How to Create Landing Pages That Convert Sponsored by SE Ranking Ep. 539

Hi, and welcome to the SEO podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, one of the owners at EWR Digital. And my name is Matt Bertram, the lead strategist here at EWR Digital. Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of our podcast. This is podcast 540. Matt, we have done 540 podcasts. Well, you have, but I will take credit if you would like to give me credit. I'm happy to join the train. 540. That's an amazing number. Hopefully we'll do another 500 or maybe 460 and we'll get to the thousand mark. This is pretty awesome delivering SEO and internet marketing value. When did we start? 2009? 10 plus years. I know you've been doing 10 plus years. I hope to be with you the next 10. Yeah, no, really good stuff. We've got a great fun-filled podcast today. We actually have a new sponsor and it's kind of funny how things work. We were looking for articles and we're like, Hey, let's do this article. Oh, wait a minute. That article's actually by our sponsor. How cool is that? Like, that's just what a great sponsor they are. The sponsor is, I know you guys are holding your breath and waiting for us to announce the new sponsor. It's S-E ranking, S-E ranking.com, but don't go to S-E ranking.com. What you want to do is go to bestseopodcast.com forward slash S-E ranking. Uh, and we're going to get that to automatically forward to S-E ranking. Don't worry. But if you land on our page, cause we're in process of, of getting that organized, just go down and click the S-E link ranking link that you'll see there. And what that will do is we actually have a one month extended trial offer. So you can actually really get in there and use the tool. I, I really don't like all, uh, shorts, short trials where you can, you really don't have time to play around with the tool. I've been playing around with the tool for the last really two weeks. And, uh,

I got to tell you, it's nice. So good stuff, right? The interface is nice. It's like, okay, let's get into some of the details, right? Um, the most accurate and concept comprehensive tool of its kind on the market. You can bet on it. Uh, here's some bullet points about what you can get from the service, uh, tracks rankings for any location, any device, and any language and five search engines. That's Google. That's the only one that matters. Um, and YouTube checks day-to-day rankings in real time, monitors Google maps results and 35 SERP features for any keyword. Like you want to know if you're getting the knowledge graph or, or, you know, Google maps gathers data on both organic and paid search activities. That's obviously a must provides SERP snapshots. We store search engine result pages that the system got while checking the rankings. So you can actually go back and check rankings and from a historical perspective. Um, and then this is interesting users, users. So like users of the software of SE ranking, uh, can tag or a group, they can leave comments. This is so that an organization that's got multiple people with their fingers in the SEO pie, uh, can all like, Hey, let's fix this. Let's do that. Can communicate at least about SEO inside of that framework. Again, normally you get a 14 day free trial. Uh, we thought that was not long enough. We twisted their arm a little bit and, uh, use this link to get that 14 day trial extended to 30 days. That's best SEO podcast.com forward slash SE ranking. Again, if that doesn't go directly to SE ranking, we just assigned it recently. Um, then just scroll down when you see the SE ranking logo, click it and you'll be right there. Yeah. And what I'll tell you is this tool is about half the cost of some of the other tools out there. Uh, and they've really, um, re rethought or re-imagined what you need in analytics. And so not only do I love

the user interface, um, I do like setting up the projects in there. I do like the competitor analysis. There's, um, some really nice features really. I know Uber suggest and some other ones out there have had some issues recently. And so I didn't mean to mention any names, but, um, but you know, I think that this is a great tool to look at, at half the cost. And also from a ranking standpoint, it updates the data daily and you can target certain geographic locations without using like a, a, um, a location based word. Uh, so I, I really like it. Um, and you know, really this is a Ukrainian company and, um, to, to kind of support what's going on there. I thought, um, this would be a great sponsor. That's just a, an excellent bonus. Right. And, and actually when you get to their landing, get to their page, uh, it talks about supporting Ukrainians and these are people in the Ukraine working and that's, so yeah. Excellent. Happy to have a new sponsor. You know what else I'm happy about, Matt? What? We've got a review. All right. Yes. And this one is from, uh, you, you want to, you want me to read it? You want to read it? All right. This one is from you're a better reader than me, Chris. This is from Michael Aug. Uh, it says, this is obviously one of our EWR clients. Um, I've been a mortgage broker slash banker for almost 30 years and a client of EWR for the past three years. Uh, by the way, sometimes it takes three years to get somebody to leave a review. That's just how, how it goes. Uh, we highly suggest that you continue through your efforts and make sure they get you a review. I've always been a strong believer in branding and marketing and I've tried everything from billboards, radio to TV ads before I met Matt. Oh, that's why you wanted me to read it. Like, you know, before I met Matt and his

