 A landing page is one of the most effective yet overlooked tools for lead generation. Oddly however, many companies neglect to use them. While a business’s homepage serves as the “front door” for your virtual storefront, studies show that landing pages convert at a much higher rate. In fact, while the average conversion rate for a website is between 1 - 3%, landing pages have a conversion rate between 5 - 15%.
So what the heck is a landing page anyway?
Landing pages instruct your visitors in no uncertain terms what action you want them to take and why you want them to take it. Homepages on the other hand are generally less focused and are more ideal for direct traffic. Landing pages are an ideal solution when you can control how visitors arrive on your site. Most people arriving to your landing page arrive via PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ad campaigns.
While conversion rates for landing pages generally land in the 5 - 15% range, certain techniques and strategies can greatly enhance your conversion rates. Here are some of the best techniques you can use to create the perfect landing page.
1. Refuse to Use Your Homepage as a Landing Page
While this may seem initially tempting, it’s an ill conceived idea. Homepages generally have too much copy, which can confuse visitors. Landing pages on the other hand are focused on one task and will result in higher conversion rates.
2. All Successful Landing Pages Contain the Following
- A headline and (optional) sub-headline
- A short description of the what is being offered
- At least one supporting image or short video
- Testimonials, logos, or security badges
- Most importantly, a form on the landing page itself to capture information.
3. The Evils of Navigation
Landing pages are designed for one purpose - to get visitors to take one action. Incorporating navigation into your landing page forces your visitors to scroll, which detracts them from completing the desired result - submitting their contact information. The more visitors can wander around your landing page, the great the chance they will leave your page for good.
4. Don’t Overload Your Landing Page
Some business owners load their landing page with images and video, thinking this will make their landing page more appealing and therefor more effective. This is incorrect. Reduce amount of copy, images, media, and links to only what's necessary, and organize your content in a proper structure so objects are in logical order. Most importantly, make sure that the call-to-action (CTA) is well defined for your visitor.
5. Use White Space to Your Advantage
This next principle applies to not only landing pages, but web design in general. The proper use of white space (or negative space) can give your landing page a classic, or elegant aesthetic. White space is often overlooked by inexperienced landing page designers who believe they must splash their page with an array of color. Without a sufficient amount of white space, text would be unreadable, graphics would lose their edge, and there would be no balance between the elements on a page.
 As I traverse the world wide web I find a lot of potentially successful websites that lack a couple of key elements that would significantly increase sales and boost profits. Many of these websites feature terrific graphics and even fairly solid web copy, but neglect to follow some well-establish web copywriting rules.
Incorporating the following 5 elements into your web copy will result in near immediate gains in leads, sales and ultimately profits.
1. Fail to connect with target audience
The popular notion that simply driving traffic to your website will result in an influx of sales is absolutely, unequivocally false. You can drive endless streams of traffic to your website, but if you fail to connect with your target audience, you’ll leave sales, and ultimately profits on the table.
The key to connecting with consumers is identifying your ideal customer. What attributes and characteristics define your “perfect” customer? Getting to know your ideal client is paramount to closing the sale.
You must think outside the box. You must go beyond demographics. What makes them tick? You have to be able to tap into their inner-most wants and desires. What are their problems, and how do you plan on solving them? You have to connect with them intimately. How will your service or product benefit them?
2. The Lack of a Persuasive Offer
I have beat this drum before and I will continue to do so. I see many websites simply offering a product or service with an affixed price. Think this will close the sale for you? Think again. It’s critical that the offer you present is utterly irresistible! You must build value in your prospect’s mind. Even more importantly, you must offer what it referred to as “perceived value.”
Let’s take a closer look at “perceived value.” Even if what you offers costs you next to nothing to produce, your prospect must perceive that they are receiving more than what they are paying for. Loading your offer with a bonus is one of the most effective ways to accomplish that.
Want proof that bonuses work? Just flip on your television and watch those late night informercials. That gentleman pitching the latest set of steak knives will usually follow his initial offer with something like this:
“And if you order the all new Shinago titanium steak knives within the next 20 minutes, we'll throw in a second set of sleek titanium steak knives absolutely FREE!"
And they do this because the bonus strategy generates MORE SALES. It's a proven time-tested method!
3. Neglecting Scarcity
Most visitors to your site who take the time to consider your product or service would like to buy from you. The dilema is they feel like they can simply come back to your site at any time to purchase your product or service. It simply is not a priority to them. So how do you create that sense of urgency?
