Landing - Pages The - Ultimate.guide

LANDING PAGES
The Ultimate Guide
Learn why Landing Pages are every Marketers Secret Weapon.

Provided by
Landing Pages
The Ultimate Guide
Reasons to use this eBook
Weve created this eBook so you can:
Understand what Landing Pages are (and arent!)
Quickly and easily create Landing Pages according to your business needs
Optimize your Landing Pages performance
Why you should Care:

If youve never used Landing Pages before, youre missing out! These uniquely functional and focused
marketing assets are designed to help you:
Talk directly to your target audience
Fulfill your campaign objectives
Optimize the performance of your other campaign assets
Sell more and build your brand
Table of Contents
1) Create your Landing Page:........................................................................................................................ 4
A) What is a Landing Page?............................................................................................................................................................. 4
B) Essential Elements for a Successful Landing Page.................................................................................................................... 6
C) Make Your Landing Page Headlines Heroes Not Villains........................................................................................................... 8
D) What Is A Call to Action? How-To And Examples...................................................................................................................... 12
E) One or two Copywriting tricks just for you.................................................................................................................................. 16
F) Improve Your Forms, Get More Leads!....................................................................................................................................... 17
2) Improve your Landing Page:...................................................................................................................... 18

A) Integrate Your Landing Pages into Your CRM System............................................................................................................... 18
B) Make your Landing Page viral with Social Media........................................................................................................................ 21
C) SEO: Really important for Landing Pages?.................................................................................................................................. 23
3) Landing Page testing and measuring:............................................................................................................ 26

A) Why Analytics is Critical to Online Success................................................................................................................................ 26
B) The Beginners Guide To Multivariate Testing.............................................................................................................................. 28
4) Advanced tips and some gifts:..............................................................................................................................31

A) 50 tips for creating awesome Landing Pages........................................................................................................................... 31
B) Lander - We love Landing Pages ................................................................................................................................................34
2012. www.landerapp.com. All Rights Reserved.
We Y Landing Pages |
1. Create your
Landing Page
1.a) What is a Landing Page?
A Landing Page is a web page you create for a specific Marketing Campaign. It has one particular aim
converting people into sales leads which you can then target with your other communications.
So, youll want your landing page to stand apart from your website where visitors may get distracted by
other messaging.
Clean in its design and easy to use, a landing page is the ideal place to include a form for capturing a
visitors data. People can instantly see what youre offering, why they should be interested, and what you
want from them.
On your landing page, you can persuade people into leaving their data by offering them stuff they cant get
anywhere else. Examples are:
The chance to download and access content youve created like white papers, eBooks and webinars
Exclusive discounts on your products or services
Free trials or demos
Where Does Traffic Come From?

Click on the call to action in a campaign email, or online or mobile ad
Click on a pay-per-click ad
Link through from a piece of social media content
Go to a campaign web address youve read, seen or heard in an offline ad
Go to a campaign web address using a QR code
Each of the online and offline assets and ads highlighted above is designed to generate interest and drive
people to the landing page where their data is collected. Landing pages can also be made visible to search
engines.
That way, whenever a person does a search using relevant keywords or phrases, your landing page will
appear somewhere in the results pages potentially generating more traffic.
Some Keywords:
Bounce rates: Measured in percentages, the bounce rate represents the number of visitors who leave
your page within a specified period of time or pages viewed.
Call to action: Directions within an ad or landing page prompting a user to take a specific action.
Conversion: A desirable action taken by an online visitor, such as buying a product, signing up for a
newsletter, joining a mailing list, and so on.
Cost per click (CPC): CPC represents the amount you (as an advertiser) pay each time a user clicks
on your ad.
Click through rate (CTR): The CTR is a method of gauging success for online advertising campaigns.
The CTR represents the number of clicks your ad receives divided by the number of times your ad is
shown.
Buyer Persona: Demographics refer to the statistical characteristics of a segment of the population.
Customer demographics identify the specific characteristics of your customers, allowing you to
segment your visitors.
Fold: The fold refers to the viewable area on the computer screen that visitors dont have to scroll to
see more content. It is known by several names, including the fold, above the fold, or viewable area.
What a Landing Page isnt...

A Landing Page isnt a splash page, home page, gateway page or a microsite.
1.b) Essential Elements for a Successful

Landing Page
Youve probably heard the dreaded term Design by Committee: the design methodology (or lack of
methodology) that drives the typical corporate website.
Marketing wants a video demo and a How it Works page. Legal wants a complete page dedicated to
the disclaimer. The CEO wants a link to his latest speech at the widget convention. Support wants to
put that annoying pop-up support icon, and HR wants a prominent Apply for a Job link. The one
thing that didnt make it on the homepage was the Try Now button for your new product or service.
If you have been involved in that scenario, so have lots of us. One day somebody invented the landing
page, probably one of the greatest online marketing tools ever invented.
The landing page was specifically created to help you drive conversions. And conversions are the online
marketers number one job.
You want visitors to convert into subscribers. You want subscribers to convert into webinar participants.
You want webinar participants to convert into leads. And you want leads to convert into customers.
But there are so many ways to build a landing page, and its hard to tell in advance, without the benefit of
several weeks of testing with an A/B testing tool, which design and copy will convert better. Lucky for you,
thousands of marketers before you have conducted thousands of real campaigns and have learned through
experimentation, trial and error what works and what doesnt.
There are some foundational best practices you should consider when you design your landing page:
We list five of the most important right here.

