Logo's wait in line to be made bigger by Chuck Norris

Ok, for some light relief on a Friday, we’re rehashing the classic Chuck Norris Facts to see what would happen if Chuck Norris decided to become a marketing expert and critique your favorite landing page.

Advance warning, this won’t be pretty, but with a bit of luck it should make you laugh.

Chuck Norris Marketing Facts

Here are the top 9 reasons why Mr. Norris should never be allowed near a whiteboard:

1. Chuck Norris doesn’t need a call to action. Action needs a call to Chuck.

2. PPC no longer stands for Pay-Per-Click. It stands for Pay-Per-Chuck. And in order to see the next page you have to Roundhouse Click on the ad.

3. The conversion rate on ChuckNorris.com is whatever Chuck says it is. And as a general rule, it beats the industry average by infinity.

4. Chuck Norris generates leads by pointing at people.
   If he points at you twice, you lose the right to unsubscribe and your first newborn will be named “eBook” by default.

5. When UFC president Dana White asked Chuck Norris to design a landing page for his latest Pay-Per-View campaign; Chuck took out a crayon, artfully sketched a roundhouse kick on the octagon canvas and caught Dana in a Rear Naked Choke… from the front… fully clothed. #TrueStory

6. Chuck Norris purposely re-designed a landing page for Vin Diesel and gave it a bounce rate of 200%.

7. At a spelling bee in 1947, a young Chuck Norris was asked to spell “optimization”. When the competition judge awoke from his Chuck-induced coma on April 21, 1993, he was swiftly roundhouse kicked in the face by Walker, Texas Ranger… Coincidence? I think not.

8. When Chuck Norris visits your landing page, Google Analytics automatically emails you a letter of apology (cc’ing Chuck) to explain why the traffic spike has broken your account, forever.

9. When Chuck Norris says a form field is required, he @**#&#! means it.
   You’ll know when it’s required by the giant fist icon, Chuck has no respect for asterisks.

One final note…

If you don’t re-tweet this post, Chuck Norris will kick your a**

– Oli Gardner (and Chuck Norris)

You'd be happy too if you were a yellow cartoon ball with a smile to rival Julia Roberts. (Images from Ladybird Books)

Landing pages, conversion rate optimization, bounce rate, blah, blah, blah, blah, yada yada yada.

As important as all of those terms and concepts are, sometimes you need to step back a bit and look at things in a more playful manner.

Landing Pages Made Simple

I find metaphor can greatly aid the process of communication – although as you’ll infer from the title of this post – my examples can at times be a bit of a stretch. Hopefully, this bunch are clear enough to mean something.

And so, with no further posturing or technical jargon, I present to you – The MR. MEN Guide to Landing Pages, Conversion and Absurd Metaphor.

About the Mr. Men

The Mr. Men show and book series were one of my favourite things as a kid, so this is my way of an homage to their enduring coolness as a brand.

They were created by Roger Hargreaves in the 70s and have been an evolving group of characters in children’s TV and books ever since.

– Oli Gardner

Note: I’m bringing this post back from the archives. A) because it’s timeless, B) because it’s awesome and C) as a teaser to an upcoming landing page examples post.

A real-world style landing experience
Imagine walking into a restaurant, and finding that the decor is gross, the music is too loud, the staff look sketchy, the menu has 400 options on it, they have an award on the wall for “Best meatloaf in Idaho, 1995″ and to top it all off, the place is empty. What would you do? I know I’d be getting the hell out of Dodge.

And online…
And that’s exactly what your visitors do when your design sucks, you have a video auto-playing with no mute button, there are no indicators of trust or security, the form has a million fields and the testimonials look like you wrote them yourself.

Excuse me waiter, could I just get the back button please?

Soooooooo, today we’re going to take a trip down to the Top-Notch Landing Page Store and see if we can rustle up something to inspire your next design.

Each of the following pages exhibits excellent qualities of conversion centered design, but most of them also do a couple of things wrong.

1. WebTrends Analytics – “lead”ing the way

I’ll admit it right off the bat – I have a crush on Webtrends landing pages. If you’re looking anywhere for design inspiration for lead capture forms, this is a good place to start.

What I like

• The hierarchy of page elements and information is well structured and focuses on the basics: a logo, a hero shot that combines a clear headline, a short description of the reason for and benefits of the product/service (in this case a webinar) and a lead capture form to gather visitor data. And… importantly… nothing else.
• The call to action (CTA) of lead gen forms almost always falls below the fold. To get around this they’ve placed a directional cue (arrow) at the top of the form to point the way to the action area below.

Things I’d change or test

• A tighter relationship between the directional cue and the CTA. Specifically, I’d make the button blue to match the form header – it blends into the gray background a bit too much right now.
• Change the CTA to describe what you’ll get when you click it. It should say “Register for webinar” rather than the undescriptive “Submit”. Sorry Webtrends, as much as I love you, this is a rookie mistake that should never be repeated.

Site*: Webtrends

2. UPS – using modal windows to keep visitors on the page

Even with a clean and conversion oriented design, many pages still commit the cardinal sin of providing outbound links that aren’t part of the conversion funnel. UPS have done a good job at avoiding this.

