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@widerfunnel "We have tested rotating offers many times and have found it to be a poor way of presenting home page content." Enough said.

Businesses love rotating banners because they are cowards. They are afraid of picking something and running with it. They don't want to lose a chance to get everyone. Well, when you try to sell to everyone, you sell to no one. If you won't listen to me, please, read Chris Goward's article. When it comes to testing, the Wider Funnel people konw what they're doing.  

 @KISSMetrics Viral content is generally a hit-or-miss proposition for most businesses. It's hard to tell which will catch the interest of the public or go main-stream. One strategy is to prepare ALL of your content to go viral, so that when you launch the right topic at the right time (e.g. get lucky), your content will have wings.

This infograph from KISSMetrics hits the key things you should consider if you want content that is viral-worthy.

If you love the science of persuasion like we do, you should definitely be following my friend Roger Dooley's blog.

Here's a great example of how he uses research to deliver actionable advice to marketers and business owners like us.

 @marcommadness We've built a very successful and growing business on a foundation of content. Our prospects pull up on road paved by content.

So, I was glad to see this well-written Relevance article that mentioned our content creation service.

These five tips are not typical, and are truly the reasons we have succeeded. Automate Content Development Be authentic and vulnerable Writers should learn to code (huge advantage). Long form content.

 @ashocka18 has written an article for designers working on landing pages. In the process Heidi has linked to some very helpful posts.

I was struck by the way she laid out the article, perfect for those of us who scan. Your landing pages should be designed to help scanners find the salient points of your copy... like where the link to my post is.

I especially love the banner images for each topic. Very fun. Boring Call to Action Button Lame Logos Inconsistency Too many fonts Random colors Spacing fails Cheesy stock photos (I call this "Business Porn") Overuse of photoshop effects Icons from everywhere Readability issues Navigation Check it out.

One of the advantages of optimizing for conversion is that Google can't take away your revenue arbitrarily.

Normally, we are thinking of SEO when we say this. Panda, Penguin and now Pidgeon are algorithm changes that may have hurt your business.

Now, it appears that Google is messing with paid traffic as well.

Mike Roberts of SpyFu.com has the analysis of an upcoming elimination of "Exact and Phrase Match keyword targeting" by Google.dealing with a 10% loss of revenue is not what I need now or ever. Optimize for conversion, and Google will not be able to reach into your pockets.

We believe that mobile traffic is every bit as important as desktop traffic. Many businesses walk away from their mobile traffic because it doesn't convert well. This is a mistake.

Two points found in this article drive the point home:
App and Mobile Functionality (sucks)Mobile Represents a Different Type of userSpend some time on your mobile site. Don't just create a responsive version of your desktop website.

Why do business owners rely on the "expertise" of designers when designers repeatedly fail to improve websites? Because the errors in the system get lost in the blame game. This is the gift of complexity. "People who are bred, selected, and compensated to find complicated solutions do not have an incentive to implement simplified ones." Let data provide some simplicity.

Our businesses are all going to be impacted by machine learning.

@theGrok writes: "We opened the first CRO agency in 1998. We no longer offer CRO services to clients. We still have a lot of friends in the industry. It's likely some of them will disagree with the way we approach it. That's OK! The goal of this post it help you hire a CRO agency that is a great fit."

Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg are the reason I'm in this business. I'm grateful, and many of our clients, current and past, are grateful. So, I can't think of a better source for guidance in this industry.

Imagine if you were given six months of identity protection by Target or Zappos or Neiman Marcus before they had an online security breach. Imagine if the identity protection was valid for any purchase you made. This is the promise of AllClearID. They are a client of ours and are at the forefront of revising the way we look at online security.

If you run an ecommerce site, this is a value proposition that will increase your conversion rates. We've done the tests.

If I was to rename this article, it would be, "20 Kinds of Best Practices and Why They Won't Work".

It is bad news to rely on best practices that are unsupported by data or testing. This article gives you 20 reasons why.

Local search landing pages (ie. Contact page)

This is one ambitious post, but it's chock full of examples.

Take some time during the holidays to review the advice in this post.

"Overall, a lenient return policy did indeed correlate with more returns. But, crucially, it was even more strongly correlated with an increase in purchases. In other words, retailers are generally getting a clear sales benefit from giving customers the assurance of a return."