CXL Institute CRO Minidegree
This is part 3/12 in my series reviewing the CXL Institute CRO Minidegree
CXL offers one of the best courses for those who want to become a great marketeer. They offer knowledge from one of the world’s top practitioners.
Since I got accepted to the CXL Institute scholarship I would like to review the 5th week of the Conversion Optimization mini-degree, and I would like to review what I have learned.
This week I am going to cover Landing Page Optimization with Michael Aagaard.
This course will teach you how to answer these questions and many more. You’ll learn solid processes for analyzing your landing pages, conducting appropriate research and applying the right optimization tactics. We’ll get into qualitative and qualitative conversion research, information hierarchy, design, copywriting and not least neuroscience basics.
I would like to start with the answer to the question: what is a landing page?
A landing page is:
A page that users land-on
The first page that users see after clicking on a banner ad, PPC ad, promotional email
A page that works independently of the website
focused on a clear conversion goal
The landing page directs visitors to a specific action, such as making a purchase or completing a registration.
A good landing page often determines success and equals a good return on investment.
3 the most important rules for landing pages
- Never send traffic from the ad to your homepage.
Homepages are usually filled with information, offering users many possible actions.
2. Clarity and relevance is a key
Visitors spend just seconds looking at the landing page, if they can’t find what they are looking for they will abandon the page.
How to get their attention:
Try to answer the questions on their mind:
• Does this place have what I am looking for?
• Is there enough information?
• Can I trust this site?
• How long will this take?
3. Landing page should follow a proven structure
- Open with a benefit-oriented headline — it is the most important part, the headline must correspond to the ad text.
- Write clear, relevant copy — don’t put too much text on the page
- Focus on getting visitors to the one specific action — subscribe, make a purchase
- Remove distracting navigational links — remove links, menus, buttons
- Make the form or checkout option prominent — the action user has to make needs to be visible and obvious
- Maintain your brand — do not make your landing page look different from your overall website
What are the characteristics of an effective landing page?
• Shortens the journey from click to conversion
• Follows up on some sort of “promise” made in the ad/source
• Speaks to the user’s motivation and addresses any barriers they might have
• Answers important questions users have and create clarity
• Carves out a clear path to the conversion goal
Wireframing a landing page
Before we start the actual design of a landing page we must create a visual guide that represents the structure of a landing page.
How much content will you need on your landing page, and in what order should you present it? These are two questions that an information hierarchy can help us answer.
To create one, there are three questions we must ask:
1. Who are you communicating with? (target audience)
2. What do you want them to do (goal)
3. Where is the traffic coming from? (traffic source)
To answer those three questions, we need to delve into some quantitative and qualitative research.
Quantitative research is the data you get from Google Analytics. It shows you the ‘what’ and the ‘where’.
Qualitative research fills in the blanks — it tells you the ‘why’. You can find out these kinds of details from polls, surveys, user testing, interviews, or live chat transcripts.
Using both these forms of research, we can answer the questions below and thus create our information hierarchy.
1. What is the target audience?
Are there aware of their problem? Are they aware of the solution? Or product?
Qualitative data will help you get inside their mind so you can start to answer the questions they have in mind at every stage of the journey.
The less aware they are, the more content you’ll need. The more aware, the less content you’ll need.
2. What is the goal? What do they need to do?
The more expensive, risky, and complex, the more content you will need to present to persuade visitors. If the conversion goal is simple you will not need to have much content to convince your audience.
3. Where is the traffic coming from? What is the traffic source?
This is important because we need to match the visitor’s motivation and mindset. People coming from a banner ad have much lower awareness than people coming from a newsletter.
What your landing page needs to have:
• Headline that speaks to the target audience;
• Company logo;
• Quick explanation of your offer above the fold
• Longer explanation of the offer below the fold if the offer or product is complex;
• Image of the product being offered;
• Simple form, ideally with just 1–3 fields (usually just name and email, but do you really need the name?);
• Buy or sign-up button depending on your MWA;
• Link to your privacy policy (load it in a pop-up window to keep people on the page).
Conclusion
I see the content about Landing Page Optimization with Michael Aagaard as useful. This course is packed with quality lessons, covers everything important to creating high-converting landing pages.
Next week I am going to cover the Conversion Research part of the course. Conversion research is the most important part of the conversion optimization process. Conversion research done right ensures that you’ll be tackling the right issues which lead to more wins and bigger wins.
