Clicks But No Conversions? It’s the Landing Page Every Time

Are you putting enough thought into your landing pages? If not, it’s probably the main reason your conversions, or more importantly your revenue, aren’t higher. At PubCon in Las Vegas, WebProNews spoke with Brad Geddes, Founder of PPC training firm bgTheoryabout advanced PPC and landing page optimization. 

Why Landing Page Optimization is Critical

"Landing page optimization – it is critical," he says. "If you have an account that has several thousand clicks and no conversions, it’s the landing page. That’s always the issue."

"A lot of people don’t really get some of the high-level landing page testing," he continues. "Step one is where do you send the traffic, whether it’s…rarely the home page, but it’s a category page, a product page, an about page, so forth. And then it really comes to laying out the page itself."

Think about it from the user perspective. How much of a page do you take in before you leave or convert? The whole thing? I doubt it. 

"The most missed element is that whole concept of ‘above the fold’ – what’s displayed in the browser when the page first loads," says Geddes. "80% of [the] time, 76% of clicks occur in that above the fold section, so if that call to action isn’t there, it doesn’t matter how good your page is."

"Every page really has a goal to it – what you want someone to do," he continues. "So certain pages you’ll have actually won’t be conversion-based pages. They’ll be more segmentation-based pages or so forth. But every page you send traffic to, you should have a primary goal, which you want someone to do."

"So, if you’re a lead gen site, you obviously want a form on the landing page," Geddes adds. "If it’s an e-commerce site, you want a buy button. It sort of depends on what kind of site you are. If it’s a local business, you want a phone number and driving directions, but your conversion action has to be on that landing page. It should be above the fold, clearly visible, easy to understand contents. Minimize distractions."

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Why Less Conversions Can Mean Greater Revenue

"We have a blog that has a huge amount of traffic on it, but had horrible conversion rates, so we essentially moved more conversion elements to the blog, and what happened is, the site’s overall conversion rates dropped significantly, but our revenue went up a lot, because all of a sudden we’re bringing more people into the funnel," Geddes explains.

"So that’s where conversion rates are interesting, because you kind of measure it from the point of the user – where they entered your funnel, so…it dropped our conversion rates…a thirty or forty percent drop in conversion rates," he says. "Probably a 20% increase in revenue. We just essentially brought more people into the funnel to buy."

Everyone wants traffic, and there’s no question. If the traffic’s not there, you can’t convert it. That said, it doesn’t end with getting a lot of traffic. You can’t just get people to your landing page. That page has to make them want to perform the action you are trying to get them to perform. 

"It’s not about the traffic. Traffic gets someone to your site," says Geddes. "The page then has to pick up the traffic to actually convert it."

You might want to worry about that before you start worrying about how to get people to your site.

Hulu Plus Makes Appearance On Sony Dash

Hulu Plus, the $9.99 per month service that has so far failed to attract much positive attention, scored another (small) victory today.  Now Hulu Plus is available through the Sony Dash, a device designed to inhabit bedrooms, kitchens, and offices.

A little more info on the Dash in case you're unfamiliar with it: Sony describes it as "a Wi-Fi connected device that features a vivid 7-inch color touch screen and built-in stereo speakers."  And a selection of over 1,000 free apps ensures that owners can use the Dash to check the news, weather, some social networks, or whatever.

So Hulu Plus will sort of align with the device's purpose in terms of providing entertainment.  Also, this development goes to show that Hulu and Sony remain on excellent terms (Hulu Plus is already available through the PS3 and Bravia TVs).

It seems doubtful that this move will inspire many people to either sign up for Hulu Plus or buy a Sony Dash, however.  Hulu Plus continues to suffer in comparisons to Netflix; it costs more, has commercials, and lacks content.  Then the Dash just seems to occupy an odd niche threatened by smartphones, laptops, and the iPad.

We'll see what happens, anyway.

Brennan Mullin, senior vice president of Sony Electronics' personal imaging and audio business, said in a statement, "The addition of Hulu Plus serves as an ideal example of how Dash continues to evolve and improve over time.  With Hulu on board, the Dash platform has the ability to deliver a huge variety of online entertainment instantly to consumers' homes on top of glanceable, real-time tidbits of information."