Keep It Simple
One of the biggest conversion killers is confusion. You dont want your landing pages to look like your
designed by committee corporate website. Your landing pages needs to be focused on conversion.
Get rid of sidebars, navigation menus, unnecessary graphics, buttons and text. Also, dont go crazy on
design. This is business, not art. Were trying to drive conversions, not win awards.
Have a Singular Purpose

We love choice its the mark of an advanced economy. But choice is very bad for conversions on your
landing page. The Paradox of Choice more often than not paralyzes our visitors into not making any
choice at all. Dedicate your Landing Page to one conversion goal. If you have another goal, create another
Landing Page for that.
If Content is King, then Clarity is Queen

Dont be overly clever with your written copy and graphical elements. And dont be subtlesubtlety is
great for novelists, but terrible for landing pages. You need to be very clear what you want your customers
to do: CLICK HERE is the online marketers most useful pair of words.
Dont use Please or We would suggest or Maybe. Tell your visitors exactly what you want them to do.
It works like a charm.
Keep Your Promise

Do you want to annoy your customers (and Google) at the same time? No? Ok, then your landing page
must fulfill the promise of the Google Ad, the email subject line, the Tweet, or the postcard you just
mailed. Some of the biggest failures of online marketing campaigns have happened when the visitor
clicks a link because she was promised something in the title or header, and finds a landing page that had
nothing to do with the title.
Keep your promise and your conversions will go up. Sounds simple, right? But its amazing how many
online marketers miss this one.
Test and test some more

No matter how many best practices or rules of thumb you learn about, there is nothing like testing
different landing pages, and different elements within a landing page, so you can improve the effectiveness
of your online marketing campaign.
Are conversions lower than you expected?
Add a bigger call-to-action button, and test both versions (the one with the big button and the
original one) using an A/B split test tool, and see which converts better.
Use the words Click Here on one version and Sign up Now on another version, and see which
button gets more clicks.
Ask for a full name and email address on one conversion form, on the other one ask for just the first
name and email address.
Some of the best landing pages are those that have been tested almost to perfection. The final result is a
landing page that keeps converting and converting and converting.
1.c) Make Your Landing Page Headlines Heroes

Not Villains
Its often said that the internet is a visual medium. Certainly with the vast variety of pictures, videos
and graphics you experience as you move within and between web pages, this statement appears true.
But in practice, it normally takes words to make sense of all this on-the-eye action. And its especially
true with landing pages which, after all, are designed to make the person looking at them respond as
you want them to.
Three Golden Rules

So here are three golden rules that will help you create better, higher converting headlines for your
Landing Pages:
Focus on the user benefit. A person looking at your landing page wants to instantly know how your
offer will benefit them. So make sure your headlines clearly communicate the practical difference your
product or service will make to their life.
Know who youre talking to. Consider the desires and concerns of the people in your target audience
and shape your headlines around these. Be careful to use words and phrasing your customers and
prospects use themselves, and avoid jargon like the plague.
Add some energy. An easy way to increase the engagement and urgency of a headline is to start
it with an active verb or imperative. Go, Get, Choose, Own, Save, Protect and Enjoy are just
some examples. Use this technique carefully to create headlines that have the same energy as, and
complement, your calls to action.
Headlines That Head The Class

CLUB DIVOT
Play More Golf is a great benefit-led headline.
In three one-syllable words, it says exactly how a
person gains by using the service.
http://www.clubdivot.com
Trip Lingo
See how each headline neatly sums up the
service and secondary features, contained in the
paragraph below it, into a single master benefit.
http://www.triplingo.com
Manilla
Of course there can only be one answer to this
question. But by asking it, Manilla makes the user
feel their views are valued, and helps increase
their engagement.
http://www.manilla.com
QuoteLab
A perfect example of a call-to-action type
headline. Its direct, punchy and spells out
precisely how the user will gain by requesting a
quote.
http://www.quotelab .com
Headlines That Could Do Better

But some landing-page headlines struggle to make the grade
Content Rules
Youre invited to download a free eBook. But why
would you want to? You have to rummage around
in the body copy to find the answer.
http://www.contentrules.com
Intuit Database
Why all these long, technical words which really
belong in the body copy? A headline promoting
the final user benefit say, Boost Your Business
and Make More Money is much more likely to
grab attention.
http://quickbase.intuit.com
Avaya
Too long! A two-sentence headline isnt a
headline, its a paragraph! And wheres the
benefit a real person will receive? Something
like Enjoy 100% Peace Of Mind With Total
Communications Support delivers much more of
a punch.
http://www.avaya.com/usa/
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Your Testing Challenge

Of course copywriting is an art in itself. But if you dont have the time or money to employ a professional
wordsmith you can still produce headlines that effectively communicate your landing-page offer. Keep
them benefit-led, audience-focused and energetic and youre on the right track.
Also remember to A/B test your headlines so you can be sure your choices are based on performance not
just your own personal preferences.
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1.d) What Is A Call to Action? How-To And