You need to incorporate a sense of scarcity into your offer. There are multiple ways to employ this strategy. Whether it is a limited time sale, summer special or 'while they last' item, there are many ways to create a 'call to action' which motivates buyers to act immediately.
Phrases such as 'Don't wait another moment, act now!' or'Call today!' may not seem like killer advertising copy, but these phrases resonate in the minds of your audience.This principle has worked for ages and is still used today to generate massive sales and profits.
4. The Absence of Proof
With the abundance of offers proliferating the internet, consumers are becoming increasingly hesitant to purchase.
Sure, your website may be professionally designed, offer an array of beneficial products or services, but if you don’t offer some kind of tangible proof, your prospects may question its validity.
You can of course inject testimonails and guarantess into your website, which offer immediate credibility. However, elements of proof do not end there. You can include the story behind your product, case studies,, statistics and facts and “seals of approval.” Any relevant elements of proof you can add to your website will go a long ways in establishing trust in your service or product.
Let’s face it, we live in an increasingly cynical and skeptical society. You must remove any kind of risk in your customer’s mind.
5. No Distinct Call to Action
This may seem like a painstakingly simple principle, but it’s one that is often neglected. I want you to take a second and think to yourself, “What is it that I want my visitor to do?” Once you have a clear objective established you can focus on the outcome.
It’s crticial that you keep your call to action simple and straightforward. Focus on one point and one point only. If you want your customer to click on a “buy now” button, instruct them as clearly as possible to do so. A convoluted call to action will confuse your customers and result in a significant reduction in sales.
 Why does your small business need a business blog you ask?
We created this blog as a way to brand ourselves as professionals in the copywriting community as well as a resource for our clients.
As we sat down and started really thinking about the importance of blogging, we came up with the following list of 5 reasons your business needs a business blog.
1) Build Trust
Trust is built slowly and takes hard work and dedication. Your goal when building trust above all else is to deliver value. People by their very nature are skeptical, and a well executed blog can break through the fears and inherent distrust of consumers.
Your audience wants to pull back the curtains and see a face and hear a voice. They want to conduct business with companies who they feel like they can trust and believe in. Your business blog serves as a valuable tool in achieving that.
2) Take Control of Your Brand
A brand is to a business what words are to a human. It’s how we as business owners announce ourselves to the world. The brand elicits emotion and passion when people hear and see a name.
Let me illustrate just how powerful a brand an be. Six years I vividly recall my son sitting in front of the television watching a Skittles commercial. Before the commercial finished my son belted out, “Taste the Rainbow!” He was 4 years old. If brand advertising is that effective on a 4 year old, imagine the effect it leaves on us as adults.
Whether you’re branding a business, what you put out on the Internet, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, is a direct representation of your company. Every blog post, every status update, is your legacy and your brand.
3) Nurture and Expand Relationships
Social media and blogging give your clients an opportunity to communicate with you on their terms.
Relationships is business are everything....as small business owners, it’s all we have!
Look, it’s inevitable that someone else is going to offer a better price or service. What you are in complete control of however is your relationships with your clients.
Except relationship. You can have the BEST relationship with someone. Even top executives make seemingly ludicrous decisions because of relationships.
Your blog is serves as a perfect tool to nurture and build relationships.
4) The Search
The importance of an seo optimized blog can’t be emphasized enough! If you conduct proper keyword research your blog will be found by consumers looking for the exact information you are providing in major search engines like Google.
Google favors fresh and original content that is keyword optimized.
In other words, your blog posts need to have a purpose and you need to conduct careful keyword research. Choosing to neglect proper seo optimization will result in your potential clients passing you by and conducting business with your competitors.
Use Google Keyword Search to determine the search terms that will drive the most traffic to your blog and use them in your blog posts.
5) Sell, Sell and Sell!
Let’s be honest. At days end what we’re trying to do is sell more of our product or service. Building trust, nuturing relationships, optimizing our content and broadening our brand recognition all go a long ways in completing the sale.
Of course this is only the tip of the iceberg on this particular subject, but what it comes down to is this: A business blog helps you sell more. It’s really that simple!
 In the modern age of social media marketing and ppc advertising, press releases are often forgotten and sadly underutilized. The truth is press releases are one of the most effective marketing tools available to small businesses.
So what the heck is a press release anyway? A press release is generally a written communication that announces something newsworthy about your company, product, or alerts media about a newsworthy event. While primarily written, press releases can be distributed in audio or video formats as well.
Small businesses use press releases to inform the masses about a new product or service or to inform the public about a new development to their product or service.
