How Your Landing Page Sets the Tone
“…I hate it here”.
That’s the last thing you want somebody thinking when they land on your website. You’re offering a product or service that the customer wants. You’ve put in the effort to make sure your ads and organic results appear for their searches. All of that is thrown away by an unappealing landing page.
The appearance and content says a lot about both you and your business. Think of it like the first time you’re meeting somebody. If that person wore ill fitting clothes, has messy or unkempt hair, and spoke in nothing but slurs, you’d be taken aback by their presentation. Your landing page should be no different.
The Rules of a Perfect Landing Page
Now there is good news, and there is bad news.
The bad news is, there is no such thing as a perfect landing page. The good news this leaves us with, is the freedom to create a landing page that both you and your potential customers or clients can be excited about.
With freedom comes numerous choices, which can seem a little overwhelming. Controlling yourself with a few points can keep things on track, and with a focused goal in mind. Now these aren’t rules, but more guidelines.
What Does Your Page Say About You?
Once you’ve reeled in the fish, the absolute last thing you want is a string of pop ups and a complex layout overwhelming the senses and putting this new visitor’s head into a spin. Be calculated with the images and colours you place onto the page.
What does this image mean? Does it add to the experience I’m giving? Should I add text to make a point? These are all questions you should be asking yourself. Look at things as somebody navigating this page for the first time.
What Do You Even Do?
Something that’s overlooked way too often, is a clear and concise message about what you do and what you are offering the customer and the locations you offer it to. Their search leading them to you is one thing, but if the landing page leaves them confused, they’ll leave your page confused as well.
I Want What You Have. How Do I Reach You?
Easy to reach contact information is a very powerful weapon that is often over looked. Adding in a small field with a contact phone number and email address can make a world of difference.
Which would you prefer? Finding the information you need, and then spending a further few minutes stumbling around to find a phone number, getting frustrated and cursing the company’s name forever?
Or
Seeing contact details as part of your discovery of this new service based land, and knowing exactly where you can come back to once you find the answer you need?
If you can make things easier for your visitor without sacrificing the quality of your website, do them and yourself a favour and make it easy. It’s less stress for them, and a potential business opportunity for you. Why don’t you contact GetMoreTraffic on 1300 332 256 today to learn how we can help you develop landing pages that people want to be on!
Online Marketing Reality Predictions
The suffix ‘-near me’ is becoming more prevalent in search queries on Google, having experienced a significant increase in the last year alone. As the world becomes more and more comfortable with the fact that the device in their pockets, and more importantly, the websites that they visit are becoming better to navigate on mobile devices, we will continue to see better and more targeted results from Google. Google is putting much research and development into responding to more ‘human’ enquiries. Humans don’t talk in ‘keywords’, they ask questions, make statements, and the more Google is able to recognise this, the more in-depth its returning results.
Think about this; you’re driving down the road listening to the music on your mobile device connected wirelessly through your car stereo (this alone is a ‘future is now’ scenario), when the music dims and your GPS navigation voice reminds you to turn left. As it does this, it also mentions that there is a sale on at that store you like on the same street. Intrigued, you pull up outside said store and wander in.
While you’re there, you notice that item that’s been on your ‘want’ list for ages, but you’re unsure of the price. You decide to shop around… in Google Shopping on you mobile! You find the same item for cheaper, but not by much, and realise that for an extra few dollars (which you would have paid in shipping anyway) you can instead have the item now, so you purchase it there and then.
You jump back in the car with your shiny new item. The music resumes, you begin cruising, the wind once again flowing through the luscious hair on your face (because in this narrative you’re actually me), and you make your way to your final destination of which you have forgotten where you were going. You ask your phone, “where was I going?” and it replies, “to the supermarket for ingredients for the dinner party you’re throwing for your friends”. You’re surprised, and somewhat confused, mainly because if this second person narrative is actually me, you realise that a dinner party for friends is not something you’re known for hosting, unless it’s pizza, but you roll with it for the sake of interest; you want to know more about this utopian future where your phone is pretty much your personal assistant.
You arrive at the supermarket, headphones in, walking with a swagger that can only come about from blasting DMX Greatest Hits in your ears. What are you going to buy? You turn off the music and speak into your phone, “Persephone,” you say, because how cool is that name for your phone (sophisticated and relevant), “what would you suggest for a dinner party of 15 friends that doesn’t include coriander as an ingredient,” and Persephone supplies you with several options. You choose one and log in to the supermarket’s website, pushing your order direct. You saunter up to the counter and the repurposed Robocop, now ShopCyborg has your order ready to load into the TrolleyDroid. You point Persephone at the PayPoint station, there’s a beep to signify an approved payment and you’re on your way home.