Examples.
A term used to describe a banner, button, or some type of graphic or text on a website meant to
prompt a user to click it and continue down a conversion funnel is how Wikipedia defines a
call to action or CTA.
Well we think a CTA is a lot more important than just a button! In fact, were certain its the most
important element of your landing page. Without a CTA you may have no conversion at all. Nil. Nada.
Zilch.
A clear call to action is how you tell your visitors what you want them to do: download your eBook, signup to your app, buy your product or whatever else you desire!
Improving Your Call to Actions

All rules are made to be broken, I hear you say. Well follow these three and we guarantee your Call to
Actions will rock:
Be Specific! Make sure you choose your words wisely. People are more likely to click on your CTA if
they understand exactly what theyll find after doing so. Messages like Next will confuse your visitors
and give them Click Fear.
Make it urgent or exclusive! People online often ask themselves Why should I click? But if they
know your offer has limited availability or wont go on forever, they wont want to miss out, right?
Stand out from the crowd! A Value Proposal is a must. Placed before your CTA, it tells people why
they need your product, what makes your company special. And why they should choose you instead of
all those other businesses offering something similar.
Evernote
What Evernotes doing well:
CTA is well located.
CTA copy isnt scary. Click it and you know what happens
next!
Value Proposals are everywhere!
What they can improve:

The same color? Really? You can do better than that!
http://www.evernote.com
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What Dopplers doing well:

CTAs are very well placed.
Colors really pop out.
Great Value Proposal.
Visitors clicking on either Try Doppler Free in the top
navigation or the Free Version button move through to
the same destination.

What does Doppler want visitors to do? Watch the video
tour or try the free version? Even though these buttons
have different colors, theyre the same size and right next to
each other. This might be confusing.
http://www.fromdoppler.com
Mozilla
What Mozillas doing well:
Everything? THE CTA. Everybody will remember this
message forever.

Nothing to say here! They are doing a really good job!
http://www.mozilla.org/es-ES/firefox/new/
Kissmetrics
What Kissmetrics doing well:
Button copy is clear and engaging nothing scary here.
CTAs are green when everything else on the page is blue,
for maximum visibility.
Similar messages in CTA button and top navigation
reinforce each other.

CTA button doesnt say starting is FREE whereas top
navigation does. Room for confusion here.
http://www.kissmetrics.com
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Lander
What were doing well:
You can see our CTA right? Bet you wont miss it!
Short punchy words and the fact Landers free add
urgency.
CTA copy is 100% clear. You know why youre clicking.
What we can improve:

Try it for free? Clear as water, but a lil bit non-specific
right? Well, it converts very well! Still, we reckon someday
well need to change it for something more unique.
http://www.landerapp.com
Opera
What Operas doing well:
CTA is instantly and invitingly visible.
It works brilliantly with the Value Proposition, situated
just above.

Opera is free to download although youd never know
from the CTA.
http://www.opera.com
Remember the Milk

What Remember the Milks doing well:
Using the cows head icon on the CTA button draws the
eye.
CTA message is 100% clear.
CTA copy is phrased to add urgency.

CTA copy and the message immediately above it
are practically identical. A wasted opportunity to say
something different and help drive conversion.
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/
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Resume Baking
What Resume Baking doing well:
If you dont click on the CTA button, its most likely
because youre not interested in the offer itself.
What we can improve:

You think the service is free because on the left you read
Create Resume, free and easy. But the CTA fails to make
this point.
And both the CTA button and the Prices header in the
top navigation are red. Perhaps youll be charged if you
click on the button after all.
http://www.resumebaking.com/
SEOmoz
What SEOmoz is doing well:
Theres no escaping this CTA! Great color and location.
CTA message works in concert with Value Proposition.
CTA copy is clear, energetic and urgent.

You tell us! Hard to find fault with this capital CTA!
http://www.seomoz.com/
Cultured Code
What Cultured Code is doing well:
CTA buttons command the visitors attention.

Why would you want to click on these buttons? If you
dont know what Things is, theres nothing to tell you here.
Mixed messages. One CTA button is to download Things
(presumably for free), the other is to purchase it. But is it
the same product or a different one?
http://www.culturedcode.com/things/
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1.e) One or two Copywriting tricks just for you

Everybody knows you need great content to make your digital marketing strategy work. But the term
content marketing has been used and abused. Most business owners and marketers roll their eyes
when a marketing consultant tells them they have to use valuable and compelling content for their
marketing strategy.
The term Content marketing has turned like social media: overused and devoid of meaning.
But dont go dusting off your old telemarketing or TV advertising playbooks just yet. Despite the fact that
content has been overplayed like a top 40 song, content is more important now than ever.
When it comes to content, copywriting is one of the most important things to pay attention. Creating a
relevant and valuable copy to attract a target audience with the objective of driving profitable customer
action is a must.
Writing the copy for landing pages has one or two tricks and we would like to share them with you:
Write headlines that keep your visitor oriented and engaged. As we said on Essential Elements for
a Successful Landing Page you need to be sure your landing pages headline refers to the place where
your visitor started their journey.
Start with an active verb - e.g. Go, Get, Choose, Use, Increase, Maximize, etc. This will give
your landing page a sense of urgency and action. Also, Use the word you frequently this makes the
copy more personal and engaging. Try to make the copy contemporary and to give the user a reason to
read it now- e.g. Only available for the first 100 users, Just for today, Do it NOW!
Write a copy with one clear objective (First, you know your objectives right? If not, well... define your
primary objective dude!). Imagine that your objective is getting conversions, getting leads, capturing
data, whatever! You are not writing to win an art contest, you are writing to get to that objective. Always
keep that in mind!
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1.f) Improve Your Forms, Get More Leads!

