We shall now conclude our series of posts documenting how to fully optimize those ever so important landing pages.

If you missed the previous posts, be sure to refer back to parts one and two at your convenience.

2. Sell not just your product, but your company

As an online merchant you have to battle to sell and promote your product line; but just as important is the ability to sell your own company as well. A potential customer who is visiting your site for the first time has no idea if you’ve been a reputable business owner for the past 20 years, or if you’re a shoddy reseller that just popped up under a new assumed name.

Credibility is indeed one of the most important aspects of selling online (it is our #2 point on this list after all ), so the more confidence that you can provide a consumer to make him/her feel safe, the better.

Here are a few starting points that we can delve into deeper at a later date:

• Provide an easy method to contact you, preferably by phone; but if you lack the resources, at the very least promote an e-mail address that one can use that provides a quick turn around time
• Include a brief synopsis of your company (perhaps under an “About Us” page), so that a customer can put a “face to the name”. Your site then becomes a story rather than just being another .com
• Post some testimonials or feedback that you’ve received (if you don’t have any, try to get some). See our right hand side for such an example
• Bonus: Get a security certificate to provide that extra layer of confidence to consumers. Companies such as McAfee and thawte provide certificates to qualifying sites that can be posted. Consumers can then shop with little fear that their personal information will be compromised (click on the above links for more information). You can think of it as a restaurant getting a stamp of approval from a health inspector.

4. Provide customers with as much details about your product as possible

While the more savvy of shoppers out there may be able to recognize that Widget Model 311.25cg provides a charge of 1.21 gigawatts and can run purely on refried beans, many of your potential customers probably won’t realize as much.

The more details you can provide then, the more assured that customers will know that they will get exactly what it is they’re looking for, and not pass up on you due to a lack of certainty.

In addition, more details on the page results in more information that a merchant can include in his data feed, and as a result that specific product will show up under more search terms. And in the case of Google Base, this results in more free traffic/exposure.

6. Match the searched product with what is clicked through

This may sound like an obvious one, but there are times when a consumer will search for a product, click through to a merchant’s landing page, only to find a different product featured.

As it turns out what they were actually looking for was an accessory to that product that is featured toward the bottom of the page, requiring them to scroll down to find.

This makes for a relatively bad first impression, and while some consumers may be able to spot what it was they were looking for and end up make the purchase, a majority will have exited as soon as they realize what they see is not what they wanted.

Let’s briefly recap the 7 main points that we’ve gone over in the past week:

1. Page Load Time – longer wait times results in a greater likelihood a consumer will leave your site
2. Sell not just your product, but your company – higher levels of credibility = more trust = greater likelihood of a sale
3. Good Image(s) – an image removes the disconnect between the consumer and product, so make it a good one
4. Provide customers with as much details about your product as possible – more details = more assurance of what one is getting
5. Checkout Simplicity – fewer steps between the initial impression and final checkout makes it less likely that a consumer will click away
6. Match the searched product with what is clicked through - a mismatched link will cause many consumers to immediately find another destination
7. Condense all important details - making all pertinent purchasing information as easy to spot as possible makes it more likely that a purchase will be made

There you have it then; while implementing these 7 steps won’t guarantee an immediate increase in sales, it can greatly enhance the likelihood that a visitor will be well informed of what it is they’re buying and increase their level of trust in you. As a result they will be more likely to make a purchase on that initial visit, and perhaps future visits as well.

We’ve seen too many merchants out there (though seldom one of ours ) underestimate the importance and value of their landing pages, and end up losing out on potential business when a quick fix or two would remedy it.

Don’t let this happen to you then. Stick with the principles above, and you can be sure that your destination pages will be just that–a destination, rather than a point of departure.

Have any tips of your own? Post them in our comments section.

And with that, we’ll see you on the engines.

-Tien

On Wednesday we gave you steps 1 and 3 in creating a kick butt landing page; and today we’re going to provide you with a couple more tips that will help you make that ever so important first impression really count.