What I like

• The “More” links for the speakers all launch modal dialogs (using a Lightbox style). This keeps visitors on the landing page instead of wandering off onto another page – and away from your conversion goal.
• They have a video. Good! Video is a proven conversion enhancement mechanism. Studies from eyeviewdigital.com report up to 80% improvements in conversion. Video marketing specialists Turn Here highlight good conversion improvement numbers and the side benefit that properly optimized video can be 53 times more likely to reach the front page of Google search results. Tip: you can often re-use your video by placing it on YouTube.

Things I’d change or test

• The links at the bottom of the page still go to external microsites (click the image to see the full screenshot). Microsite’s still offer a more focused experience than your homepage so it’s not a big negative, however, a better “All In” move would be to embed them in Lightbox windows like they did with the speaker bios.
• The call to action would be better if it read “Get updates on future webcasts” rather than the generic and intimidating “Sign Up”. (The words might not seem intimidating to wily online veterans like yourself, but it expresses no benefit or gain – making it a negative interaction reinforcement statement).

Site*: UPS

3. The Future of Marketing – socially proven

Social proof in the context of landing pages refers to the idea that your visitors will be influenced positively (although there can be negative effects) by showing evidence of others participating in the use of your product or service. This can be presented via counters showing your social followers (Twitter, Facebook etc.), and testimonials that describe the emotional reaction to your offering from real world customers.

What I like

• Social proof is off the charts here. Instead of showing people following or registered for the conference, they are showing the photos and names of a huge collection of famous players in the marketing industry. Endorsements create credibility, which leads to conversions. Even if you don’t know who the organizer is (ThoughtLead in this case), the fact that it’s sponsored by IBM and has speakers such as Guy Kawasaki will do the selling for you.
• The call to action describes perfectly what you get. Free registration. (Note that this screenshot was taken after the conference so the messaging is related to a replay of the audio rather than registering for the conference itself).
• Contrast: The bright pink CTA stands out from the monotone background.
• Repeated CTA: On long landing pages (click the image for a full view), it’s important to repeat the CTA to remind people of the goal of your page if they’ve been scrolling for 10 screens. Here it’s placed at the top – above the fold, and at the end – for those who’ve finished exploring the whole page.
• Secondary CTA: In today’s social world, WOMM (Word of Mouth Marketing) is key. Here, they’ve added a Twitter sharing button to help visitors spread the word on their behalf.
• Confirmation CTA: Once you complete the form, you’re again presented with an opportunity to spread the word via Twitter. This is great use of thank-you page real estate.

Site*: Future of Marketing

4. Clearvale: No Jive Talkin’ – a seductive single CTA

If you were in a car driving down this highway, you’d have 2 choices: left or right. On this landing page, there’s only one thing to do, click on the sign. This is what’s known as a “click through” landing page. Other names include jump page or the beautifully named “romance page” – as the purpose of the page is to enhance the interest level of the visitor to a point where they are ready to move to second base. (I’ll give credit for the term “romance page” to Scott Brinker).

What I like

• The simplicity and seduction. It makes you want to click on the sign for two reasons: first because it’s your only option, and secondly because the copy on the sign implies some kind of controversial point of view.

Things I’d change or test

• I was a little underwhelmed when the next page was a blog, rather than a continuation of a marketing experience, so I’d do something more engaging at that point. But there’s no denying that the click through rate of this landing page would be very high.
• I don’t really get the connection of the visuals to the copy on the sign, but I suspect this is part of the allure, that you don’t really know what’s coming.

Site*: Clearvale

5. Groupon – beautifully simplistic flow

Here’s a great example of a simple guided landing experience from Groupon.

What I like

• They have used geo-targeted segmentation to set up my location, and are presenting a big bold value proposition statement (50%-90% off) to get me interested.
• Colorful with good action area contrast. The bright bold color is seductive and makes the action area (form) very clear.
• Usability. The progress indicator below the form lets you know that there are 3 steps and where you are in the process.
• Simple forms: In step 2 (the lead gen portion), they ask for your email address only, reducing the barrier to entry to a bare minimum.

Things I’d change or test

• If you don’t know who Groupon are (and despite their size, they haven’t reached everyone yet), there’s nothing to really tell you what you might be saving 50%-90% on. The imagery indicates alcohol which might be why I agreed to enter my email, but some qualification of the offer details would be good.

Site*: Groupon

6. Oprah – sweepstakes for lead gen

It’s Oprah. This stuff will generally sell itself, but it’s not all good. Read on.

What I like

• Focused on the benefits: By leading with the vacation prize they are tapping into people’s desires right away. The branding is so powerful in this case that it can be safely relegated to the bottom of the page.
• Branding: Oprah’s brand is her selling point, her face is on everything associated with her and here she evokes the feeling of being on vacation to entice her loyal following to win a little piece of the Oprah lifestyle.
• Sweepstakes are a very popular lead gen mechanism, and here they are using the free prize giveaway as an add-on to a “no risk” magazine subscription.

Things I’d change or test

• The privacy policy and rules links open up new windows which is a bit messy. A better solution is to use a modal lightbox like the UPS example above. You can see what I’m talking about on one of the Unbounce contest landing pages (click the contest rules link near the bottom to see the modal window).
• It pains me to repeat the same thing over and over, but the call to action on your buttons is REALLY IMPORTANT. Any doubt in the visitors mind as to what will happen can lead to little leaks in confidence. Spell it out clearly so people know what to expect. Here it could use a double lined CTA that starts with a primary first line: “Enter the contest”, then a second line “and start your trial subscription”.

