Pay Per Click StrategiesBetter Search Engine Marketing / Pay-Per-Click Results Start Here – We Guarantee It!

How people read online is different from how they read via other mediums, eg, books, magazines, etc. This is known as eye tracking, and, if you’re not familiar with it, you could be missing out on sales and leads. Some simple insight into eye tracking can help you significantly improve your landing page optimization strategies.

What Is Eye Tracking?

Eye tracking is simply the process of documenting where a person is looking as they read a page online, for example. It has been widely adopted by many researchers in various fields (eg, psychology, cognitive linguistics, etc.) to help with things like product design and marketing.

The birth of eye tracking can be traced back to the late 19^th century when French ophthalmologist Louis Émile Javal made the observation that when people read, they don’t do so in a “smooth sweeping of the eyes along the text, as previously assumed, but they do so in a series of short stops (called fixations) and quick saccades.”

This caused many to examine and question how people read, eg, which words do their eyes stop on, for how long, when do readers double back to previously seen words, etc.?

How Eye Tracking Can Help Improve Landing Page Optimization

Fast forward to the 21^st century; many studies have been conducted on eye tracking in relation to web page design. Following are some findings gleaned by Eyetrack III in a study released by the Poynter Institute that can help you better design your landing pages.

Where prospects look first on a page: This study found that participants most often looked at the upper left-hand part of a page. Then after a bit, they moved to the right. Only after giving a thorough look to these portions of the page did they begin to look further down.

How can you use this information to better optimize your landing page? Put your benefits-oriented offer/information in the upper part of the page. This way, prospects are sure to get – immediately — what you can do for them.

Graphics, Text & Multimedia: Another thing this survey found was that text – as opposed to graphics – won the day with participants. It found specifically that “dominant headlines” are what drew most participants’ attention when they first landed on a page. And, if this headline was in the upper left-hand segment of the page, all the better. Headlines also worked well in the upper right.

How can you use this information to improve your landing page optimization techniques? Simple — scratch the graphics, video and other multi-media you might want to put here and get busy writing a full-fledged, benefits-oriented headline.

These are just two findings from a very limited study on eye tracking. Imagine if you spent some time delving into it a bit more? You could significantly improve your landing page ROI by learning things like page “hotspots,” where to put call to action statements, what to do about graphics, etc.

Find out more about how to use eye-tracking to improve your website.

Did you know that Google can help you design a better landing page? One that converts at a much higher rate? They can, via their Website Optimizer program for business.

Why Trust Google to Help You Build a Better Landing Page

Google is by far the number one search engine. In August 2010, it delivered a 65.1% share of search results, compared to 13.1% for Yahoo! and 13.9% for Bing (MSN) [Source: NielsenWire Blog]. This highlights the need to think about what this search engine thinks is important in terms of landing page design and optimization.

Now that you know why, let’s look at some of the ways Google helps you craft a higher-converting landing page.

Landing Page Design Elements Google Can Help You With

It’s the Little Things That Count: Small changes like color, font and design layout can lead to big conversions. You can test all of these with Website Optimizer. And, speaking of running tests . . .

Testing, Tweaking and Retesting: In internet marketing, you know the name of the game is testing, tweaking and retesting. With Website Optimizer, you can run split tests on your landing pages — on everything from “individual copy blocks and images to complete page layouts.”

Data Mining: After you run tests, then it’s time to comb through the data to see exactly what the numbers mean. Website Optimizer goes a step further; it provides you with what Google calls, “Intuitive Reporting.” Via this tool, you can see exactly how the changes you make to your landing page design affect the bottom line.

If landing page design is new to you, or you’re not getting the results you want, check out Google’s Website Optimizer for some help to get on track.

Interested in learning more about landing page optimization? Check out the Search Engine Marketing Insider email newsletter to learn quick tips for improving your customer conversion rates. Also let us know what you would like to learn in landing page optimization and we’ll cover your top picks on our blog. Feel free to post your comments, questions and ideas.

Your landing page is as critical to the success of your online marketing efforts as keywords. For, they are the first place prospects “land” when they click on your ads. Now that you’ve done all the hard work of getting them to click through, following is one thing you can do to make sure they take the action you want them to take.

Often landing pages are conceived, written, proofed and studied by professional internet marketers – or fellow comrades (eg, a copywriter). We point this out to say, it not likely to be looked at by someone who doesn’t know anything about landing pages. Hence, it doesn’t get the “fresh eye, first look” perspective it may need to be improved.

One thing you should always do is get someone who doesn’t know anything about internet marketing, or at the very least someone who had no input in designing the landing page, to look at it and give feedback.

You may be pleasantly surprised by what you’ll discover, ie:

How a concept you thought was clear was in fact very confusing;

How the action you thought you were asking a prospect to take was not very clear (or was too involved/intrusive);

What was left out that you thought was implicitly understood;

Etc. 

Remember, your landing page should be written from the point of view of your visitors. Too often in internet marketing, knowledge you think your prospects will have is something they simply don’t possess. This is because internet marketing is a fairly new phenomenon.

If you spend your days discussing click through rates (CTRs), conversions and calls to action statements, then it’s second nature to you. But your prospects may not have this type of knowledge; hence, a lot of what you have to say may be a foreign language to them.

Recognize this, and optimize your landing pages so that they’re crystal clear – and your prospects can take the action(s) u want/expect them to take.

To learn more about Landing Optimization and other online marketing strategies check out the Search Engine Marketing (Pay Per Click) Insiders email newsletter.

Social media marketing is a sword that cuts two ways. It’s easy to build a community, but can be difficult to get them to trust you. This is because there is so much garbage on the net – everyone is trying to make a fast buck.

Building trust is key to making sales. So, how do you get your community to trust you? Let’s look at some numbers to gain some insight. According to What Makes Social Media Trustworthy?, a recent study highlighted by eMarketer, a firm that tracks trends in digital media and marketing:

Just over a quarter (26%) of those polled trusted a brand product or company based on its blog posts, Twitter feed and/or Facebook updates.

BUT . . .

Approaching two-thirds (61%) trusted blog posts, Twitter and Facebook updates found on pages from someone those surveyed knew.

Social Media Marketing Message: To Get Trust You Have To . . .

Be a real person, not a company.

Remember, social media marketing is all about building relationships. And, people don’t have relationships with “companies.” People have relationships with other people. So it’s imperative to interact with your community from a human standpoint, not a corporate standpoint.

This can be as simple as signing up using a real name as your “account name,” instead of your company name.

Other Tips for Creating Trust in Social Media Marketing

Stay in contact regularly;

Don’t talk about you so much; send links to information relevant to your target markets’ lives; and

Create conversation by asking your community’s input.

If you remember your old-school social graces and apply them to the new medium that is social media marketing, you’ll have no problems getting your community to trust you – and increase sales.

What social networking sites do you use? Are you reaching your customers on Facebook, Twitter or other sites? We’d love to hear your comments.