team, I was spending eight K per month on Google ads at our first meeting, Matt told me to give them six months. And in that time they built our new website and got us to the first page of the most, uh, of the most difficult keyword search. Uh, needless to say, we aren't spending eight K with Google ads anymore. Uh, although you're probably ramping that back up cause that's what tends to be when, when a business is, uh, is going, but I'll let you respond to that after I finished almost six months to the day, our phone started ringing just like Matt promised. And it's only increased since that day. If you are looking for a company that talks a good game and can back it up, then EWR is who you should call. These guys are the real deal, man. Patif to you, Mike, uh, really appreciate you taking the time. I know it's three years later, but taking the time to leave a, leave a great review for us. Yeah, no, that, that account, um, has a lot of times people come on with us, um, to kind of test it out. They probably tried internet marketing before they know it works, but it hasn't worked for them. Uh, and really we commit to a strategy, uh, and then we deliver out on that strategy. And typically we add on, uh, a number of other services. So with this client, not only have we expanded outside of Houston, uh, we're across Texas now and we're actually moving multi-state, uh, with, with, uh, their, their business and, uh, some of the strategies we have in place. So, uh, great review. Really appreciate it, Mike. Um, yeah, he's, he's a fan. So, yeah. And, and, and he's with the right organization because to be totally frank, um, working on search engine optimization in your local area and then expanding it to other areas, um, is, is not just absolute cookie cutter. There are processes that you need to do. Uh, it's not copy paste. Uh,

you've got to do it the right way to make it succeed. Yeah, no multi-location. We specialize in SEO local and multi-location for sure. Um, so it all starts with the foundation of the website and then, um, you keep adding on layers from there. There's a lot of, uh, great opportunities too with other social media platforms. I know typically Google and Facebook, um, is where the majority of the money goes, but there's a lot of other platforms depending on your niche that you should really consider looking at. That is a little bit more long tail, a lot more targeted, and you can get some great results. Cause I think the saturation right now, um, uh, on the paid side of things is, is, is pretty heavy. Um, really excited again about web three and the next layer and new opportunities, uh, cause it's all about getting in front of people with attention. That's, that's the business model for, uh, the web two Titans. So yeah. Yeah. Excellent. All right. Well, Patifta Mike, let's hop into this article. We're actually going to break this article. And again, it is from SE ranking. Let's break this article into two pieces, um, title five design tips to create landing pages that convert, uh, with examples. Obviously we're not going to be able to show you the examples. Uh, most of the people who consume this podcast actually listened to it. So, so this is going to be on how to create landing pages that convert, um, that, that we're going to kind of talk about the first part of the article there. And then the second portion of it is going to be an add on where we're going to go into the five design tips. It's, it's really a comprehensive enough upfront. And, and frankly, getting landing pages right is, uh, is such an important piece of your kind of internet marketing experience. Uh, and, and we're talking about straight up landing pages, strip out everything, have one focus. Um, you know, most of us have heard about

it, about it. Most digital marketers haven't actually done it. And, and we, this is something that we do do. Uh, so, uh, let's jump into this. So, um, a landing page has been specifically designed for a prospect to land on. Of course, the user is referred specifically to this page by clicking on a CTA, some sort of call to action that's either in an email, an ad, or through another channel. The purpose of creating an effective landing page is to increase a conversion rate, whether that means generating more leads, more direct sales, more downloads or signups. So first you have to develop a landing page strategy to ensure your optimization efforts are for the right audience, the right keyword and the right goal. So let's like jump in. Yes. Well, I, I would just say, um, deciding that you need a landing page. It's really, really important. So there's so many people that come to us and that I see out online that are running ads just to their homepage. Right. Um, people that are running traditional marketing and, um, anything, anything they're just running, like they're running like a radio commercial and it's just come to your landing page, but people are looking for that specific offer. So it's really, really important to direct those people to that offer because if they don't see it, they're going to bounce. And so if you're running paid ads, um, you typically want to like, if you run branded ads, right, Chris, we've talked about running branded ads. You want to run branded ads. You want to guide them, uh, to the specific experience that you want them to have. And so if you have an offer and you're advertising that offer and you're running it to the homepage and it doesn't talk about that offer, like with a pop-up or a banner ad or something like that, you know, and, and also a lot of the homepages are not always meant to convert like a landing page land page is meant to like capture your information,

get you to take some kind of action. And so typically with ads, you want to run those ads to a landing page. And that's not something that is always happening. And so deciding on a landing page and your strategy, I think it's incredibly important and go, Hey, we need a landing page. I think that's the first step. So I like that before anything decide that you do need a landing page. And Oh, by the way, you do. All right. So here's the goal. Start with a solid strategy by answering these crucial questions. Who is my target audience? What are the campaign goals? And this is where we mentioned earlier, do we want direct sales? Do want more leads? Do you want more downloads? Do you want more signups? Um, what do visitors need from your landing page and how will visitors get to your landing page? Because how they get there might drive what you show. If you're looking at some sort of long form video that gets them there, you probably need to have video on that landing page. If you're using them for some short, quick ad that's talking about a sweepstake, you know, maybe it's a shorter page. And, and the goal is just to get them to sign up for, to that sweepstake, which would be a great example of just trying to get the emails. And then next we've got research your audience. And by the way, I think the campaign goals are really pivotal. Um, hopefully you have an idea of your target audience, but also understand that your landing page can have a different target audience, right? Like you may, you know, maybe your, your, your, um, avatar for your customers, you know, 30 to 45 year olds, both men and women, and you want this landing page to target only women or only men. And so that you can be more specific when you're driving traffic to a particular page. Yeah. I mean, I think a landing page or a splash page is meant to get somebody

