Situation
The leading provider of painless, porcelain veneers, Lumineers started working with Wpromote in 2008. Despite positive results, the company knew its online marketing needed improvement. With nearly all its traffic generated from branded keywords, a poorly optimized site, and a landing page that hadn’t been properly tested, Lumineers hired Wpromote to take over its PPC campaign, design and execute an SEO strategy, and execute landing page optimization tests through our PagePerfect service.

Challenges
In the beginning, Lumineers was spending 42% of their PPC budget on the branded term ‘lumineers,’ nearly all in Google. It also had a minimal presence on content sites. Likewise, as Lumineers’ domain is younger than that of many competitors, it was at a disadvantage when it came to SEO. Finally, it was clear that Lumineers’ landing page was not converting as well as possible. All in all, there was tremendous opportunity to diversify traffic and boost conversions.

Strategy
PagePerfect (Landing Page Optimization)
Once SEO was underway, we turned our focus to Lumineers’ landing page. We devised eight combinations of new images and copy we felt would boost conversions and performed a multivariate test using our proprietary optimization process.

PPC
Our first step was to expand Lumineers’ keyword lists to target long-tail and exact and phrase-match opportunities. Next, we enhanced their presence in Yahoo, MSN, and the Google content network.

SEO
Lumineers’ was in the process of a website redesign. We consulted the company on creating SEO-friendly pages and implemented 301 redirects to preserve rankings. Next, we populated the site with content to help it rank for competitive keywords.

Results
PagePerfect (Landing Page Optimization)
Through multivariate testing of various elements on Lumineers landing page, we increased the conversion rate by 120%, delivering over 1,200 additional leads without increasing spend.

PPC
Annual savings -
Through PPC optimization, we effected a change leading to a savings of $126,149.57.

Lowered CPA (cost-per-acquisition) -
We were able to lower Lumineers average monthly CPA in September 2008 by 22.7% in September 2009.

Increased conversion rate -
Through landing page testing and optimization we increased Lumineers’ conversion rate by an impressive 20.45%.

SEO
Through continuous optimization, we achieved and maintained #1 rankings for Lumineers’ most valuable keywords.

source: http://www.wpromote.com/blog/client-profile/integrated-search-marketing-case-study-lumineers/

Before a qualified prospect even starts their search, you need to have done quite a few
things right just to get your ad shown to them. You need to have:

• Purchased the right keyword
• Set the right match type
• Earned a sufficient quality score
• Offered a high enough bid

Then, once your ad has been presented, you have to satisfy the customer up to fi ve more
times to get the conversion:

• Your text ad has to attract and persuade so they’ll click
• Your landing page has to confi rm and deliver so they’ll stay
• Your offer has to be attractive so they’ll want it
• Your purchase path has to inform so they’ll check out
• Your cart/form has to avoid frustration so they’ll convert
In paid search, it’s easy to focus the majority of our time on the steps we have to take to get
our ads shown, and very little on the things that need to be done in order to satisfy searchers.

Writing and testing better text ad copy requires substantial time and effort. Landing page
design and the rest of the post-click experience is often not the responsibility of the paid
search manager, yet it can determine or at least constrain their potential for success.
Within your organization, the resources, interests, and efforts of the pre-click team and the
post-click team must be aligned. Find and report prominently on the metrics that illustrate
the fact that you can only win by working together.
The click is only worth paying for if you can do everything it takes to get the conversion.

source

A successful landing page functions as a funnel-point for users. It’s a step towards persuading a user to become a client or customer. How much weight does a landing page hold in comparison to other elements throughout a campaign? The landing page is the most important persuasion point for the user because it must:

• Market to your specific users through market segmentation and persona development
• Persuade users through relevant copy and content
• Build Trust and increase user’s confidence on the page
• Engage by providing users with answers to their questions about your product/service
• Enhance customers experience through better usability
• Improve your site’s scent
• Test using multivariate or A/B testing scenarios
• Increase your conversion rates
• Maximize campaign ROI

In the last few years, hundreds of our clients were able to double, triple and even quadruple their landing pages conversion rates.