In addition to informing the media about new products or services, press releases can be used to help shape public opinion or to broaden company awareness. When growing an online business, press releases can give you a competitive edge in getting your name out to the public.
Here are 4 ways press releases can help you grow your small business or organization:
Reach your target audience
Successful marketing is all about reaching your target audience, and that is exactly what well-designed press releases do. By contrast, traditional advertisement distribution will probably not reach Facebook users. By distributing a press release, there are more opportunities to make sure it does reach that massive pool of online readers.
Press releases can bring more traffic to your website
SEO friendly press releases aid in bringing increased traffic to your website. Here is an example: If your business targets gift baskets, a press release that incorporates that word will be picked up by search engines such as Google much sooner, allowing for more people to actually read your press release about your newest gift basket assortment.
Build your brand
One of the core principles of business success is building your brand. Press releases help build brand recognition. As your business continues to release new products or services the more valuable your press releases become. Submitting press releases gets your name out to different media outlets and customers, continually reminding them of your company.
This is far more effective than a traditional grand opening, which provides just one opportunity to announce your new product line or service. Press releases provide a valuable opportunity to introduce your new business to the masses as well as notifying the public about expansion, special offers, etc. This type of exposure will build your brand identity like few other options.
Harness the power of social media
Utilizing seo and smo (social media optimization) friendly press releases, you can fully the leverage the power of social media hubs like like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn. Conventional press releases aren’t distributed to users of Facebook and Google. With millions and millions of people on social networks, it’s critical that your press releases utilize seo and smo strategies.
Social media’s impact on lead generation and sales has been well chronicled. But what if your company can’t afford a dedicated social media team? How can you leverage social medias vast resources without breaking the budget?
With over 135 million members, LinkedIn is a powerful professional networking tool. For businesses looking to connect with specific industries even its powerful search facilities and networking opportunities make the most out of a limited marketing budget.
Here is a fantastic video detailing how to leverage LinkedIn to grow your business. Enjoy!
 If you want your business to have any chance of succeeding, you must convert prospects into customers. An important part of this conversion is creating an irresistible offer. Your offer must be compelling and exciting. Your readers must find your offer too good to pass up! Let’s take a closer look.
Most prospects who take the time to consider your product or service would like to buy from you. The only problem is, buying your product or service is not a priority to them. Many business owners believe they have to reduce their price to improve their offer. This is not necessarily the case. What you need to do is create a sense of urgency and build value in your offer.
Create a sense of urgency: There are many avenues to take when employing this strategy. Whether it is a limited time sale, summer special or 'while they last' item, there are many ways to create a 'call to action' which motivates buyers to act immediately. Phrases such as 'Don't wait another moment, act now!' or 'Call today!' may not seem like killer advertising copy, these strategies have worked for ages and are still used today to generate massive sales and profits.
Build value: One of the most effective ways to build value is by adding bonuses. Who doesn't like to recieve something for free?! Regardles as to what you offer as a bonus , it must possess a high perceived value to your buyers - even if it costs you nothing to produce. It's essential that the customer feels like they are receiving more than they paid for and loading your offer with a bonus is one of the most effective ways to accomplish that.
Want proof that bonuses work? Just flip on your television and watch those late night informercials! That genetleman pitching the latest frying pan will usually follow his initial offer with something like this:
“And if you order the all new Lean Mean Frying Machine within the next 20 minutes, we'll throw in a set of sleek titanium steak knives absolutely FREE!"
And they do this because the bonus strategy generates MORE SALES. It's a proven time-tested method!
So why does this technique work so well? People make buying decisions based on emotion as opposed to logic. We need to somehow justify the buying decision to ourselves and receiving bonuses accomplishes this!
 This is one of the most frequent questions we get asked by those inquiring about our copywriting services. Here are 5 reasons why you should hire a professional copywriter.
1. Quality
As professional writers, this is how we earn our living. We possess the tools and knowledge to write persuasive copy that sells and captures your audience's attention.
2. Positioning
While you may be a capable writer, creating copy for marketing and sales purposes requires properly being able to position your product so it stands out and motivates your audience to buy. As copywriters, we know how to do this.
3. Clarity
Being able to write for your target audience is crucial. As professional copywriters, we take complex and intricate material and make it digestible and easy to understand.
4. Convenience
Your time is vaulable and writing can be tedious and time consuming. Hiring a professional copywriter allows you to focus on more important tasks.
5. Brevity
In today's world, people simply don't have the patience to wade through lines and lines of copy. Professional copywriters are able to take your main ideas and transform them into succinct and relevant points. Copywriters breath fresh life and focus into your copy.
|
RSS Feed