So you have a landing page and you want to improve conversions. The challenge many marketers and web designers face is how do you enhance or optimize a landing page without really affecting the current conversion rate. Although there are a million and one ways to design an effective landing page, there are a few common techniques that are proven to draw attention and enhance your chances of converting at a higher rate. It all starts with the design and enhancement of the Form.

Looking at the fictitious form below, we will apply three simple changes to the form that in the end will grab your attention.

1. Arrows – Yes, it’s that simple. Add an arrow to your form if you don’t already have one. Chances are, you’ve probably seen it done on the web before. Adding an arrow to your landing page that points directly to the form will instantly capture the user’s attention. Without going into too much detail, an arrow acts as a visual attention grabber in addition to a “subconscious loud speaker” that shouts out – “Fill out this form now!”

   

2. Larger Input Fields – This is a fairly new technique often used or seen with consumer friendly Web 2.0 websites. I call it the Web 2.0 look-and-feel. More and more designers in the social media space are moving towards larger everything - headlines, text, buttons and so on. Essentially, the idea behind this concept is to make things bigger and larger on screen, which by nature makes the site feel simple, clean, less cluttered and easy-to-use. I’m not a rocket scientist, but if items on the website appear large, simple and easy-to-use – most likely users will be inclined to use it rather than not. Note – this technique of creating larger text fields can be controlled through CSS.

   

3. Larger, Brighter “Submit” Buttons, with Call-to-Action Text - This is an oldie but goodie that is proven to capture attention and entice visitors to “Click”. The standard “submit” button has been used since the beginning of time. But over the years, marketers and designers have found ways to call more action to submit buttons while enticing users to click-through. The reality is, everyone on the web understands how to fill out and complete a web form. By creating a larger, brighter and well written submit button, you only enhance the chances of someone wanting to move forward. The trick is to be creative with what your write within the button. You always want to explain in a few words what the user will get by actually filling out and clicking on this cool button.

   

There you have it, three simple conversion optimization techniques you can apply today to enhance your landing page form design to improve conversions. If you would like a free consultation and more expert advice on how to improve conversions, shoot me an email.

User-centered design is simply the philosophy of designing a website or interface based solely on the needs of the end user. The concept is pretty simple and straight-forward, but many designers overlook these ideas while focusing on designing aesthetically pleasing websites.

Design quality and brand image are important, but usability and user-centered design makes for a successful web initiative. This topic of designing with the user in mind recently came to mind when I recently visited the website of a local restaurant. The site was designed well. There were large images of the popular dishes. It was very clean and branded very well with all the restaurants brand elements. But there was one flaw with the site - usability.

I visited the website with one goal in mind - that was to find the lunch specials and place an order for pick-up. I clicked on the “menu” tab with the idea that I would be able to view their menu in some sort of digital format. But instead, I got a flash slide-show of their popular dishes. Huh? That’s not what I wanted or expected. I expected a menu list of items with descriptions. What happen to designing for the user? This was a perfect example of a site that was aesthetically pleasing but with a poor usability factor.

This example of poor usability is just one of many that I run into time after time. At VigorFish, we preach this constantly and design websites based on the user-centered design principles. It’s quite simple - do not forget about the user.

Is your site designed with the user in mind? Contact VigorFish today for a free no obligation review of your website. We’ll review your site free of charge and give you 3 things you can change to enhance your existing usability. What are you waiting for, shoot me an email.

So you’ve spent tons of money and resources on a search engine marketing (sem) campaign, your site is ranking well, your pay-per-click campaign is in full swing driving tons of qualified visitors to your site each day and you’re noticing tremendous growth in traffic compared to previous months – now what?

Many people run into the issue of having conquered their search engine marketing goals, but continue to see low conversion rates. The issue I see is that many marketers and website owners neglect the design, layout and the effectiveness of their landing pages while focusing primarily on conquering Google, Yahoo and MSN.