Landing pages appear after an online ad, e-mail link, search result, or an specific promotional URL. It’s the first chance you have to convince a motivated user (who clicked and has shown interest) to pursue the purchase process.

In the overall process of marketing, the vast amount of time and resources are spent on creative, production, media placement, etc. Often, without the proper attention, a landing page is marginalized: with the feeling that the strength of the overall campaign is all that is needed to attract customers.  However, getting a prospect to the landing page does not mean success – and a poor landing page could derail the best-planned marketing or advertising campaign.

A landing page is an opportunity to seal a deal.  For this reason, creating the right one is crucial to any campaign.  The effectiveness of a landing page is measured by its conversion rate, meaning how often people who visit the page do whatever it is you want them to do.  You may want them to order a product, sign up for your services, register for a newsletter, or just fill out a form.  The goal is to get the highest percentage of your visitors to take the desired action.

Some practical reminders when creating a landing page:

1. Simplicity: Flash and expensive designs are very often the culprit to a low converting landing page. Simlify the design utilizing static images and easy to understand language.

2. Continuity: There is nothing worse than clicking on a paid ad for a product or service you really need, only to be navigated to page that doesn’t carry a relevant message to what you are looking for. Make certain to maintain the scent through a continuous and consistent message from ad to landing page to checkout.

3. Ecommerce Landing Pages: Whether it’s a homepage, a category page, or a product page, it’s important to know where your users are landing on an ecommerce site. We’ve seen too many companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on PPC campaigns with nothing to show and little ROI. Consider each campaign carefully before deployment.

4. Calls to Action: Don’t underestimate the power of your calls to action. Test with colors, placement, size, and text on the calls to action throughout the page.

5. Track everything. Online marketing is traceable. Each dollar spent can be measured and assessed through the various online analytics and assessment tools available. Take advantage and track everything.

6. Don’t let them out of your site. What are your users pain points? What makes them tick? Knowing your users will help you engage them and persuade them to continue through the conversion process.

7. Usability 101: Your users react differently to a site than you do. Make certain to test with users that match your persona descriptions.

8. Design: What looks good to you doesn’t always resonate well with users. Make sure the messaging, themes, and color schemes are a good match by asking some your team members to do a walk-through.

An optimized landing page or a completely new page design?

How do you determine that it’s time to throw away an existing landing page and start with a clean slate? We get asked that question from many of our clients. Similarly, how do you know that the newly redesigned page will not perform at the same level as the old page?

Optimize an existing landing page

Your existing landing page can work as the perfect jumping board for optimization. Our conversion consultants have created a process that evaluates landing pages from 350 different angles which are measured against our Conversion Framework “. Each benchmark in the framework poses as a basis to modify your existing page.
Our process of optimizing a landing page goes through the following stages:

1. Market analysis and persona creation
2. Assessing current page performance through analytics and heat maps to pinpoint areas of weakness in the page
3. Optimizing the page from 350 angles created based on the Conversion Framework ™
4. A/B and multivariate testing

The process of landing page optimization requires more than adding good copy, a flashy design, or simply scattering a few calls to action throughout the page. Our years of experience have pointed at the determining factor: your visitors. Rarely do fancier designs translate into higher conversion rates. Before we can recommend a brand new page design, we evaluate your existing page from your visitor’s perspective. We dig deep to understand what worked in it and what did not. Only then are we able to determine if we should go with a new landing page.

Creating a new landing page

New landing page development is a much more involved.
Our process of creating a new landing page goes through 7 different stages, each designed to ensure a double digit conversion rate:

1. Market analysis an persona development
2. Copy creation
3. Wire-framing
4. Design, copy integration, and test variable selection and creation
5. Initial page deployment
6. Optimizing the page from 350 angles created based on the Conversion Framework ™
7. A/B and multivariate testing

We were able to deliver as much as 238% increase in conversion rates for our clients. Contact us today to get started.

Persuade your Landing Page Visitor

Any online marketing campaign is only as good as the landing page created for it.

