Landing Pages and Web Design

So much success depends on how you craft your landing pages: fonts, colors, layouts... Even a marginal shift of images from the top of a page to the left or right side of your landing page can a have huge impact on your conversion rates.

One of the best design benchmarks that I've ever heard was "If you squint your eyes, and all you see is text that is black and fuzzy, chances are you need to redesign your landing page." That made sense to me because people don't really READ web pages - they SCAN them. This is the equivalent of trying to read a lawn sign while speeding past a property at 100mph. It's blurry, and often you just get the highlights: "YARD SALE", "FREE PUPPIES" or perhaps the name of someone's home-based business.

When constructing your pages, make sure you have lots of relevant text AND images - but more importantly, make sure your FONTS are EASY TO READ!!! Big and BOLD is the law. If you are not sure, ask someone that you work with that wears glasses to read your page WITHOUT GLASSES. If they get the main drift of your landing pages, then chances are you've done a good job.

Looking for more tips and treasures? Try marketing sherpa's section on landing page design. Here are a few links to their free reports.

Ecommerce Benchmark Guide 2007 - Executive Summary (PDF download, includes data charts)

Annual Study Presentation: Ecommerce Benchmark Guide 2007 Audio file, transcript plus PDF presentation.

Landing Page Handbook - Executive Summary & Introduction

PDF download

2008 Online Advertising Handbook + Benchmarks Executive Summary PDF Download

Presentation Landing Page Eyetracking Study Results Includes sample heatmaps

MP3 & Transcript Audio interview with Steve Krug Author of the bestselling Web design handbook, Don't Make Me Think

Mapping Metrics With The Purchase Funnel

I love MarketingSherpa.com. Recently, they published a Purchase Funnel graphic that helps to illustrate buyer behaviour and psychology.

So, how does something like this play into the DynamicURLS software? The applications plays into the purchaser's psychology immediately after the awareness stage. Here's how:

Through personalization, the DynamicURLS application improves interaction because calling a person by name, and referencing some of their preferences on the page is proven to keep a person on a site longer - giving you improved consideration AND favorability.

Consideration and favorability is precisely what is needed to generate a purchase decision. I mean, it makes perfectly good sense, right? Someone isn't going to buy from you if they won't even pay you mind!

In the spirit of the Olympics, it's important to remember that small - indeed even tiny - improvements often means the difference between first and last place. Personalization software is about giving you an edge over the competition, and is a way to keep visitors on your site slightly longer. Often, these added moments on a webpage means a user will opt-in to a subscription newsletter, RSS syndication feed, or download a free trial. This means more selling opportunity for you!

Download your free copy of the DynamicURLS (LITE) version today and generate visitor consideration and favorability!