Closed Loop Marketing Blog - thoughts on SEM, SEO, usability and conversion

Landing Page Optimization Tools to Watch

2010-09-01T18:33:32Z

In this article on imediaconnection.com, Lance Loveday weighs in on the tools currently available for landing page testing, and why companies aren’t making more use of them to increase conversion rates and business results.

Article Highlights:

Advertisers often spend countless hours and hundreds of thousands of dollars only to direct traffic to a sub-par landing page
Landing page testing leverages technology to test various design combinations in order to find the best recipe for success
These platforms are not easily interchangeable and have different capabilities that might or might not be in line with your marketing philosophy

Read the full article here: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/27475.asp

Conversion Zen: Transforming Errors into Opportunities

2010-08-18T18:44:24Z

Who’s responsible for your site’s error messages? Who decides what they say, when they appear, and how they look? It’s a key question—because if you haven’t paid attention to how your site treats visitors when things go wrong, their experience is much more likely to be negative—and talked about.

This article is second in a series I began in July. In that first article, I examined some ways to not only improve the effectiveness of error messages, but even go a step further and optimize them for conversion. Here, I’ll take a look at why so many sites have terrible error experiences, and who should be in charge of fixing it.

(Read the full article here, on Search Engine Land > )

A/B Split Testing Versus Multivariate Testing - Interview with Lance Loveday

2010-08-13T16:39:23Z

In this video interview, conversion expert Lance Loveday explains the pros and cons of simple A/B split-testing vs. the much more complex multivariate testing:

We’ve found, says, Loveday, that A/B testing tends to deliver the largest gain. Of course, he adds, that this could be A/B/C/D testing - 4 variations of a single factor -as opposed to testing a large number of different factors at one time.

The advantage of A/B testing is that it tends to cause you to rethink the entire user experience as you look for elements to test — layout, visual hierarchy, messaging, etc. Multivariate testing, on the other hand, often leads to testing smaller incremental variations that don’t make as much difference. A/B testing forces you to be more creative about what you’re testing.

Loveday explains that his firm’s process is to start with some A/B testing to find an effective layout for a client. Once that’s established, they’ll do multivariate testing to get some additional incremental gains.

See the original full post here, on Web Marketing today >

What to Test on Non-Landing Pages - with Lance Loveday

2010-08-03T00:00:35Z

In this video interview by Web Marketing Today, conversion and design expert Lance Loveday discusses why it’s important to test non-landing pages.

Historically, he says, the first emphasis was on optimizing clicks to the site using SEO and paid search. The next emphasis was on optimizing landing pages to get the click-through. But there are other points at which a site can profit by optimizing. E-commerce sites, for example, should optimize the check-out process, since some customers leave before completing the checkout.

See the full interview here:

Building Better Landing Pages - an Interview With Lance Loveday

2010-07-26T23:23:03Z

[Interview and Article by Kevin Newcomb, Editor, Internet Marketing Institute]

Many companies spend tens of thousands of dollars to acquire customers, but ignore what happens next. Paying attention to your landing pages — whether it’s for pay-per-click (PPC) ads, email campaigns, or banner ads — is one of the most-neglected online marketing tactics. But creating custom landing pages, then testing and optimizing them, holds a lot of potential for increasing conversions, and therefore revenue.

“People don’t fundamentally believe that conversion optimization will work. If they did, they’d jump all over it,” said Lance Loveday, CEO of Closed Loop Marketing and co-author of Web Design for ROI. “The truth is, it can have a game-changing impact on revenue and profitability.”

Most marketers have heard the buzz around landing page optimization (LPO), a part of the larger discipline of conversion optimization. Many marketers have also heard hyped-up claims of two- or three-fold jumps in conversions, and are not convinced that small changes can have a big impact on their conversion rates.

While those kinds of returns are possible, in extreme circumstances, such drastic increases are not necessary to make conversion optimization worthwhile, Loveday said.

[... Read the complete interview on PPCSummit.com > ]

Conversion Optimization Touch Points: Turning Errors Into Opportunities, Part 1

2010-07-22T16:59:44Z

On the web, errors are seemingly inevitable, and there are plenty of best practices for minimizing their negative effects. But what if we treated errors as an opportunity? What if we deliberately designed our customers’ error experience—not just for basic usability and clarity, but with conversion in mind?

In this article I’ll take a look at the concept of error experience design, why it’s important from a business perspective, and a few ways to turn an error into a conversion opportunity.

Why focus on errors?

I have to admit that part of my motivation here is purely selfish, as usual. I, personally, want a better, more enjoyable web experience. And errors, as the myriad stinging gnats of the web environment, should be made better so I can be happier. Simple as that.