Site*: Oprah Magazine

7. Verisign – shaping trust

This landing page is all about building Verisign’s central brand promise – trust.

What I like

• It tells a simple story: As a click through page, it provides enough information and interest to warm up visitors and encourage them to continue down the intended conversion path.
• Benefit based CTA’s: Each call to action is based on a real business benefit, encouraging a click to find out how Verisign can improve trust and what effect that can have.

Things I’d change or test

• CTA contrast: I’d prefer to see the CTA’s presented with more contrast to the rest of the page.

Site*: Verisign

8. CameraPlus – the ultimate long product sales page

This is the modern apple-esque equivalent of the old-school long sales letter landing page. You’ve probably seen the less trustworthy ones before, where the writer uses reams of ultra persuasive copy to convince you that, despite being an average Joe, they have managed to build an online internet business that prints money.

While it borrows the concept of a long page that piles on the features until you’re ready to buy, that’s where the comparison ends.

This is a very good landing page.

What I like

• The design matches the desires and expectations of the buyer. The target customer already has an iPhone, so they are used to seeing beautiful design with apps placed in context with their intended use.
• Context of use: This is an IMPORTANT concept. The primary iPhone image plays a video showing the app being used. This is pretty much all you need to be sold on the app’s cool factor. You can then explore the big feature list below to reinforce your purchasing decision.
• The price and call to action to buy the app are nicely positioned above the fold, leaving you to explore the page knowing how to interact when you are ready.
• Celebrity endorsement: Including celebrity photographer Lisa Bettany – who for the record (and gossip factor) is dating Mashable founder Pete Cashmore – is a clever device to help convince visitors that it’s worth buying. Professional photographers that just want a cool app for their phone will find this convincing.
• Proof of concept: The photo gallery at the end caps it off nicely by showing that you can take great photos with this app.
• The reviews beneath the phone are highlighted in red, making them the most important visual aspect of the first screen. While I would normally recommend the CTA get this level of attention, it really pushes you towards what is often the swing vote in a purchase – what other people say.

Things I’d change or test

• I’d be really interested to A/B test a short version of the page, letting the video do the selling instead of 10 pages of scrolling content.

Site*: http://campl.us/

9. SEOmoz – choices with the info to make an informed one

Despite how much this looks like a standalone landing page, it’s actually their main pricing page. They’ve taken conversion design principles and applied them directly to the most important page on the site. I like this approach a lot. It’s becoming increasingly common (for good reason) to include testimonials on pricing pages.

What I like

• Trust and credibility: The Verisign symbol is placed next to the purchase button and the grouping of worldwide brand names directly below helps to reinforce the value of the product.
• Succinct headline.
• Subtle mention of the customer count: Beneath the big brand customer logos is a nice little addition – “and thousands more” – adding to the trust element.
• Attention to different reading styles: There is a nice mix of bullet points, coupled with detailed descriptions for those who need to dig deeper.
• REAL testimonials: The photos look like they are taken from social profiles. Coupled with the name and company name, you’d be able to verify that these are real business people quite easily.

Things I’d change or test

• Call to action: The CTA here uses a nice soft word – “TRY”. Which gives off the sense of a low commitment offer. However, the only mention of the no-risk element, is the “30-day money back guarantee” at the top of the page. This should be restated at the point of conversion (i.e. beneath the CTA).
• Would love to know how this converts in comparison to a similar page that had the regular global navigation and footer distractions.

Site*: SEOmoz pricing page

10. Times Reader – showing context of use

As one of the world’s biggest newspapers, they clearly need to keep up with the times when it comes to marketing. (Trying desperately hard for a pun there).

Let’s dissect the final landing page of this collection…

What I like

• Lifestyle. The level to which they demonstrate the modernization of news consumption is impressive. Using a beautiful Macbook Pro and an inline video displays excellent “context of use”, and lets you imagine the new reading experience they are selling.
• It’s a great video that really demonstrates the power that video has to tell a story. Especially poignant given the product.

Things I’d change or test

• Like the SEOmoz page, I’d like to see the safety message (in this case – 2 weeks free), repeated beside the CTA.

Watch the video

Like I said at the start, I don’t want to link to the campaign page, to prevent skewing the stats just for editorial purposes. However, the video from this landing page is freely available on YouTube, which as I mentioned earlier, is a great re-use of campaign content to help your organic rankings.

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you have other great examples of landing pages or have any questions, please jump into the comments.

Cheers,

– Oli Gardner

* Note: links are provided to the associated brands homepage as a way of saying thank you for using their screenshots. I don’t typically link to campaign based landing pages (unless I’ve asked for permission) as that can mess with people’s stats.

Other note: “You suck” image source (from the blog index page)

Conversion Heroes

Conversion Heroes is a series of 5-question interviews with experts in the field of conversion. Subjects for discussion include landing pages, copywriting, conversion optimization, social media conversion, email marketing, organic SEO for landing pages and A/B & multivariate testing.

In my interview with Tim Ash, we discuss landing page optimization, the impacts of social media on conversion, and optimizing pages on a desert island.