to take one specific action. Um, and knowing that most of the traffic now also is on mobile, um, designing for that. And okay. It may be, like you said, running a short little video ad as a teaser and then driving them to a long form kind of long form sales letter or long form video to explain deeper concepts. Right. And then, you know, they watch the video, they keep reading. It's a long form sales letter and you have them buy it then. Um, or on the other end of the spectrum. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's to just grab their information. I mean, you can even, you can even decide you don't like on Facebook, right? The lead capture before you even need a landing page, right. To just collect their information. Um, but typically you're trying to get them to take some kind of action. Also, uh, when you do get them to your landing page, you want to have, make sure analytics is set up properly because now, now you can retarget to those people. Um, and, uh, you know, you, you pulled them off of that social media platform and, and now they're in your database that you can, you can target to. So I think that that's incredibly important. And then there's a lot of things that you can do with downloadables and, and other things along that spectrum. But I think hitting both of those and understanding where you are on that and what you're trying to achieve and setting the, setting those even objectives of we want to get, you know, based on these ads we run, we want to get at least 20 people, 20% of people to click through. Once they click through, we want X number of people to download and then be optimizing to that goal, making sure it's a realistic goal. Uh, but target audience is incredibly, um, important. Uh, I see so many campaigns, Chris, that, um, are just on set and forget. And I don't think that they're trying to, they're not, there's no

real goal set to achieve. I mean, it's set up, it's running, but you can tell there's not a lot of, uh, strategy or thought into what, what's happening. And that's going to really screw up your, your numbers, uh, for analytics. Um, and then, you know, if you're trying to rank that page for SEO, uh, you know, dwell time, how people interact with that page, you know, that that's maybe something a little bit separate, but, but it all plays into, uh, the analytics that data is looking at have how people interact with their site. Cause if you're driving the wrong traffic to them, it's a big problem. Or if you don't match the right audience to the right offer, it's not going to work. So I've seen things like, it's almost like twisting a kaleidoscope a little bit, but I've seen things that absolutely don't work and you switch it a little bit and then it's like a perfect fit and it drives, um, crazy amount of ROI. So we're going to jump into kind of some of the stuff that you just talked about, right? So next is, uh, research your audience. You're right. Audience is incredibly important. In fact, understanding what kind of visitors you want to attract to your landing page will help you better tailor the content. You already touched on that. Uh, it will influence, they will influence different aspects of your campaign. They being the audience, uh, the kind of CTA you might use the descriptions you might provide, whether you should add special elements like images or videos. We kind of touched on this already. Your tone, your approach, your brands look and feel, uh, is going to be dependent on your target audience. And even more specifically for the target target audience for that particular landing page. Next, we're going to find the right keywords. So people use keyword. We talk about keyword research all the time. Uh, people use keywords to define what they're looking for. Never underestimate the power of keyword research. I feel like anytime

I see that type of sentence, I'm going to highlight it and I'm going to repeat it. Uh, cause the keyword research is so important. Uh, the keywords, uh, should be aligned with the product or service you're offering so that you get better conversions. That's what you really want to have in terms of alignment. It's always a good idea to check what kind of ads are already ranking for your target keywords, since this will help you understand the needs of your target audience and track your competition and see how well they're addressing it. Like there is the understanding, uh, for us in the SEO world, this may not be true in a, in a lot of kind of other worlds that when you do a search and you see what Google ranks organically, that's actually what the visitor interacts well with somebody who searched that keyword. If they go to the first two links and they bounce real quickly, Google's going to remove them from the first and second position. If they stay, then that is the right content. That is the intent of that particular keyword. And I know that's a, an additional subject, but I don't know if you have anything else to add. Yeah. I always have a few things to add. Um, I, I think that, um, how that person is interacting with that page is even from an SEO standpoint, like one of the most critical things, uh, that Google's looking for and the search intent of the keywords is absolutely important. Um, you can typically see that by looking at, uh, the CPC of that keyword in some of these tools like SE rankings, right? When you log in to be able to look and say how much people are bidding, uh, in AdWords for this tool to give you an idea of search intent, but also it's important also to look outside of Google search planner and use tools like this, because there's a lot of opportunities for SEO and for paid ads, uh, for keywords that maybe someone's