Without further adieu then, here are steps 5 and 7:

5. Checkout Simplicity - Imagine entering a grocery store to buy milk, and upon grabbing a gallon or two, you realize that in order to make the purchase you have to crawl through a complex series of mazes back to the checkout counter.

Realistically such a scenario is quite unlikely, but in the online world too many merchants are guilty of putting their virtual customers through similar mazes. Online shopping became popular because it provided people with the ability to make quick, painfree purchases. Therefore, simplicity and ease in the checkout process is an essential quality to ensure the customer’s likelihood of completing the purchase .

Simple checkouts are such a key in the online shopping world in fact that internet retailer leader Amazon tried to patent their “1-Click” purchase system.

And while you don’t necessarily need to have a patent-pending checkout system, it should be immediately clear upon entering your site how one can make a purchase; and from there require as few steps from the initial visit, to the final confirmation page as possible.

7. Condense all important details - The art of selling newspapers has been perfected over the last several turns of the centuries, and one principle that has remained since then is the idea of consolidating the latest, most intriguing headline and image to the center and top half of the page (or the fold) in order to grab the attention of a potential purchaser.

Using this idea then, merchants should supply users with the most pertinent information regarding their product toward the top where a viewers eyes will most likely to be focused. The most important things that a customer will look for initially will be: the product title, its price, an image, and a method to make the purchase.

To illustrate putting these ideas put to good use, below is an example of how one of our merchants, a top 300 internet retailer Stacks and Stacks, has their landing page set up, with the numbers correlating to what’s been discussed so far (click to enlarge):

In essence then, we like to stress the importance of simplicity and user-friendliness when it comes to landing pages. You certainly don’t want to scare off or overwhelm potential buyers with too much, but rather walk the fine line between excess and being informative.

See you on the engines.

-Tien

A merchant’s landing/destination page can be thought of as a window into their store where a first impression is made upon potential customers.

It is a chance to inform, gain the trust of, and win over an audience who may or may not have heard of you before. It can also be the difference between a customer leaving, never to return; or in building a lasting relationship with your site.

Below then is the first in a series of posts of advice that we at CPC Strategy provide some of our merchants that all retailers should look out for in making sure that their landing pages lean toward the latter scenario.

After all, only so much can be accomplished in driving quality, relevant traffic to your site; the rest has to be done on the merchant’s page itself.

And since you’re likely paying for each visitor to your site, you want to ensure that that first impression is indeed a memorable one.

We’ll start with a few of the odd ones (they’re ordered in importance ) and finish off the rest at a later date:

1. Page Load Time – One sure way to guarantee that no purchase is made by a user upon clicking through to your site is if your page takes an inordinate amount of time to load, as research has shown:

…16% of people leave the page if it loads longer than 10 seconds and only every second person will wait more than 15 seconds…

In general then, the quicker the load time the better. Longer load times can easily result in lost visitors, thus translating to a reduction in your overall bottom line.

Try to keep large images and flashy effects to a minimum, or even eliminate them altogether. If complex coding is absolutely required, it should be reserved to other sections of the site, but as a rule of thumb, your goal should be to minimize the size/loading time of your landing page as much as possible.

For further details of the importance of load time and optimization tips, be sure to take a look at what Google has to say on the matter.

3. Good Image(s) – One of the biggest deterrents for many when making online purchases compared to more traditional means is the inability to physically feel and “test out” the purchase.

The best way then to alleviate this is with a big, clear image of the item being sold, giving users a chance to really feel as if the item is right in front of them, greatly increasing the chances of a user applying the principle stated in #3.

Descriptions such as shapes, sizes, colors, etc. can all be handy as well, but nothing can beat a nice, clear picture. Multiple images are preferable, though may not necessarily be realistic for those with massive amounts of products.

One particular merchant of ours, Titanium-Jewelry saw their sales practically double after revamping their image system to the one seen below (click to view):

So while it might be a major project to rehaul an entire library of your product images, for certain merchants it may just be worth the investment as was the case with Titanium Jewelry.

In our next post, we’ll cover more about not just selling specific items, but selling your company as well.

Until next time, we’ll see you on the engines–with a nice, simple landing page hopefully.

-Tien