Engine Ready Blog

When in the landing page development phase it is important that you follow some simple guidelines in order to receive the best results possible.

Lets take a look at what we have identified to work best for a high converting landing page.

1 - First Impression:

Make sure your landing page clearly communicates what your product or service is.  If it is unclear as to what the page is about the common browser will usually click the back button to find what they are looking for.

2 - Above the fold:

Keep all of your important information visible above the fold of you landing page.  You want all of your text, bullet points, images, and most importantly your call to action to be visible without having to scroll.

3 - Simplify Things:

Instead of long paragraphs, make bullet points with your strongest selling points short enough for the visitor to scan and make a quick decision.  The longer you keep a visitors attention the more likely they will convert.

4 - Establish Trust:

Being a reputable company goes a long way these days.  BBB Logo, As seen on the News or TV, a secure check out, and guarantees all help to establish trust.  Make sure to only use these if they actually apply to your business, otherwise your defeating the whole purpose of establishing trust.

5 - Strong Call to Action:

The whole point of landing page is to have your visitor complete a desired action.  Whether it be a Order Button or Request more Info button make sure your Call to Action is easily visible and lets your visitor know what to do next.

6 - Testing:

Above all else the single most important part of landing page development is testing.  Your job is never done when testing landing pages.  Just when you think you have found the winning formula you can always change something as little as an image or the bullet point and find a higher converting landing page.

Landing pages are extremely important for any business, especially when you are doing Pay Per Click Advertising.  Remember that these are simply what we have found to perform the best, but I highly recommend you do some landing page testing and prove me wrong.  You never know, just because a certain formula works for one landing page, doesn’t it mean is best for yours.

I recently returned from Bellevue (Seattle) ,Washington after being invited for the second time by Microsoft to participate in the 2009 Search Summit (formerly known as AdChamps). This is an invite-only summit in which the programmers, designers, and executives engage the advertisers in an attempt to align their goals with each other.

The big news this year was obviously BING.com, Microsoft’s Live.com rebirth and rebranding. All the employees there were fantastically excited and oddly enough, so were the advertisers there. If you read my blog from last year’s event: http://blog.engineready.com/microsoft-adchamps-2008/ you will see that Microsoft done the near impossible, caused excitement from the Search Engine Marketing community.

In ’08 the climate was much nastier. There was pure anger in the eyes and knuckles of many advertisers, including myself. We felt abused by all of the technical problems, poor customer support, and overall horrible user experience. And all the time, a small army of adCenter employees scurried to document every comment, suggestion, feedback and criticism. For nearly a year, it appeared that nothing had been done, then slowly releases started to appear which specifically addressed some of the more major issues brought up during that meeting. 15 months later, I have almost every tool I need to manage my account with the same efficiency as I do a Google account* Less: Negative Keyword Character Limit & CPA/Conversion Rates displayed in the UI.

I’m not saying that bing.com is going to dethrone Google, but I am saying that Microsoft has positioned themselves in an excellent position compared to where they were 15 months ago. Let’s take a look why:

Advertising: Let’s face it, the commercials are pretty clever and funny. http://www.youtube.com/user/bing

Branding: BING is a pretty catchy, fun and easy to remember name. Compare that to Live.com. Not sure what they were going for with that one.

Competition: More and more people are getting out of the “Googolie-eyed Dating Phase” with Google and are looking to see other engines. The question is, does Microsoft have it going on upstairs to make a serious impression or will it be simply dismissed as ditzy eye candy?

Quality: Many have said, including myself, MSN provides some of the cheapest and most qualified leads or highest ROAS. We all just get very little of it.

Traffic: It has been increasing. My AdCenter spending has surpassed that of Yahoo in many of my accounts.

Tools: AdCenter has provided us with two tools. Excel-Ad-in and the Editor.
While the Excel Ad-in provides some nifty features, it nowhere near compares to the operational efficiency you can enjoy when using an editor. Like the AdWords editor, you can build & optimize an account completely offline. In less than 10 minutes, you can import and upload an existing Google account structure into AdCenter. This now leaves me with one less reason I would migrate from Google to Yahoo before doing so with MSN.

Content Transparency: AdCenter has added a new report to their interface which allows you to run a CPA based report highlighting all websites which AdCenter has shown your content ads on. Once you isolate a poor performing domain, you can then exclude it to further tighten up your campaigns. Anyone who has had experience with Yahoo knows how what quality a black box system produces.