not bidding on and to find those hidden jewels. Right. But, um, what someone does once they get to that website, when you're searching for those keywords is incredibly important. And again, the right message, the right offer, the, you know, the right, um, landing page is absolutely key to this. And whenever you're running ads, you want to really think through that customer journey and, and figure out where, where is that person, uh, in the buying funnel. One of the things I've like totally noticed recently, Chris is, um, we've been focused a lot more on sales recently because we've been just building up a team, um, and just really focus on the processes. And typically it was just really organic, like whoever was coming to us or referrals of work we did, but we've recently started to focus on sales. And what I've seen in the sales process is we have great testimonials. We have great case studies. Right. Um, but if you send those to somebody too early in the sales cycle, they don't even see them. They don't even care about them. Right. So people have sent that stuff to, um, after talking to them, they ask for it again after they've already decided they're going to go with you and they're ready to now go, okay, I need references. Yeah. Right. And so they ask you the same information you've already sent them and it's clear they probably didn't even look at it. You know what I mean? And so, um, that's just a specific example of today. We, we, we landed a new client and that was some of what was happening and, and it's becoming more apparent is you really got to know what the, uh, target personas are of who you're going after. Um, how are you going to reach those people and getting into that conversation in their head at those micro decisions. Google talks a lot about that and where they're at to give them the right, um, you know, piece of content. Like, like if you're trying to

get a downloadable, you want to understand where it is in the customer journey that, Hey, we need to give this person this information. Right. And so, um, you know, understanding what that is and, and where that is to give them the right thing is, is just so important. So. Yep. Absolutely. All right. So next, and I'm not, I mean, you've said this already. I'm not even sure it bears, uh, repeating and I'm going to do it anyway. Optimize your website for mobile, right? Mobile traffic represents 54.8% of all traffic worldwide. So it comes as no surprise that it's highly advisable that your landing page be responsive and work on a mobile device. Um, I don't think. Well, mobile first. And you, and you, you need to think about, um, like, like spacing and padding and, and some of those kinds of things. Also there's issues, uh, with, if you're going to build a dot M site, right. That's going to be different. Or if it's dynamic, um, from an anchor tech standpoint, there's, there could be some issues, but you should really be designing with mobile intention first. And, you know, I would say on a iPhone and on like an Android device to cover, most of your bases. Some of the modulators are good, but not always completely accurate. Um, but you know, you know, you're designing typically on a desktop, you should really be designing. Um, well, you should be really checking, uh, on a mobile and make sure mobile first before it's out the door. I mean, what I'm seeing in the data is almost 90% now of all traffic is on mobile or the first interactions on mobile. And they might go back to a desktop to buy later. And so you can even customize that on what you're going to capture on mobile versus what you're going to capture on desktop. So. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Make it for web, make it for mobile website, your landing page works on mobile. Um, all right. So we're going to jump into

the key features of a landing page, right? That'll wrap up this podcast. This is actually really important stuff. And then we'll jump into on the next podcast, five design tips for creating that landing page. All right. So the primary purpose again, of your landing page should be to make it as simple as possible for a visitor to convert. And we're going to jump through 10. Uh, actually she, she listed 10, 10 of them. Lily did Lily Lopez. Uh, but I added an 11th. So, um, we're going to cover those 11, uh, things to consider those pieces of a landing page that you have to have. Uh, so one is consistent branding and color, right? Color psychology can be applied to your brand logo, your website, or your blog, but can also go to your landing page. And one point that she makes is save bright color pops, um, or just contrasting color props for elements such as CTA buttons, uh, to make them stand out. I think that that's a big point. A lot of people try to make them blend in and then you don't know that it might be a button. Yeah. Um, and, and colors are, are important and different. There's, I think a color wheel out there that denotes, um, like reds, like take action. You know, sometimes people think it means stop. It could mean take action. Um, green is like growth. Like there's a lot that goes into, cause what you're doing is, well, you're doing sales online and you're trying to tap into the emotions, right? The emotion, um, and the pain, actually the pain, people don't talk about that a lot, but people take more action on pain than they do on, uh, you know, people are more worried about risk than they are on, uh, like what are they going to lose versus what they're going to gain? And so a lot of this is now talking into, uh, well, copywriting, but, but design, uh, UX UI stuff and, and human emotions and, and marketing. I

mean, like there's so many different skillsets that go into digital marketing or even building on a landing page from UX UI to the ads to, um, you know, the web development. Um, and then even down to the buttons, I think even like you can make buttons look really high end, or you can make buttons look, you know, maybe not high end. Um, I mean, there, there's so much you can do. I mean, if you think back, I've been doing a lot of stuff on web three and kind of going back to web one and everything's like HTML, Chris, but like, you know, now I'm starting to see a resurgence of like stuff blinking, you know, on the page. I mean, if you think back, like, you know, um, the little, you know, little, little scripts running and, and, um, all kinds of stuff. I think a lot of that's coming back, but, but buttons, even like when you highlight over it to have it change color a little bit or show a little bit of a shadow, all of those little things, I think make a difference, uh, on forms specifically. Um, there, there's some services out there that have really good case studies on, uh, how to create forms to get people to fill them out. Like one example of that is if you're trying to capture a bunch of information, like on a survey or something, you don't show all the questions on one sheet with all the, uh, form fills, right? You show a little bit and you say, Hey, you're, you know, 20% done. And you click the next button, they give you like two or three questions. And it, that experience, um, how those buttons feel is super important to get you to keep providing that information. And then also you want to be capturing and, uh, loading that information because the, every form that you add, uh, produces a certain amount of friction. So about 20, 10% of, uh, the people that would fill out a form won't the

