Landing Page Optimization – How to Improve It

Landing page optimization is somewhat self-explanatory. It is optimizing the content of your website’s home page to provide the information that your customer needs and improve your natural rankings in the search engines. The reason for the creation of this phrase is because there is a need for businesses to research why they are possible not getting the attention they should from the search engines, or why people are leaving their website without taking advantage of their service.

Some places to start are…

WEB ANALYTICS:

• Most Visited Content – Do you have important information, Pay Per Click advertising, or other content that you want every visitor to your website to see? If the current page that such content is on isn’t getting the hits you want consider moving that content to another location on your site or create more links to the key page from other more popular pages.
  
  
• Path Analysis – Shows you the sequence of pages that visitors see on your site. This may, again, show the need to change page position to benefit from those sequences.
  
  
• Top Entry Pages – This is the point of first contact with your site. This page deserves the most attention when it comes to optimization.
  
  
• Top Exit Pages – The last pages your visitors look at before they leave your site. If they leave on a key page, that could indicate that they could not find what they were looking for on your site, and you will have to correct that problem.
  
  
• Funnel Analysis – Closely related to the “Top Exit Page” information; this will tell you on what pages people start to exit your site. If there is a pattern of drop-off on a certain page, then there is a problem.

Methods to fix the problems are…

ONSITE SEARCHES:

When people type in searches on your site and get 0 matching results, you can track what people are looking for on your site, and rectify those search result problems. Check with the major search engines and see if they offer search box add-ons for your website.

FOCUS GROUPS:

A moderated group discussion by your target audience to find out what key elements are missing or incorrect.

FORUMS AND BLOGS:

Such venues allow you to gauge the loyalty or frustration level of people, their immediate needs, and attitudes toward your industry, company or product.

By applying even a couple of these problem-finding ideas, you should be able to quickly identify many potential issues with your site, and increase the rate of conversion of website visitors to paying customers.

Lateral? Vertical? Are We Talking About Marketing?

One of the many ways that businesses, small and large, run into what they deem “marketing troubles” is not the fact that they have marketing, but they aren’t changing their approach to marketing their products. Two “buzz” words that you may have heard recently are lateral and vertical marketing. Today we will have a short vocabulary lesson. Then we will briefly explore each terms marketing process with a vivid example of each.

LATERAL MARKETING: Thinking of a product in relation to another product, idea, or service.

The Process:

1. Select a product (either your own or a competitors)
2. Select some aspect of the product (or the product’s marketing mix)
3. Create a “lateral disconnect” by changing the aspect in some way: substitution, combination, inversion, elimination, exaggeration, or reordering.
4. Find a way to bridge your new found disconnect with the existing product. See how you can “connect” the old product with the new “disconnect idea” and make it reality.

EXAMPLE:

• When cereal bars were launched, they were a novelty, and were created by combining the ideas of cereals, a healthy breakfast food, with the chocolate bar, a not-so-healthy snack to create a new, healthy snack.

VERTICAL MARKETING: The more “traditional” approach to marketing that is about sequentially and logically selecting features to fill a need or niche.

The Process:

1. Find an area of everyday living or business where there is a need for innovation (Martha Stewart has made millions with this philosophy)
2. Is it feasible to create or implement a product to fix the deficiency?
3. Introduce it to the market and see what happens. Once the product has “hit the shelves”, or your idea has been introduced publically; adjust your approach to marketing (and to the product) according to public reaction, supply and demand.

EXAMPLE:

• People wanted to be able to carry their cassettes and CDs with them wherever they went without having to carry around an entire stereo. Someone decided to invent small portable devices that can play cassettes tapes and CDs in a handheld form with a personal headset. (And Apple decided to do them one up…when was the last time I listened to local radio?)

BRILLIANT!

Class dismissed!

Where’s My Traffic??

Here are the facts:

• You want business.
• You want to get your name and the name of your small business out to the masses.
• You paid someone to put a website up for you.

Are you still waiting for your influx of calls and interested people? Has business been the same or even gone down?

When you tell customers or clients to visit your website, do you often hear, “I didn’t know you were online?” And you’re thinking, “What was the point of me paying for a website, if no one even knows I have one?” At that point, taking down the website and strangling your web designer may cross your mind – and legitimately so.

You have the right to be ticked off if you finally decided to use the number one way that most business advertise, the Internet, and it seems like it does nothing more than put your name in some flashy lights and not much else. You’re probably not to blame. There are reasons why your Internet marketing may not be working in the right way for you.

The 7 reasons why websites fail to generate traffic

1. Web site owners do not target their message to a specific audience.
2. The site’s design does not incorporate Meta tags for search engines to use in placement.
3. Each web page’s title does not reflect the individual pages content.
4. Each page does not provide detailed text descriptions.
5. The site is not built with keyword and key phrase search relevancy in mind.
6. Statistics aren’t captured to learn why searchers come to the site.
7. The site is not submitted to the top 21 search engines and directories that produce over 88% of all Internet searches.

Is your website designed to fail? If you want your website to work for you, memorize the seven deadly website sins listed above and make sure your website design and marketing strategy is the complete opposite of what is listed above. And, yes, you can still strangle your designer for not having thought of these things in the first place.

Read It on the Website? Buy It in the Store!

More and more people are doing research on-line before they make large and even small purchases. Why are they doing this? It’s more effective and convenient than just walking around the store not knowing exactly what they’re looking for. If you have a brick and mortar store or retail outlet and you want more foot traffic, think about a few things:

1. Will my product benefit the consumer?
2. Can I put selected merchandise on sale or run a special?
3. Where do they go to buy it?

Will my product benefit the consumer?

In order to answer this question, create a searchable database on your site. Provide as much information as possible without overwhelming the shopper. Include pictures of the product (even from multiple angles), and some sort of buying guide. Buyers are relying more and more on testimonials from previous buyers and reviews from consumer guides. People want to know before they purchase if the product is worthwhile and reliable.

Can I put selected merchandise on sale or run a special?

Sale! Sale! Sale! Everyone loves a sale. Select an item or two that you can put on sale. Create a permanent part of your website dedicated to weekly specials and discounts. This will make the consumer return weekly to see what else is on “special”. Make the promotions “in-store only” or saying that the discount will only apply for a limited time for purchase at the retail location.

Where do I buy it?

At your brick and mortar location of course! If you have more than one outlet; include a store locator on your site for even more convenience. If you are a small business with only one or two locations, make the locations known; provide directions to the location(s).

You want your customer to come full circle: Website, research, and then the store. The more reliable your website information, the more likely it is they will be to visit you “in person” to shop and to refer you, your site and your services and products to others. The web is where it is at, and your store is where you want the people to get it.