Internet Marketing

While no one will argue the value of split testing in driving up landing page conversion rates, there are several other factors to consider before diving into the page testing arena.

While no one will argue the value of split testing in driving up landing page conversion rates, there are several other factors to consider before diving into the page testing arena.

Factor #1: Product Excellence

Purchasing an item on the web can be somewhat risky. You are not able to check out the merchandise like you can when you are in an actual store.

Product quality is one of the most important factors to consider before working to increase your landing page conversion rate. It's easy for unsatisfied customers to use social media and product review sites to tell others about a poor quality product.

Understand that all your multivariate and sophisticated eye-tracking tests won't mean a thing if you're putting out a substandard product.

Factor #2: Product Demand Versus Supply

Have you ever created a product only to find there was not much demand for it within your customer base? It's important to be able to measure the supply and demand of any potential product.

By using a keyword research tool like Wordtracker, you can quickly and efficiently measure a product's potential demand.

Keyword tools allow you to type in a search phrase and get an estimate of the demand for that keyword (how many people type it into the search engines within a fixed period of time) as well as the supply for that keyword (a measure of the competitiveness of the keyword).

Using a keyword research tool will tell you that writing an ebook on "Fishing" is a losing proposition. While the term "Fishing" is extremely popular, the competition for that keyword is enormous, making it virtually impossible to rank highly in the search engines.

A keyword tool will help you identify niche keyword phrases that are still popular yet without a large amount of online competition. For example, while the term "fishing" is way too general, a keyword tool might tell us that the term "ice fishing house plans" has very little competition but still draws plenty of online interest.

Before you create a product, do some keyword research to ensure your product is really viable in your market.

Factor #3: Unique Value Proposition

Relevance is the key to successful conversion rates. If your sales copy convinces the visitor that your product will help them achieve their goals, conversions will be automatic. One way to help this process along is to define your UPV, or Unique Value Proposition.

A UVP isn't a mission statement or a slogan. It's a statement that answers the question "Why do I need to buy this?" If you can't quickly communicate the answer to this question, you'll never achieve a high-converting sales page.

You should make sure your UVP is positioned at the very top of your sales page. It should be short, unique and memorable.

Factor #4: PREselling

The term" PREsell" was first coined by Ken Evoy, a Canadian Internet marketer and President of SiteSell.

Below is Ken's own words about his PREselling concept.

"On the Net, effective PREselling creates a warm, 'open-to-buy' mindset in your target group and gets that important click-through to your monetization source (i.e., your order page, your merchant-partner's sales site, your store, etc.). And PREsold visitors are much easier to convert into customers.

Successful PREselling content 'works' at several levels...

1) It has that 'been there - done that' voice and flair.

2) It has specific knowledge that comes from real experience.

3) It is supported by a depth of useful information -- good reference material plays an important part.

4) It is spun or positioned in a way that is uniquely yours. Furthermore, it is consistent, from page to page, from e-zine issue to issue, from week to month to year. And finally, it is for the customer, absolutely."

There are many single-page websites out there that are simply pushing product with very little additional helpful content. Without a strong content base to help presell, you'll find it difficult to convert your visitors.

Single-page sites are starting to lose their popularity, especially with the major search engines. They now look for more content that is updated on a regular basis. A strong content-based site is not only good for the search engines, but human visitors as well.

Here's my recommendation. Build a complete business website that not only contains your sales landing pages, but provides lots of additional free content centered around the wants and needs of your target market.

Creating a small site that contains 25-30 content pages based around the theme of your products will do wonders to help PREsell to visitors. In addition, each of these content pages can (and should) be focused on additional profitable keywords that are related to the theme of your product or service. Over time, this will help to bring in even more natural organic traffic from the Search Engines.

Integrate these four factors into your website and you'll find your conversion rates start to naturally increase.