Summary: Landing Page Optimization Part 1 (cont.) The Keyword Query and Transactional Landing Pages Picking up where we left off in Part 1 we’re now heading downstream and focusing on experiences where the user lands closer to completing their goal. I refer to these as Transactional Landings. Here the keyword driver can be anything from a general query like “mortgage” to a more focused query like “30 year fixed APR.” It is also on these landing pages that the direct response nature of search leverages itself well. If we examine the SERP (Search Engine Result Page) we can see a clear and interesting dichotomy and I would say optimization, emerge for delivering relevance. The natural results are leading to informational pages or as I talked about in my last post Reference Landings. For someone who has a Discovery>Information>Directed>Closed goal path this is a highly relevant landing experience. These pages help fulfill their goal by providing them with more information on the subject and then ideally steer them in the right direction if their goal advances from an “information” to an “obtain.” PPC is a different story. Most paid search results lead to transactional pages. For someone who has a Recovery>Resource>Obtain goal this is a highly relevant landing. On a transactional landing the user has the ability to immediately engage in some type of transaction. These pages are usually radically simpler to gain understanding of than Reference Landings so there is much less thought involved. Also, and this is an important point as we look at landing page optimization in a holistic manner, the user has already achieved the secondary goal of Discovery>Information on the SERP, mostly likely from the Ad (this will be covered in detail on my next post). The flow of going right to a form page or right into engagement is natural. There will be a brief moment of recognition (hey, I’m on the right page/site) but that brevity is all that most users need. Anything else, heaps of content, even images could possibly interrupt the flow. With any kind of campaign that has a CPA/CPL or COS goal these are the users you should be focused on. Prioritize you testing and optimization around them. Keep in mind, these users don’t need persuasion, they need reassurance and confidence. Simply all that needs to be done is to present relevant messages in context along the pathway to the completion of their goal. Coming full circle to what I mentioned earlier if your marketing initiative is focused on persuasion this is better done through a reference landing, ideally from natural link to a microsite. Once again we will divided our targets into the two high level goal classes, recovery or discovery and then quickly find goal paths we can bucket users in for each experience. Armed with that, we can begin to explore aligning ad creative and messaging with their goals. So let’s take a look at a couple of queries that would have Transactional Landings and attempt to classify them. “car loans” Here is a generic query. High volume, high value and also very hard to define. The user could be looking for any number of things, rate information, names of loaners or actively be in market for a loan. As such, their goal can be recovery OR discovery. We have already covered in this post a good strategy for this type of query and if we are held to ROI metric we have no choice but focusing our efforts on users in-market with a Recovery>Resource>Obtain goal. This experience would be a form page that ideally would message to the goals stated in the query. I also want to use this high funnel query to exemplify the dichotomy and optimization of the SERP that I mentioned earlier. Here’s a quick check of the landing experiences from the top 3 results on Yahoo and Google, natural and PPC for “car loans”: PPC Transactional Landing (6) Reference Landing (0) Natural Transactional Landing (0) Reference Landing (6) Moving on… “D and B report” This is an interesting query because it is both a branded query and in some regards a generic one. The user is likely looking to obtain a D&B report on a company. Her experience would be one that is heavily brand benefit focused and where she could engage immediately in a form to help her complete her goal. Seems pretty clear that the goal would be Recovery>Resource>Obtain. “Black Prada sandals” This is a product search and a very specific one at that. The fact that the user has told us the color they are interested in is an amazing opportunity for optimization and one that is often overlooked by retailers. People shop by color. This experience would go right to a product page, Ideally the page will be optimized to have a number of other “Black Prada Sandals” styles or a mix of other brands black sandals. This goal is another Recovery>Resource>Obtain. In Part 1 I hope I’ve shown how user goal discovery begins at the keyword and how a methodology around targeted your landing experiences to these goals is the way to provide contextual relevance to users. But this is only the beginning of our landing page optimization methodology. In those crucial moments when users are engaging with a search engine pulling information and even when users are interacting with other forms of digital media through push, there is another critical touch point along the pathway to goal fulfillment. Next up I’ll take a look at that important and often-neglected component of landing page optimization, the ad.

