Search Engine Strategies New York Prequel (March 17-20, 2008)

Monday, March 17th – Saint Patrick’s Day in New York City! Sounds like a good time – enough said…

If last year’s estimated 8,000-9,000 person attendance record is broken, this should be the biggest conference for the year.

Actually, the busy day for me will be on Tuesday March 18th:

• 3:15-4:30 – What’s new with Google Analytics and Website Optimizer? – As a charter Google Website Optimizer Authorized Consultant (WOAC) company SiteTuners.com is very much looking forward to the public announcements of some exciting new developments. The panel includes Google Website Optimizer product manager Tom Leung, Urchin Software product manager Brett Crosby (another expatriate member of the San Diego Internet mafia), and Google Analytics marketing stud Jeff Gillis. These guys do not pull their punches, so come by and hear the real skinny on Google’s excellent (and Free!) tools.
• 4:45-6:00 – Landing Page Testing & Tuning Session – I will be running an updated version of my well received solo session from SES Chicago (4.37out of 5 speaker rating). Session Description: Getting someone to click on your search ad is only half the battle. Once visitors arrive, the landing pages you display to them are a crucial component in converting them into buyers. This session looks at ways to test and tweak your landing pages to get that conversion. NOTE: The session is designed for those who are already familiar with how paid placement works.
• 6:00-7:00 – Landing Page Optimization Book Signing – I will be signing copies of my new book Landing Page Optimization: The Definitive Guide to Testing and Tuning for Conversions (John Wiley & Sons Press, 2008) during the networking reception in the exhibit hall in the Mobile Libris booth (#2010). Stop on by and say hello!
• 7:00-whenever – Dinner with the Future Now chief bananas – Web conversion experts Bryan Eisenberg, Jeffrey Eisenberg, Howard Kaplan, and I will be going out to dinner. Topics of world-shattering importance are bound to be discussed.

If you would like to connect during the show, please call my cell – (619) 990-9062.

Landing Page Optimization Book by SiteTuners.com President Tim Ash

Well, it’s taken a year of my life but my book is finally out, and doing great! Check out the book’s website at LandingPageOptimizationBook.com.

I was asked to write this book by John Wiley & Sons Press because there was a gap in the available knowledge on the topic of landing page optimization and testing. Sure there are lots of books on web design, web usability, and persuasive web copy-writing. But these topics are just a small subset of the knowledge that is required to have a successful landing page testing program.

Many books by so-called online marketing “experts” will purport to know the “right answer”, and tell you what you should do in a particular situation. This is valuable as far as it goes. But in my own extensive experience with TESTING landing pages, my opinions and ideas are very often wrong. No single expert or company can be right all of the time, and understand exactly what your particular website visitor audience will respond to. That is the whole point of testing (as opposed to conjectures or guessing).

My book tries to fill in the holes around testing in particular: how to identify problems with your site, how to decide what page elements to test, how to understand the math and statistical assumptions behind testing, and how to select the right testing method and understand its limitations. In addition, I cover real-world considerations such as the company politics of tuning, how to create an action plan for your testing program, and how to avoid common testing pitfalls and problems.

So if you are looking for good books on website design or usability in general, you should get them as well. But this book should be useful to you if you are interested in learning the additional topics that you will need to understand in order to be successful with landing page optimization and testing.

Last I checked (on 2/28/08), the book was at #12 on the bestseller list Computers & Internet category on Amazon, and #344 overall!

Special Promotion – Discounts off of autographed book copies

If you upload a picture of yourself holding the book for the reader gallery, we will email a $10-off discount code for up to three of your friends for autographed copies of the book.

Here’s to higher landing page conversion rates, and your continued online marketing success!

Cut out the B.S. to Increase Conversions

Our company routinely runs large scale landing page optimization tests to improve conversion rates. One of the most common components that we test is the sales copy on the page. We have found that changing your approach to writing can often lead to a double-digit increase in conversion rates.

But this is not a post about “persuasive” copywriting, or powerful magic words to use in your headline. Most of the problem with writing for the web lies at a much more fundamental level. There is a giant disconnect between how much we care about our sales copy, and how much our Internet visitors do.

Most of the adaptations that you need to make to your writing have a single purpose: to reduce the visitor’s cognitive load. Instead of being forced to pay attention to how the information is presented, they can devote more focus to getting their intended task accomplished. By getting out of their way, you empower them to be faster, more efficient, and effective. This will lead to higher conversion rates for you, and higher satisfaction for them.

The reality for most Internet surfers is that they are constantly subjected to a barrage of promotional messages and advertising. As a basic defense mechanism, they have learned to tune out most hype. Perhaps you do have to be somewhat crass to get them to your landing page. For whatever reason, they have ended up there. You are no longer (for the moment) competing for their attention with other websites. So you need to change the focus to the task that they are trying to accomplish.

Your visitors detest marketese. Unfortunately, your landing page was probably written in this kind of over-the-top promotional style. It usually involves a lot of boasting and unsubstantiated claims. If your company is the “world’s leading provider” of something, you are in good company. A recent search on Google turned up 8.58 million matching results for this phrase. Your claims are probably not true anyway, but even if they are you can use different language to make your point.

Marketese may be (barely) acceptable in your press releases when you are trying to puff up your company and accomplishments. But on your landing page it spells disaster. Marketese requires work on the part of your visitor. It saps their energy and attention, and forces them to spend time separating the content from the fluff. It also results in much longer word counts. You are missing an enormous opportunity by not creating a hype-free zone on your landing page.

How to Avoid Writing in “Marketese”

• Do not use any adjectives.
• Provide only objective information.
• Focus on the needs of your audience.

Save your visitors the aggravation and only tell them what they want to hear. Your editorial tone should have the following attributes:

Factual – Writing factually will take a little work. It is difficult to stop making subjective statements. You may catch yourself lapsing into marketese at unexpected moments. But stick with it. You will be amazed at how much more effective your writing will be. Remember, your visitor is not looking to be entertained, and certainly not to be marketed to. They are there to deal with a specific need or problem that they have. The best kind of information you can give them is objective in nature.

Task-oriented – Task-oriented writing is focused on the roles, tasks, and AIDA (sales funnel) steps that are required to move your visitors through the conversion action. You should organize your text in the order that the visitor is likely to need it. For example, a big-ticket consumer product site might lay out the following high-level steps for the buying process: research, compare, customize, purchase. Once you have explicitly built the conversion path for your landing page, it should be clear where the gaps are.

Precise – It is critical to be clear in Web writing. The audience can be very diverse and can bring a variety of cultural backgrounds to their interpretation of your language. Be careful about your exact choice of words. Never try to be funny or clever. Do not use puns, metaphors, or colloquial expressions.

So leave out the B.S. to make your cash register ring more often.