Taking it a step further - the quality of design, information architecture and product content is the most crucial component in generating any type of lead or sale on your website. In fact, many businesses can simply increase sales by focusing on converting the visitors they already have rather than by adding more traffic.

For example, would you rather convert 500 of 30,000 visitors or convert 1000 of 10,000 visitors? The point is, with proper testing and design alterations; you can achieve these types of results.

While I won’t go into great detail in this article, below are a few things that will improve the sales and conversion rate of any website:

1. Put yourself in your customer shoes – Walk through your site, role-playing as a customer and ask yourself, would you buy into what you’re selling? Does your site give you (the customer) everything you need in order to make a decision on purchasing the product or inquiring on for more information? Are there things you could add to your site that a customer might be looking for?

2. Video – Video is exploding and there is HUGE opportunity within the business arena for the use of video demos and tutorials. For example, if you sell a product, having some sort of video or demo where users can see the product in action will dramatically improve conversions. How many times have you been sold on a product from watching an infomercial? Don’t tell me I’m the only one with a bowflex collecting dust in the garage.

3. Literature – This is more so relevant in the B2B market, but vital for any web presence. Having literature such as brochures, data sheets, white papers, articles and press releases readily available for download can sometimes be the difference from someone buying or walking.

In Conclusion
As I’ve mentioned many times before, there are numerous things that goes into achieving success on the web. It’s a constant challenge that every company faces. Yes, search engine marketing is important in driving visitors to your website, but the quality of design and content is what’s going to engage the user and close the deal.

If you have any questions or would like more insight on achieving higher sales and conversions, send me an email.

When optimizing a site for search engines, writing quality content using competitive keywords is crucial. Although keyword density on a web page is important for ranking well on search engines – key phrases can be even more valuable to your search engine optimization (SEO) campaign.

Keywords are important, but they are very competitive and expensive in regards to paid inclusion (Pay-Per-Click). Key Phrases (more detailed and specific search phrases) on the other hand has a laundry list of benefits. Not only are they less competitive, key phrases attract serious, more qualified visitors.

Think about this, when people aren’t sure what they want, they tend to search using generic keywords (cars, bags, shoes, picture frames, new homes, pc software, gardening tools, dogs etc.). This isn’t rocket science, it’s just common sense. People today are smart. The majority of people (consumers) searching the web understand that generic keywords will bring back a gazillion results that may or may not bring back what they want. It’s a crap shoot. But when people are serious, ready to buy, looking for a specific solution – you best believe they will be searching using longer, more specific key phrases.

For example:

When someone is ready to buy a used car, they don’t search on used cars - they search on “2006 range rover fully loaded”.

When someone is looking for a certain bag, they don’t search on bags - they search on “kenneth cole black leather messenger bag”.

When someone is looking to buy a pair of shoes at a discount price, they don’t search on shoes - they search on “discounted mens dress shoes”.

When someone is looking to purchase a dog, they don’t search on dogs - they search on “beagle puppies for sale in los angeles”

When someone is looking to buy a new home, they don’t search on new homes, they search on “new homes in porter ranch california”

When someone is looking for a specific lawn mower, they don’t search on lawn mowers, they search on “john deere riding lawn mowers”.

I’m sure you get the point.

In Conclusion
Single keywords are often very competitive, expensive and saturated within the search market. Focusing on more detailed specific key phrases will allow you to achieve faster and higher page rank. You will also attract more serious, qualified visitors. This long tail approach to search is a strategy that has been growing over the past few years. Basically, while there is a huge demand, very competitive market for generic keywords, there is a long tail of less competitive and more specific key phrases that exceeds the market share of the more popular keywords. So take a look at your title tags and make sure to focus on key phrases instead of generic keywords.

If have any questions or would like assistance with your search engine marketing (SEM) initiatives, please send us an email.

