Are your landing pages killing your conversion rates?

You have made the investment in an ongoing SEO marketing campaign and have even developed a pay per click strategy to assist in driving traffic. What may just be killing your conversion ROI are the landing pages for your products or services. Your landing pages must be optimized to make the sale otherwise you are simply wasting your time and your hard earned money.

•  The first critical piece to a successful landing page is the immediate headline at the page. While it will take more time, you would be wise to have separate landing pages for each of your products or services. It will be less distraction for your potential customer. You have less than three seconds to engage your visitor or they are gone. Your headline is the key. It must give a convincing reason for them to continue on and learn more.
• Your design must do only one thing and that is to keep them engaged toward buying. Forget standard templates. They rarely work and it makes you look amateurish at best. Your design must enhance the message and hold their hand as they continue their journey toward conversion. It is strictly an SEO marketing piece so approach it from that angle. Forget your graphic designer. Many of them think they understand advertising and marketing but almost none of them actually do.
• Calls to action must be everywhere. You can’t just plunk down one at the end of the page and figure it will do the job because it won’t. You want the customer to pull that credit card trigger sooner than later. Have calls to action spread out throughout the page at one-third page intervals. Try and get them to convert at every chance. It takes experimentation to try and find a call to action that will be highly effective for your landing pages as well as your SEO marketing. Take your time with it. If you can’t do it, hire a professional. It will be worth the investment.
• Establish credibility with the customer by using your chamber of commerce or Better Business Bureau logo. Also, include some satisfied customer blurbs or any positive media coverage you have had. Your form must be short and streamlined. No extraneous boxes. The less time they spend filling out the sales form the better. Also, remove any page distractions like links to your home page or affiliate ads of any sort. They must stay focused at all times until the get to the check out line and make the actual sale.

– Written by Kevin Sawyer