You’re pretty happy with yourself at this point, until you realise you haven’t invited anyone to the dinner party. Considering it is last minute, you realise that there is little chance of getting in touch with everyone, so you ask Persephone to calculate who is available that evening from your Facebook list based off the events they have agreed to attend and mass invite them.
Later that same evening, after the last guest leaves, extolling how awesome you are and how successful the dinner party was, you jump into bed. Persephone asks what genre of movie you would like to watch as she turns on the FloatScreen that hovers above your bed at the perfect angle no matter how you are lying down, with the kind of resolution that makes those obsolete LEDs look like snake on one of those late 90s Nokia phones.
“Sci-Fi, Persephone. Put on some Sci-Fi”.
Let’s take a step back to reality…
Now, of course there has been some artistic licence occurring in this story, particularly the repurposed Robocop, however, the mobile device advanced development is 100% in the works. Google has purchased apps to integrate with Maps that will allow companies to push specials to you *as you approach their venue*, and you’ll be able to talk to your phone like you would to a human. Our imagination of what is possible is literally becoming a reality, and my rambling imaginations could very well be realistic features that we will come to interact with on a daily basis.
I do admit it might be a bit weird having a phone called Persephone replying in Family Guy voices, but I’ll jump that hurdle when I come to it.
With this future soon to become a reality, will your online marketing keep up with technology? Get in touch with GetMoreTraffic today on 1300 859 600 and don’t let your business get left behind!
Your Google AdWords over this Holiday Season
So, you’re looking at shutting up shop and enjoying some much needed time away, or time at home to finally attack that DIY home project that’s been sitting there since last Christmas? Sounds like bliss.
Except your competitors are out there, circling like the proverbial wolves they are, eyeing off your position gained through carefully constructed Ad Rank. They’re waiting, wanting, salivating for that moment when, as the bane of their business existence, you turn off your AdWords account for a few weeks so they can pounce.
Okay, maybe it isn’t quite as sinister as I made that sound. Without knowledge of Google Ad Rank, they would probably have no idea that they are ‘proverbially circling’. That doesn’t mean the outcome will be any different. If you turn off your AdWords and they move up in Ad Rank, when you turn it back on, you have to battle them to regain it. That costs money on two levels; the first being you have to outbid them for the position that you once held. Two, if that position was where you converted, in the time when you aren’t in that position, you aren’t converting.
I understand that this is the time of year when you would like to have every dollar you can possibly have in your back pocket. Presents, holidays, fun and merriness all cost a pretty penny and seeing as though no one is answering the phone at the office, I can see why you think turning off the campaign would seem like a good option. However, here are a couple of ideas to alleviate some of these concerns we talked about earlier, without affecting your Google Ad Rank:
- Drop your budget to allow one click a day. This will tell Google that you are still in the running, which will maintain the Ad Rank.
- If you are in a service industry, such as plumbing or electrical, include in your ads ‘Emergency Only’ so the person who sees the ads understands you are going to charge extra. That way if they click and call, you can charge a much higher rate than normal.
- If you are in some sort of a supply industry, be sure to advise people to “Order Online for Priority Delivery”. On the Landing Page, let people know that an email order now will ensure they will be the first off the rank when the company returns to trade after the holiday.
You can see how these maintain your position on AdWords and even assist in building a pipeline for your return.
During this time there are so many awesome things that can be done to the account, which is why I enjoy this time of year. Search Term analysis, the creation of Ad Groups with specific exact match keywords, setting up Google Tag Manager, Analytics and Remarketing, building the Remarketing list, testing of new and cheaper keywords, trend analysis… the list goes on.
If you already have Google Tag Manager and Analytics set up, this is even better. These tools allow us to think about setting up goals, goal funnels, e-commerce tracking, analysing the data, working on a strategy for the historically slow months, and reviewing the need for increasing the budget in the busy months.
For many companies supplying a product, Christmas is an extremely busy time of the year, so increase the budget, ensure that Google Shopping ads are optimised, and make sure Christmas Specials are prepared months before (as in right now)! The ‘lull’ some companies experience after the Christmas period is often offset by the increase in sales in the lead up to Christmas, be sure that you are prepared now to take full advantage. Your Account Driver is gearing up for Christmas as we speak, preparing strategies to accentuate your plans online, so get on the phone with us here at Get More Traffic on 1300 332 256 and talk to them to work out a plan!