While form creation is quite easy, getting prospects to sign up can be a much different story. There are
tricks to making the most of your website forms, and were going to share four of them today. Once
you implement these best practices, youll be on your way to greater conversion rates on your forms!
Include the form link in emails

In the case where your form is filled out by people who you email, simply embed the link in your email
message signature. This makes it nice and easy for them to not only spot it, but get the form filled out
efficiently and seamlessly, which makes it user-friendly.
Newsletters: Get creative!

With so many businesses nurturing their sales leads and new customers by way of regular newsletters, this
is an excellent way to get the word out even more about your form. Put it right in front of them, and get
creative! Use a unique font, or a different color that will stand alone to capture their attention.
It might sound simple, but it can be very effective. The marketing options in a newsletter are literally
infinite, since all it takes is some imagination.
Give something away!

Yes, thats right. When you give your prospect the incentive to sign up, youre dangling the cheese in front
of a mouse, and we all know how that goes. A little giving goes a long way in return when you offer your
potential leads something shiny and new, such as a 20% discount on your latest product, or a free one
on one consultation, or a complimentary mention in your weekly newsletter! That last one can be a real
win-win, for instance. Advertising is everything, so dont be afraid to think outside the box and again get
creative! People love that.
So there you have it four rock-solid tips for increasing sign-ups to your online forms. Now go out there
and prosper!
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2. Improve your
Landing Page
2.a) Integrate Your Landing Pages into Your CRM
System
Sales and marketing seems so random. Sometimes it feels like its one big crapshoot (and it very often
is). You wish you had more control over the whole process, but that seems impossible.
There is so much you cant control: customer behavior, the world-economy, and your sales people (you can
cajole, threaten and bribe your sales team, but you cant control them).
But there is one thing you can control: the sales process itself, from lead to closed sale and the post-sale.
Or rather, you can control what resources you dedicate to the sales process.
The modern Customer Relationship Management System (CRM system for short), lets you see whats
going on in your sales process, and gives you the data to decide how to spend your valuable sales and
marketing resources.
How a CRM System Can Help You

A CRM system, such as Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce.com, SugarCRM, Zoho CRM or BatchBlue, lets
you track and view prospects, turn those prospects into opportunities, and check how contacts relate to
companies and opportunities.
A CRM system records your communications with prospects and customers. For example, each email you
send to a prospect, each conversation you have with them each contact with one of your service people or
project managers, can be recorded to create a running history of your customer.
A CRM system enables you to cross-sell and up-sell because of the intelligence provided by historical
information.
Finally, a CRM system provides you with built-in customizable dashboards where you can see your critical
sales numbers.
If a CRM system gives you unparalleled control over the sales process, then why arent your landing pages
connected to your CRM system?
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Your Landing Page is your Online Lead Generation System

Your landing page is not a random web page that the marketing team creates to amuse themselves.
Landing pages are the critical entry points for leads entering your sales process.
But what typically happens when a valuable prospect fills out that form to download your white paper or
to sign up for your newsletter? They go straight to an email system that nobody in the company knows
about. Instead, you should connect your landing page to your CRM system so leads can enter the sales
process automatically and immediately.
Here are five reasons why you should integrate your landing pages to your CRM system:
Speed Up The Sales Process

Getting your leads into your CRM system used to be a manual process. This time-consuming process
delayed lead follow-up, and was also subject to errors. If an administrator forgot to enter a lead, that
potential sale was lost forever.
Now leads are automatically created in your CRM system when visitors to of your landing page fill out a
form or press the download now button. You can now take care of them immediately and speed up the
sales process.
Take Better Care of Leads

When a landing page lead automatically becomes a lead in your CRM system, they can be instantly
assigned to the appropriate sales rep according to criteria such as geographic information or which landing
page he came from.
For B2B companies this is critical. If a sales representative is trying to penetrate a named account, they can
be alerted if somebody from that company downloads a white paper. The sales rep can take extra care of
the lead armed with the historical knowledge of the account from the CRM system.
Better Sales Intelligence

Most landing pages can collect lots of data on your prospect such as what form they filled out, what they
downloaded, what ad they responded to, what keywords they used, what state theyre from, what was the
source of the referral (social media, direct, Google, Bing, etc) This can now be captured in your CRM
System.
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Campaign Improvement
You can also track and improve your marketing intelligence, enabling you to predict the future more
accurately. Track your visit-to-customer rate and lead-to-customer rate, and determine which leads from
which resources are more likely to turn into customers.
Prioritize Resources
When a visitor becomes a lead, you can track all their activity. When they download a white paper or case
study, click on additional landing pages, then download some more reports, that usually means theyre in
buying mode. You can then make the decision to dedicate resources to follow-up with the prospect and
close the deal.
Your next steps

Connecting your landing pages to your CRM system increases the control on your sales process, because it
fills in that critical information gap: where your leads come from. But its easier said than done.
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2.b) The Secret To Social Media Marketing