more forms you add. Um, so that's a good way to filter people out. If you're not, if you're getting a lot of spam is add a lot of filters and require them to fill it out. But also we've seen take like five form fills down to like one form fill or two, um, an exponential increase with not changing anything. So a lot of all these subtle things, uh, make a huge difference. I would say though, this even goes back to, um, our podcast with Billy Jean. I would encourage people to go watch that one. Uh, and I know we're going to probably talk about this, but I want to say it before me personally, I forget. Um, if you really want, um, a significant change in results, right. A significant change in results, you need to significantly change the offer, right? You got to change the offer or the, that is the most powerful thing on the landing page that if your campaign's not working, what you want to do is change the offer to get those outsized results. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. So you've jumped ahead. I know. I know. I just, I wanted to just make sure, cause I felt like that was like a little pro tip in there. Yeah. I like it. All right. So number two, clear and compelling headline. You've got less than 15 seconds to grab a person's attention. The headline is probably the most important thing you will write. It should be memorable, clear and solve the problem your visitors care about most. Uh, I'm, I'm in some groups where, uh, copywriters will spend 80% of their time writing the headline, tweaking the headline, even testing the headline, um, maybe with a paid ad, uh, because look, the reality is if the rest of your copy and your offer is the right thing, but you can't get them to read more, uh, or even the subheading, then it's just, it's not worth it. Like you've got to get that right. That's actually what I was going to

say as well. And that's what all the copywriting books, uh, talk about. I'm a big fan of like Dan Kennedy. Um, I mean, the headline is the key. Um, the headlines, the key to, to get them interested, to show them the rest of the copy. Uh, I would even say it's less than 15 seconds. Um, uh, I think Microsoft did a study years ago that was like the, was it the, the attention span of a goldfish is what the U S consumers attention span is the goldfish. It's like seven seconds. Microsoft did a study like that. I included it in my book, but, um, yeah, you, you don't have a lot of time and it's getting more and more competitive out there. So you got to have a balance between adding value and not just clickbait. So, so, so I do think, I think 15 seconds is no, no longer, even when we're running ads, right? 30 second ad spots. How many, Chris, when was the last time you watched a 30 second ad spot like on YouTube or TV or anywhere? Um, I think it happens every now and then accidentally. Um, I think on YouTube more and more, you, they've taken away the skip. Yeah. Right. So, so it's probably been fairly recent, but because of that now let's be realistic. I'm like at the point that I'm 10 seconds in and I'm not interested, but I got to wait till the end. I'm zoned out. Like, yeah, yeah. No, I mean, I think it's like, you got to catch them in the first five seconds. You got to, you got to grab their attention to get them to keep reading. And it's almost like every word matters the value of every word, because this word, you get them to read the next word. You get them to read the next word. You get them to read the next word. You get them into, you get them interested enough to invest a little bit more time in the next step. And so, um,

I mean, 10 second ad spots is what I'm seeing to be the most effective. Cause again, that was kind of that number you said too, but you're, you're grabbing them in the first five seconds. I mean, if you haven't got them, let's say by 15 seconds, you, you're like, you don't have a chance. Like they're, they're gone. So. And then if you get them, right. So if you get them in that first five seconds, you probably have another 15 seconds. And that's where the persuasive sub headline comes in. The sub headline is so important too. Right. It's like, Oh, you got my attention. Yeah. And now give me the details of why you have my attention. Yep. If the headline makes the visitor look, then the sub headline should ensure they stay. Uh, the subheading should be doing a powerful job to deliver the key details that entice them to continue to read. Um, so next is supporting copy, avoid complicated business jargon, keep your sentences short and try to cut out any unnecessary texts that you don't actually need on the page. Uh, so yeah, those are like, keep it clean, keep it neat. Number five is a clean layout. Um, landing pages, eliminate all other distractions you might find on a regular page. Make sure you do that. This gives your visitors a single path forward. This means avoiding featuring navigation links to other pages, headers, footers, any other calls to action. Um, when I've put together landing pages, you know, it's like, get rid of the header. Oh, we probably don't even need the logo. Like that's probably not necessary. Like get the attention and, and move on, get to the, um, what is it? Uh, don't bore us with the chorus. Actually, somebody left a review, get, get to the chorus. I can't remember. Well, you know, what I would say is I saw really the rise a couple of years ago of the, I don't know, reverse, reverse navigation or upside down navigation where people were putting the navigation on

