Landing Page Optimization Tips - #seopodcast 220

Hi, and welcome to the SEO Podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, owner of eWebStyle. And I'm Charles Lewis, your internet marketing specialist. Welcome to the year 2014. 2014. We've got another year, and let's just hop into it real quick. Our tip from last podcast is actually go back and listen to our 2013 year in review. Yeah. It's a two-part segment. Part two, part one, part two. Go check both of those out. That's going to be the fastest way for you to recap everything we talked about in the year 2013. Lots of good, lots of bad, lots of changes with Google and algorithms and all sorts of stuff. So, definitely go check out the podcast review. Be sure to enjoy it. Yeah, Chuck and I were talking about it afterwards. I mean, there's just powerful hitting like one item, two item, three item. We should throw some advertising in it, like a little more than just our normal, hey, how to connect with us. Remember, we are your friendly local neighborhood top position snatchers. Yes. Where our mantra is. Don't be a deuce. Which, by the way, apparently means shower in French. It's not so, yeah, it just means shower. Yeah, I saw it in a sitcom yesterday. Really? It was a really well-written sitcom because at the end, it's like, you're just one big shower. I thought that was good writing. Wow. If you can, it looks like Chuck's already doing it. Go ahead and tweet. What should they tweet? I'm tweeting several things. Hashtag SEO podcast. This is number 220. Be sure to tag us in it at eWebStyle, at bestSEO podcast. And that way we can follow you and link up and do all of our social stuff. Cool. Let's see. The other ways you can connect with us. So, he did cover that. Twitter.com slash eWebStyle. YouTube.com slash eWebStyle. Facebook. Facebook.com slash eWebStyle. And you go out of order, you throw it all out. You can email us, podcast at eWebStyle.com. Cool. Those are the ways you

can contact us. You can do us a small favor. There's three ways to do that favor. One of them has three steps. Go on to iTunes. Create an account. Write a review. If you choose to, send us an email, podcast at eWebStyle.com. And let us know that you submitted that review. We will give you a punch in the face. If you don't know that, it's a good thing. The next thing you can go is go to our G Plus local page. Yep. It's a really, really, really long URL. So, we made it really, really, really easy. e-webStyle.com slash G Plus. Or if that's confusing, you can go to slash G Plus. Or slash Google Plus. Or slash Google Plus. That will take us to our G Plus local page. You can write us a review there. We know you have a Google account. Maybe you haven't a Gmail account. Maybe you haven't activated your G Plus account. That's like two clicks. They're obvious. They're like, skip that step. Skip that step. I'm going to pretend not to be social. And then I'm going to realize that I should be social on G Plus. And when you're being social on G Plus and you're interacting with us, not only leave us a review, put us in your circle, and also give us a plus one. So, appreciate it. Thank you so much. And we will give you a punch in the face. It shouldn't be called circles. It should be called punches in the face. Yeah. I don't know that they're going to adopt that. The other thing you can do is go to our Facebook page, facebook.com slash eWebStyle. There's two places to write a review. You'll see an image that says reviews. You can go in there. Or just scroll down like on every other Facebook business page. There's a place where you can write a description and give us five stars. Yep. Yep. Yep. And remember, you can get a free website analysis. Go to our website, e-webstyle.com. And at our website, you

will find a form, I promise you, that will lead you to website analysis nirvana. Well, that's pretty lofty, right? So, yeah, just go on there. Website analysis nirvana. Nirvana. So, fill out that form, and we will get back to you. We do have a backlog, so it may take a while, and a follow-up email might help. We don't have any algo cataclysm, so what we're going to do is we're going to jump right into reviews. This is from Didier Mojnero. I'm using the Spanish pronunciation. Or the Didier Mojnero. You guys are doing a great job. Love your program. By the way, he submitted this on Facebook, on our Facebook page. What's up? Very fun, and it's actually very informative. That's the first time we got it that way. Actually, how fun and then informative. It's usually informative and actually entertaining. This is very fun and actually very informative. Thank you for your time and dedication. Give you guys a five stars. And a punch in the face. Appreciate it. Mr. I got you. Didier. Didier. We'll go with Didier. Mr. M. Mr. M. V. M. All right, so another one. This is from Eric Manry. I actually know this guy. He's here in the Houston area. He says, love the podcast. Eric, I am actually going to punch you in the face next time. We actually did one improv scene at a bar once together. It was kind of fun. And then we're getting into, these are iTunes reviews. iTunes reviews. First one, the title is Freaking Amazing and Entertaining. Five stars. Five stars. And it's by The Biznaz. The Biznaz. Biznaz. Yeah, it's a network area storage device. Naz. He's really smart. From the U.S. These guys are awesome. I appreciate the insights you give us. Go Houston. H-Town. Yeah, that's right. And then the next one, the title of the review is A+++. That's three pluses. You should have saved two of those and given them to us on Google. And it is also five stars. And this is by Crimsy from the