Success
Social-media landing pages give you the power of whole networks to promote your message for you.
And thats true whether you want your page to deliver hard sales or sales leads for you to follow up.
For many businesses, targeted social media landing pages are more effective and affordable than
whole blitzes of emails.
Such landing pages have three unique qualities. They enable visitors to share the page or promote it
through their own Twitter, Facebook or other networks. They ensure that social bookmarking sites can log
them. And they allow visitors to leave comments.
So heres how to optimize your social-media landing page:
Include buttons for the right networks

Each time a visitor clicks on a social-network button youve included on your landing page, they make
that page available for their whole network. In addition, if its a Facebook like button, by clicking they add
entries to your Facebook wall stream, adding credibility to your offer. And if its a Twitter tweet button, the
visitor can add a message to your landing page before sharing it, for an extra personal touch.
Show youre for real

You can use the Twitter Faves widget to show a live stream of network comment on your products, services
or offer. Crucially, this feed is verifiable visitors can click on the widget to view the profile or stream
anybody commentating, proving that theyre genuine.
Be discreet
Remember the response you want your landing page to deliver, and be sure your pages social connectivity
doesnt get in the way. You may want to place your social-media buttons in a secondary position on your
landing page. Or better still, on a subsidiary confirmation page they see once theyve fulfilled your desired
call to action. That way, they wont compete too strongly for your visitors attention.
For non-professional designers especially, perhaps the easiest way to create effective social network landing
pages is with a dedicated step-by-step application.
How A Social Media Landing Page Can Increase Social

Marketing Success
Does your Facebook fan page have thousands of fans? Do you have tons of Twitter followers? Do your
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YouTube videos go viral? Thats great for youbut what about your bottom line? In the current social
media-obsessed environment, many people mistake social media follower count as a sign of a successful
social media campaign.
But its not.

Consider the sad story of a friend of mine. A few weeks ago he called me panicked because Facebook
disabled his companys fan page. He had 7,000 fans.
And thats all he had.

He wanted me to help him convince Facebook to restore his page and give him access to his 7,000 fans. I
had to tell him the bad news: Facebook owns all that information, and they dont owe you anything.
My friend had become a digital sharecropper, and suffered the negative consequences of not owning his
customer list.
Whats the solution?

Get your fans off your social sites and on to your website. No matter if your social media strategy has
a content-oriented approach or conversation-oriented approach, lead generation is always the main
objective. Or, at least, it should be.
After you develop content in the form of blog posts and articles and share it through your preferred social
media channels, you must add one very important element to each piece of content you share: a link to a
social media landing page.
A social media landing page is the key to get people from your social networks and into your commerce
network.
Whats a commerce network?

A commerce network is any path that leads online visitors into a commercial relationship with you,
whether its a subscription to your email newsletter (or auto responder) or a direct purchase of a product.
Your next steps

Getting people off your social networks and into your own commerce network is the secret to social
media success: youre taking them off property you dont own, and bringing them into your own place of
business. Whats the best way to do this?
Set up a social media landing page so you can convert fans, followers and connections into customers!
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2.c) SEO: Really that important for landing

pages?
Landing pages, unlike a regular website, must have a particular purpose. When you are creating a landing
page you must have a clear objective and build the page around it. Every marketer pays attention to having
an amazing call to action and an incredible value proposal. But theres one more specially important thing
to keep in mind: Your landing page needs traffic. No traffic, No conversions.
1 Trafic Sources
2 Visits
3 Conversions
With this in mind, every time we build a landing page there are some practices that will improve our
landing page performance. At least, it will come up with a great position in the ranking. Keywords will
help us increase our landing page traffic and get the conversions we expect.
SEO Tips to improve your landing page

Titles and meta descriptions:
Headlines (The <title> HTML tag) and meta-descriptions are really important factors for SEO. Google
uses these tags to create search snippets. When people do searches (query) with Google, snippets appear.
We need to get the most out of these snippets and capture the users attention. When we write our landing
page headline, we must keep keywords in mind and remember some tips:
Google shows up to 70 characters (including spaces) of a pages title in its search results.
If a page title exceeds 70 characters, Google will show as many whole words as it can, and the rest are
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replaced with an ellipsis.

Meta-description must show the benefits of your page. Including a value proposal is a must. Also, we
need to add a call to action and the end of the snippet. This will help us avoid click fear and maximize
CTR.
Writing our landing page meta-description, we must pay attention to these details:
Google shows up to 156 characters (including spaces) of a pages meta description tag.
If a pages meta description tag exceeds the 156 characters, Google will show as many whole words as
it can, and the rest will be replaced with an ellipsis (...).
If the web page includes a published-on date, Google may include that date as part of the snippet. In
these cases, the date counts as part of the 156 characters.
To make sure your web pages snippet can fit a published-on date and the entire meta description
(without getting cut off by the ellipsis), keep your meta description tag shorter than 139 characters (or
140 characters, if the published-on date is from a single-digit day of the month).
Content optimization:
Years ago, search engines used to evaluate the keywords density only to determine how important a web
page was. This continues to be important, thats why the phrase Content is king is so popular. But, there
are other factors we need to bring into consideration. Follow these tips, make Google love you:
Create your content structure using header tags:

The header tags are HTML tags that allow you to organize and give different hierarchy to all your landing
page content.
<h1>: This hierarchy belongs to the headline. It must explain what our landing page topic is. You should
only include one h1 hierarchy. Try to include keywords so Google finds it as relevant as possible. Also, it
must be USER and SEO friendly.
<h2>: This hierarchy should be used in subheadings.
<h3>: Sometimes we need to establish different topics below our subheadings. If theres something called
sub-subheadings this hierarchy should be used for them.
For example, if our landing page is about Mediterranean Food our header tags structure could be
something like this:
H1: Best Mediterranean Food Ever

H2: Amazing stuffed tuna galets
H3: Stuffed tuna galets recipe
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This kind of structure helps you enhance your long tail SEO and improve your landing page keyword
relevance.
Why Keyword density is for newbies

As we said before, five or six years ago, repeating a keyword used to help you improve your page relevance.
Nowadays, Google algorithms are far more intelligent thats why our content must be really good.
Repeating a keyword on and on is just for newbies.
Improve your content, improve your PageRank:

Try to create a 500 words (or even more) copy. Google loves well developed content.
Always focus on content editorial quality. Do you know why Wikipedia ranks so well? Those guys
know how to do it. They divide their content in topics, include references and header tags. Also,
pictures and videos helps a lot!
So, what are you waiting for? Start with Search Engine Optimization, you know all the secrets now.
Improve your landing page and get more traffic.
25
3. Testing and
Measuring
3.a) Why Analytics is Critical to Online Success
In the movie Moneyball, Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill portray the Oakland As General Manager Billy
Beane and his analytical sidekick, Peter Brand, as they turn the team around during the 2002 baseball
season.
The As had the lowest payroll budget in Major League Baseball. They couldnt afford the big name
hitters teams like the Yankees and Braves used to win championships.
An entertaining and inspiring movie, Moneyball turns a boring topic, analytics, into the central
character of the film.
Using analytical methods devised by Brand, a Yale economics graduate, the Oakland As were able to
recruit undervalued players that helped them finish first in the American League West that year.
How did they do that?

By using analytics to view statistics objectively. They discovered under-utilized data points that were
better predictors for winning games: base hit percentages and runs scored, as opposed to the traditional
measures like RBIs and batting average.
What does baseball got to do with internet marketing?

Using analytics and objectively measuring the right data, you can turn your internet marketing campaign
into your own Moneyball.
Many internet marketers are creative people, and while Im not knocking creativity (we have a lot of
creative types at our company), theres a tendency to fall in love with your creation and rely on your
anecdotal knowledge of internet marketing to choose actions which will supposedly result in high
conversions.
But our creative sensibilities can lead us down the primrose path of disaster.
26
How to Use Analytics to Ensure Internet Marketing Success

The first place to start is your goals: what are you trying to achieve? Are you trying to sell goods online?
Or are you trying to generate leads for your B2B sales team?
Lets pick a direct sales campaign. Using Google Analytics or any other web analytics tool, you should
measure Entrances, Abandonment Rate, Goal Completed, and Value per visitor.
Do this for various landing pages assigned to different campaigns, and compare which pages generate
more revenue for your company.
You can do the same thing for a B2B campaign. Instead of measuring sales, your analytical tool will let you
assign a value to a conversion goal (download white paper, sign up for webinar).
Objective data on the conversion value of your landing pages will enable you to be cold and ruthless about
the effectiveness of your landing pages.
Get rid of the ones that dont work, and replace them with more of the kind that does work.
Youre now starting to use objective data to improve the bottom line.
Other metrics you should measure are:

Your A/B Split Tests.
In-page analytics.
Segmented traffic (e.g. PPC, organic search, social media, sites that link to you)
Bounce rate.
Cost per acquisition.
Revenue per conversion.
If it seems complicated, it isnt

Setting up an analytics program seems overwhelming at first, but theres help. Most landing page platforms
and websites give you a special snippet of code you can copy and paste into your landing pages header or
footer.
And it doesnt take up too much time either

With all new endeavors there is a learning curve. But once you set up your initial reports and integrations,
all you need to do each day is log in to your analytics dashboard, view the results, and make decisions.
It shouldnt take more than a few minutes each day.
27
3.b) The Beginners Guide To Multivariate Testing

So do you want to become an Internet Marketing Expert?
Maybe the better question is: Do you want to close sales? You can have all the knowledge in the world
about internet marketing, but if your landing pages arent sales closing machines, then what good is
all that knowledge?
The best internet marketers create simple but solid landing pages that convert suspects into buyers
(B2C) or into leads (B2B). And the best internet marketers create slightly different versions of their most
successful landing pages, test both versions, and see which converts better.
Because closing more sales isnt about being an internet marketing expert its about conversions.
The basic elements to test for are:
Headlines
This is probably the most important item since it is what gets the rest of your landing page read. If you get
this one wrong, nobody will visit the rest of your page, and youll have nothing more to test.
Call-to-action items
If youre driving for opt-in email subscriptions, or direct sales, you need call-to-action elements, such as
buttons or conversion forms. Test for placement of call-to-action items, text and colors.
Product positioning
How do you describe your product or service? Who is it for? What images are you using?
Product benefits
Play around with different benefits to see what appeals to your audience. You might think one set of
benefits appeals more to your prospects, but an entirely different set of benefits might appeal to them.
Copy length
Will long or short copy convert better? Most people think short copy converts better. But many times long
copy drives more conversions. Test for long copy vs. short copy.
28
Video or text?
Are your customers primarily visual or text-driven? Dont know? Test for it.
Other Split-Testing Testing Tips