the bottom. Right. So you may want some navigation, but what you're really trying to do is you want to distract it. Uh, I think like Neil Patel does a great job, right? Like you go to his site. Well, it's a little annoying to be honest, but, um, you, I mean, he, he throws up a landing page when you go to the site to try to grab your information before you even get into the site. And it's just like, Hey, give me your website or give me your information if you want to do like marketing or whatever. So that's a good example. And he's tested that out. He's tested out colors. Um, there's a lot of data around, Hey, just give that person the thing you want them to do. I think that's why, uh, Apple's been so successful too, is they've just made it easy and intuitive to understand what you want. Um, people think about navigation. You're trying, you're trying to guide the person to get to the decision they want and you're trying to make it as easy as possible. And so it should be very clear and apparent what you're asking them to do and how they should do it. And typically people will follow those steps because they want that. If you've done, done your job and getting the right kind of traffic there. Yeah. Absolutely. Uh, number six, a strong offer or promotion visitors want to hear about how you will be able to solve their problems, how your product will make their lives easier. Don't just list a bunch of features and call it a day. Like, uh, yeah, I mean, I, I think, you know, that's the whole point of AdWords. I mean, what I've seen with AdWords is it's typically, um, somebody that is a coupon hunter, they want some kind of deal, uh, or they need something really quickly, like emergency, whatever, or fat, like you have a flat tire or you have a emergency plumber or your house is on fire. I mean, whatever, right?

Like it's almost like a nine one one. Um, or it's like, I want some kind of deal. Typically we're seeing SEO fit in for that deep research, but certainly catching people at, at some point in the funnel. And again, AdWords is not a silver bullet. It's one step in that customer journey to get them in to do that. Uh, but, but that offer is incredibly important. Like we talked about earlier, if you're not getting the results that you want, or you're not getting the, um, you know, uh, engagement or, uh, conversions that you want. The first thing I would do is try to change the offer. Cause I can tell you even there's a lot of stuff that comes into me from a spam standpoint and you know, I'll spend a second or two, I'll spend like, you know, a second or two looking at it. And every once in a while, there's something that I may be in the market for, and you're trying to find that 3% needle in a haystack. Um, but you shouldn't count on that. And that's AdWords is not a silver bullet. It's part of a, a bigger marketing strategy. Um, that's a lot of what, what we do as far as with our one-on-one consulting, um, or people come to us for workshops. We're doing a lot more workshops is understanding that bigger picture and how that strategy fits in it. And it, and strategies usually don't want them to be disjointed. You don't use want a couple of things going on over here, a couple of things going on over here. You want them all working together cohesively to be your sales strategy online or your marketing strategy and your sales strategy online. So, all right. So next feature of a landing page, which you did cover already is simple forms, you know, consider how you make it shorter and easier for visitors to fill. You talked about a 10% decrease in form fills for every field. Uh, that's been a number that's been rattling around in

my head for a long time. I'm going to add this caveat, right? So one, I love that you mentioned, uh, having a percentage so people can track their progress. People always like, once they know they've started down a path, they actually want to finish it. There's something in human nature. And so once they see that 10% done, 30% done, whatever, that's really valuable. Um, but one caveat to making a form shorter is when you understand that a short form can't accomplish what you're trying to accomplish, right? So if you have, let's say, get your free auto quote, right? And you ask for their name and email, people tend not to fill that out because they kind of understand. I can't get a quote from a name and an email, right? I actually have to give some details like how old my car is, what kind of car it is. So we have seen situations where the longer, the longer the form is, the more appropriate it is to what you're trying to accomplish by filling out the form. So you do like, there are situations where you don't want to like, get it too short. Yes, I agree. All right. Next, um, direct call to action. Uh, while CTA buttons like learn more or get started can work, they're also pretty vague. You want to spend some time making, this is kind of like the opposite end of your headline, right? The headline is important so that people continue to read. And then you really need to focus on your CTA. So people actually take that action, something like buy now, Amazon has probably tested it and, you know, check out now. I'm sure they've tried like if buy now works for Amazon, it's probably right. Um, you could do like secure your supply. If the text right above it is saying, Hey, we're about to run out because of supply chain demands. Um, you know, secure your supply like those spend time on that actual CTA. This would be the thing that after the

headlines where I would spend the most time on changing stuff around is the offer, uh, as well as the call to action. Uh, also just a quick tip, like putting learn more everywhere on your site is not the right next step. Like you need to think through it. It impacts anchor text for SEO. Um, so that could be an issue. It needs to be more descriptive of what you want them to do, right? Get started now is maybe better. Find out more about SEO services or whatever, right? Like the anchor text is supposed to lead them to understand what is that next step you want them to take and get started. Learn more is pretty kind of standard explicit, but there's a lot of data out there. Um, we should put together a case study. There's a lot of data out there on buttons. Um, but the tough thing is some of the buttons work better for different industries and also geo geo geolocated, uh, based on dialects and different things like that. We've seen even different areas of the country, certain the same ad with a different, uh, CTA works better. Um, and I think it has something to do with how familiar people are with brands. Okay. So how familiar are they with your brand? The better the ask you can get. Right. Um, and also too, when we're running these ads, the more, the stronger the offer needs to be as more time goes by, you typically want to, uh, the, the, the biggest thing that I've found with running ads and landing pages is people think that these are just golden leads that, um, they can call them whenever, and they're going to be just ready to buy. All right. And it's, it's, I think the data is saying seven minutes. Okay. Typically when someone calls to get them because they're in that mindset, you got seven minutes to capture them and to get, get something like that going, you know? And so, um, the call probably has to do with

