"For every $92 spent acquiring customers, only $1 is spent converting them."

This statistic plus 51 more are presented to you by our friends at @unbounce.

I'm giving away free copies of my book Your Customer Creation Equation: Unexpected Website Formulas of The Conversion Scientist. There are no strings attached.

Starting December 15 and running through December 19th, my book will be completely free in the Amazon Kindle Store. Just click on "One Click Buy" during the promo dates, and it'll be delivered right to your Kindle free of charge.

Don't have a Kindle? Never fear. You can read it on the Amazon Cloud Reader on your computer, or through the free Kindle App available for your Smartphone or iPad.  

  So what is this book I am offering for free? It's called The Customer Creation Equation: Unexpected Website Formulas of The Conversion Scientist™. It gives readers the foolproof formulas to creating a website that not only gets the right traffic, but converts that traffic to customers, returning customers and advocates.  

Some of the great things you'll learn in this book:

- Identify the unique customer creation formula for your site. - Set up your own digital conversion lab to measure your progress. - Develop landing pages for your site that actually deliver. - Charge your marketing "batteries" to reduce your advertising expenditures. - Communicate authoritatively with designers, developers, and executives.

So please, do not buy this book.  

Go over to the Kindle Store and get your copy absolutely free. Your website will thank you for it.

 @unbounce Landing pages really are simple. This "recipe" covers all of the bases for a sweet treat (for you and your visitors).

 @copyblogger Here are the five most persuasive words we can use. Indivdually, each of these words appeals to a certain kind of person. If we use the Eisenberg Modes of Persuasion as a guide, we can assign each to a different mode.

"You" - Humanists are relationship oriented. When your voice shifts from "We" and "our company" and you speak to them in the first person, it feels more human -- and more Humanistic.

"Free" - This word appeals to the Spontaneous reader. These visitors are just looking for an excuse to take action.

"Because" - Methodicals want to understand the details. They make decisions deliberately and logically. Credible proof is important.

"Instantly" - This also appeals to our Spontaneous reader, who wants immmediate gratification.

"New" - This appeals to the Competitive, who wants to know what will make them better. New technologies, new versions, new looks get their attention.

So, two of the words are very Spontaneous, and we tend to act spontaneously when we've decided to buy something. "Free" and "Instantly" are bottom of the funnel words.

Read the research in this excellent post.

Dustin Sparks is another fixture in the Conversion epicenter we have here in Austin, an epicenter that includes both Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg.

Dustin provides a very comprehensive and easy to consume list of the landing page mistakes that are costing businesses money across the Web. To find out how you can get a free copy of the Kindle edition of my new book join my Friends of the Author list now.

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. 

 @uribarjoseph If you are getting into the split testing game (a sure sign that you want to dominate your niche on the Web) then you will find these eight rules invaluable.

In my new book, I talk about the importance of having Marketing Batteries that store visitors attention for you to use over and over. The "Subscriber Battery" is your email list. The "Social Battery" will include your Twitter followers.

The problem with the Social Battery is that it discharges unreliably compared to the Subscriber Battery. As a result I recommend converting your social networks to email contacts. This charges your Subscriber Battery from your Social Battery.

Here is a great set of tactics to get more email subscribers from Twitter.

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?

Questions about how to present your buttons. Your questions are all answered in one infographic. Nice.

You get a definite unfair advantage with Google when you put video on your pages. Here's a quick explanation of why from the folks at Wistia.

The author of this article lists 12 interesting insights taken from eye-tracking studies. He can't resist qualifying some of the ones he may disagree with. While every audience is different, these tips are excellent places to start on almost any page.

What happens when you understand what your online recipe is? Magical things. More visitors. More sales. More leads. More revenue. This is not a job for a web designer or developer. As the business owner, marketing manager, or agency, you must know how to shepherd the development of a site into a repeatable, measurable formula. Here's an opportunity to learn more.

YouTube is a challenging environment for Conversion Scientists, despite @purnavirji 's optimism. Video is an amazing way to communicate, so we must pay attention to the second biggest search engine on the planet. Purna's advice includes strategic as well as tactical advice, and I found it very helpful.

Our pages must persuade. This is even true of B2B sales, where we feel we must speak like an adult to other business people. When we speak like an adult we lose our ability to persuade, much as a parent has little ability to persuade a teenager... of anything. Here are eight terms that thrive in business writing that keep us from persuading the visitors who WANT to be persuaded. They have a choice to make. Help them make it.

Is your business or offering as difficult to explain as a financial investment? A website is often not enough. So it's interesting to see that stodgy financial firms are using humor and even hand-drawn cartoons to help their customers make some serious decisions. We're bullish on video as an online tool at Conversion Sciences. Ask us about our Video Science service.

If your business runs the Online Store formula, average order value (AOV) is probably a critical metric. Here are many ways to increase average order value categorized into four types.

In my new book Your Customer Creation Equation I discuss the importance of getting new users of Online Services to return and login. This process is called "on boarding" and it is the process of making your new users experts at using your service. Wunderlist is how me and my wife share grocery lists. and their on-boarding process is very tight. Here's how they do it.

 @KISSmetrics offers a fantastic tour of landing page best practices. They offer 50 points with an example for each from businesses that have been successful on the Web. From seductive headlines, to creative copy to building trust to design, you will be inspired for your next landing page development task. 

We talk a lot about the power of landing pages in online marketing: pages designed especially for different visitors. I am always surprised that this concept isn't immediately embraced by all. Seth Godin puts the issue in a clear light with simplicity.