Archives for August 2017

Landing Pages That Convert: Tips for Making Your Landing Pages Clear and Concise

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In this installment of our Landing Pages That Convert series, we focus specifically on the quality of the content you create for your page. The best content for a landing page, the content that is most likely to lead to conversions, is clear, concise, and easy to follow.

Here are a few tips that will help you make your landing pages clearer and more concise.

Carefully consider the structure you use for your content

One of the first things people will notice when they arrive on your landing page is the layout of the text. How readable does it look? Does it look like I will quickly be able to absorb information? People will process the quality of the text after they have had some time to read through it, but if it looks like a massive wall of text, they will almost definitely navigate away almost immediately.

Therefore, it is important you break up your text into easy-to-read chunks using headers, bullet points, and/or numbers. People are able to absorb the information packed into the text much easier if it comes in smaller bites.

In sections in which you have multiple paragraphs, make sure those paragraphs are also short and to the point, and contain their own individual ideas. Again, walls of text are intimidating, but a series of short, easy-to-read paragraphs is not as likely to scare away visitors.

Eliminate as much fluff as possible

“Concise” does not have to mean “short,” it simply means you do not waste time getting to the point. There is no rule for how long your website copy must be, but if it is going to be long, you had better make sure it delivers enough useful information to make that length worthwhile.

You should be able to quickly and simply answer questions such as:

Your web copy does not have to be educational—that is a task better served for your blogs. You also don’t need to spend time going into the history of your company outside of your About Us page, unless it somehow adds credibility to your work.

Instead, focus your landing pages on what services you offer and why you are best suited to deliver them. Anything that falls outside of this narrow focus is fluff and can be eliminated. Don’t distract your readers from the sales conversion process.

Yellow post-it that says "know your audience" relating your target audience for landing pages.

Talk directly to your target audience

You can create much more coherent content for your landing page by focusing the message on a specific audience, rather than trying to reach anyone and everyone. If you have customers spread across a wide variety of niches, you can create different landing pages for those niches—that’s absolutely fine. But each individual landing page should be written with a clear audience in mind.

Once you have narrowed down your target audience, you must then make an effort to connect with their problems and position yourself as being able to solve them. Remember: you’re not talking about yourself—you’re talking to your audience and conveying how you are able to benefit them.

So, for example, rather than saying “We are a flower shop in Minneapolis known for our fast delivery,” say, “Get flowers delivered to you anywhere in Minneapolis in two hours or less.” This speaks directly to the need of your target audience and how you will fill it, rather than placing the focus on yourself, as the former statement does.

Ultimately, your readers on your landing page want to know “what’s in it for me?” rather than what your company’s greatest strengths are. Save that information for other parts of your website.

Focus on a single topic

Don’t try to tackle multiple topics with a single landing page. Otherwise, you run the risk of confusing your readers and flooding them with too much information.

Instead, every landing page should focus on a single subject, service, or offering. This prevents you from muddling your message and helps you avoid rambling on about topics that may or may not actually be of interest to your target audience.

By developing clear and concise landing page content, you will make it easier for your readers to get the information they need that will help them decide to take action, whether that action is a purchase, a subscription or a download.

For more tips and information, contact us today at Viral Solutions.

Filed Under: Business Tips, Content Creation

Landing Pages that Convert: Elements of a Successful Landing Page

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Have you ever clicked a link to a sales or landing page, only to navigate away several seconds later? One would think that given the importance of these types of pages to converting sales, web developers would spend a significant amount of time on optimizing them to ensure they will produce the best results. In many cases, however, these pages are dry, uninteresting and simply do not provide the kind of conversion value they should.

Creating a landing page that succeeds at converting sales or driving other actions is a true art.

If lead generation is important to your business, you can’t ignore landing pages, or worse yet – throw them together without split testing relevant components, design elements, verbiage and different version for different targeted audiences. No matter how much time and money you spend on perfecting the sales funnel, if the landing page doesn’t connect with your audience, they will leave. With that being said, we understand that costs are a factor to an organization's ability to produce the ultimate landing page. However, we also understand that testing costs has a direct correlation to return-on-investment. The need for a structured, process-driven approach to conversion optimization (CRO) cannot be stressed enough. A structured CRO (conversion rate optimization) program is essential to deliver consistent and repeatable improvement in conversion rate and user experience (UX). Only a few organizations and agencies have adopted this approach to optimizing conversions; even fewer have been able to master it. Why? Because mastering conversions also requires a great strategy, a great business mind, a great coder and an excellent design team –  skills that are incredibly rare under one roof.

In this series, Landing Pages that Convert, it is our goal to not just talk about optimizing a landing page but to describe each element in detail.

Group of coworkers gathered around computer working on web page design.

Over the coming weeks, we are going to go into detail about the various elements that make up a successful landing page, as described by Digital Marketer’s Justin Rondeau and in “Digital Marketing For Dummies“ with Russ Henneberry. Here are some of the specific items we will focus on:

We will expound in greater detail on these aspects of outstanding landing pages over the next several weeks. For more information at any time, feel free to reach out to us at Viral Solutions, and our team of trusted digital marketers will be happy to answer any questions you have.

Filed Under: Business Tips, Content Creation

Direct Response Marketing Strategies That Can Help You Increase Sales

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One of the best ways to improve your sales is to increase engagement in as many ways as possible. And, believe it or not, the best way to increase engagement is to simply ask your audience for it. The strategies used to ask your targets for more engagement are called “direct response” strategies. Here are some specific examples of these strategies that could help you increase engagement and, ultimately, your sales:

Make frequent use of calls to action

Every page on your website should have a call to action, asking your readers to do something. It might not even be to purchase a product—it could simply be to ask them to sign up for your newsletter by putting their email address into a submission field. You should use calls to action on all your marketing materials, even beyond your website, including signs, commercials, videos, and more.

Make offers on the sidebar of your website/blog

The sidebar on your blog is typically used for categories and archives of posts, but you can also take advantage of that high-visibility space by adding in special offers. The offer does not have to be related to the post—the point is just to take advantage of the visibility of that area on your site. These offers should include a field for readers to submit their name and email address to sign up for your newsletter.

Make an offer on your business card

If you regularly pass out business cards, include some information about a special offer people might be interested in. For example, include a web address at which a person can download a free copy of an eBook you wrote, right before or after you list all your contact information.

Always provide multiple methods of communication

One of the best ways to increase engagement is to provide your audience with multiple response methods. Don’t just give them a phone number—make sure they have your email address, physical address, fax number, website URL, and social media accounts. You still use one single call to action, but you just provide them with more ways to contact you.

These are just a few examples of ways you can use direct response strategies to increase engagement and get more responses out of your target audience.

Three wooden dice with communication type icons symbolizing modes of communication for direct response marketing.

For more information and tips, contact us today at Viral Solutions. We look forward to working with you.

Filed Under: Business Tips