what, what I spoke about earlier is that path, that knowing that you're on some path and okay, I really want to take that next step. It's a phone call. I submitted my form and now you're actually off the path. Whereas if they get that call quickly enough, they're still on the path and they have this desire, this innate desire to complete that, that journey. All right. So next is rich media. So you want visual content. It's an essential component of a landing page, uh, at least one that's going to work. Uh, you want your images. They should be large, relevant to your product or service. And of course, high quality. Um, also not mentioned here, but really a big part of what we're going to talk about next time is actually video content and how, how to lay out video content. Uh, and that would fit into rich media. And then finally on her list, uh, reviews and social proof, uh, a testimonial or review. She writes can help potential customers feel reassured while visiting your landing page. I actually put a X through can help. Uh, I put like, it does help data on this. So like reviews and social proof. I feel like she just didn't give enough weight to this. Um, reviews and social proof are, are, are, are everything, right. They're like, you know, you've got your headline or your sub headline line. So the re so they get it, you address the problem. And then that's going to be a couple of things that I add in terms of how you address the problem. But, but then you're like, okay, you may have this solution, but do I trust you? Well, yeah, go out there, get Google reviews, get Instagram, Facebook posts, get YouTube videos. Again, she puts these can also be influential. No, they are influential. Well, I mean, there's a lot of data on even really the social media platforms. We're talking about taking off like likes and that sort of thing and hearts and all that, because

it was driving kids into depression, right? Um, that's how powerful this is. Also, there's a lot of really good data on there of, I think the number was 12. I don't quote me on that, but I think you need to have about 12 reviews, uh, for social proof to really kick in. That came out of an Airbnb, uh, either Ted talk or just talking. Yeah. Yeah. I can't remember where I heard it, but, but social proof. I mean, think about the last time you made a purchase on, okay, let's say Amazon. Cause hopefully most people, well, I'm trying to actually use other platforms. Um, and they're really just not as good and they don't have as much goods. Like it's like, there's a lot of work that, um, competitors need to do, but bottom line is you look at the aggregated, um, the aggregated reviews on those platforms to decide making that decision. And people are saying, looking at reviews of other people, right. And like video testimonials. So that's combining the power of video with testimonial. Uh, and we have those on our site. Like those are so powerful because it's a true review from somebody and not all the, um, communication is done with words, right? Your eyes, your facial expressions, all those sorts of things play into it. And, but, but, but you can run that spectrum there and understand that people are taking shortcuts. I forget what the word is. There's actually a specific word for it. And people at a certain level will take shortcuts in their brain and they'll look at reviews and compare that equally to the review of a, of like a personal friend. And, and so having that social credibility, framing that up in a way that people, um, like can see that other people are having success with this and that can maybe connect in some way to, to those people. That's why just text, like you need to have a picture, you need to have a name, you need to have a job, you

need to have a location. Uh, we've seen so much power when you're looking at portfolios, if it's in the neighborhood, right. By wherever it is. Uh, that's why wrapping vehicles is so important for a consumer based, uh, businesses because you're getting social proof that the person across the streets get in their pool clean by so-and-so then I need to get, uh, I actually saw, I need to post it on our social media, but I had, uh, one of our clients, manning pool service is, was servicing pools across the street and next to me at the same time. Yeah. That's powerful when you see that kind of thing from a social proof standpoint of if they're using it and they're my friends and they're my neighbors, then I should be using it. It's a good service. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So social proof. So yeah, I think you're absolutely right to include reviews and social proof. There's no doubt about that. I think just, it could have been weighted and worded with more, um, uh, really emotion, which by the way is my, so I'm adding to this. The next one is 11 and she didn't really talk about features of a landing page and, and emotion should be one of them. You really do want to take people through a journey and, and, and really emotion is going to be tied to the next one that I just added. Um, as we're kind of preparing this podcast or actually doing this podcast, but emotion is important because people make emotional decisions and then use data and reviews and whatever to rationalize the emotional decision that they made. So you need to appeal to the emotion of the pain of the problem and the emotion of the joy of the solution that you're, that you're going to provide. I'm going to throw in, you know, we've talked to, and I think you were lumping them together, which is the offer as opposed to the angle, right? So kind of in my mind, I've got 20% off is

the offer or get three bottles today and it's less expensive. That's kind of the offer and the angle, like what is, what is the pitch? What is the spin? And she didn't really talk about that where, Hey, here, let's identify the pain point of the customer and talk about it and have them feel that pain, you know, twist the, twist the needle a little bit. What are you twisting? You're twisting something. Um, feature you're talking about features and benefits. Is that what you're talking about? Like, Oh, I'm talking about what is, what is the pain point? Right? Like, yeah. So here's an example. If we're selling carpet cleaning, you're like, you may not realize how filthy your carpet is. So you could start talking about the allergies that are occurred. You know, 20% of allergies are caused by a carpet that's not cleaned. Oh, I didn't know that. That's a pain point that I wasn't even aware of. You know, what's it feel like to be sick? What's it feel like not to have energy? Those are the emotions that are behind it. Um, those might not be exactly emotions, but you see where I'm going and then, okay, now to wake up and take a deep breath and feel refreshed in your own room, right? That's creates an emotional, um, uh, connection and that's doesn't even, that's not the offer, right? The offer is okay. Well, we'll come clean your service and you get 10% off and you can schedule it, you know, monthly or whatever, whatever the right timeframe is. So that's kind of the angle, uh, that really is very important. Throw that emotion with that angle and then have a powerful offer, uh, to, to kind of hit the home run. Perfect. Yeah. And, and so that's what we've covered this particular podcast. So next time we're really are going to jump into, um, the actual five design tips to create landing pages. Uh, basically Lily, uh, Lopez wrote this kind of outlined everything that we covered today and is now