Your landing page only succeeds when all of its elements work together to persuade visitors to take an action.  Yet, the task is not as simple as it sounds. Persuading your visitor to make a purchase through a single page requires a deep analysis of whom you are targeting, what they are looking for, and the art of developing a message that will appeal to the masses yet feel personalized enough for every individual visitor. Our unique methodology allows us to design a page with your particular target market in mind, helping you achieve results such as 14.56% average conversion rate in 2007 alone, and 9.8% average conversion rate in 2008. As a result Invesp clients have been able to increase their conversion rates by an average of 65%.

Can you image what a conversion rate of 10% or above would do to your ROI?

While we are very pleased to have helped our clients achieve these results, the real question is how much revenue did our clients leave on the table prior to optimization? How would increasing your conversion rate by 15 or even 5% impact your bottom line? How much money are you leaving on the table by not redesigning and optimizing your landing pages?

source: http://www.invesp.com/conversion-framework.html

What is the Conversion Framework

The Conversion Framework is a structured approach designed to increase website conversion rates by providing online visitors with an exceptional user experience. It provides the blueprint to a process of architecting websites that converts more visitors into clients. The Conversion Framework was built using the science and art of analytics analysis, marketing, usability and software. The framework will

• Increase revenue by converting more of your website visitors into customers through creating a client centric website
• Provide a roadmap to maximize conversion across multiple channels and campaign reaching customers with various buying preferences, personalities, and at different buying stages.
• Turn your analytics data into actionable items you can implement
• Achieve higher ROI for each of your marketing initiatives

The Conversion Framework is a step in the right direction. As of August 2008, we tested the principles of the framework on 30 different websites and landing pages. The framework allowed us to achieve an average conversion rate of 14.56% during 2007and 9.2% during the first 6 months of 2008.

Elements of the Conversion Framework:

We have established 8 principles to the conversion framework that translate into 250 elements utilized to test and evaluate your website:

1. Beyond market segmentation: Persona Creation

Your site layout, navigation, design, and web copy must persuade visitors to take an action. All elements must be strategically placed to cater to every single visitor’s needs. However, that is easier said than done.

Countless number of different personalities, desires, buying stages and needs make up the mosaic of visitors who enter your website on a daily basis. Trying to appeal to the masses means pleasing no one in particular. That is the real problem with this typical approach of market segmentation. When the focus of your copy is on a few select personas, your message is fine tuned. The process of persona creation considers all of your market segmentation data translating it into hypothetical individuals that represent your target market. These personas are utilized to optimize all elements throughout your website or landing page.

2. Build the user confidence: Trust

Before a user is ready to make a decision to buy or convert into a client, they need to gain confidence in your business and products or services you offer. Elements of trust and confidence must be apparent throughout

• site design and navigation
• performance
• security holes
• product and services presentation
• unique value proposition
• continuity and congruency

3. Engagement

Creating a “sticky” website or a landing page usually translates to an increase in online conversion rates. A sticky website is one that entices visitors to spend a longer time, come back to visit, bookmark it, and/or refer others to it. How does stickiness impact online conversion rates?

We have concluded through our research that the more a user spends on a successful website, the more familiar and invested they are in it. Familiarity breeds credibility. Visitors are more likely to convert on websites which they consider to be more credible.

When Amazon.com first added reviews on their site, it was a sure way to bring people back to visit them again and again. The idea was born from a simple observation: How do people choose what book to read next? They ask their friends and family for recommendations. Take a simple concept like that and apply it online allowing users to see what other people recommend and you’ve created a strong “stickiness” level by continuously engaging your visitor.

Creating an engaging website is more complex and competitive nowadays and definitely takes more than adding product reviews. That is where the Conversion Framework will help you identify what would appeal to your target market and how to create the tools and content that will bring them back.

4. Understand the impact of buying stages

Not everyone who lands on your site page will convert into a client. While achieving 100% conversion rate is clearly impossible, no one should settle for 2% conversion rates either.

