Improving Conversion Rates with Landing Pages

One of the most common mistakes small business marketers make with online marketing efforts is not directing traffic to landing pages. Whether you're driving traffic through email, paid search, press releases, advertising, sponsorships, blogs or social media promotions, conversion rates can dramatically improve if those visitors are engaged with content designed to convert.

Recently, Jon Miller of Modern B2B Marketing wrote a nice piece offering ten tips for creating landing pages which are summarized here:

1. First Impressions Matter - Make sure your page (especially the headline) directly connects to the search term.
2. Have an Offer - Focus your page around a single call to action, such as a free whitepaper or demo.
3. Remove The Navigation - This isn’t your home page, so remove your main navigation.
4. Use Graphics Wisely - Include a hero shot, e.g. a mock up of the white paper cover with the title blown up to be readable.
5. Make Your Content Scan-able - Write in bullets, if you can. Be sure your copy sells your offer when someone scans just the first three words of each bullet or paragraph.
6. Only Ask What You Really Need - Collect as little information as you really need to route the lead and stay in touch.
7. Capture Implicit Information - Use hidden fields to capture additional information about your leads, such as the keyword used, the search engine they came from, and the ad they clicked.
8. Have Reasons to Give Valid Info - After conversion, don’t just hand the offer to the prospect – email it to them.
9. Say Thank You - After a customer converts, take them to a thank you page.
10. Test… But Don’t Over Test - The most valuable things to test are the headline, graphic captions, the submit button, form length, and graphical elements.

You can read the full ten tips for landing pages article here.

However, for those internet marketers that are already savvy in the ways of the landing page, then a look at Marketing Sherpa's new Landing Page Handbook is in order. There are 270+ pages  giving pretty much a step by step set of instructions, research data and best practices as well as over 100 landing page examples.

With endorsements from the likes of Seth Godin "astonishing" and Nick Usborne, "Buy this report...make more money" it's worth a look. With a claim of improving conversions of up to 55%, it's a compelling report, even if it has a hefty price.