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@101babich When we isolate the visitors to a website that use site search, we often find a significantly higher conversion rate and average order value. Searchers are great customers.

This does not imply cause and effect.

However, after running tests that improve the visibility of search, we have found that we can increase the number of searchers, and that these new searchers are more likely to buy.

It doesn't work every time, but it is certainly worth a try.

The lesson? Follow Nick's advice here.

"Minimalism is well suited to landing pages and portfolio sites like in example below, which have fairly simple goals, relatively low amounts of content."

Consistency is key in conversion. Automation helps us stay consistent. That is why I like this article from Christopher S. Penn. Best takeaway: Install "Shortcode Exec PHP"

When calculating your conversion rate, the bottom half of the fraction is visits. The lower this number is, the high your conversion rate. That's right. You can increase your conversion rate by lowering your traffic. Likewise, you can destroy your conversion rate by driving lots of unqualified traffic to your site. AdWords and SEM are designed to get only qualified traffic to your site, traffic that is Likely to increase your conversion rate.

So, I'm pleased that my column on the Backward Landing Page was included in this roundup of AdWords and SEM guides. After all, the top half of your conversion rate fraction is the number of conversions. Landing pages have everything to do with that.

 @tawatson This is a smart way to look at email frequency. I especially like having a "maximum time between emails." 

"A mere 6 to 12 words stand between you and a lower bounce rate." This is how Joanna Wiebe begins a very comprehensive tutorial on writing your home page headline.

Home pages are hard. They have to deliver to a broad audience, and audience that could be visiting for almost any reason. However, half of our traffic comes to them on average. So, we need to get some things very right.

The first thing to focus on is the headline.

Of course, my primary advice is to hire someone like Joanna to write it for you, but if you aren't open to that, this is the best post I've seen on the topic.

If all problems are opportunities, then error messages and error pages are generally missed opportunities. Marketing should be policing the errors reported on their website, messages that are usually written by a techie in IT. John Ekman give us five steps toward writing error messages that say "Yes!" instead of making the visitor feel like an idiot.

The question to ask on a landing page is, "Will WOW increase my conversions?" Some of these "WOW" features have proven to reduce conversion rates.  Rotating banners of any sort attract the eye away, and can pull readers out of the "meat" of the page where they are more likely to convert. Accordian menus and tabbed content may prevent scanners from quickly consuming the page. It's a bit of a Catch 22: they may not have the patience to click on each item until they've scanned the content... which is hidden. Social widgets can deliver social proof and increase conversion rates. However, social media chicklets that let the visitor go off to Facebook or Twitter work against the purpose of a landing page: to keep visitors on the page until they make a decision. Why send traffic that you've paid for off to Mark Zuckerberg? Lightbox popovers are universally derided if you ask people. However, they almost always increase conversion rates. 

Every audience is different, so test these WOW features with your own crowd.

In my upcoming book, I make the case that email is preferable to social media for storing market attention. You might think that, in the era of mobile devices, my preference for email may seem quaint.

Think again.

Clearly, mobile devices and email go together like milk and Cap'n Crunch cereal. Only healthier. Enjoy these stats and keep that email coming!

"Enclose" the checkout process.

This means to create a distraction-free bubble when your visitor has decided to take that bold step and buy your product.

The psychological thing you're working against here is that, when asked to let go of something of value -- like our money -- we are more than happy to delay that decision.

Maybe we'll just shop a bit more. Maybe we'll check one other place for the right price.

That is why any distraction in your checkout process can be an out for a buyer, an out that they may never return from. I've seen checkout processes that have social media icons in them.

Really? Is this the right time to remind someone that they need to check Facebook?

Go buy something on your site and just look for all of the distractions you find. You might feel a bit embarrassed.

@peeplaja offers a great post on shopping cart abandonment

In my book I say that abandonment is like cholesterol: There is a good kind and a bad kind. For each there is a strategy for reducing the impact of abandonment on your business.

Good abandoners leave because they aren't done with their shopping process. The challenge is to get them to come back and buy when they are done. There are several strategies here for retargeting the visitor who abandons using email and ads.

Bad abandoners leave because you surprised them or didn't provide the information they were looking for. This kind of abandonment can be treated by improving the checkout process and by using pricing and shipping strategies.

Abandonment is the most heartbreaking of conversion killers. it is also a fertile place to increase the performance of your website.

 @conversionIQ has a list of ecommerce sites that seem to be doing things right. These are sites that follow best practices, and thus we would assume they are enjoying high conversion rates and strong revenue per visit.

Of course, if we were to make a list of 50 ways your site could improve its conversion rate and RPV, we'd be right on about 25 of them. That's why we always back our recommendations up with a series of A/B or split tests.

Nonetheless, it's always good to look at those online athletes that are at the top of their game.

Would you like a free strategy session with a Conversion Scientist?

This would be funny if I didn't see copy like this on site after site.

There are a number of best practices when it comes to creating forms on your landing pages.

Fewer fields increases conversion rate. Avoid conversion killering fields like address unless you absolutely need them. Add qualifying questions only to increase the quality of leads. "Submit" is not a proper call to action. No best practice is best for everyone, though. This infograph does a great job of putting some numbers behind the development of the right form for your landing page.

Earlier this week, one of our partners sent over some copy for me to review. In one of the headlines, they had used the term "end-to-end," as in, "An end-to-end solution for your problem."

I told them that terms like "end-to-end" are cliche, and have basically lost all meaning because of overuse. My friend asked, "Why is that?"

This article from Copyblogger answers that question. Our brains are designed to filter out the familiar, the predictable or what is perceived as familiar and predictable.

Read on to find out how you can save your copy from the parts of the brain that keep your messages from getting in.

What is the equivalent of a good headline when you're talking about online chat? It's the questions your greeters ask.

Like headlines, greeter questions provide better results when they are:RelevantSpecificNot cliche, i.e. UnexpectedOften, being relevant and specific is surprising enough to meet the last requirement: unexpected.

Quality Backlinks are one of the MOST IMPORTANT factors to be considered to rank any website HIGH in popular search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN. We all know that Directory Submission, Article Submission, Social bookmaking or Blog posting is one of the most important ways to build incoming links to a website from a related page.

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If it isn't measureable, it didn't happen.

by @chiefmartec It's time to stop making excuses. Most interesting to me is the UX Fund, that invested in companies commited to design and user experience. They outpaced the market by over the past five years. Scott also puts a nail in the excuses: "We want to be simple, like Google", "It pays to be cheap," and "The CMO doesn't get it."