Beginners are often impatient. They dont stay with their tests long enough to get statistically significant
results. They want to test too many things. Theyre not tracking their tests.
Test for your conversion goals

Your goal is to convert visitors to prospects to leads, or leads to sales. Whatever your landing page goal is,
test for it. Dont test for anything else.
Give your tests enough time

Let your tests run until you have a 95% confidence level. Dont stop your split-test just because you feel one
page is converting better than the other.
Test one thing at a time

The most efficient way to muddy the results of a test is to test for too many elements at one time. Be very
clear on which change of your landing page caused particular changes in visitor behavior. Testing one item
at a time will help you do that.
Track and measure your experiments

Measure your results. Sounds logical, but too many marketers dont measure their results. Instead, they
perceive that one test is doing better than the other.
Also, track your tests. Document what works and what doesnt. Build up a knowledge base of best
practices.
Your next steps

You can improve landing page conversion rates when you test different versions of your landing pages.
Data from real people interacting with your landing pages is a more reliable indicator of success than
logic. And real results defy logic.
29
A/B Testing and Conversions

Youve launched a website with landing page(s) for your latest product, and your hard work will pay off,
right? You might be in for a real surprise. Whats going on? Its not converting!
Not only have you invested in a rock-solid Pay per Click (PPC) campaign, a stellar Search Engine
Optimization (SEO) strategy, an amazing Social Media Optimization (SMO) plan and engaging content
that even the best in the business would envy. Youre frightened that all your effort is going down the
drain! First of all, Do you even have a landing page? If you do, then the odds are that you arent getting
as many conversions as you could. Heres an excellent tool to be sure you have put yourself in the best
position for maximum conversions:
A/B Testing its not just for scientists!

A major part of conversion success is what the industry calls A/B testing. Though it might sound bizarre
and scientific, its actually quite easy to perform, and it allows you to test specific areas of your landing
page to see which style captures more interest in the users by way of lowered bounce rates, and subsequent
conversions.
A/B testing tells you what variables bring in the most user engagement (conversions), and its widely used
in the marketing realm. All you do is try two different versions of your landing page such as one web
design vs. another or one headline compared to a different one. You can set your webpage up to randomly
interchange the two designs, and keep track of which one brought in the most conversions. While it takes
some time to do it yourself, a landing pages platform like Lander helps you get it done in just minutes, the
payoff is huge! After all, you want to know what your target market responds to best.
Psychologists have proven that certain colors affect a users behavior in certain ways. Even the way your
copywriter words things has a huge role in your webpage and the ability to secure conversions, whether
they are in the form of email opt-ins, direct sales, comments given, links back to your site, or whatever else
you are trying to achieve (convert).
The key with A/B testing is to keep the comparisons to one aspect of your webpage at a time. The more
specific you are, the more you test different combinations, the better your overall results will be. Dont treat
A/B testing as an option; rather utilize it as a critical tool for your bottom line. Its time well spent.
In the end, those who perform proactive A/B testing win out by securing new relationships, conversions
and brand recognition. When you think about it, you cant afford not to test your landing page, and do it
often.
30
4. Advanced tips
and some gifts
4.a) Something extra: 50 tips for creating
awesome Landing Pages
Every time you start creating a landing page you stop for a second and try to remember all the greatest
tips youve read in every inbound marketer expert blog, guide, eBook and white paper. Been there,
done that? This post was written in order to save that precious time of yours.
Are you going to create a landing page? Here you have THE 50 tips you need to keep in mind. Use this
blog post as a cheat sheet, watch your clicks, leads and conversions grow.
Content Improvements
Make sure to explain what you offer in a few seconds! You only get 3 seconds to hook someone in, so
make your website engaging from the start!
You can use sub-headlines to emphasize your messages.
When you create your landing page content you must always keep the persona in mind!
People dont read, they scan! Consider using bullet points on your landing page. Bullet points get your
message out fast, so use them on your landing page to increase conversions!
Make your copy sincere and conversational. When youre friendly, people like your brand!
Different hierarchies grab your viewers by driving home your message even more!
Dont write too formal! The You form is more friendly and direct!
Spell-check your entire website, and especially your landing page! One mistake can mean disaster!
To be successful, you must earn every relationship by having integrity and building trust with your
customers.
Connect! Include content that drives visitors to want to engage with you!
Be professional and trustworthy, double-check looking for typos. No spelling or grammatical errors are
admitted in a landing page.
Raise your relevance! Use keywords in your PPC landing page copy, and it helps build visitor trust.
31
Write for how its read! Make sure your copy is easy to scan, with clear, dynamic headlines and highimpact calls to action.
Speak their language! Optimize your landing pages with dynamic content thats instantly relevant for
your visitors.
Keep on the message! Remember the ad or link visitors click on to reach your landing page, and make
sure your offer and language is consistent across the piece.
Design to Convert
Keep your web design simple and watch the conversions roll in!
Let them love you! Make a positive UX one of your landing page priorities.
Show them the way! Make sure your landing page structure and content lead visitors clearly and
logically to your call to action.
Always try to build your landing page design around a call to action.
Keep them in the picture! Try adding a progress bar to see how it can boost your conversion rates.
Eyes on the prize! Create goal-oriented landing pages which guide visitors to clear conversion points.
Time it right! Consider how long you want visitors to spend on your landing page and design it to
match.
Dont create a slow landing page, people dont like to wait. Make sure your Landing Page loads FAST!
Your profits depend on it!
Stunning Call to Actions and Functional Forms

