Online Conversion

A blog is critical for SEO. It can also be a great lead generator and email list builder.

The Conversion Scientist™ is crucial to our marketing efforts.

Rich Page has a great list of do's and don'ts here with examples. You should take a look. Annoying Ads Unclear value proposition Articles with no call to action Not mobile optimized Short articles, no sub-headlines Cluttered sidebar columns No social proof Bland articles Poor incentive to subscribe No exit-intent popups Start Here page

 @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.

 @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.

Why does Airbnb test? What are their challenges?

This article does a great job of explaining the thinking behind testing at Airbnb. Homeaway and other competitors better be doing this kind of work, too.

For those of you who are testing, this article gives a great overview why you should test longer before calling a winner.

Internet Explorer has definitely been a source of problems for our customers. There is an overlap between users of IE and visitors in an older age group.

Now, IE is promising yet another browser for Win10, and it may be less functional, a "lite" version.

This means that we will have another potential curve ball from Microsoft to deal with. Don't worry. We'll have a Windows 10 machine in our QA lab as soon as it begins shipping.

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.

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.

This is a great overview of Landing Page best practices complete with examples. You'll find a lot in common with our Chemstry of the Landing Page presentation. Headlines and Ad Copy Clear and Concise Headlines Impeccable Grammar Trust indicators Call to Action Buttons Lose the Links Visuals (images) Above the Fold Always be testing

We just can't get enough info on landing pages. We love them.

This article helps you design landing pages for three kinds of visitors: Cold visitors (no they don't live up north) Warm visitors (not necessarily friendly) Hot visitors (don't necessarily got it goin' on) How do you address these different visitors? Read on.

I'm always wary of any list that claims to be "complete." This list comes pretty close, and includes one of my favorite selections from The Conversion Scientist Blog.

The list is novel in that you can select the categories of interest to you and the post will modify itself to serve you best.

I'll be intersted to find out if this novel feature increases conversion rates on the page.

What do you think?

 @peeplaja has put into one blog post most of the hard lessons we've learned over the years of testing here in the Conversion Lab. Peep doesn't mince words ("There is no best color").

Don't let all of this scare you. It's better to try and learn from your mistakes than to not make any mistakes at all. Test away!

TransferWise has twice the valuation of WorldRemit even though they both started about the same time.

Could Worldremit have tested their way to a marketing strategy that made them competititve with TransferWise? We think so. But TransferWise figured it out, and when they did, they didn't let go.

This is a great roundup of the biases and psychological effects that drive humans to act. Every marketer should be comfortable with these concepts.

The last one on the list can really make a big difference.

7. Conduct user research or share findings with developers

It isn't hard to get user input thanks to inexpensive and easy-to-use services like UsabilityHub.com and Verifyapp.com.

Learn more about how and when to use tools like this in our free Everyday Behavioral Science training.

Why do I study writing so much? Because it is the most reliable way to improve the conversion performance of a page or website. Take some time with this article.

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

This is a great example of creating a MVNP (Maximum Viable Non-Product) to test your market and marketing.

This is a great illustration of the tension between performance marketers and designers, data vs. intuition, left- vs. right-brain design. It doesn't settle anything, but some of these we can certainly agree on.

There are sevreral items in this list that are important for conversion optimizers to take note of, things to try. Mobile-first design: I surprised to learn how many leads and sales are now coming from the mobile web. Skeleton screens: Far better than some spinning animation for decreasing both load times AND percieved load times. Photo-cenric Menus: Try these for ecommerce sites. Scroll-triggerd animations: ONLY FOR STORY TELLING! Animated Call-to-action Buttons: Try those that shimmer without interaction. Hand lettering: Be careful not to make things hard to read. AI for design: I just have to try Grid.

This article turns much "good advice" about writing on its ear. And it passes the test of an article on writing: It's well-written.