The sales landing page: attraction worked now persuasion is necesary

So you think you have a great web site. You are getting 100,000 page views a month. You are getting 2,000 click-throughs to your sales landing page. You are selling 20 products per month. For this scenario your click through rate is 2% and your sales conversion rate is 1%. So for every 100,000 visitors who were attracted to your web site you managed to persuade 20 to buy your offering.

Is this good or bad, better or worse than average? I do not really know but I do know it can be improved.

One is NOT enough

One sales landing page is not enough. It is this page that you will need to test, test and test some more. If you only have a single sales landing page it could take a long time to discover what does and does not work well. Bear this in mind throughout this chapter. One is normally not enough!

To learn how to do landing pages is to construct them using good examples as the starting point. Go and look at those used by other web sites. Try to be constructively critical making notes of what you think was good and bad. Where you believe you have learned a good techniques or idea go and try it on a different landing page.

How will you know which is the best landing page? You go to your logs and interpret the results. For example if you have three different sales landing pages take note which pages are related to which web pages. Make yourself aware of the numbers of click-throughs from each web page to each landing page so you can calculate click-throughs.

You then also take note of how many referrers there are from each sales page to the order page (all sales pages are linked to the same order page). This will indicate if there is any apparent and significant difference between the various sales pages.

This information is obtained by looking at the logs referrer statistics and is a reason for selecting a good host.

To make this clearer take a look at this fictitious table:

Source of clicks to sales pages Destination sales page Clicks to sales page Clicks to ORDER page CTR rate to ORDER page

Web pages 1 to 5 Sales page 1 1,000 50 5%
Web pages 6 to 10 Sales page 2 4,000 100 2.5%
Web pages 11 to 15 Sales page 3 2,000 20 1%

By looking at this table it is almost certain that Sales page 1 is better at converting interest to sales and Sales page 3 is poor by comparison.

Forget SEO On Your Sales Landing Pages

For a normal web site keyword optimisation on many pages is a requisite to gather or attract many targeted visitors. The sales landing page is not designed to rank well on the search engines. It is meant to sell your product, close the sale, and that is all the final persuasion!

Put all thoughts of keywords, link optimisation and the like out of your mind. In fact there will be very few links on this page except perhaps to the actual order form.

Visitors arriving here are all high potential buyers. I suspect therefore that a 1% conversion rate suggests there are problems with the design and content of the sales landing page.

Perhaps the benefits/features of product itself linked to the price and if appropriate delivery costs is creating the poor conversion rate. Of course I am assuming that information on this site is in total keeping with what the visitor expects to see based upon the web pages already viewed. The only result of this not being the case is an irate and upset visitor who you have probably lost forever.

For the rest of this chapter it must be assumed that price is right, and fundamental features and benefits meet the need and so on.

Long copy or short copy

It is at the sales page that you really come across this debate. The copywriters and marketers all seem to prefer long copy because of the need to appeal to different buyers and also to explain all benefits and features necessary to convince potential buyers.

Long copy is really designed to convince by answering questions and dispelling doubts of which there will be many.

Those vistors who have made up their mind will just want to get to the order page. Long copy is wasted on this type of purchaser. However these are in the minority.

What is for certain is that the length must be sufficient to be able to convincingly answer every single question that might arise in the mind of the potential purchaser and it must be long enough to explain all the benefits and then create the logic to back up or justify the reason why the purchase decision made was a very good decision a good place to use features.

You no doubt remember what you said to your self when you bought the 10th fly fishing rod, or that extra putter now bringing your collection to 5. Perhaps it was something like this:

Just as well I bought this rod now, it goes up 10% next week and I might break one of my other rods?
If I had not bought the putter I would have spent the money on something else anyway and it is made of the finest available lightweight space age aluminium alloy.

You must go to some length to help prospect rationalize the purchase by describing key features analyses and descriptions.

Remember AIDA. This is very important for the landing page.

Get Attention through headlines

Create more and more Interest and excitement through benefits confirming as it were with each one that the decision to buy will be a good one.

Ensure Desire through a great offer. Buy 1 get this free etc etc. In addition if you buy before tomorrow you will also get this that and the other

Compel Action by telling more than once exactly what to do

What is the MWR?

Is your most wanted response to click through to the order page? If not what is it? Decide right now.

What is the heading?
Make sure that the heading is synonymous with the main web pages. Stress the benefit decide upon type of headline as discussed earlier. Your headline must be immediate, compelling, emotional and credible.
Use opening paragraphs to let people know what is coming. You will learn that ... Heres what others have said about ... The savings you will make are outlined ...And everything is guaranteed ...
Use subheadings a lot.
Use ..., anticipation etc to draw visitors to the next exciting paragraph.
Pull your visitor into the page, paragraph by paragraph. Remember how you read the newspaper from heading to heading.
Use Bullets

Make full use of bullets especially when benefits and features are discussed. Also use this approach if you sell services. Bullets make sure that there is little room for misunderstanding be forthright, credibility counts. Do not try to hide behind what you might think are high prices. Do not leave out components of the cost. Be upfront. Be aware that shipping costs chase people away.

$100 per hour for this
$150 per page for that
$12 each when you buy this that or the other
50% surcharge for urgent jobs
10% on total cost for all transport irrespective of location, size or value of order
VAT will be charged at 14% including transport costs

Use testimonials

Honest testimonials are a good way to further convince the purchaser that the decision made was indeed a good one. Credibilty is established by including contact details of the person providing the testimonial.

Answer those questions that will inevitably come up.

For example

Will buying of this product really make make my pond go clear?

Answer here in some detail

Will I get my money back is it does not work?

Answer here in some detail

If I change my mind at the last minute can I cancel my purchase?

Answer here in some detail

Do not divert to a FAQ page.

Links out of page ... None! Unless absolutely necessary.

You have spent a great deal of time trouble and money to get the prospect here. Do not allow the prospect to leave easily.

That compelling offer

Buy 1 get 1 free.
If you buy my book I will add the following 2 other books totally free.

What makes your offer compelling, a real bargain, another justification for the decision. Find the idea that will compel your purchaser to buy. Use various offers to test an alternative sales page.

Remember the take away offers. Use these to test the approach on a different sales page.

Guarantees, Refunds and Privacy

It is important to stress these in a non-complicated non-legalese fashion. Put your money where your mouth is and mean it.

The one guarantee I always remember is

Just tell me the dog ate it anytime in next 6 months and I will give you your money back Stephen Mahaney of Planet Ocean still uses this guarantee it is perfect. No, you do not need to have a dog.

Call to action

You do have to tell the prospect what to do next and in no uncertain manner.

Click here to go to the order page
Only press submit once
Do not press back
Enter your e-mail address here
Confirm your e-mail address here
This offer expires at 19.00 hrs 25th December 2002. Buy now.

Try to simplify your order form

Do you want the sale or 3 pages of personal information.

Collecting the money

Consider all methods:

The credit card obviously
Cheques in the post
Telephonic credit card information
Faxed orders and direct deposits
Paypal