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Its a tough time out there, financially speaking. Campaigns are cut, budgets belted, and “money management” seems to be on the tips of everyone’s tongues at the monthly meetings.

In the past, websites were built, and clicks were sent directly to the homepage of said site. Nowadays, companies invest thousands of revenue into tailored and specific landing pages for every keyword and every advert, leaving the smaller more money-conscious business behind. Or has it?

Limited budgets does not mean you have to remove Landing Page Optimisation from your marketing strategy. Far from it. The key is working smarter, and investing your time (as much as money) into the areas that are most beneficial to you and your business. Ensure that you are fully optimising your Landing Page to its maximum potential.

Firstly, have a good think about your current strategy. How many landing pages do you have? How many of these do you actually need? Are they all returning results (and most importantly) ROI?  Realistically, does every key word need a separate landing page? A lot of your keywords are probably similar, the same words in different orders and combinations. It is better to have a few fully optimised and efficient pages which are proving successful, than covering your bases with all your words, and in turn losing money.

So, how do you do get your fully optimised Landing Page? Follow our tips below:

Grab the Headlines

Think of a newspaper – what is the first thing that catches your attention? The Headline. The same principles apply online. As with any page, your headline is the first thing your visitors will see and read, therefore offering the biggest opportunity (arouund 80%) for improvements in conversion rate. With this in mind, use your headlines that clearly state the biggest benefit that your product offers. Tell the customer EXACTLY what they can get on your landing page. Be concise, to the point, SELL.

What is on Offer?

After your headline, your offer (or “call to action”) is the second biggest opportunity for improvements in conversion rates. (purchase, sign up, opt-in). Look over your existing PPC adverts, and use the best performing ad headlines as your Call to Action, such as “Limited Time Offer” or “Book your Summer Holiday today” to grab your customer’s attention.

Content.

Content should be “Number One” on your list of priorities when it comes to developing a sucessful landing page. Whether you keep your landing page content text short (500 words or under) or longer, keep the context of your page in tact. Don’t add in extraneous facts and benefits, for the sake of just adding them. Keep your page concise and to the point.

Without structured text, Google are unable to search for it to match search terms  both with PPC adverts/searches and organic searches – penalising your relevancy. It is worth remembering that PPC adverts become more expensive per click if Google deems your content irrelevant. Their “spiders” will crawl your page, analysing the text content, page title and meta tags. If they aren’t containing the key words you are looking to rank for, you are on the back foot before you have even started your campaign. Without adequate and relevant text featured on page, it will be virtually (and digitally!) impossible to rank at the top of Google for the searches you are targeting.

Whilst working on text content for your pages, don’t forget the cardinal rule of copy:

“Google Penalises Duplicate Content”.

Since Google’s Panda update, numerous companies and business’ have been penalised  by Google for ‘trying out’ various landing pages with the same content, reshuffled to compare the conversion rate of each landing page. This is a no-no. Your content must be fresh, unique, and relevant, otherwise there will be consequences.

If you maximise your copy on page, this will in turn maximise the value of your site for both you and your customers. Not only will search engines reward you for keyword rich content, those who find you (either through PPC or organic search) will be reassured that your products and services can fully address their needs.

Pictures Speak a Thousand Words.

The images and videos you feature on your page will have a massive impact on your conversion rates.

Video’s are of the utmost of importance in any area of your website, but for landing pages are a must. You can convey indepth content in minimal time, presented in an engaging way for your audience, with very little effort required by them. Video’s can be as unique and creative as you need them to be, but don’t forget to ensure that the title and subject matter match your site’s keyword focus.

As a bonus, the longer visitors stay on-site viewing your video, as a result your bounce rate  will lower, and higher your site’s “stickiness”, which will do wonders for your relevancy and  have a positive knock on effect to your other marketing strategies and goals.

For images, try and avoid generic “feel-good/cliché) types, like unknown logo’s or clip arts, use pictures that clearly portray the biggest benefit your product or service has to offer to your customer. Product images work best when placed to the left of your product description, as it makes it easier to read the copy from left to right. Don’t forget a “caption” to make additional statements about your business, and ensure your image is clickable to the order/sign up page.

“What’s in it for Me?”

Anyone can have a product or service, but what really gets the customer buy-in is why should chose you. Use “Benefit Bullets” (bullet points) on your page, listing them in order of strength in relation to your product or service. For example, next day delivery/service in a market that there is predominantly a lengthy waiting period would rank higher on the list than say a “free X on sign up”.

“How Do I Look?”

A study carried out by Stanford University showed that 46% of web sales are lost on site due to a lack of critical elements that build value and trust with their visitors, with the number 1 reason people didn’t buy, being that the website had an unprofessional “look and feel”, losing the site’s credibility. Ensure you have a professional page, and feature logos of regulatory bodies and authorities relevant to your industry to build trust with your visitors and ultimately – gain a new customer base.

The Ultimate User Experience.

The User Expeience (or UX) is vitally important for your landing page, helping the user move through your site/page without instruction. The UX is mainly used to determine how pages should be laid out, maximising the ease of use for the sites users. The aim here is to eliminate the thought process for the viewer as much as possible.

Keep the design clean and easy to navigate. Buttons and links should be prominent and professional, avoiding the ‘spam’ look. Make headings bold, and text easily read. Consider your font types and size, button stylings, everything you would include in a design of a website. The smallest things can make the biggest difference on page.

Track It…

Without tracking and analysing data, your marketing campaign is effectively worthless. For the basics, use source codes on links and build custom segments in your Analytics platform.  Using multiple links for the same landing page can prove particularly  tricky, but you should be able to see each portion of revenue each segment is delivering. Again, use the Analytics options and filters that work best for you and your strategy

If you want to step up your game, and really get an insight and indepth look to your customers are doing on site, , and get an indepth look into what your customers are doing onsite, take a look at our on page  Smart User Experience Anaylsis. With the use of “heat maps” you can see EXACTLY where your users are clicking, scrolling, and viewing, enabling you to unlock the true potential to your site, optimising every aspect of your on page code and information, increasing and pushing your income to new limits.

[image via articles.businessinsider.com]

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