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Bryan Eisenberg is a great teacher and is one of the fathers of conversion science. In this post, he asks his audience to make recommendations on pricing tables, those pages that ostensibly help us to choose the right product for us.

Here are my suggestions.

The main purpose of a page like this is "Help me choose." Choice, as it turns out, is a conversion killer, so these pages can be very helpful. This page needs to tell me which is "The best value." A badge would be helpful, probably on the most expensive item.

The little "signal bars" are unique and may be helpful, but don't really tell me at a glance what I want to know.

The copy is unhelpful. Instead of "Essential productivity..." how about "Great system for a tight budget." Instead of "Yield better results..." how about "Good value ready for your network." Instead of "2nd Generation Processor..." how about "This system has the power to do heavy number crunching, video editing and graphics."

There are too many prices here -- four to be exact. I say, pick two: Savings and total price. Crossing out "Starting price" is a proven way to communicate value.

Finally, put the coupon code near the "Customize & Buy" buttons to give those transactional shoppers an extra push.

What do you find frustrating about this page?

I'll say it again: If your SEM company isn't INSISTING on helping you with landing pages; if they are satisfied to pick any page on your site as a destination for your expensive PPC marketing; then you are being taken to the cleaners.

Most of what you need to know is right here in this article. Contact me if you still have questions. 

 @KISSMetrics - You don't have to be a psychologist to create good messages and strategies for your business, but it really helps to know the subtle things that make people more comfortable taking action. This article summarizes some of my favorite research on buyer psychology.

If you offer a trial of your product, use email to deliver "mints" of helpful information. This will increase the likelihood that they will buy. See #4.

Design your pricing in clusters around your most profitable offering. See #5.

Be specific in your calls to action. See #3.

Community involvement and social proof are also covered. See #1 and #2.

I hope you enjoy this as much as I do.

Here's the first line from this very helpful little post. "0 sales! What? But we got 517 unique visitors this week!" Airing your mistakes is not seen as smart marketing in many circles, but this kind of thing really is helpful. Besides the important moral of this story, there's another:

Failing the right way leads to success faster. Failing without knowing why invites unnecessary failure.

I predict good things for these folks.

 @richpage #CRO Checklists are very helpful when making decisions about your website. They take the immediacy and emotion out of your decisions.

I love checklists and this is a good one. It's ten things to consider when designing your checkout process.

My favorites are:10. Consistently Expose Your Value Propositions7. Offer help throughout the process5. Remove header navigation during checkout (so easy!)4. Reassure the Prospect that the Price is RightI'll let you explore the rest of the ten checklist items.

ROI Calculators can be used to help prospects justify taking action. I thought that this Marketing Sherpa ROI calculator did a great job of mixing the helpful with the fun.

Google Analytics can intimidate business managers, but it really is a tool to help business managers answer important questions. This overview from @lisabarone gives you  an idea of some of the good questions you can be asking your Web team to help you guide your online investments.

"The Internet isn't passive. When you search online, you plan to do something:  buy, learn, play, find.  As soon as you go to Google, Yahoo or Bing, you're on the hunt."

There are those among us who have a true command of words and their use. I marvel at them. It is a power that is critical to persuasion, conversion and selling. Gabriella Sannino clearly sees it as a power to help people solve their problems. What better brand experience can you deliver than to help someone find answers to their questions?

"I may have an answer to your questions."

Doesn't this sound hopeful? And you do. Whatever industry you are in, it is fundamentally your duty to understand your market's problems and to figure out how to solve them. The philosophy of content marketing is that teaching prospects about their problems is as important as teaching them about your solutions.

So, if you have some helpful knowledge that helps prospects solve problems, how are you letting them know that you're there for them?

Here are twelve ways to call attention to what you offer. Then you can let the content speak volumes for your solutions.

 @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.

CRO Software Cost Survey  - Please Participate!

Want to know much your peers are spending on digital analytics and A/B testing tools? Help the digital marketing community make smarter software purchases. 

Complete our short survey if you've used digital analytics or A/B testing tools in the past year. Your answers will be kept completely confidential and used only in tabulation with others.

In appreciation of your help, we'll also send an advance copy of the results once they're available.

@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.

The echo chamber is alive and well in the Conversion Optimization world. @richpage has noticed how few of us are searching for CRO and "conversion rate optimization" on Google. What gives?

To quote Bryan Eisenberg, "Most websites don't have a traffic problem. Every site has a conversion problem."

If you're waiting to put conversion optimization to work on your site, the least you can do is help us spread the word. Click through for some very interesting statistics.

We've been studying business video in the lab using eye-tracking equipment. Cisco offers some very helpful tips on how to choose the right video for your business. 
You can request to be notified when our ground-breaking study is complete. 

 @smexaminer While images are important for social media to help break through the noise, they are also very important on our landing pages, home pages and other web pages.

Unfortunately, we often resort to what I call "business porn" in my book. Business porn includes stock photos of multi-racial smiling people, of graphs going up and to the right, and of cheerful women with headsets.

So if you are struggling with what to use for visuals on your site or in your emails, here are 26 excellent ideas. 

 @conversion_team-I'm speaking about "flipping" you message when writing copy that converts at #convcon West in San Francisco. Basically, "flipping" prevents "blending" your message, which makes it lose impact and relevance.

The catch is that you must understand something about the Web visitors that you're flipping your message toward.

The Conversion Team has a solution, and this article does a great job of helping you get an actionable understanding of how to write for your visitors in a persuasive and relevant way.

If there was one thing that defeats your efforts to market with data, it would be lack of resources. Marketing departments are notoriously under-staffed for the workload delegated by executives. It can become overwhelming to imagine doing tests when you're just trying to get communications out the door.

In the interest of helping you find more time and happiness in your work, I offer this excellent list of 26 "time hacks."

Please. Do some split testing with the extra time you find. Your visitors will thank you.

26 Time Management Hacks I Wish I'd Known at 20 from Etienne Garbugli @egarbugli

If you enjoy studying the psychology of persuasion the way we do here at Conversion Sciences, you'll love this infographic from the folks at Help Scout.

While good UX (User eXperience) does not always translate into higher conversion rates or revenue per visit (RPV), these trends point to excellent hypotheses for what MIGHT increase the performance of your site.

Single Page Sites: Simplicity is often a great way to increase conversion rates Infinite scrolling: Consider this for category pages. I haven't tested this yet. Persistent top nav: I am very curious to see if this increases CR and RPV. Let me know if you've tested it. Web 2.0 Aesthetics: I hope this includes the rotating banners at the top of so many sites. Typography Returns: Your message is the most important part of your conversion optimization plan. Typography can help... or hurt

We've seen in email tests that subject lines can have implications far beyond the open rate. We've seen two identical emails with identical landing pages have the same open rates and the same click-through rates (CTR), but one generated more sales than the other.

What's the difference? The subject line.

In short, subject lines are important.

And they are difficult to write.

This infographic does a great job of boiling things down to help remove the indecision when you are writing subject lines.