Tim Ash Landing Page Optimization

Maintaining and improving a website is always a moving target (like the analogy that it’s much like raising a child, you’re never finished;) It’s not “can anything be improved upon” its’ “what is the thing that should be improved upon first.” Tim Ash has long been a proponent of the Champion/Challenger theory that your landing pages can make great strides towards improvement in continual A/B testing with the current page as the champion and the new page as the challenger, may the best page win…lather, rinse, repeat.

Because the site hadn’t been redesigned in several years, we believed we needed to address more than just one issue.

Hitchsource had trusted their link building to a less-than-scrupulous link builder and were de-indexed from Google and looking for help with a re-inclusion. We crafted a contract together that allowed for sharing a percentage of sales from Natural Search efforts as well as the re-inclusion and opportunity to continue another 12 month contract if it were successful. Ken attended SearchFest and Rand Fishkin, SEOmoz Founder, confirmed what we had shared with Ken as well as some recommendations for improving URL structure. He has had success with multiple projects with us and was open to a redesign knowing that we wouldn’t recommend a redesign without a focus on return on investment.

Many companies, large and small, are reluctant to hire search marketing and other online marketing services because the deliverable is often, well, squishy. Offering a Pay for Performance model allowed us to share revenue if we were providing exceptional results. This model (also implemented by our friends at Performix) encourages the client and vendor to both participate in the process that leads to increases in market share and revenue.

APPROACH

If I’ve learned anything in the last 13 years as an online marketer, it’s that there’s no “one answer” to any problem, but there is the “right way” in creating an approach and that involves consulting the experts. Online marketing is comprised of multiple disciplines and it’s really impossible to master all of them.

CHALLENGES

As with most projects, budget is often a challenge. Attending SES and SMX sessions is inspiring, but often times the services offered are outside of the budget range for many clients. I’m fortunate to have a client that focuses very heavily on the “prove the return on investment” theory for site changes rather than the “we could never afford that” theory.

RESOURCES

Besides reaching out to usability and design specialists, we carefully guided efforts of our developers to maintain best practice implementation. Tim’s book “Landing Page Optimization” was an enormous help and guide during the process, though there is still much room for improvement using his methods.

RESULTS

Overall conversion doubled due to our efforts. Using Tim’s Conversion Improvement Profit Calculator helped define for the client upside for a successful redesign (the hope was for at least .25% improvement which would have provided significant revenue improvements, our actual improvements were significantly higher.)

TAKEAWAYS

One of the biggest takeaways for the team was the understanding that getting the right advice helped us get the right results. It also provided us with a case study for the value of landing page optimization (raise your hand if you’re a search marketer who is always tasked with “drive more traffic” rather than addressing the needs of the traffic you’ve worked so hard to get.) Having proven the concept allows us the ability to recommend landing page optimization specific to a campaign now that we’ve proven the worth and potential value of the effort.

The other takeaway is being enormously grateful to an industry that embraces its’ practitioners and always puts great effort in the greater good.

The other takeaway is “Don’t let perfect get in the way of really good”. Can we do more to improve our conversion and site performance, absolutely. Would it have been wise to wait until all things were perfect? I don’t believe so. Having this success for the site allows us to begin doing more laser-focused testing to continue improved performance.

NEXT STEPS

Choosing a product line, Blue Ox Base Plates and focusing on A/B testing with very specific elements for testing will be our next step on the path to continued landing page optimization improvement (lather, rinse, repeat;)

Thank you to Tim Ash and the many search practitioners who choose to share their expertise that is gained through great effort, wisdom, experimentation and insight. Cheers to you!

BIOS

Ken Whiteman is the founder and President of HitchSource.com and founder and CEO of GreenShipping.com. Prior to his ecommerce career, Ken spent 15 years in executive, engineering, and marketing roles within the semiconductor industry. Ken holds degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from Colorado College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute respectively.