Web users tend to dislike banner ads - especially the infamous pop-up banner ads (hence all the pop-up blocker tools out on the market). The click-through rate (CTR) on banner ads are generally low, below 1 percent. In addition, people visit websites not for the banner ads but for the content it provides.

If you asked a random group of people today how they feel about online banner ads, they would most likely tell you that they either hate them, they get in the way of reading content, or that they really don’t care. No one besides a web designer or marketer would tell you that they like banner ads. So if people generally dislike banner ads and banner are so “annoying”, why is it that a large percentage of the top 100 visited websites (from Alexa.com) display banner ads, and continue to grow in popularity? Besides the fact that these websites provide great content and services - my theory is that users are subconsciously affected by online banner ads in many ways that draws them into a website rather than discouraging them.

My theory is that banner ads subconsciously tell users that the site is Free, it’s Alive and it’s Popular. This train of thought came about recently while I was researching a new car on many of the popular car buying websites (cars.com, edmunds.com, carsdirect.com etc.). In addition to the popular sites, I might have visited over 50 different websites that offered car reviews and info. Some of them I liked, others not so much. I’m always searching for new things to write about, so I began to question myself on why certain car related websites stood out over others. Why did I spend more time on certain sites, and not so much on others? Why did some sites draw me in while others didn’t? Keep in mind, all of the sites I visited provided the same type of information.

So I began to list out characteristics of the sites I that I liked and sites that I didn’t like. While I was building my list, I noticed that almost all of the sites I liked had some sort of banner ad. And the sites that I didn’t feel so highly about contained no banner ads. This was interesting to me. Can banner ads have some sort of effect on a user? Of course. It’s like with any flash component of a website – it’s animated, it generates movement, it’s engaging.

The Subcoucious Affect of Banner Ads
Not only can banner ads liven up a flat static website with animated movement, but Banner ads subconsciously give users a feeling that the website is FREE, that there are more people on this site, that the site must be popular, that the site is alive and kicking. Users subconsciously are thinking it has to be a popular site, it’s generating ad revenue, right? All of these things lead to visitors staying on the site that much longer, making an extra click into site, taking a step further beyond the home page - all of which benefits the website owner.

The next time you visit a popular website, whether it’s CNN.com, ESPN.com, take note of the ads. How well are the banner ads designed? Are the banner ads from major brands? These ads may be affecting you without you even knowing it. Also, take note of similar sites that doesn’t display banner ads – is there a difference that you can tell. Does the site without banner feel different? It’s just something to think about.

In Conclusion
There are many things that can make or break a website. My theory on the affect banner ads have on users is just one example. These are just my thoughts on the hidden value that animated or static banners can add to your site. If you have a free, informational base website that competes with other leading brands that rank higher than you on competitive keywords – make sure the ads on your site are consistent with the ads on the leading websites. Build relationships with leading brands and place ads on your site for free until you begin to generate a high volume of traffic. This instantly gives you a look and feel that is similar to all the big players – giving users the impression that your site must be just as good as the ones at the top.

Please feel free to share your thoughts?

When optimizing a landing page, one of the challenges webmasters and marketers face is whether to go with a single-page landing page, conversion path or microsite (also known as a minisite). The question we often get asked here at VigorFish is - which one converts higher? Which is better? The short answer is – They all work well. Any landing page approach have the potential to convert at a high rate as there are many factors that goes into the success of any landing page or online marketing campaign.

Before we get into the benefits of each, let’s define each one.

What is a Landing Page? (Single Page) – From Wikipedia, In online marketing a landing page, sometimes known as a lead capture page, is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link. Ok, that’s pretty simple. Example of a basic landing page

What is a Conversion Path? – A conversion path is a sequence of pages that a user navigates through after reaching the page from a particular marketing ad or link, qualifying the user, narrowing their decision on a particular product or service before taking the final step in completing the web form. Simple Conversion Path Diagram

What is a Microsite or Minisite? - A microsite (also called a minisite) is a small website, normally containing a few pages and with a narrow focus. The microsite is often always a section of a larger site. For a good example of a microsite, you can look at almost any car dealership website and find one. Take Honda.com for instance, Honda.com isn’t a microsite as you’ll find information on their total product suite (all of their vehicles). But like many other car dealerships, Honda may build microsite’s to hightlight specific cars like with their new electric car, the Honda FCX Clarity.