1. Is 2010/11 the year of conversion optimization?

Oli: Optimization has become a hot topic this year, and the industry seems to be gaining a lot of momentum. Is it a fad, or an “about time” scenario?

Tim: Every year should be the year of optimization. This is not some kind of critical mass thing like “the year of mobile” or “the year of video”. Conversion goes to the heart of online marketing profitability and never goes in or out of style. Having said that, there is certainly a lot more attention being paid to it this year.

Oli: Are more people using landing pages than a few years ago?

Tim: A landing page is not necessarily a stand-alone page. My definition of a landing page is pretty broad: any page where traffic lands on the way to a measurable conversion action. This can be a stand-alone page, a micro-site, or a page deep within a larger site.

The conversion action can happen anywhere downstream of the landing page. So the whole path between the landing page and the conversion page (or pages) should be optimized.

We are seeing more adoption of stand-alone landing pages, especially for controllable traffic sources like pay-per-click or social media campaigns. It is always better to create targeted campaign-specific pages if possible.

Oli: Do you think landing pages are evolving and getting better? If so, what’s causing the shift?

Tim: I don’t think that landing pages are evolving. There are definitely fads, but these do not constitute an evolution.

Because of the increasing availability of faster Internet connections, landing pages more commonly use rich media or video. But it is often being done in a haphazard “just because you can” kind of way, with no connection to the underlying conversion.

I am afraid that there is endemic ignorance out there about what it takes to create high-converting pages. The lunatics are still running the asylum.

Oli: Where do you see landing pages headed now that social media is vying for a much larger segment of the conversion experience?

Tim: As persuasion expert Dr. Robert Cialdini rightfully points out, “social proof” or the consensus of like-minded peers can be a very powerful persuasion strategy.

When lots of other people similar to us are taking a certain action, it serves as a mental shortcut for us as well. We do not have to think, we just follow along with the herd.

By personalizing the experience and pulling in appropriate information from our extended social network, you can skyrocket conversion rates. Of course this should be done without being creepy in a big-brother kind of way, with full disclosure and respect for personal privacy.

Also, social information should be presented in an appropriate way that does not dominate the landing page. Yes you can put a big block of Facebook friend’s images on your page, But does that mean you should? This might take up a lot of valuable screen real estate.

Similarly, scrolling Twitter or Facebook updates will draw attention – sometimes inordinate amounts. Social proof is just one possible aspect of improving conversion. It should not overshadow everything.

2. User Centered Design (UCD) vs. Conversion Centered Design (CCD)

Standalone landing pages see less focus on UCD due to fewer interaction points and navigational structures, and while marketing conversion is an old topic, a new discipline of conversion centered design (or persuasion centric design) seems to be emerging.

Oli: Do you see the relentless pursuit of conversion as being at odds with the desire to provide a quality user experience, and how do you strike a balance between the two?

Tim: I do not see them as diametrically opposed. Rather, usability and user centered design are a subset of online persuasion.

All landing pages should, by definition, be focused on the user and helping them accomplish their task. But in the more traditional sense, user centered design is more focused on task analysis, user interface controls, and information architecture. For conversion, you also need to understand graphic design, copywriting, persuasion strategies, testing and statistics, and a number of other areas.

Oli: What types of persuasion devices or tactics do you use when trying to improve the impact of your clients pages?

Tim: We focus on making sure that the design is professional and has a clean and uncluttered look. All visual embellishments should be minimized unless they contribute directly to the conversion action. The visual priorities on the page should be clear and the visitor should be presented with a small number of high-level choices.

We also appropriately present trust in the form of client logos, media mentions, testimonials, and awards.

3. Attention Wizard

Attention Wizard seems like a great tool for verifying your designs, by illuminating areas likely to get the most attention.

Oli: Can you give us an overview of Attention Wizard, what it’s for, and the benefits it can bring to your landing pages?

Tim: One of the keys to designing an effective landing page is getting the visual design right. But how do you know if your design is going to be effective?

One way is to do eye-tracking studies and see what people are actually looking at. However, it takes time and quite a bit of money to do this. Another way is to track people’s mouse movements on your page and group many visitors actions together into a sort of “attention heatmap”. This is effective, but it requires time to collect this data, and involves actual visitors to the page.

The third approach is to simulate what people will pay attention to on the page. We know quite a bit about how visual attention works in the brain, and by using a complex statistical model we can create a prediction of what they will pay attention to. The output of that model is an “attention heatmap” overlay on the landing page, showing the areas where visual attention is likely to be focused.

This is obviously not as accurate as eye tracking or mouse tracking, but it can be very effective at diagnosing major attention problems, and there are two big advantages to simulating visual attention in this way. First, the results are instant, and can be applied not only to screenshots of real pages, but also to design mockups before the page even goes live. Second, the cost is minimal, especially when compared to actual eye tracking or usability studies.

What AttentionWizard does is clearly illustrate the impact if the internet ADD generation. By predicting areas that are distracting people we should be able to design more focused experiences.

Oli: How can AttentionWizard be used to increase conversions?

Tim: Think of it this way – there is good attention, and there is bad attention.

Good attention is focusing on the product image or “hero shot”. It is also any attention on the headline or call to action area. Bad attention is due to other prominent visual elements on the page that are not related to the conversion. These kinds of unnecessary visual embellishments often compete for attention and distract us from looking at the desired elements on the page.