United States. I always learn something new or get inspired to implement something I already knew but was not doing. And you can't beat the sound effects. That's what's up. Yeah, that's what up. Listen and learn. That is, that is what's up. And you know what's interesting about that? It's a lot of people who are in that same position where you know what you should be doing and you just, you haven't done it. You haven't done it. You haven't done it. Like maybe even us? Every now and then? Got a couple Twitter punches in the face. Okay, cool. So I want to give a punch in the face to Donna. She's at HollandGirl68. She says, at eWebStyle, I just started listening to you guys and you're amazing. Cool. Keep up the good work. So punch in the face to you, Donna. And I'm at GoatCloud. He says, listening again to the SEO podcast by eWebStyle is great stuff. Appreciate your support. Appreciate your tweets. That's an internet marketing company, I think, GoatCloud. Cool. That's what's up. Excellent. We got a little bit of news. Remember the Target breach that happened a while back? Yep. It caused all sorts of hooverlet. Hoopla, apparently it was a lot bigger than they thought. Than they thought. Yeah. 70 million usernames and passwords that got out there. So if you have a Target account. I heard it was usernames, passwords, emails, and... Credit cards. Phone numbers. And phone numbers. Associated with the credit card. I know. Ouch. Actually, we have some billing challenges now because people's cards got revoked or they shut them down just to make sure, which is smart, actually. Yeah, 70 million. Except if your AdWords went on that card and... Yeah. Do your AdStop. Yeah. It's smart and presents some challenges. Yeah. So if you have a Target account and you use your normal password like most normal people do, then... Change it down. Change it. Just change it everywhere. Like, I know you don't want to change it on your bank account. And I'm telling

you, you need to change it on your bank account. Yeah. And every other account you can see that you think might have any value or somebody could get on and mess with you. Yeah. I mean, especially with the phone numbers. Because now it's probably not that difficult to find out what network is providing such phone number. And if your password is the same as your Target password, or if that account was, then, yeah, I may just, you know, order me a new phone on your dime. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you in advance. Yeah, I appreciate it. iPhones hold up the top three spots in network usage rankings. So, yeah, not surprising. The next three were actually Samsung. Yeah. Not surprising. Facebook accused of faking member endorsements for sponsored ads. I can believe that. So, imagine you get on, you're like, Continental, I like, wait a minute, I like Continental? Yeah. No, no, no. I had bad experiences on Continental. Why would I be liking Continental? Turns out Facebook has, on your behalf, liked Continental. Or I've seen ads where it says, such and such liked it, one of my friends. And I know they don't like it. He's like, oh, no, he didn't like that. That's a dude. That's a feminine product. Yeah. He likes a whole lot of things. Not that. Hopefully not that. Yeah, exactly. Or he's not a dude. We just, we don't really know each other as well as I thought we did. And then, this is, you know, CES is running right now. I want to, man, I wish I were there. Yeah, now, yeah, I want to check out the curved new TVs they have. Curved displays. Yeah. And, oh, I thought this, you know, we'll use that for blank stare. Remember, man, I actually have some blank stare, so. Some what? Yeah, yeah. So, that is the potatoes of the podcast. Let's get into the meat. So, I want to give a punch in the face to Rocco Baudissar. He posted an article on Search Engine Journal. The 10

questions you should ask yourself when creating a landing page. I thought this was great info to start the new year off with. A lot of marketing going on, and landing pages are a huge part of that. For paid search reasons and for other, you know, online marketing, you want to send people to a targeted page. And so, let's dive right into it. Number one, he says, is my core business easy to understand within the first 10 seconds of navigating through the site? 10 seconds. 1,001, 1,002, 1,003, 1,004, 1,005, 1,006, 1,007, 1,008, 1,009, 1,010. It should take that amount of time for somebody to make sure that. Have a clear picture. Of what they're on your landing page for and what exactly you can do for them. I can't tell you how many times we've had customers come in or we'll do in a website analysis, and it's at the 30-second or the 45-second market. They were like, oh, they don't actually do what we thought. They do this. And that's not a good experience. That would 9 times out of 10 lead to a bounce, lead to a bad experience. Well, the only reason we stayed 45 seconds is because we're doing an analysis, right? Otherwise, if, so, there are two scenarios. One, if they're looking for what you actually offer and can't figure out that you offer it, they bounce. Two, if they're looking for what it appears you offer and when they realize that you don't offer it, bounce. He goes on to say, make sure that it's extra easy to understand what you do right away. And I think that's important. And I think it's even more important on a landing page because it's a landing page. That means you can really strip away all of the other things that make up maybe your main homepage or your main site, and you can focus exactly on what they search for on that landing page. Number two, am I answering all the deal-breaking questions a customer might have? This is a great

