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A Gazillion Ways to Test Landing Pages to Increase Conversions

December 2nd, 2009 | Amber | Advanced PPC Strategies, Landing Pages


We’ve spoken before about using Google website optimizer to test different elements of your landing page to help increase conversion rates. But the other day the team here at Hanapin Marketing came up with a full list of those elements to test using the multivariate testing option in Website optimizer.

The multivariate testing allows you to add in a piece of code to your landing pages and test showing that change 50% of the time to your users.  Meaning, 50% of the time users will see the updated or changed landing page, and 50% of the time users will see the original landing page.

After a few days or weeks you can check on your multivariate test to see which version of your landing page is generating the higher conversion rates. So, what should you test you may ask? There is almost no limit to the things you can test on your landing pages.  But here’s a tip, test one element at a time. Or set up multiple multivariate tests so you can test one change on your landing page but have multiple of those tests running.

For example, with multiple multivariate testing you could have one test running where you simply change the headline, another test could be adding a larger call-to-action button, another test could be adding a form to your landing page rather than a link. All these tests can be run separately, but at the same time.

Here is a full list of items we came up with that we feel are important to test to help increase conversion rates:

PPC

1.Call to action

-          Location on page

-          Color of button

-          Copy on button

2.Form/Shopping Cart

-          Length of form

-          Link location

-          Content of form (required fields and such)

3.Headline

-          Color, size, font

-          Copy (including keywords)

-          Location on page

-          Subheadline – yes or no?

4.Copy

- Tone (Sales, Emotional, Urgency)

- Structure; a lot of copy, versus minimal copy

- Format (bullets vs. paragraph)

5. Trust Symbols

-          Testimonials

-          Case Studies

-          Trust Logos

-          Client Logos

Additional Test Elements:

Contact Forms

Colors on landing page

Images on landing page

Flash on landing page

Video on landing page

Drop-down vs. basic navigation

Offers/Promos

Conversion funnel (singe vs. multi step)

Featured Products

Shopping Cart Funnel

- Process

- Add to cart button

Before you begin testing these elements of your landing page, consider these tips first:

Step 1: Know what you are trying to achieve

  • Conversion action
  • Audience – Know your user intent

Step 2: Know your value proposition

  • What are the product benefits?
  • What is the benefit of signing up now?

Step 3: Layout your testing strategy + follow it

  • What will you test at each stage?
  • What is the objective of each stage?

Step 4: Landing Page Testing >> Where do you start?

  • See list above!

Website optimizer is something everyone should be using especially in today’s economy. It’s not a difficult process to do the multivariate testing, Google even gives you or your developer detailed instructions on how to add the code to the back end of your landing page.

I have tested several different aspects of my client’s website and have found the tests to increase our conversion rates each time except for one which made huge leaps and bounds in the total number of leads we were generating.

Related posts:

  1. 10 Easy Ways to Optimize Your PPC Landing Pages & Increase Conversions
  2. Landing Page Testing: How to test and what to test
  3. Who Else Wants to Increase Conversions From Their Landing Pages?
  4. Dynamic Landing Page Content: How to Increase Conversions through Increased Relevancy
  5. Why a Simple Contact Form & Strong Call to Action Can Increase Your Conversions
  • http://www.vizad.com Robert Brady

    For those of you who want to improve your conversion rates in 2010, consider this your roadmap. Very extensive!

  • http://www.ppcwithoutpity.com Shawn Livengood

    Wow, I needed to assemble a list of landing page factors to test in 2010 anyway. Looks like you beat me to it. Thanks for the cheat sheet! This is a really valuable checklist for marketers to look at before they embark on landing page split-testing.

  • http://www.marketingoc.com Brian Fluhr

    Thanks for publishing such a clear and concise road map. This is not only a great reference for the practitioner, but also a testament to clients that there is a lot more to search and PPC campaign strategy and tactics then creating a quick ad in Adwords.

  • http://www.chair10marketing.com/content/view/21/35/ Chair 10 Internet Marketing

    Being a newbie at an SEM firm, I find this to be extremely helpful. Thanks being so detailed.

  • http://www.ioninteractive.com Scott Brinker

    Awesome list!

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