AttentionWizard lets you identify bad attention, and minimize it by redesigning your page. Similarly, seeing an attention heatmap may alert you that there is not enough focus on the important parts of the page. So you can redesign and fine-tune your page by repeatedly running it through AttentionWizard until you get the focus right.

Oli: How much of the interpretation of the heatmaps is left up to the user? In other words, do you see common or repeating patterns that can be mapped to known design problems?

Tim: There are common problems that we find. Often visual hotspots are formed simply by the use of strong colors, and contrasting areas of the page.

We also see an overuse of people photographs (skintones and faces), which are very rich sources of information in our environment, and will always get attention hotspots where pictures of people are on a page).

We have heatmap interpretation services as part of our interactive landing page Express Reviews, but otherwise the clients are on their own to interpret and use the heatmaps.

Oli: What happens next? Once a user has a clear display of what’s not working on their page re: attention, do you provide a set of principles to help re-stucture or fix the page?

Tim: Each situation is specific. Visual attention is only part of the puzzle.

Landing page optimization also involves your brand, value proposition, positioning and messaging, copywriting, psychology and persuasion techniques. So it is impossible to provide universal fixes for landing pages without involving real people either through consulting best-practices, or by testing your ideas on your website visitors.

4. There aren’t enough people using landing pages

Oli: Do you have any advice for practitioners to convince their bosses/clients to invest more in optimization?

Tim: Marketing investments should always be done on an ROI basis. You should fund those activities that drop the most profit dollars to the bottom line. As long as the return is high, these types of projects pay for themselves very quickly.

Speak the language of economics (and not some kind of techno-geek ghetto language), and you should be able to get support from managers and clients.

Oli: What’s worse, a poorly converting landing page or no landing page at all?

Tim: As I mentioned earlier, my definition of a landing page is pretty broad. But I believe you are asking about stand-alone pages versus sending the traffic to a page on the corporate website.

In that case, a stand-alone page is usually best. But there is no reason it has to be poorly converting.

A quick best-practices scrub and redesign of the page can usually fix many of the problems.

5. The Desert Island Landing Page Retreat

Oli: You’ve been sent to a deserted island to spend 1 month optimizing the world’s most important landing page. You have an opportunity to bring 2 people with you to assist as you perform your work.

• Chef
• Scientist
• Information Architect
• Designer
• Copywriter
• Marketer
• Doctor
• Wife/girlfriend

If you could only pick 2, who would they be, and why?

Tim: Wife and girlfriend of course! That sounds like the most fun as long as they are getting along…

Seriously, I would bring the two people who most closely matched the demographic of the intended target audience. Their roles do not matter.

I would ask them a lot of questions to uncover how they experience the world, and what is important to them regarding the subject of the landing page.

I would then mock up some crude wireframe designs and have them give their feedback to uncover additional problems. What would be left after repeated refinements should be a pretty solid page.

Thanks to Tim for being our latest Conversion Hero and sharing his expert knowledge with our blog readers.

More Conversion Heroes

Part 1: Roberta Rosenberg on Copywriting for Landing Pages
Part 2: Dan Martell on Social Media Conversion
Part 3: Paras Chopra on Split Testing
Part 4: John Hossack on PPC
Part 5: Chris Goward on Conversion Rate Optimization
Part 6: Cindy Alvarez on Point-of-Conversion Feedback
Part 7: Tim Ash on Landing Page Optimization

Sitting out on my balcony, observing the Vancouver dumpster divers and other such finery of downtown living, I thought to myself:

Self: What if I legally changed my name to Mr. Landing Pages?

Then every time I get to leave my signature on a “do follow” site, I’d be giving my business (Unbounce does landing pages in case you hadn’t got that yet) a boost in organic search.

Something to think about.

Notice how the category for this post is “Landing Pages” – giving my future name brand exposure already.

Other (in)famous name changes

This post has a classic example – perfect for brand building purposes.

Trout Fishing in America

A California teen changed his name to this, after reading a Richard Brautigan novella.

Having just checked out “Trout fishing in America” – he’s not on page 1 of Google. Although, there does appear to be a band named Trout fishing in America. How awesome is that?!

Golden Palace: The kings of the PR stunt

Show me the money. That’s what it comes down to. Over the last couple of years, several people have auctioned or rented their physical real estate (body parts) for advertising purposes. And it’s very viral.

It might actually be fun to have one of the world’s most ridiculous names for a while. Incidentally, I just checked with the BC government and it looks like it could set me back about $850 to make it official. Perhaps the time and money would be better spent on eLance.com or oDesk.com to hire someone to do link building for me.

I’m in as long as we get to page 1 of Google for “Landing Pages”…

– Oli Gardner (aka Mr. Landing Pages)

You probably suffered from one of two things:

• A poor quality score, which means you won’t have got many clicks on your ads and your cost per click was high.
• A poor conversion rate, which means the people that did get through to your destination page didn’t find what they were expecting.

You can solve both of these problems by using targeted, promotion-specific landing pages for your PPC campaigns.

The infographic below introduces the concept, and the article that follows (link at the bottom of this post) explains it in detail.