going to jump into those tips. We broke it into two, uh, frankly, everything that we've talked about in this podcast, uh, is as important or more important than the design tips that we're going to do. Now you've got like the framework. Now, you know, all the components you need to include next, we're going to talk about how we include those. What are the design tips that help us accomplish that, uh, in a way that can convert people. So looking forward to that, Patif to you, Lily, for a great article. Was there anything that you wanted to wrap up with Matt? No, I'm just, uh, excited to be here. Yeah. We are going to ask you if you did like this podcast, uh, do one thing, go to EWR digital.com forward slash reviews. Uh, and that'll take you directly to our page. Please leave a review about the podcast. Yeah. Yeah. And we are going to be breaking that apart. Um, Chris, we're really trying to separate, I guess, church and state as far as, uh, EWR goes and the podcast. And, uh, those are going to continue with the teams that we've hired to continue to go in separate directions. Um, and so, uh, we have created some new handles for best SEO podcast. And so, um, right now I believe that will still work, but just know as we move forward, guys, um, you know, we're, we're trying to, trying to, to, to keep them separate. I think, uh, agency is phenomenal. I think the podcast is phenomenal. They just do very different things and we're building separate teams for both of those things. And we are hiring, uh, in a lot of different areas. So, um, we have some job postings out there. We're going to be putting more up. If you know, you have a lot of experience, we're looking for, uh, account managers. Um, we're looking for off page SEO, uh, experience. We're looking for onboarding. We're looking for analytics. Uh, we're actually looking for a design or no, sorry, a

content coordinator. So we have a lot of roles, uh, open. So I would encourage you to, um, uh, check out our website, uh, reach out to us, let us know if you're interested. We do have a fully remote team. We have an office here in Houston. Uh, we do a lot of videography and client means out of there, but, uh, from the day to day since COVID, we've just never really gone back to the office and have created a culture where, uh, a lot of our team members are traveling all around the world and, uh, being able to be a digital nomad. And, uh, it's, uh, I think it's working great, great environment. So if you're, if you're anywhere and you speak a really good English, I think that's one of the main requirements. Um, we'd love to, we'd love to talk to you. So, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and, and that you already covered, like if you want to work with EWR digital, then you can just go to EWR digital.com, uh, and set up a free consultation. We had a big green button, I think up in the corner. Um, we would love to do a 20 minute consultation with you. If you go to that page, it'll explain to you kind of our process and how we work. We don't typically just jump into it, uh, with a client. We want to assess some things, uh, do some audits, do some consulting, do some workshop, make sure we have the right strategy for you to make sure that we'll hit a home run. Uh, the number one thing that, that we promote internally is we'll not take on a client unless we know we can deliver. Um, we don't need the business. Uh, we're focused on a lot of our own projects, but if you come to us and we can help you, we will tell you that if we can't, we will tell you that as well. And, and that's, I think one of the really powerful things about, uh, our

service is we know what works and what doesn't, and we'll tell you kind of like we see it. I, I can't be wrong. Okay. So we did take on a client where they signed like a documentation that they were selling Play-Doh. Okay. And we're typically working with like enterprise little businesses, right. And, um, small business owners, some services, um, anybody that's B2C search volume, but I did have, um, this was a friend of a friend come to us and they were selling, they wanted to sell Play-Doh, uh, drop ship to you through Shopify online. And I didn't think it was going to work. Okay. I didn't think it was going to work and it worked like gangbusters. Um, and so we have a lot of data. Um, we see a lot of things we can make good assumptions, but we certainly don't know everything. Uh, and, uh, that's one of the really cool roles about our job is we get to see so many different kinds of campaigns. And so if you're internally at a company and you want to shake it up or you want a second opinion of whatever you're doing, reach out to us, uh, bestseopodcast.com. We do have a consulting option. We can dig in, take a look at what you're doing and give you our two cents. Um, I think we have a lot of value, but speaking of two cents, I think we go back to what Mike said in his review at the beginning. If you're looking for a company that talks a good game and can back it up, uh, then EWR is who you should call. These guys are the real deal. So again, patiff to Mike, um, anything else to wrap it up? All right. Thank you so much for tuning in. We really appreciate all of y'all, all of you out there. Um, until the next podcast, my name is Chris Burris. My name is Matt Bertram. Bye-bye for now.