I’m tired of seeing ugly, unfriendly errors like this one: …

[CONTINUE READING the complete article on Search Engine Land, HERE > ]

How to Plan Landing Page Tests: 6 Steps to Guide Your Process

2010-07-20T19:02:31Z

We all want to find a change that will turn a lackluster landing page into a monster. Will it require a bigger button? Or perhaps a different image?

Find out how to pick the right tests to improve your landing pages from an expert with years of experience. See why the most obvious test is not always the best to try.

“People are looking for easy answers, and the answers, unfortunately, are not easy,” says Lance Loveday, CEO, Closed Loop Marketing.

Loveday’s team has utilized a data-driven approach to landing page tests for as long as modern A/B testing software has been available. Below, we outline the steps he suggests for planning tests that can improve a page’s performance.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE on MarketingSherpa.com >

Conversations on Conversion Podcast: Interview of Sandra Niehaus by Ion Interactive’s Anna Talerico

2010-07-14T20:04:17Z

[Excerpt from the podcast notes:]
As the VP User Experience and Creative Director at Closed Loop Marketing, Sandra Niehaus is a passionate advocate for usability and design and she brings it all together to create, test and measure conversion-focused experiences for a long list of interesting companies. Sandra is also the co-author of Web Design for ROI with Lance Loveday, and you all know he’s a cool conversion dude as well.

I think you’ll find Sandra as fascinating as I did. She just knows how to create effective experiences. Listen in as she shares her thoughts on how to sell conversion optimization, why you need to know the numbers and what makes for a successful test.

—————

You’ll find the full recorded podcast here: Conversations on Conversion podcast with Sandra Niehaus >

Conversion-Optimized Touch Points: The Thank You Page

2010-06-25T18:02:10Z

In the field of conversion optimization, there’s an understandable focus on landing pages. But why stop there? Every single touch point is an opportunity to improve the user experience and the bottom line. In this article I look at ways to optimize one of these oft-overlooked points: the thank you page.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE on SearchEngineLand >

(In the full article, you’ll find 10 examples of 4 different conversion optimization approaches for Thank You pages. Enjoy!)

Evil Conversion: When Optimization Goes Too Far

2010-05-26T20:46:34Z

As online marketers and conversion experts, we want our sites to be effective. No, it has to be said: we want more than that—we want to turn our sites into kick-butt conversion machines, leaving competitors in the dust with our screamin’ throughput and sales. But when does conversion optimization go too far? When does it stop being useful and become, well, evil?

Most of you know what I mean, because you’ve experienced the evil firsthand. Maybe you’ve even designed it. Experiences like these litter the internet, raising blood pressure around the globe:

[Read the full article on SearchEngineLand > ]

“Not Done Yet” – A Tale Of 2 Years, 3 Landing Pages & 6X Conversion Improvement

2010-03-31T17:19:14Z

Quick question: how much conversion improvement is enough? Would hitting your industry’s average conversion rate convince you to rest on your laurels? If you doubled your old performance, would you stop there? Hopefully not. This case study is an example of why you should never consider your conversion work done, even after impressive gains.

Case Study Summary

Client: Ifbyphone, Inc., a provider of automated telephone applications.

Overall project goal: Increase the quantity and quality of their phone-call and click-to-call leads.

Challenges:

Complex offering
Poor prior experiences with landing page optimization
Wide variety of audiences
Difficulty in attributing phone calls to a marketing source

Success measurement #1: Percentage of landing page visitors who contact Ifbyphone by phone.

Success measurement #2: Lead quality, as measured by the phone call length (longer calls were correlated with higher close rates).

Results:

… Read the full article on Search Engine Land >

Interview of Lance Loveday, by RKG’s George Michie

2010-03-11T17:37:51Z

It was a real treat for me to meet Lance Loveday at Shop.org Annual last fall. He’s been a favorite columnist of mine for some time, and getting to know him since then has been a pleasure. Closed-Loop-Marketing specializes in conversion optimization services, and Lance’s team is on the leading edge of fine tuning the shopping experience.

Lance shares our “No Bull” approach to marketing his services and I’m glad to share this Q & A with our readers.

George: How do you know when your site isn’t converting as well as it could?

… (for the complete interview, please visit http://www.rimmkaufman.com/rkgblog/2010/03/10/interview-with-lance-loveday/)

Roundtable Podcast on Testing for Conversion Optimization

2010-03-10T18:01:51Z

This podcast discussion includes conversion optimization experts Brian Eisenberg, Lance Loveday, Anne Holland, and Chris Goward. Some of the topics discussed:

Where should someone new to testing begin?
Does method matter?
Is suboptimization a risk?
Can we trust the statistics behind tools?
What test result has been the most surprising?