MEDIA forte marketing provides pay for performance search marketing with a focus on sustainability.
Contact Information: lisa@mediafortemarketing.com, 541-380-1547

As promised, here is Number 3 of my all time, Top 5 Landing Page Optimization Recommendations (see Numbers 4 and 5):

#3 Landing Page Optimization Recommendation
Choose 2 strong product or service benefits to test

Testing to improve your landing pages and improve conversion can be a daunting thing. What do I test? Where do I start? It’s like trying to make a cake without the recipe. Most companies get together with staff and then guess what their customers need to see to make a purchasing decision. Understanding what compels your customers to go from a click to a conversion is one of the most important aspects of improving your website performance. Take 2 strong product or service benefits and test them against each other. Test the content in the headline and in the body copy. You can use Google Website Optimizer to execute the test. Other than very expensive focus groups, this is the best way to discover what is most important to your potential customers and what they need to see to compel them to complete the sales cycle. You may be surprised at what you learn!

How to start:
*Choose your top 2 converting landing pages
*Choose 2 things to test (headline, body content, image, etc.)
*Implement test
*Track results
*Launch your new landing pages with the best converting site elements

#3 Landing Page Optimization Recommendation
Choose 2 strong product or service benefits to test

Stay tuned in the next couple of weeks for #2 and #1!

Try it and send me a comment about your progress!

As promised, here is Number 4 of my all time, Top 5 Landing Page Optimization Recommendations:

#4 Landing Page Optimization Recommendation
Keep your creative and content consistent between points in the sales cycle.

One very prominent theory about online conversion is that creative needs to carry “scent” throughout the sales cycle. If you create a PPC campaign or home page with the word “cool blue widget”, keep that product description throughout each point of the sales cycle, including:

• PPC optimization
• Landing page optimization
• Sales path optimization
• Email copy optimization

Don’t tell people “Try our cool blue widget” on your AdGroup, then “Check out our groovy blue thingy” on your landing page, then send out an email that reads, “Test out our awesome blue gadget”. Searchers need the assurance of consistent language between touch points. Carry this “scent” throughout your creative and your potential customers will respond. Create content that you know works (always test!) and use that content consistently to describe your product or service and persuade your potential customer.

#4 Landing Page Optimization Recommendation
Keep your creative and content consistent between points in the sales cycle.

Try it and send me a comment about your progress!

In honor of one of my favorite films, “High Fidelity”, I give you number 5 of my all time, top 5 landing page optimization (define) recommendations.

#5 Landing Page Optimization Recommendation
Match a search query with the product or service the searcher is pursuing

The main reason for optimizing a landing page is to improve the user experience and to improve conversion. I’m constantly amazed at how, in SEO circles, focus is on search traffic, but not enough on what happens when that traffic gets to your site. Natural search traffic is the sweet spot, you’re likely to get traffic whose intent matches the solution/service/product you provide. Awesome! But if you want to convert that click into a conversion, you need to carry the “scent” you established with the search query that led to the visit.

For example, if I go to Google and type in “buy DaKine surf bag” The first query takes me to an online store, Tactics. This is a nice looking page, but it doesn’t take me to a page to let me “buy DaKine surf bag”. So what do I do as a user? Normally I’d bail and go back to the search results and see if I can get any closer to my need, but for the purposes of our experiment, I keep looking-I click on Surf Accessories, I see pads and leashes, not bags, then I click on the other 2 links available under the DaKine Surf Shop, Car Racks and Straps, not there, my only other option, DaKine Rash Guards, not there. I click on surf shop, not there either. To their credit, if I use their internal site search, define the DaKine brand and type in surf bag, I finally find the bags, but under normal circumstances I wouldn’t have gone to the trouble. This defines the need for landing page optimization and the need to carry “scent”.

In a perfect world, I would have been taken to this page, a page I couldn’t find in my initial search.

So what’s my recommendation:

#5 Create site flow that supports search “scent”

If you want to be found for “buy DaKine surf bag” make sure that the traffic you push to your site can easily find and buy a DaKine surf bag. It sounds simple, it’s not. Spend some time analyzing your analytics and learn what your top converting pages are, then improve them. There are some great tools to make it more simple. Use Google Website Optimizer (or engage an SEO firm that does). It’s a great free multivariate and A/B testing tool. Learn what elements on a page help convert your traffic to customers and begin getting better results from your website. The first step in this optimization process is making sure that you carry the scent from the search query to the page you deliver. Next time I’ll give you my #4 of my all time, Top 5 Landing Page Optimization Recommendations.