Summary: Leading up to my panel participation Monday September 25th at OMMA New York on Search and Site Design: When Every Page is a Landing Page; I’ll be sharing a deep dive into some methodologies for landing page optimization. This post begins to explore the role of the keyword query and how that informs landing page optimization strategy by facilitating goal discovery. Next, I’ll look at how ads factor in the equation and ultimately the landing page design, experience and testing. Part 1. The Keyword: It All Starts with the Search Query The way marketers must ensure relevance in the digital medium is by targeting messages that are contextually relevant to the user’s goal. The groundwork for this should start by focusing attention on discovery of user motivations, intentions and emotions that drive their goal. Looking at the keyword query, we can begin to define search (and all pull media) goals in one of two ways. The user goal is either a recovery or a discovery search. From this determination, and using my search goal chart, we can begin to follow goals down distinct paths and gain more learning we’ll use to optimize messaging around the aforementioned motivations, intentions and emotions. This is not however a scientific practice. The problem we encounter as marketers delivering relevance from a search query is the same one that the search engines struggle with everyday. Most user queries are not very detailed. Users tend to search using short keyword query strings (I believe the average is 2.3 words per query). Also, research indicates that generic keywords are used 75-80 percent of the time for high volume search behavior like product research. So successful goal discovery requires we get “behind the keyword" in order to understand those motivations. This is an assumptive process. However, as we go forward we will use testing to validate our assumptions or as often happens, be surprised by behavior we never assumed. So how do we begin landing page optimization with the keyword? First we can divide landing page experiences into two types. What I refer to as Reference Landings and Transactional Landings. Reference Landings: These are generally high funnel in nature and mostly occur with generic keyword queries and broad navigational queries. This landing could be anything from a page on a content site like CNET to a retailer’s category page. The user is seeking some form of information discovery. Transactional Landings: These are where the user has the ability to immediately engage with the next click in some type of transaction. These are generally lead-generation and product pages. From within these landing page experiences we can begin to further divided our targets into the two high level goal classes, recovery or discovery and then quickly find goal paths we can bucket users in for each experience. Armed with that, we can begin to explore ad creative and messaging that aligns with their goals. So let’s take a look at a couple of queries that would have Reference Landings and attempt to classify them. Reference Landings “Houston flights” This is what I would consider a navigational query. The user’s goal is likely to find specific flight information. However, because of the query his landing page experience will be one from which he has to navigate further to obtain the information. This is an important differentiation and bridging this gap between expectation and delivery is how we would strategically deal with this kind of query. The goal here is (macro) recovery (I know I want to go to Houston) or if you’re referencing the class chart, Recovery>Directed. Back to optimization for a second…. As Matthew Roche pointed out to me, Kayak has a great example for this query of bridging the gap I just mentioned. They are targeting content into their form field via what seems to be URL parameter info. Now that’s a simple but great optimization strategy. Ok, back to keyword queries… “Plasma TV reviews” This is what I would consider a content query. We can presume the user’s goal is to find editorial content for decision-making purposes. His experience will be one from which he has to navigate through and absorb a good amount of copy. The goal here is discovery (not sure what Plasma TV to buy) or if you’re referencing the chart it can be further defined as Discovery>Informational. “leather jackets” This is what I would consider a recovery query. The users knows she wants a leather jacket and even though her overlying goal is likely to buy a leather jacket the underlying goal is first to find a leather jacket. Her experience will be one where she is presented with multiple options in the hope of delivering an option of interest. The goal here is Recovery>Resource>Obtain Even if the user motivation behind the keyword is specific, goal discovery is only as good as the query. The better the query the more we can find out about the goal and the more relevance can be delivered. For SEMs this an important point because for many the overriding practice is to target ads and landing pages based on expanded match or broad keyword match. This strategy makes delivering relevance ad side and site side much more difficult hurting conversion rates. Next, I’ll go a bit further down funnel looking at Transactional Landings. This is where is gets very interesting because of those darn generic queries. I’ll also look at how we can start to test and tailor our messaging by focusing on what we’ve learned about the user’s goal and the needs of the user to get closer or complete their goal.

Summary: 7 Rules for Landing Page Optimization User_focusThis is by no means a definitive look at what matters on landing pages. There are more than seven rules. For additional insight I would direct you to this three-part series on Landing Page Optimization. However, these seven basic elements are ones I’ve used consistently for many years now with great results. 1. Have a Clear and Direct Headline Your landing pages should designed so the headline is first thing a user sees upon landing. First impressions on landing pages are as important as the offline world. Make sure the headline is a direct and simple statement of what the user is trying to accomplish. The goal of the headline is to bridge the moment of recognition so the user knows they rest of the page is aligned with completing their goal. 2. Place High Value on Whitespace Users do not read all the text on a web page. Users scan the text and take away only certain elements that they use to make a decision if the page is relevant to their goal or not. Clean use of space allows users to scan and absorb key messages. 3. Deliver Your Value Proposition with Short Direct Messaging Your value props should all be the answers to “why?” Keep them limited to three or four bullet points and don’t mince words. This is no time to get cute either. If users can’t quickly and easily understand the benefits of you product or service they will not hesitate to click the back button. 4. Have a Persuasive Message Directly Above the Call to Action Every great salesman has a message they use to persuade prospects on the fence. Think of your landing page as your online salesman. Make sure you have one final strong persuasive message above the call to action. I find that bandwagon messages can increase user confidence and usually perform very well. An example: “Join the thousands of people that use…” 5. Large Red Buttons Rule Tell your brand team to go to hell and throw your styleguide out the window. Red buttons can by themselves raise your conversion rate. Green can be good as well but most times in our testing if color matters it is red that wins. Also, don’t skimp on button size. Make users notice where the button is upon landing. Location matters as well but that’s something that needs to be tested on each page. 6. Call to Action Copy Matters While direct messages can be very effective in the body of the copy direct messages in the call to action can be a turnoff. Words like “Buy,” “Add to Cart” or “Subscribe” that message commitment and a process can lower conversion rates. Softer calls to action like "Try it Now" that message immediacy (Now), but in a risk free way (Try it) can end up improving conversion by getting more users into the funnel. 7. Trust and Security is Still Incredibly Persuasive Brand, trust and security icons as well as testimonials deliver confidence messages that can have a tremendous impact on conversion. Despite the fact that we are about 10 years into the commercial web, users on even the largest sites and brands in the world are influenced by these messages and images. You can see in this case study the impact that the Verisign and eTrust logo had on revenue per visitor for Audible.com.