Read the full article about Landing Pages for PPC

Enjoy…

Loop 11 Usability

Page Details

Type of landing page: Click Through
Website: Loop 11
Built using Unbounce?:Yes

Why I Like It

It has a Zebra crossed with a Rhino! How can you not like that?

It’s a very congruent page, where the imagery supports the headline (a new breed). The call to action is very obvious, using conversion design principles (whitespace and contrast) and has text that explains a key benefit (that you can try it for free). The compelling design kept me on the page for a long time and more importantly, made me want to share it with other people. Having a viral quality is a big bonus for a landing page.

Optimization Suggestions

• Considering the viral quality of the design, I’d like to see some type of “Share This” social media button (Facebook or Twitter).
• After clicking through to the destination page (a sign up form) – I noticed that the application can be used on an iPad. It would be a great test to have a video on the landing page that plays inside an image of an iPad. Showing the tool in action could provide the extra information required to inspire a sign-up.

College Ready or Not?

Page Details

Type of landing page: Lead Gen
Website: College Ready or Not
Built using Unbounce?:Yes

Why I Like It

The design is fun and original, and helps establish the tone of a learning environment. The form stands out well due to the contrasting color and makes it very obvious what the intended conversion goal of the page is. The sidebar is set up well to provide a list of benefits – easy for testing.

Optimization Suggestions

• The page could use a stronger headline that describes the unique value proposition of the service. It takes a little while to understand what you are signing up for.
• The CTA should describe what it is you’ll get by registering.
• Ideally the submit button would be more distinct. Right now it doesn’t look like a button. Although, it’s only small factor on a page this simple.
• Consider having different landing pages for the separate demographics (students and parents). This would allow you to target your messaging more closely to their needs.

Styllist

Page Details

Type of landing page: Lead Gen
Website: Styllist
Built using Unbounce?:Yes

Why I Like It

It’s instantly obvious what the page is about. Fashion. The headline spells out the core value of the service and the single field lead gen form provides a low barrier to entry for people interested in receiving updates.

Optimization Suggestions

To encourage more people to sign up, I’d like to see a few extra pieces of information on the page:

• An example of the type of information you will receive. A lightbox popup containing an example email, that shows the inside information subscribers will get, might convince me to register.
• A short privacy statement to let me know you’ll not abuse my email address.
• Perhaps an indication of when you might launch?
• Who is it for? If it’s just women’s clothing, you should probably state that in the copy. It’s implied by the photos, but not explicitly stated. If it will cover men’s fashion, either include some male models in the photos or create a separate landing page for each segment.

What’s The Dealio? San Francisco.

Page Details

Type of landing page: Lead Gen
Website: Where’s the Dealio
Built using Unbounce?:Yes

Why I Like It

Firstly, a beautiful design that echos the vibrant color of the Golden Gate Bridge. From a conversion standpoint, the fine print beneath the form lets you know what to expect – a daily email.

Optimization Suggestions

• The main headline is being A/B tested on different versions of the page which is great. From the three I saw, the one shown seemed to be the strongest (but you can never tell). I’d like to see a very direct statement here that says something very simple like: “Get a new San Fran discount every day”.
• Like the previous example, showing a sample of what you’ll get might be of benefit, although it’s less of an issue here as the service is live and you’ll get something sent to you almost immediately.
• I’d change the CTA to say something like “Send me the dealio” rather than “Submit”.

360 Feedback

Page Details

Type of landing page: Lead Gen
Website: 360 Feedback
Built using Unbounce?:Yes

Why I Like It

Simple clean design, with a subtle directional cue (the owls beak) that points to the form and matches the CTA color. The informational hierarchy encourage reading: brand->value proposition->benefits->details->CTA.

Optimization Suggestions

• Like the previous example (above), it breaks a fundamental rule of conversion – the non-descriptive CTA. Change the button text to describe what you’ll get when you click it.
• The statement “Find out more” doesn’t provide enough of a sense of what I’ll receive. Will it be another page? A PDF? An email full of information? To find out more, I might just type the brand name into Google, rather than give up my email. Let visitors know what they’ll receive and make it a worthwhile trade.
• If the product/service hasn’t launched yet, make this clear. If it is live, then provide access to some screenshots or a video of it being used.

Smooth Sailing

Page Details

Type of landing page: Click Through
Website: http://events.cheznouspresents.com/smooth-sailing-2010
Built using Unbounce?:Yes

Why I Like It

Ok, this one’s a touch controversial as it was created by one of the co-founder’s of Unbounce (Carter). I’m including it in this list for two reasons: I like the page and it’s use of social widgets, but re importantly, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to say what I think is wrong with it :)

On the plus side it’s got a great aesthetic, indicative of the genre of music that it’s promoting and it has a wide range of modern landing page features to increase engagement:

• Video: you can listen to some smooth music while you check out the band list.
• Social Proof: the Facebook widget shows photos of anyone you know that’s “recommended” the page alongside a count of smooth music fans.
• Secondary CTA’s: the footer has a couple of extra ways to stay in touch.

Optimization Suggestions

To keep people on the page longer and enhance the chance of a conversion, I’d suggest the following:

• Provide a clearly stated secondary headline beneath Smooth Sailing, which describes what the event is. “12 Vancouver Bands Play Yacht Rock Covers from the 70s”. This would make me understand it a lot more quickly.
• Add a play button beside each band to let you hear an audio preview (a la iTunes).
• Put a lighter background behind the Facebook widget – right now it’s hard to see.
• Throw up a lightbox style popup with a Map to the location “The Biltmore” – to prevent people leaving the page to figure it out.