Yahoo: Whom I believe is a lame duck. There have been no updates, only layoffs. Bing is the newest buzz word in the online community. Once luster diminishes from this shinny new search engine, I believe Microsoft bring it right back into the lime-light by making a final (and successful) bid to overtake Overture.. err.. Panama.. err.. Yahoo Sponsored.. err. Search Marketing Solutions.. oh whatever, that last one standing which has neither an identity nor direction.

Engine Ready has announced that they have agreed to host a new monthly radio show on WebmasterRadio.FM designed to keep online marketers informed on the most up-to-date and successful search marketing strategies. The free show called “Best Search Strategies” will air the last Tuesday of every month at 2 PM Eastern time.

Engine Ready’s CEO Jamie Smith and VP Brian Lewis will host the shows and plan to discuss findings from the Engine Ready Research Team’s most recent studies on search marketing.

To listen to or download this first radio show, visit Webmasterradio.

Upcoming episodes will discuss:

• June 30th - Study Results on Keyword Assists and 800-number Prefix usage on websites
• July 28th - SEO versus PPC, which tactics bring the highest converting and most engaged traffic
• August 25th - Ad Position Study, which ad position in Google AdWords is the most cost effective

In addition to Laurie’s post on Choosing a Shopping Cart I figured it would be helpful to put together some tips on how to reduce shopping cart abandonment.  In my opinion, nothing is worse than driving traffic to your site, selling your product or service, and then having your already convinced customer leave in the middle of the ordering process due to your shopping cart.

Here are just a few pointer for your shopping cart…

1.  Asking too much!

Try and keep the required fields to a minimum, nothing is more frustrating than taking 10-20 minutes to fill out an order form.  If a lot of information is needed, try collecting your visitors contact information and following up after the purchase is complete for more information.

2.  How much more?

If you absolutely need to collect a large amount of information from a prospect, make sure to break things up.  If possible, separate required fields into 2-3 pages.  If your ordering process is split between 3 pages it will be less intimidating and will most likely convert better.  Also if you use this strategy it is recommended that you clearly state which step the buyer is on.  If you request 3 pages of information, simply include “Step 1 of 3″, “Step 2 of 3″, “Step 3 of 3″ for each page, this will let your customer know exactly where they stand in the ordering process.

3.  What does that mean?

Many times I have been filling out an order form and arrived at a field where I needed to add information and I didn’t know what they were asking.  If there is any question as to what something means, make sure to clearly explain what is being requested.  Remember, just because you understand, doesn’t mean your customers do.

4.  Errors

Check, double check, and then check again.  The more fields required, the bigger chance for a mistake.  If there are errors in your checkout process you just lost a sale.  Check in all browsers, all browser versions, different computers, and try to check at least once a week.

5.  Validation

Many times an order form will be filled out, a field or two will be missed, and the page will refresh saying “You Missed a Field!”  Not only is this annoying but sometimes a shopping cart will erase everything you previously entered and you are stuck at step 1.  Make sure your shopping cart does not erase already entered fields, and have your form ask nicely when a field is missed.

6.  Security

With the high amount of fraud and identity theft that is arising these days, having a secure shopping cart goes far.  Many are very skeptical about giving out their name, let alone their credit card information.  Make sure you have a secure shopping cart and the security seal is visible and reassuring to the buyers.

7.  Speed

When using a multi-page checkout process make sure your shopping cart is fast.  Humans are impatient by nature.  If clicking the “Next” button results in a 30 sec delay, say good-bye.

8.  Tracking

Last but certainly not least is tracking.  Once you break your checkout process into 2-3 pages, analytics will help you pinpoint other flaws.  If you dig through your analytics and see 50% of people are leaving on page 2, there is obviously a problem.  Since there are fewer fields on each page it will be easier to figure out where or why people are abandoning your shopping cart.

These are just a few thing to be aware of, or help when choosing a shopping cart.  There are many other factors that come into play.  A shopping cart is huge part of your business if you do business online.  Once you choose your shopping cart it is often difficult to switch to another, so be sure to take your time, research, and find out as much as you can before make a final decision.

Like I said, this is only a short list, if you can think of any other shopping cart best practices, leave a comment below.

On June 3rd, I will have the opportunity to speak directly with the designers, managers & executives of Microsoft AdCenter.  In a yearly summit which about 50 advertisers are chosen to attend, Microsoft allows us to air our frustrations and point out their (many) short comings from the eyes of an end-user.  This is a rare opportunity to actually make a difference and get Microsoft AdCenter to the forefront of search. 

