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?

You may believe us, but does your boss?

As you know we believe that dedicated landing pages are one of the most powerful ways to increase revenue and leads online. It would be best to have a special landing page for each offer you make in an ad, email or on your site.

But who has time to build all of those pages??

If you knew that more landing pages meant more money, you might be able to get your boss to give you more resources.

This post from Hubspot may have the data you need.

The analytics at one of our clients indicated that some 40% of the visitors did not have Javascript enabled. This was a shock, and something we hadn't seen before. We needed a way to verify that the analytics was reporting accurately.

Our development team found this interesting approach to setting up a test of how Javascript is used by your audience.

Now, you can get your marketing advice from the same part of the country that your favorite team plays. If you're a fan of the Dallas Mavericks or the Chicago Bears or Oklahoma University, you'll want to get your learning from one of these ten blogs from the middle of the country.

These are the top 10, and we are proud to come in at number 7.

This article is almost impossible to read because of an animated image in the center of the text. Fortunately, this is not a mistake. It underscores that adding motion to your pages makes it hard to focus on the message of the page.

I hope you'll get a chuckle from this as I did.

We are honored to be on the list of Ecommerce Platform's top 100 Business Blogs. There are some amazing blogs on this list. You should check them out and add them to your Flipboard.

I love the way The Conversion Scientist looks on Flipboard.

Three strategies that keep you from losing some of your hard-won visitors from our friends at KISSMetrics. Exit-intent Technology more Persistent Cookies (cookies tend to persist around my waste) Ad Remarketing

It's like 1995 on the mobile web right now. In the 90s, we were feeling our way through the process of defining what a "web page" should be, mostly by just launching things.

Now we find ourselves in our own 1994 on the mobile web, trying to figure out what a "mobile experience" is.

Right down to how the navigation should work.

If you're struggling with how to present menus on a small screen, this article should help. My partner in CRO, Joel Harvey, will be spilling the beans on what we've been finding in our tests at Conversion Conference 2015.

Do you have a ticket yet?

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.

 @bennyblum We don't champion conversion for the fun of it, although it is fun. We do it because it makes us money on the bottom line and gives us leverage when finding more traffic.

Marketing Land's Benny Blum lays out the things you should do to find this leverage for your online advertising, SEO and PPC. Determine: What's a visit worth? Design for Conversion Get Your Message Right Establish an Organic Strategy

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