opportunity. He goes on to say, looking at every detail with the eyes of a user and not the eyes of the business owner. This is extremely important. This is one of the reasons why when we get new clients, we consult with them about what their vision is and what they want the site to do and what they envision happening, and then we take that and kind of make it work with what we know needs to be there. Because if you're not answering those deal-breaking questions, then that may cause that bounce. For example, maybe you have an e-commerce site and shipping could be a deal-breaker, right? Or maybe this product has some limitations that people aren't aware of could be a deal-breaker. Address those right up front. And so that way you won't have people bouncing or having a bad experience. Oh, that's your tip. I'm like, man, what happened? I'm tweeting about you. Okay, now I stop talking. So make sure you can answer any objections that people may have. Address them up front. And that way they won't waste their time. They'll have a better experience. And those who may be looking for those objections can have them answered right away and proceed to hopefully convert. Number three, did you make a clear design plan before actually jumping into content creation? Now, this is key, especially if, let's say, you're doing, maybe this is a paid campaign and you have multiple landing pages or multiple ad groups and multiple things you need to market. Well, you should think about how you plan on designing a landing page first. And then, matter of fact, he goes on to say, designing a landing page plan will make it scalable. And by doing that, that way you can design it. You can see if it works. And if it works, since you have a plan in place, it's easy to spin out more landing pages that you've already proven worked. But if you don't do that, if you kind of just dive into it with, you know,

this is what we think it should look like, this is what we think should happen, then you don't really give yourself a chance to expand if it does work. Frankly, you don't give yourself a chance to scale back if it doesn't because you haven't planned. You just kind of, you know, took a gunshot approach, a shotgun approach. Cannonball. Yeah, exactly. A single cannonball approach. Yeah, you should be firing bullets first, then fire cannons. Shout out to Jim Collins. Yeah. Punch in the face to Jim Collins. Matter of fact, some of the things he also talked about on that. Yeah, I know, right? Like when you're part of that design plan, he says, you know, things like where you're going to place your call to action. Decide your writing style, right? Is this first person? Is it third person? Is it hardcore and up front? Or is it soft and passive? You know, you got to understand your audience, the people who are going to be on that site to determine how you're writing, what's going to go above the fold or below the fold. You know, your navigation, extremely important in a landing page. Do you include the full navigation that's on your site? Or is it limited to prevent them from going anywhere else? Depends on your product, depends on your service. But those are all things that you need to take into account when designing that landing page. Number four, is the landing page in line with the keywords and the ads in your SEM account? This is strictly from a management perspective. Well, kind of, not really, because at the end of the day, if the keywords and the content on your landing page is consistent with the ad group, then it's likely the user who finds your landing page will have a good experience. From a management perspective, you want your quality score to go up. You want your cost per click to go down. And those things happen when there's consistency. Our approach is really just optimize the landing page.

At the end of the day, we build it so it can convert, but we optimize it because that's necessary for a better quality score. I can't tell you how many times pay per click landing pages that have been optimized end up ranking. Yeah. End up ranking. Funny experience about that. We had a client a couple of years ago optimize the landing page, had a call tracking number on it. And then change service. And then it changed service. Right. And our landing page was still ranking, and he wasn't using that call tracking number. And I, you know. We called him. We're like, look, you're still getting calls on this number. You should change. He's like, no, just turn it off. And we're like, but you're still getting calls on that number. So, yeah. Anyway. Number five. Do you have USPs? Unique selling proposition. He goes on to say, what differentiates your product or service from the others out there in the market? If you had those USPs, especially on the landing page, it's important to highlight them, to make them extremely prominent so those who see it can know quickly the difference between you and maybe the other four links that they clicked on before they looked at yours. Number six. What happens after you acquire a customer? This is kind of cool because we talked about this a few podcasts ago about, you know, conversions on the thank you page, right? And he goes on to say, many companies have a thank you page that does not include any call to action. This is a mistake. So, if you're running some sort of site that has a conversion, whether it's a download or a quote request or a product sale, whatever it is, take advantage of the thank you page. That's a great opportunity to upsell. That's a great opportunity to maybe really engage people in social. Have a thank you page. Have a thank you page. Because when you submit a form and a little circle comes up and then it stops and it