Sellers are usually focused on their selling process. Buyers on the other hand come to your website with their own agenda. Some are just browsing, others are looking for specific information or comparing prices, and others are ready to make a purchase. Each of these stages requires site elements to be designed and structured in a certain way to deliver the information the visitor is looking for.

5. Deal with fears, uncertainties and doubts

People are cynical, especially on the internet. Your visitors enter your website with fears, uncertainties, and doubts (FUDs). Why? We’ve all heard of the many scams and rising fears of identity theft. We may know someone who has had a bad experience buying online, handing out their sensitive information. There is always certain anxiety one feels upon entering a site. Will I like what I buy? What if I don’t? Will this service give me the results I am looking for? Is this worth the investment?

The Conversion Framework is designed address the questions, concerns or objections of your visitors. Dealing with FUDs head on will help relieve anxiety and areas that have an increased level of friction.

During the persona creation process, we consider what exactly would motivate a prospect to purchase your products? And more importantly, what would stop them? What concerns are the visitors fueled with upon entering the site?

6. Calm their Concerns: Incentives

Incentives are a great way to counter FUDs and relieve any friction that may cause a visitor to exit your site. Incentives are so effective that visitors may often overlook disengaging copy, poorly written headlines, and the absence of a value proposition. However, if not used correctly, incentives will not support your conversion process.

The Conversion Framework will help you maximize the effectiveness of your incentives from the way they are phrased to their placement on your site.

7. Test, Test, Test

Testing is at the very heart of every conversion optimization project. In our practice, clients who deploy any form of testing (A/B or multivariate) report on average 20% increase in conversion rates. While testing is an effective process, it is only as good as the team that is employing them. Our methodology is built upon the initial investment of understanding website visitors and creating personas. By doing so, we are able to avoid testing endless number of scenarios. We work from the ground up, maximizing optimization to reduce testing scenarios by 65%, thus saving our clients a lot of money and headache.

8. Implement in an iterative manner

Any successful online project must be delivered in an iterative manner. By following a dynamic approach, there will always be room for improvement. Once a page is ready on your site, it will be used as the baseline for future optimization work. We then define new conversion goals and work towards achieving them. Because visitor response to online change is immediate, we like to build smaller blocks, make smaller changes, and test them and improve their performance. Using analysis as a driver of the enhancement process will help you achieve stronger results, faster. Remember: Plan, Implement, Improve.

The history of framework

Over 12 years of experience with e-commerce gave us the insight that simplifying and making the web experience more effortless for visitors will translate into higher conversion rates. However, we were not trying to sell our clients on providing excellent or exceptional visitor experience only. Judging on what we had seen on websites, a “good” experience was never enough for us. Prior to Invesp, our team designed enough e-commerce systems to fully realize the role which visitors played in the design process; it was minimal at best, and in most of the cases it was non-existent.

Our first conversion optimization projects proved to be great success. But we knew that in order for us to continue on the same path, we had to establish a repeatable methodology that was implementable across different e-commerce channels and verticals.

The Conversion Framework is easily customizable to meet the needs of the varying target markets, e-commerce specifications, and business challenges that every company has. Our methodology is always a work in progress, we continue to test new strategies and fine tune some of the methods of the framework as we work with more clients.

If you would like to learn more about the framework, visit the Invesp blog where we post many of our findings or research on a regular basis. We also explained many of the underlying framework principles in our book, “Landing Page Optimization: The Complete Guide.”

source:

The job of the modern web site is more important and more difficult than ever, especially when it comes to a multichannel sales strategy. Visitors arrive at your web site through a variety of online channels: pay-per-click (PPC) and organic search, e-mail offers and print ads. Once there, they need to fulfill the objective of acting upon a promotion, or buying a specific product.

If their entry leaves them cold because they don’t see anything relevant to what drove them there, they’re most likely to leave, having wasted their time and your marketing dollars. Landing pages serve as a bridge between the marketing message that brought visitors to the site and the site functionality that enables them to take action, such as making a purchase or submitting a lead.

