Startups also need to consider what traffic sources are arriving at their landing page. As a paid search guy, I'm sending traffic from Google PPC to landing pages, not home pages, and we're optimizing these pages all the time.
We leverage over a decade of experience and are happy to offer individual startups advice. (We also have a conversion optimization program available for a fee.) I'm also happy to summarize our best practices (for paid search anyway). We preach this stuff all day long.
- What is the search intent of the visitor for each keyword you're buying? Own this question by pulling search term reports as often as possible.
- Be sure the ad copy matches search intent
- Be sure the landing page matches the ad, which matches search intent
- Have a very strong offer that stands out from the crowd. This one usually takes a team to develop. Test different offers.
- If the all of the above are in line, get the @#$% outta the way! Don't fill your landing page with all kinds of unnecessary links, videos, white papers, history, about the team, etc. Just provide a nice big button to push them along the funnel.
- Some folks benefit from placing a signup form directly on the landing page. Others actually want to qualify the visitor a bit more by forcing a click to the next page. It all depends on you.
- Are you equipped to handle phone calls? Then provide a big phone number! And use dashes like this: 415-123-4567, not periods 415.123.4567.
- Test, test, and test some more. We swear by Optimizely for LP testing.
It helps, thanks - but our problem is a different kind: We find it hard to write a good, selling copy; It's pretty much the only reason we don't have a proper landing page yet.
Comments
Startups also need to consider what traffic sources are arriving at their landing page. As a paid search guy, I'm sending traffic from Google PPC to landing pages, not home pages, and we're optimizing these pages all the time.
We leverage over a decade of experience and are happy to offer individual startups advice. (We also have a conversion optimization program available for a fee.) I'm also happy to summarize our best practices (for paid search anyway). We preach this stuff all day long.
- What is the search intent of the visitor for each keyword you're buying? Own this question by pulling search term reports as often as possible. - Be sure the ad copy matches search intent
- Be sure the landing page matches the ad, which matches search intent
- Have a very strong offer that stands out from the crowd. This one usually takes a team to develop. Test different offers.
- If the all of the above are in line, get the @#$% outta the way! Don't fill your landing page with all kinds of unnecessary links, videos, white papers, history, about the team, etc. Just provide a nice big button to push them along the funnel.
- Some folks benefit from placing a signup form directly on the landing page. Others actually want to qualify the visitor a bit more by forcing a click to the next page. It all depends on you.
- Are you equipped to handle phone calls? Then provide a big phone number! And use dashes like this: 415-123-4567, not periods 415.123.4567.
- Test, test, and test some more. We swear by Optimizely for LP testing.
Hope this helps.
It helps, thanks - but our problem is a different kind: We find it hard to write a good, selling copy; It's pretty much the only reason we don't have a proper landing page yet.
Why would dashes in phone numbers be better than dots?