Each of these different landing page experiences (single page, conversion path or microsite) can be linked to any online or offline marketing ad. They’re all used with the goal of getting the user to commit, sign-up, complete a web form, call and inquire on more information etc. Each of these experiences has been successful overtime and remains true today.

Let’s take a look at each landing page approach in more detail.

The Single Landing Page Approach
The standard single page approach has been used from the beginning of time (and it works). You can run a search on Google and find articles and blog posts saying otherwise, that single landing pages only convert in the single digits while other landing page approaches convert higher. But that is simply not true in all cases. It’s simply a matter of how well the landing page is designed and presented. I’ve personally managed many online and email marketing campaigns using single page landing pages and have had great results in many cases. One tactic is to add an incentive to your message, provide an incentive for the user to sign-up or complete a web form and watch your conversion rate jump. I’ll actually discuss the power of incentive in later article. But for now, my point is, don’t throw away your single landing pages just yet.

Single landing page experiences work well for items (PDF downloads, Reports, Brochures, White Papers etc.) that can be explained in a few words. For example, an ad that reads “FREE 40-Page Guide on Email Marketing” is fairly self explanatory. Meaning, as a user, there’s not much more you need to know to want to download the free guide. As the end user, knowing that it’s free, it’s 40 pages of information and it pertains to email marketing is really all you need to know. As the marketer, you only need to present a simple one-page well designed landing page, few bullet points, a cover shot of the PDF etc. All of this can be done using a single page.

The Conversion Path Experience
Conversion path experiences are great for segmenting and qualifying users. If you want to capture marketing intelligence, segment or qualify respondents before they complete a particular web form or inquire about your product/service, then using a conversion path experience is the best approach. For example, let’s say Microsoft runs an ad campaign for their Vista operating system. Upon clicking the ad and landing on the landing page, Microsoft may want to segment users between home base users and business users - leading each group down a path that better pertains to their needs. This is both helpful to Microsoft as well as the user.

The Microsite Experience
Microsites are great when there is an opportunity to present an abundance of information about a product or service in an engaging, user friendly manner. For example, Honda may run an ad campaign on a new electric car. In this case, Honda’s marketing team may want to direct users to a well designed microsite featuring the electric car. A microsite in this case could possibly have several pages featuring car specs and details, pricing options, photo gallery, consumer reviews, videos, brochures and wallpaper downloads etc.

In Conclusion
Each of the different landing pages has its benefit. My suggestion is to use the appropriate landing page experience based on what you want to accomplish with your campaign and the type of product/service you’re providing. Always remember that there is no right or wrong answer. There is no one secret – it’s all a process. Great success in any campaign is based on testing, measuring and evaluating. Also, gaining high conversions depends on many things such as landing page design, user incentive to follow through and target audience. Good luck with your next campaign. If you have any questions, shoot me an email.

Which approach you are using or have had success with?

When designing a website, knowing what your customer’s needs are is pretty important. You’re probably thinking “well, duh”. Ok, sure, we all know that it’s important to know your customer, but what I’m talking about is understanding what your customer expects when they visit your website. In other words, put yourself in your customer shoes and ask yourself, does my website answer their needs? Answering these questions and improving your website can build strong customer relationships and increase your conversion rate.
 
Role Play as Your Customer
When analyzing a website for potential clients (a service we offer free at VigorFish), one of the things we like to do is role play and browse through the site from beginning to end as the customer. This allows us to point out potential problem areas.