Minimizing bounces

A web site landing page is simply a page that keeps the momentum going from the referring channel’s message. A common attribute might be the pay-per-click search terms that brought them to the site, or a specific e-mail offer that was clicked on.

In fact, targeted landing pages with keyword search terms appear more relevant to visitors who have come via a specific search engine query. As a result, fewer “bounces” occur. A bounce is a visitor who hits the landing page, stays for a few seconds, then hits the back button to return to the search engine page — effectively a totally wasted paid click. Customized landing pages reduce this risk.

For example, an e-mail offer for a discounted travel package would bring the visitor directly to a landing page that reassuringly describes the offer in more detail and provides links to check availability and book the trip. It sounds simple enough, but put yourself in the visitor’s shoes and do a few web searches of your own. You’ll be surprised at how many merchants still aren’t using landing pages.

Best practices

Creating a successful landing page isn’t difficult, and you can easily experiment and learn as you go. First, decide on which page you’ll use as the landing page for a specific campaign. You may very well have an existing Web page that you can use (one that’s more specific than your homepage), but if you don’t, consider publishing a new landing page. If that’s the case, keep in mind these 6 best practices:

1. Include an image along with the offer for visual appeal.
2. Reduce or eliminate navigation to keep visitors focused on the goal and reduce distraction.
3. Keep the look and feel of your primary web site so consumers will immediately recognize your brand.
4. Don’t forget a compelling call to action that should tie in to the offer. For example, the copy for travel offer above could have a call-to-action such as “Book Now,” or “Save Money-Reserve Now.”
5. Minimize data collection as much as possible to decrease abandonment. If you must collect additional information, try moving those fields to a form on a second page; the effect is that by the time visitors click through to this second page, they’ve already built some momentum in the conversion process and are less likely to bail out.
6. Whenever asking for personal information, include privacy and security statements to help establish trust.

Landing pages for lead-generation sites typically should focus on a single, specific goal: getting the user to register or submit a lead. These types of landing pages should have a minimum of unrelated navigation or content, and should present only relevant, reassuring messages that encourage visitors to immediately and efficiently take the next step in the registration process. There are many similarities to direct mail. Every piece of literature, every page, every image and every word in a direct mail piece serves a very specific purpose — there’s no waste. Everything is focused on getting the recipient to respond. The same goes with lead-generation landing pages. Also, remember that you’ll need to include the landing page’s URL in the hyperlink of the message on the referring channel. For example, PPC search, e-mail, and print hyperlinks should all point to your specific landing page.

Taking it up a notch

Once you’ve adopted landing pages as part of your marketing toolbox, you should set your sights on optimizing them for greatest effectiveness. Direct marketers have used A/B split testing for decades to find out which competing ad or sales letter works best, and you can do the same with landing pages.

For example, does putting your product’s price on the landing page drive more sales than if you required the visitor to click onto a subsequent page before showing price? Using A/B testing, or more sophisticated multivariate testing, you can determine exactly which combination of alternate offers, headlines, copy, images and calls-to-action are most persuasive to visitors.

Beyond A/B and multivariate testing, you can also use behavioral targeting techniques to present visitors with landing pages that are customized based on whether the visitor is new vs. returning, time of day or day of week, and so on. Using behavioral targeting along with testing, you can easily optimize offers and other factors that will drive higher conversions and increased loyalty. For example:

• Leverage and test multiple landing page strategies to learn which is most effective on a segment-by-segment basis.
• Dramatically increase leads and conversions generated by PPC traffic, without increasing your SEM budget.
• Identify search terms and keywords that will yield the best quality traffic, then target those segments with specific, highly optimized offers and correlating landing pages.

Landing pages are an important component that should be in every web marketer’s toolbox. Try out the techniques outlined in this document to produce landing pages for your visitors. By optimizing landing pages through the steps of testing and targeting, you’ll not only increase the effectiveness of your Web marketing dollars, but you’ll gain unique and valuable insights into what persuades your visitors to take action.

source: http://www.sitespect.com/sitespect-6-practices-info-brief.shtml