To grow your profits, make sure your landing page has a call to action!
Choose calls to action that click! Boring buttons hurt your conversion rates!
Always create a clear call-to-action! I must be really easy to your visitors to do what you want them to
do!
The best landing pages are SEO optimized, but also engaging with a clear call to action!
QR codes work as an immediate call to action!
Simplify your form, make it as easy to complete as possible!
Get closer to your market! Use landing page forms to help create your lead profiles and buyer personas.
Balance the risk! Decide if the level of visitor information youre requesting is worth a lower conversion
rate. Less is more! Make sure your forms arent too long!
Keep it in perspective! Make sure the information your form requests is proportional to whatever youre
giving away.
Your forms need to be simple, fast, and focused on your prospects needs.
32
Social Media, Viral Landing Pages and SEO

Optimize your landing page in order to keep your SEO strategy in consideration!
Know how many people are talking about you! Always track your landing pages social conversion
performance!
Be social! Add social widgets so visitors can tweet your page or Like it on Facebook!
Keep them where you want them! Remove distractions like links to other pages.
Help it go viral! Always incorporate social-network elements in your conversion-focused landing pages.
Be unforgettable! Make your landing page URL easy to remember especially if people need to need to
enter it manually to connect with you.
Something Extra!
Email Marketing? Make sure to send people to your Landing Page, not to your Home Page!
Cut to the chase! Include your landing-page URL on your business card.
Return to sender! Enable customers to give feedback on your product or service via your landing pages.
Have a note beside your email opt-in form that says you wont spam them!
Got videos on your website? Dont fall behind your competitors who leverage video for their brand!
Show yourself on a video, explain your product! Sometimes a video can explain what an image cant!
Picture this! Well-chosen images can boost your pages impact and help visitors identify with your offer.
33
4.b) Lander - We love Landing Pages

You have the essential elements for launching a successful Landing Page, but do you have to go to your IT
guy or designer to create one for you? Is your current landing page platform hard to use?
We designed Lander to enable you to become an instant online marketing expert. But we also designed it
to be the easiest-to-use landing page platform on the market.
Experiment all you want! If you get stuck, just contact us and a friendly Lander customer service rep will
help you!
Create a Landing Page in minutes

If youve ever spent hours Googling how to build a landing page, going from site to site, trying to mess
with the CSS and html, installing call-to-action buttons, trying to embed a form, and trying to make it all
work seamlessly together only to pull your hair out in frustration, then search no more
WaitWeve gone mad!

Were giving you a 20% discount in all Landers plans!
Do you want more custom domains, email and CRM integration or full access to our new gallery of
templates? Well this is your chance, were giving you an exclusive 20% discount in any plan for three
months!
Its easy: choose the upgrade, paste the code and start boosting your conversions!
Promo code: Lndr20%x3ebkk
Get your Promo Code and Start using Lander!
34

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LANDING PAGES

The Ultimate Guide

Learn why Landing Pages are every Marketers Secret Weapon.

Why you should Care:

2) Improve your Landing Page:...................................................................................................................... 18

3) Landing Page testing and measuring:............................................................................................................ 26

4) Advanced tips and some gifts:..............................................................................................................................31

2012. www.landerapp.com. All Rights Reserved.

Where Does Traffic Come From?

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What a Landing Page isnt...

2012. www.landerapp.com. All Rights Reserved.

1.b) Essential Elements for a Successful

We list five of the most important right here.

Have a Singular Purpose

2012. www.landerapp.com. All Rights Reserved.

If Content is King, then Clarity is Queen

Keep Your Promise

Test and test some more

2012. www.landerapp.com. All Rights Reserved.

1.c) Make Your Landing Page Headlines Heroes

Three Golden Rules

Headlines That Head The Class

2012. www.landerapp.com. All Rights Reserved.

2012. www.landerapp.com. All Rights Reserved.

Headlines That Could Do Better

2012. www.landerapp.com. All Rights Reserved.

Your Testing Challenge

2012. www.landerapp.com. All Rights Reserved.

1.d) What Is A Call to Action? How-To And

Improving Your Call to Actions

What they can improve:

What Dopplers doing well:

What they can improve:

What they can improve:

What they can improve:

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What we can improve:

What they can improve:

Remember the Milk

What they can improve:

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What we can improve:

What they can improve:

What they can improve:

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1.e) One or two Copywriting tricks just for you

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1.f) Improve Your Forms, Get More Leads!

Include the form link in emails

Newsletters: Get creative!

Give something away!

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How a CRM System Can Help You

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Your Landing Page is your Online Lead Generation System

Speed Up The Sales Process

Take Better Care of Leads

Better Sales Intelligence