To hear the complete podcast, please visit : http://www.webanalysts.info/webanalytics/roundtable-podcast-on-testing/

Conversion Conversations - Anna Telerico Interviews Lance Loveday

2010-03-08T18:15:38Z

My next guest’s tweet from yesterday evening says it all:

We just doubled conversion for a longtime client, for whom we’d previously tripled conversion. Thrilled.

And that’s why he’s next in the line up of Conversations on Conversion. If you don’t yet know Lance Loveday, CEO of Closed Loop Marketing, take a run over to Amazon and pick up a copy of his book, “Web Design for ROI: Turning Browsers into Buyers and Prospects into Leads”. Lance’s twitter bio says he’s: a “CEO - Closed Loop Marketing, Author - Web Design for ROI, speaker, cyclist, husband, father, online advertising freak, usability geek. Not in that order.” I’ll add to that list and tell you he’s a super nice guy, a good conversationalist and a conversion optimization enthusiast to boot. Listen in as Lance and I talk conversions!

Listen to the complete interview here: Conversion Conversations, Episode 2

3 Ways to Leverage Time for More Conversions

2010-03-03T18:52:47Z

Time, they say, was invented to keep everything from happening all at once. Whether we’re performers, filmmakers or UX designers, time allows us to organize events and engineer an audience’s experience.

Time is also a conversion lever that can be as powerful as messaging, placement, color or any other user experience factor—and as deserving of its own study and focus. Three areas in particular are, I think, important to test and optimize in regards to time.

1. A need for speed

Some events just can’t happen quickly enough. The end of Lost and the final, complete obliteration of IE6 certainly come to mind. From a conversion perspective, however, the same is true. The faster certain events happen, the more likely your website visitors will convert. This includes:

The least sexy factor: page load time.

Page load time isn’t very sexy or hip, but it’s fundamental. It’s the plain, beige, lace-free foundational garment of your conversion optimization efforts. All other factors being equal, this single lever alone can improve your conversion rate and customer loyalty.

The conceptual keystone here, of course, is the phrase “all other factors being equal.”

… Read the complete article on Search Engine Land >

The Human Face: How to Choose Effective Website Photos and Images, Part 3

2010-03-02T18:29:50Z

Using faces in photos on your website presents some unique challenges. I’ll group these challenges into two major groups for this article: “Faces draw attention” and “Faces don’t mean the same thing to everyone.”
Major Challenge #1: Faces Draw Attention

People look at faces. That’s just how we’re built, as humans. We look at eyes and mouths in particular to help us identify the person, their mood, and their intent towards us.

This can pose a problem for websites if faces are not used carefully. A face — or faces — in a prominent location on your web page can easily distract attention away from your product, message, or call to action. In other words, faces can become a true detriment to your website. For example, take a look at the Shutterfly home page…

…Read the full article, with image examples, on WilsonWeb.com >

4 Steps to Setting Better Conversion Optimization Goals

2010-03-03T18:54:52Z

Ever failed to stick to a New Year’s resolution, and then blame yourself for poor willpower? Well, it may not be your will that’s to blame—it may simply be the way you phrased your resolution. And the same could be said about the goals you have for your website.

As we enter a new year, if one of your intentions for 2010 is to improve your website’s conversion performance, then here are some suggestions to help you set realistic and rewarding conversion goals.

1. Treat opportunities like problems

What the heck do I mean by this? Aren’t we supposed to look at it the other way around, seeing problems as opportunities for growth, learning, and all that good stuff?

The problem (if I dare say it) with website opportunities is that they don’t get the same fervent attention that problems do…

(See full article on SearchEngineLand > )

Cross Domain & Sub-Domain Tracking with Google Analytics

2010-01-01T07:03:29Z

Many of our clients have a need to track their web site visitors across domains and sub-domains.

However, Google Analytics does not automatically track a single visitor across different domains or sub-domains using the default set of tracking code, so some customization of the default code has to take place.

All of my past research suggested this should be easy, and like anything it is, if you have all of the information you need.

After many, many, many, many tests, I have come up with the following guidelines.

(Please note this is for the ga.js tracking code, not the older urchin.js code.)

Sub-Domain Tracking

Let’s start with the easy one.

Premise:

Your main site is www.abc.com.

There are links from your main site to your store, shop.abc.com, and your help section, help.abc.com.

You want to track a single visitor who views the pages on your sub-domains.