SmartyPants

Page Details

Type of landing page: Click Through
Page link: http://deals.wearesmartypants.com/back2school3b/
Built using Unbounce?:Yes

Why I Like It

I like the idea of vitamins being kid-friendly and the design reinforces the fun factor. As it’s targeted at parents, they do a good job of answering three core concerns a parent might have: Will this help my kids take vitamins? Is it safe? What’s in it?

I also like the safety net CTA which offers up a phone number if you have any questions. The “As Seen On MSNBC” is also a good trust signal to potential buyers.

Optimization Suggestions

• I would be interested to see how much information is required to make a purchase of this type of product. Typically, landing pages perform better when you remove extraneous navigation from the page. A good test might be to remove the 16 links found on the page. Perhaps the target buyer (mothers) like to spend the research time. A technique to keep them on the page longer would be to use some modal popup windows that show the explanation of scientific terms and the doctor bio without making them leave. As an example, check out the “Contest Rules” link at the bottom of our contest landing page.

If you have a landing page you’d like us to feature – send me a link at oli@unbounce.com

Conversion Heroes

Conversion Heroes is a series of short 5-question interviews with experts in the field of conversion. Subjects for discussion include landing pages, copywriting, conversion optimization, social media conversion, email marketing, organic SEO for landing pages and A/B & multivariate testing.

Firstly, a big thank you to Roberta for participating in the interview. The topic for discussion is copywriting for landing pages.

1. Writing an effective headline

Oli: What process do you use when writing a headline for a landing page?

Roberta: It depends, but generally I don’t write the headline first. I always feel like that’s too much pressure. Instead, I just dig into the body copy for the promotion. By involving myself deeply in the meat of the product or service, ideas for headlines generally bubble to the surface. I keep a yellow pad handy or a Notepad window open on my screen for jotting headlines down as they come to me, but continue to work on the other writing. When I feel like I’ve pretty much got the basic copy down, I return to the headline list. I may write more or I may start reviewing and editing what I’ve already listed. My approach is very non-linear, but I prefer to let the ideas flow as they flow.

Oli: How much of your time is spent on the headline?

Roberta: Sometimes I get lucky and the headline just presents itself. It could be something buried deep in the copy or it could be a phrase from a testimonial that just jumps off the page and I get the benefit of a true Eureka moment. Other times I need to run a lot of headlines to get remotely close to what I want to say. So given the vagaries of the creative process, I spend about 25 to 30% of total copy time on the headline.

Oli: What would be your top 3 tips for writing headlines that grab peoples attention?

Roberta: Write to your prospect’s deepest wish, desire, or pain point that needs solving so you engage the reader emotionally from the get-go … Don’t try to sell the “whole shooting match” in the headline. Give enough for a tantalizing taste so the prospect will want to read more and learn more (which is the only job of the headline, to get folks to read further) … Write with specific and juicy nouns and verbs rather than add adjectives to general nouns and verbs. You’ll get a shorter headline that delivers more punch.

2. Matching the tone & brand of your clients

Oli: When you are writing on behalf of a client, how important is it to understand how they present their brand via the tone and language of existing collateral materials (such as ads, websites, print and TV)?

Roberta: In a word, very. If the client already has a specific tone, voice and language to their brand and promotion personality, the writer absolutely has to keep to the spirit of that brand. Their current customers and prospects have already been exposed to the constant messaging. While I understand the temptation to succumb to “And now for something completely different!”, it’s often the company creatives who tire of a campaign years before their market does. Customers and prospects don’t need different – they need effective messaging that clearly and definitively gets to the point and connects with them emotionally.

Oli: Are there any steps (research etc.) you take to ensure this continuity?

Roberta: Yes, read/view/experience as much about your client, their competition and their industry. Take banking, for example. We’ve moved away from the usual pompous, sonorous tone to friendlier, warmer and more personal. But because we’re still talking about people’s money, the ads still need to convey trust, confidence, and expertise. Compare to the arch and ironic tone of many hi-tech service companies who seek to emphasize geek cool. As I’ve been known to say to my copywriting students, marketing clients, and even my own kids – “If you want to be a successful communicator, you gotta know how to play the room.”

3. Landing page narrative

Oli: Is it possible (and if so beneficial) to treat writing for a landing page like telling a story? (With a beginning, middle and end)?

Roberta: I think all good advertising/promotion efforts always have a strong, easily understood narrative (I prefer narrative because too many really smart folks think stories are for kids and old folks. :)

But like a good story, it begins with a riveting opening … the body of the story reveals the detail slowly and sometimes surprisingly so the audience’s attention doesn’t wane … and bam! You conclude with an ending that delights, informs, or even teaches. A good story told with style and passion leaves the listener transformed. Great advertising with a strong narrative compels the viewer/reader to act because it is in their self-interest to do so.

And when they do? Magic.

4. Editing a landing page

Oli: How would you suggest that a writer go about editing their landing pages?