doesn't say anything, not good. Even sometimes when it says something, it's small and you're like, okay, did this go through? I don't know. And so, have a thank you page. Send it to a thank you page and then, you know, make sure. And then make sure you convert on there. I mean, a thank you page is, you know, what I've done for one of our clients, they need to do some information gathering, right, when they talk to the client. And so, on that thank you page, we go ahead and give them the things they need to get together, understanding that we'll be calling you shortly. And so, when they do call, that client now has the information ready and it's a better conversation. It's an easier way to turn that lead into an actual client. And so, take advantage of the thank you page. It's a great place to engage in social activity. At the end of the day, these people have already invested something in you. I mean, they've filled out a form or they've purchased something. So, they will likely plus one you. They will likely like you on Facebook. They'll likely share this with their followers. And so, why not ask them to do that right after they convert it? Number seven, are you planning to run content split tests? It should be. Test several variations of the landing page. I mean, just because it works well doesn't mean it can't work better. Yep. Or just because it's working wrong doesn't mean your campaign's wrong. It could be your landing page. And the only way you'll know that is if you're A and B testing and running different variations of it. Yep. So, do that. Number eight, am I collecting data from incoming visitors? You should be. Right? Even if they're not converting. The fact that they landed on your landing page, you can still get some data. Yeah. Right? Where they came from, how they got there, how long they stayed. Typical analytic data, which kind of leads to number nine.

Did you connect analytics in AdWords? I hope you did. Yep. Because if you didn't, then you're probably wasting a lot of time gathering data that could be easier to mine and easier to collect. Absolutely. So, do that. And the last one, number 10, did I look at my competitor's landing page for best practices? Good idea. I don't know about best practices or not, but it's good to see what your competitor's doing, especially if you know that that competitor's campaign is working. If you know that they're successful because of it, then look at what they did. Yep. Don't duplicate it, but you may want to borrow. You may want to see what they did and improve and make it better for yours. And don't get too frustrated if it really, really sucks. Yeah. Because sometimes really, really sucky pages close really, really well. And I still don't quite understand that, but it's just the way it is. So, in conclusion, I'll say make sure your landing pages are consistent with the AdWords that you're targeting. Make sure that they complement the audience you want to drive, that it speaks their language, make sure you're tracking it, right, so you can duplicate it for all your other products and services. And if you do that and you've got your AdWords and analytics synced, then you'll be able to manage it more effectively. That's what I got. Cool. Punch in the face to Rocco. Thank you, Rocco. So, that article will be found on our Facebook page. Yeah, we'll post it, we'll share it, and do all of that. We shouldn't have any problem finding our Facebook page. We've repeated it three or four times in this podcast, so we won't repeat it again. Although, it's just e-web style at the end of Facebook.com. All right, so a little bit of a blank stare. And you're... What? So, imagine the... I was talking about this earlier this week. The electric car. Tesla. Tesla. That's the name I had, and it just sounded wrong. So, the Tesla. Imagine, you

know, it's got a cruising range of 270 miles normally, and in this unnormally cold weather, it can only go 70. Yeah, they're battery-powered. They don't perform well in the cold. Yeah, even one of the guys here, Robert, was saying when he was up skiing, his battery was dead in like half a day, and it's a brand new phone, good battery, and usually lasts more than a day, and it's because it was too cold. Yeah. Yeah, so electrons apparently don't like to flow when it's cold. Yeah. Kind of like water. Yeah, I wonder, you know, I would think that the developers would have to consider... Yeah, engineers do. ...cold climate, you know, in regards to battery usage. My degrees in mechanical engineering, you get design criteria, right, and you design for within that, and you say, okay, so the worst case scenario, it's 20 or just 20 degrees, right, because, you know, so then you're restricting yourself, so you shouldn't be making sales in Alaska, and... Or based on the past two weeks, anywhere above the Mason-Dixon line. Yeah, exactly, yeah, exactly. Um, and so you make that design criteria, and then what happens after that design criteria, you kind of don't care about, um, and, and maybe they should have. Yeah, they should have thought about it. So, so the other thing is, is when you're driving them, you have the heater on. Jack, you have the heater, a battery heater. It was a bad battery because it's cold, and the battery's driving your heater, yeah, so anyway, I thought that was worth something. Oh, man, that's even, yeah. Out. Yeah. So now you're stuck in the middle of nowhere, halfway to your destination, and you can't turn on the heat, because there is none. All right, this has been podcast number 220. Yes. You've been listening to the most popular internet marketing podcast on iTunes, and Sketcher, and Stitcher, on the web, in the known universe, in the electrical galaxy, and, uh, that is because of you guys. There's a electrical galaxy. Okay. There

is now. It's one of those other dimensions. Got you. And that is because of you. Thank you guys for tuning in. Thank you guys for these great reviews. Yeah, appreciate it. Yeah, punch in the face to everyone out there in all across the country and across the world. You know, we got listeners in 76 different countries, so thank you guys. Until the next podcast, my name is Chris Burris, Charles Lewis, and bye-bye for now.