These yearly powwows are to align AdCenter’s goals with that of its advertisers.  I was quite surprised how humbling they were last year; jotting down every idea brought up.  I think they realized that their system was architected with their programmer’s ideas & designs instead of an advertiser’s.  They need us to help make their changes.

If you are reading this and have a specific operation issue, lack or functionality, editorial, customer service, or anything you want to get off of your chest, please leave a comment here and I will be sure to represent your voice.  And please, don’t hold back.

There is a list of do and don’t when it comes to building a website or redoing an existing one. But have you ever thought about how these decisions can affect your online marketing? This post is intended for the decision makers of businesses, those who might have so many things on their plate that sometimes the obvious questions get skipped over.

One specific I’d like to bring up is the process of picking a shopping cart. In the past couple of months, we have come across shopping carts that do not host 3^rd party analytics or at least the shopping cart customer service says this. Meaning the shopping cart will not support the analytics to track your online marketing efforts such as PPC, Organic Search, and Email Blasts.

But if your website is dependent upon ppc marketing, email blasts, organic rankings, banner ads, etc it is even more imperative to keep track of these channels. The great advantage to online marketing is the ability to track your leads or sales.

Okay, I know most of you already know this and the importance of tracking so I’ll get to the point. For those in the position to make the final decisions…you may want to ask the shopping cart vendor if they’ll support 3^rd party tracking from the get go. Below is a quick check off list to help you on your way.

1.       Do you support 3^rd party tracking?

2.       Who will or is allowed to implement the tracking?

3.       Is there additional cost if the shopping cart vendor installs the tracking?

Google to Announce Change to Their Trademark Advertising Policy

It is expect that on May 18, 2009 Google will announce a new change in how they approve/disapprove ads which use a trademark name.

Effective June 15, 2009:

• Ads which use the term in a descriptive or generic way, and not in reference to the trademark owner or the goods or services corresponding to the trademark term. 
• Ads which use the trademark in a nominative manner to refer to the trademark or its owner, specifically:  
  • Resale of the trademarked goods or services: The advertiser’s site must sell (or clearly facilitate the sale of) the goods or services corresponding to a trademark term. The landing page of the ad must clearly demonstrate that a user is able to purchase the goods or services corresponding to a trademark from the advertiser. 
  • Sale of components, replacement parts or compatible products corresponding to a trademark: The advertiser’s site must sell (or clearly facilitate the sale of) the components, replacement parts or compatible products relating to the goods or services of the trademark. The advertiser’s landing page must clearly demonstrate that a user is able to purchase the components, parts or compatible products corresponding to the trademark term from the advertiser. 
  • Informational sites: The primary purpose of the advertiser’s site must be to provide non-competitive and informative details about the goods or services corresponding to the trademark term. Additionally, the advertiser may not sell or facilitate the sale of the goods or services of a competitor of the trademark owner.

If you reread these criteria they will slowly make sense.  If examples make it easier to understand, here are some “Cans” and “Cannots”

You can now say:

·         “We Sell Sony, Samsung, LG, & Westinghouse LCD TV’s” which links to a general landing page.

·         “Newest model Sony LCD TVs on Sale” which links to a Sony LCD TV landing page.

·         “Find All Replacement Parts for Sony LCD TV’s” which links to a Sony LCD TV parts landing page.

·         “See which TV (Sony or LG) received the highest quality rating” which links to a purely informative landing page which does not facilitate the sale of one product or another.

You still cannot say:

·         “Looking for low cost Sony LCD TV’s?” which links to a LG TV landing page.

·         “LG LCD TV’s are the same Quality of Sony’s at half the price!” which links to a LG TV landing page

·         “See which TV (Sony or LG) received the highest quality rating” which links to a landing page which pushes the sale of the better performing product.

‘If you have ads in your account which were previously disapproved for trademark policy and that comply with the aforementioned criteria, you may submit those ads for re-review after May 18 and eligible ads may begin showing in the US starting June 15.’ - Google

As I’m sure you’re aware, there are 4 toll-free prefixes - 800, 888, 877 and 866.

Although the “800″ prefix has been around for over 40 years, its next oldest sibling, “888″ is only 13 years old. The “877″ prefix came about 11 years ago, while the youngest “866″ has only been in use for 9 years.

Does the longer legacy of the “800″ prefix result in higher conversions when tested against the newer toll-free prefixes?

See which “800″ prefix yields the highest conversion rate in this search marketing industry study performed by Engine Ready.