Your default tracking code is:

<script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script> <script type="text/javascript"> try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-xxxxxx-1"); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script>

All you have to do is add in the setDomainName() method for Google Analytics to track a single visitor across all of your sub-domains:

<script type="text/javascript"> var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ? "https://ssl." : "http://www."); document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost + "google-analytics.com/ga.js' type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E")); </script> <script type="text/javascript"> try { var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-213407-1"); pageTracker._setDomainName(”.abc.com”); pageTracker._trackPageview(); } catch(err) {}</script>

I don’t care what you’ve read elsewhere, PLEASE INCLUDE THE ‘.’ before the domain name setDomainName(”.abc.com”);. I’ve seen this not work without it.

(Please remove pageTracker._initData(); if you are currently using it. It is deprecated. Yes, I still need to remove this method from our code!)

Cross Domain Tracking

Now on to the slightly more involved stuff.

Premise:

Your main site is www.abc.com.

There are links from your main site to a completely different site that you manage, www.def.com.

You want to track a single visitor who visits www.def.com.

There are a few tasks that need to be completed in this situation.

You need to add three methods to the default Google Analytics tracking code.
You need to add a method/function call to every link or form button that takes your site visitor to def.com.
You should place the customized Google Analytics tracking code in the <head></head> section of your page rather than just before the closing </body> tag (normal recommendation).

Alter the default tracking code:

Default code is this:

Add in three methods:

You need to add in the above methods in red to every domain that you are tracking.
NOTE: pageTracker._setDomainName(”.abc.com”); should be set to the domain the tracking code is actually on.

So on abc.com:
pageTracker._setDomainName(".abc.com");

On def.com:
pageTracker._setDomainName(".def.com");

NOTE:
If you read Google’s recommendations, they tell you to use this:
pageTracker._setDomainName("none");

From all of my research and tests, which includes talking to many other experts, you should NOT use “none” as the setDomainName() value. It can cause duplicate cookies and therefore inaccurate data.

Add _link() and _linkByPost() methods to your code

In order for Google Analytics to track a single visitor across domains, the cookie information needs to be sent to the other domain(s). This is accomplished by calling the link() method on normal hyperlinks and the _linkByPost() method on form submission buttons.

Let me make something clear up front:

You only have to add these links to the domain that your visitor lands on first.

So if your visitor lands on abc.com first, then all links and form submissions to def.com need the _link() and _linkByPost() methods added to them respectively. You do NOT need to add these methods to links or posts FROM def.com to abc.com.

(If your visitors could potentially land on either domain first and then link off to the other domain, then you would want to add the methods to both sites.)

Here’s how to add the code.

Hyperlinks:

<a href="def.com/mypage.html" onclick=”pageTracker._link(this.href);return false;”>Link Here</a>

NOTE: Do not forget the return false; part of the code!

Form Submissions:

Place the Google Analytics tracking code in the <head></head> section of your page

If you are using any _link() or _linkByPost() methods in your code, then the Google Analytics tracking code should be placed in the <head></head> section of your page.

This is because the ga.js file needs to be loaded before the _link() or _linkByPost() methods are called.

Chances are the page would load (and therefore the ga.js file) before a user triggered one of the methods, but better safe than sorry.

NOTE: If you want to track cross domain AND sub-domain traffic, just follow the Cross Domain Tracking guidelines above.

That’s it. Go forth and track.

Neuro Google: The Day All the Damn Lies Ended

2009-12-16T18:07:06Z

George sat in a white lab room, next to an MRI machine that was vibrating softly to a U2 song. No, that was his iPhone. George twitched and slapped at his pocket to silence it. The blonde woman in the dark blue suit turned and frowned at him. “Did you bring your paperwork?” she asked. “Um, yeah, hang on.” George pulled a wad of papers out of his back jeans pocket. The woman frowned even more deeply as she took and unfolded the wad onto her clipboard in small, precise motions. “Well,” she said, “I see you’ve signed everything properly, at least.”

… (Read the full article on Search Engine Land > )

How to Choose Effective Website Photos & Images - Part 2

2009-12-16T18:03:30Z

This article continues a series of guidelines to help you with website image selection. In Part 1, I covered some general principles to consider, including the image’s mood, uniqueness, content quality, and contextual cropping. In this article I’ll discuss ways to use images to support and reinforce a business brand.

Guideline #1: First, have a clear understanding of your brand

Before we look at how images can support your brand, let’s back up one step and look at your brand itself. How clearly can you describe your brand? Do you know what qualities you wish it to convey? If you were to summarize your brand with only four descriptive words, what would they be? And, even more importantly, would your target audience agree with your assessment?

… (See the full article and examples on Web Marketing Today > )