolution is not always needed, especially with web.

6. You’ll Get By With A Little Help From Your Friends
   • If you can’t afford consultant, phone a friend.
   • Ask others in and out of your industry, teenagers, anyone. Get feedback from any avenue if you cant afford a consultant.

7. Always Wear Clean Underwear. You Never Know…
   • Pay attention to your other pages too
   • Some people will naturally stray
   • Optimize your whole site
   • Always have a good About Us page. Not everyone will read it, but those who do, care. Make it good

8. .No Duty Is More Important Than That of Returning Thanks
   • Your thank you page is important too
   • Give your users more info, summary of what they get or did, add a photo and bullets. You can even continue to conversion process form more info to buy now when applicable.

9. Try To Please All & You Will Please None
   • Get to know your consumer.
   • Segment your audience.
   • Don’t waste their time.
   • Don’t be something you’re not.

10. Its What’s Inside That Counts
    • It still all comes down to content & product
    • Landing pages are only cosmetic.

Up next, Jonathan Mendez with a few interesting case studies from his own blog. He reminds us that the words greatest landing page is Google itself.

No more pages, look at your site as experiences.

1. Give People Control
   • People know what they want better than you do
   • Self segmentation is the most powerful tech tool to tallow control over delivering and presenting content

2. Reduce Choices
   • Look at Google vs Yahoo
   • Paralysis by Analysis – it causes stalling
   • Considerations are roadblocks
   • Create a flow! – Love this 😉

3. Real time Web
   • Re-enforcing KW on a page with Java
   • APIs
   • AJAX
   • Semantic Markup

4. Target Content
5. Design For the goal, not the person
6. Online experience has HUGE brand value.
7. Always Be Testing

   Relevance is what is important to your audience, not you!