Hundred Dollar SEO

Yesterday I read 13 Sure Signs Your Landing Page is a Turn-Off. It purports to be good advice for building better landing pages. It is not authoritative general advice, it is Skellie’s personal biases.

They are as follows:

1. It can be measured in feet.
2. It Has Extra Special Sentences Where Every Word Begins With a Capital Letter.
3. The text is centered.
4. It includes minimal information about the product or service being sold.
5. Its headings are in primary colors when the surrounding design is not.
6. The writer’s rule of thumb is 1 paragraph per 500 words.
7. It tries too hard.
8. The font size of your sales page is 2x bigger than the font size used throughout the rest of the site.
9. It uses “quotation marks” for emphasis.
10. Exclamation marks travel in packs.
11. It uses unattributed testimonials.
12. The copy seems full of hype.
13. It looks like every other landing page.

What can you learn from this list?

If you are targeting Skellie than this will tell you a lot. So here is a list of things that will help you understand Skellie’s demographic.

Skellie is:

• Female
• Australian
• In university
• Most likely 18-35
• A sports fan
• Internet Savvy
• A professional writer
• A prolific blogger
• A fan of creative commons photos
• Protective of her content

So if you are targeting a sub-section of these qualities you can glean some value from her landing page turn-offs. In fact you can just hire her to write your landing page for you.

How to use Skellie’s list to start your testing

• It can be measured in feet.

I wrote an entire post on long copy vs short copy landing pages. Long and short pages both have their place. Long is good for products and services that are aimed at a concrete information based decision, like buying a book. Short is better for lead generation or first steps in a prolonged engagement, like requesting information.

• The font size of your sales page is 2x bigger than the font size used throughout the rest of the site.
• It Has Extra Special Sentences Where Every Word Begins With a Capital Letter.
• Its headings are in primary colors when the surrounding design is not.
• The text is centered.

All three of these are the same essential test. Make the important stuff more eye-catching than the other content. I certainly find these things to be over used in many cases, but they are all legitimate devices.

DON’T USE ALL FOUR IN THE SAME DOCUMENT! (I use this as a general rule — but then again I also break general rules whenever necessary).

You can get some comprehensive advice on designing to make customers from a post I wrote for SEOmoz.

• It includes minimal information about the product or service being sold.
• The copy seems full of hype.
• It tries too hard.

This is an interesting group. When you design a landing page you are not actually selling a product you are selling a message. You don’t sell with facts — you sell with emotions. When you have the visitor sharing your vision of the message the facts help them justify. If you are selling impulse items you often don’t need much information. Conversely if you are selling expensive items you will find that hype loses its effectiveness quicker — because those buyers are methodical. You need to find the right balance for your goals by testing different levels of steak vs. sizzle.

• It uses “quotation marks” for emphasis.
• Exclamation marks travel in packs.
• It uses unattributed testimonials.

These are an issue of trust and target. Some people are very aware of proper grammar, especially on the Internet, so you will lose trust with them. There are certain target buyers that don’t analyze your content that deeply. Testimonials in any form that is not face-to-face are difficult to validate. No matter how recognizable the name attached to a quotation they are always just words.

• The writer’s rule of thumb is 1 paragraph per 500 words.
  

I don’t like giant blocks of print either, but I have some things in common with Skellie. Ultimately writing style is an aesthetic choice. Ultimately your customers aesthetics are more important than your own if your only goal is conversions.

• It looks like every other landing page.

Well this depends on your target audience. Something new and different may sweep them off their feet, it could also make them uncomfortable. A good place to start a test is with your competitor’s page. Make a version of their page to test against yours, at the very least you can start your 2nd test better than your current competition.

Thanks Skellie for the blog idea. I wasn’t really excited about another topic today.

Tags:   conversion · Design · landing pages · SEO4 Comments

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