Landing Page Optimization Don’ts
Consider for a moment that thought process is required in landing page optimization. That’s right, think about thinking.
Before I present a partial list of items to work around, the main exercise encouraged here is to question every single aspect of your existing landing page process - or lack of process. Several unoriginal caveats are powerful to online marketing strategy. Among those are “If you build it, they will come” and “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.” The latter can be challenging to argue or justify, but will be revealed to be the crutch of the less creative.
So without further ado, here is at best a partial list of what you want to avoid:
- DON’T send PPC visitors to a standard page on your website
- DON’T give your users options
- DON’T create a page designed for more than one objective
- DON’T try to sell your brand BEFORE you sell them on the solution to their need
- DON’T assume a good conversion cannot be improved upon with concerted effort
- DON’T ask for a first name separate from a last name (collecting user info)
- DON’T use generic text on your buttons, like “Submit” or “Register”
- DON’T let visitors think unsupervised
- DON’T assume that the status quo is acceptable now, just because it was yesterday
- DON’T start designing a landing page using your current landing page as the model template
More to come . . . (my posts are never finished).
November 7th, 2008 at 1:50 am
DON’T ask for a first name separate from a last name (collecting user info)
Why not if the landing page is a newsletter subscription ? I ask my visitors to enter their first name only and the email. Working OK so far.