Roberta: I’m a big believer in just blathering all over the page or screen as a first step. Just write. Don’t edit, don’t play with fonts (for years I continued to write in Courier New since it meant “copy” to my brain) or think about graphics. Do nothing else but write. You don’t have to write in a linear fashion – write bullets first, then a call to action, etc. The key is to just keep writing and if you get a little stuck in one place, go to a different component and write that. I never have writer’s block because there’s ALWAYS something I could be writing. I can almost feel myself, like a sculptor throwing clay at a new bust-in-progress, throwing words and thoughts at the screen. It’s very ‘muscular’ writing. :)

Once all of that is done, I put it all aside and let it set awhile. It’s best if I can give it one or two days of breathing room. Then I begin editing and that I generally do in a step-by-step process over a day or two (if I have the breathing room. I don’t always.) I’ll go through a piece several times. Once I think it’s in pretty good shape, I’ll ask a copywriting colleague to do a quick review. I find this very helpful to make sure my flow, tone, and overall consistency is solid. With colleagues comments in hand, I generally edit one more time – perhaps come up with a few testing possibilities to recommend to the client – and let it set one more time overnight. One more look-see in the morning and off it goes.

I almost never let a client see a first draft at close of business. I like the extra time just in case I get inspired overnight – and many times I do.

5. If you could be any landing page, which would it be and why?

Oli: In other words, what’s an example of a great landing page that you really like, and what is it about it that you think makes it a success?

Roberta: I think the folks here have done a nice assembly job of clean, attractive and effective landing pages/home pages.
I notice that Unbounce is among them, and rightfully so. I could tweak almost all of them, but I think it’s a good place to start and learn. All of them share appropriate attention to the headline messaging, hero image, and calls to action to get the viewer to take the next action or at least interact. I especially like yours, Magnitize, and Register.com.

If I were a landing page, I’d like to generate the maximum CTR and LTV (lifetime value) with the fewest amount of words and images as I’m a minimalist at heart.

Say the most with the least and let the visitor’s own desire take it from there.

Once again, a big thanks to Roberta for the insight into copywriting for landing pages.

More Conversion Heroes

Part 1: Roberta Rosenberg on Copywriting for Landing Pages
Part 2: Dan Martell on Social Media Conversion
Part 3: Paras Chopra on Split Testing
Part 4: John Hossack on PPC
Part 5: Chris Goward on Conversion Rate Optimization
Part 6: Cindy Alvarez on Point-of-Conversion Feedback
Part 7: Tim Ash on Landing Page Optimization

Enjoy looking back on the best of Unbounce…

The 12-Step Landing Page Rehab Program [Infographic]
A guided visualization of the conversion funnel and where (and how) you can apply optimization and design techniques to improve the conversion rate of your landing pages.

The 7 Secrets of Social Media Conversion [Infographic]
7 ways to improve the conversion rate of your social media traffic using landing pages and post-conversion social discovery tools like Flowtown .

Designing for Conversion – 8 Visual Design Techniques to Focus Attention on Your Landing Pages
The most important element of any landing page is the conversion goal. Similarly, the most important aspect of your landing page design is to focus the visitor’s attention on that conversion area. This post uses photography to illustrate the principles of conversion centered design.

The Art of Conversion
A single simple paragraph to describe the concept and purpose of conversion. ALL CAPS. ALL THE TIME. CLICK HERE. OR THERE.

What Happens Next? Post-Conversion Strategies for Lead Gen Landing Pages
Despite having a well targeted and relevant giveaway on your lead gen landing page, you feel like you could be generating more paying customers from your prospects. Could it be that you’re not holding their hand long enough?

101 Landing Page Optimization Tips
A 14-chapter opinionated guide to conversion, covering the fundamentals, trust, landing page SEO, testing, reporting and more…

544 Conversion Rate Optimization Tips
Optimizing your landing pages or website to perform better is a no-brainer. Here we’ve collected of the best conversion rate optimization tips from around the web.

The MR. MEN Guide to Landing Pages, Conversion & Absurd Metaphor [Infographic]
Landing pages, conversion, bounce rate, blah, blah, blah, blah, yada yada yada. As important as all of those terms and concepts are, sometimes you need to step back a bit and look at things in a more playful manner.

Marketing FAIL – 7 Newbie Landing Page Mistakes
Our list of classic landing page blunders will prevent you stepping in the advertising equivalent of doggy doo, and make you a better marketer.

Conversion Economics – Finding Your CPA Sweet Spot
An economics lesson in how to balance your marketing and conversion optimization budget to find your Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) sweet spot.

Bonus Article

Landing Pages for PPC [Infographic]
How to use landing pages for higher conversions & lower cost-per-click. This article goes into detail about why a promotion specific standalone landing page is superior for both Google and your visitors when it comes to improving Quality Score, Ad Rank and in turn, your conversion rate.

– Oli Gardner

How to use the scorecard to score your page

Answer each of the 20 questions as honestly as you can and tally the number of “Yes” responses to arrive at your score. The goal is to get a quick ballpark sense of how good you landing page is and how many rules your page is breaking. You probably wouldn’t want to do this exercise on a page that’s doing really well as rules and best practices are only a starting point and you should never interfere with a successful campaign.

Then take all your “No” responses and create a “To Do List” of things to improve on your page.

Good luck. And remember, a sucky score means you have loads of extra conversions to make when you fix it…