When Your Conversion Rate Plummets

Twelve Diagnostic Questions to Get Answers

We frequently get inquiries from businesses that were getting a healthy amount of leads and conversions, but then suddenly their conversion rate takes a nose dive. When the phone stops ringing in today’s economy, panic ensues.

Many businesses aren’t even aware of all the different factors which can cause a negative change like this to occur. In order to give you a hand, we put together this list of questions to ask yourself to get to the root of the problem.

We’ll start at the “front” of the line with our problem-solving and work our way back to the landing page and website, since front-line changes are much easier to address.

1. Have the paid search keywords that are getting clicks changed?

Check out your pay per click (PPC) advertising keywords bringing in traffic.…

Landing Page Calls-to-Action that Inspire

Tips to Increase Clicks – And Conversions

Okay, so we’ve talked about developing a landing page that keeps people on the page (versus letting them wander around your Website) and writing punchy headlines that draw people in to your page.

Now we’ll talk about calls-to-action.

When people think of a call-to-action, they hear a big beefy loud-mouth infomercial guy pitching cleaning products to consumers:

AND WHEN YOU ORDER THE PRODUCT RIGHT NOW, WE’LL SEND YOU NOT ONE, BUT TWO PRODUCTS – ALL FOR $24.95 PLUS SHIPPING AND HANDLING.

THAT’S TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE WHEN YOU PLACE YOUR ORDER RIGHT NOW THROUGH THIS SPECIAL TV OFFER!

In fact, I hear from companies that have actually removed calls-to-action from marketing collateral and Web pages because it’s “too salesy.”

In truth, a call-to-action is simply verbiage that tells people what to do next:
•   …

Add Muscle to Your Landing Page Headlines

Five Easy-to-Implement Strategies

In my last blog post, I covered how to develop a landing page that increases conversions by limiting people’s options to explore other areas of your Website.  As I discussed in the post, you have many elements on the landing page that can make or break conversion rates, and one of those elements is the headline.

In his book, Tested Advertising Methods, John Caples explains why headlines are so important:

“In most advertisements, no matter how striking the illustration, the headlines are critically important. The majority of the public reads little else when deciding whether or not they are interested.”

The same holds true for landing pages – which are basically direct response ads designed to get people to take some sort of action.

So how do you add some muscle to your flabby headlines? Whole books have…

Increase Landing Page Conversions: Limit Options to “Explore”

Four Steps Toward Better Conversion Rates

Transactional landing pages have one purpose only: to get people to take one specific action, whether it’s filling out a form for a white paper, purchasing a product, or even subscribing to an e-newsletter.

Yet many companies lower landing page conversion rates by providing opportunities to browse for related goods and services or offering all kinds of back-up information to support their offer.

In other words, if you’re trying to get people to sign up for your Webinar and on your landing page you have links to your Website, YouTube video, and white papers, you’re encouraging people to click away from your landing page – perhaps never to return.

I call this “Distraction Interaction.” Think about what happens when you go online to do something:

Initially… you open your email client to send someone…

It’s Official: We’re Open for Business

From ‘Private Beta’ to Available Now!

As of this moment, we’ve officially launched the new Yield Web Marketing Suite, a simplified way to drive new traffic and customer conversions at a low overall cost.  As part of our launch week activities, we’ll be demonstrating our browser-based system at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, which opens tonight and continues through April 3, 2009 at the Moscone West Convention Center.  And we’ve got to admit it: we’re all pretty darn proud of what we’ve accomplished and are really looking forward to showing it off!

The Yield Web Marketing Suite, which up until now was in private beta, is built with small and mid-size businesses in mind.  Primarily, our team has responded to the long-standing desire to make search marketing more simple and intuitive. By combining and automating…

Web Marketing 101 Series: 6 Steps to Creating Compelling Landing Pages

K.I.S.S.

Landing pages – the places on your site where people land after clicking on one of your sites links in the search engines – are often your first formal introduction to a new visitor to your website.  Landing pages can also have a huge impact on where you show up in natural and sponsored results on search engines like Google, Yahoo! Search, and Microsoft Live Search.

Landing pages can include your site’s homepage, but are usually pages within your website that are created specifically for people who click on links for your site that appear in sponsored or natural search results, and pertain to a specific offer, promotion or campaign.

Here at Yield Software, we often hear from our small and medium size business clients that they want better landing pages, but just don’t know what they…

Web Marketing 101 Series: Intro to Landing Page Optimization (LPO)

Landing pages are the locations on a website where people find themselves after clicking on a link, very often from a display ad in a website or a sponsored link on a search engine result page. Landing pages can be a website homepage; a specific page within your website, such as a product page; or specially-built promotional pages on your website with tailored messages or promotions for the people landing there.

When people do searches on Google, Yahoo! or Microsoft and click on links inside the search engine results page, they’re clicking on one of two kinds of links: Sponsored or Natural (also called organic).

Landing Page Optimization (LPO) is concerned with ensuring that once someone has landed on your site, they do what you hope they will do (i.e., buy your products!).

Simply put, LPO is the…