When analyzing the website, we gather everything we need to know about the customer and write out a few real-life scenarios. For example, let’s say we’re reviewing a website for a company that sells shoes (i.e. Zappos.com - not a VigorFish client, I promise!). An example customer scenario/profile would be:
 
Customer: Joe Smith
Gender: Male
Age: 45
Shoe Buying Budget: $30 - $50
Needs: Not sure what brand he wants. He’s just looking for a comfortable shoe that he can where for working around the house, running errands etc.
What’s Important: Price and Comfort

Now that we have a few details of our fictitious customer Joe Smith, we can then proceed to go through the website as the customer and begin to list out all the problem areas.

In this scenario, the most important things that I would look for in the website are:

• Featured Selections – A featured selection of popular shoes due to the fact that the customer doesn’t know what brand he wants. Having a starting point of featured popular choices would be a good starting point.
• Group Shoes By Price Option - Ability to categorize shoes based on price would be helpful.
• Shoe Description – Detailed descriptions and features of the shoe would be very helpful since Joe is concerned about comfort.
• Customer Reviews – Customer reviews would be helpful to Joe since comfort is really important to him. Product reviews allows customers to make educated decisions.

If you take the time and run this process on the zappos.com website, you’ll notice that they’re actually right on and does answer all the needs from our scenario.

Is Your Website Designed Based On Your Customer’s Needs?
If you run a web business or are in charge of your company’s web presence - I would encourage you to run through this process a few times. Create a few customer scenarios and run through the site from the home page to the end conversion. Along the way, list out all the problem areas and things that your site doesn’t have that would benefit the customer. In doing so, you could end up with a long list of possible problem areas. There isn’t a need to correct them all at once. Just chip away at them one at a time and you’ll begin to see progress overtime.

If you would like a free evaluation of your website, please send me an email.

I’m currently in the market looking to buy/lease a new Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV) for the family and I find myself visiting all the popular dealer websites – GMC, Lincoln, Cadillac and Infiniti. I have been going from site to site reading/viewing as much content as possible.

Content is King
It’s actually been a while since I’ve been on the consumer end researching a product/service of interest and really relying on the web for answers and details. In this particular case, being that it’s an important purchase for me and a long term commitment, I need as much information possible for me to make a decision. I’m interested in everything from photos, videos, 360 degree interior views, exterior views, written reviews, etc. The more information I have on each vehicle, the better. In other words, as the consumer, I need content – lots of it.

This entire process has reminded me of the importance of valuable product content and how it leads to longer visits as well as higher conversions. At VigorFish, we’ve experienced this first hand with our redesign of Tredent.com. Our redesign of Tredent.com included an overdose of content, which we’ve seen a huge increase in conversions as well as higher search engine rankings.

People Do Read!
It’s been said that people generally don’t read on the web – they scan. That only applies to browsing. When browsing, people generally scan pages, read headlines and move on. But when the visitor is a serious buyer - the more content provided on that product/service to that user the better. When I speak of content, this includes everything from written web content, photos, flash demos, videos, articles, brochures, data sheets, white papers, case studies, product reviews etc.

This applies to any website in any market – Business-to-Business or Business-to-Consumer. If you sell a product or service, having valuable content on your website will increase visitor stay and increase your chances of converting that visitor into a customer.

Content Presentation is Important
On a final note – the presentation of your content is crucial. If you have tons of content to offer, you want to make sure visitors can easily access this content without any difficulty. A cluttered website may overwhelm the user and discourage repeat visits. Always keep it simple.

If you’re currently in the market, in need of professional help with your website or information architecture, please send me an email – we can help.

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools available to businesses of all types and sizes.  It is inexpensive and has been known to be 20 times more cost effective than direct mail. But delivering your message can be tricky. With all the different email clients on the market today (Outlook, Thunderbird, Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, AOL etc.), you have to make sure you design your email so that it’s compatible across the board.

Without overwhelming you with all the requirements/details of each email client, below I list a few simple tips you can start using today that can assure you that your email has a chance of being read on any email client.

• Keep it simple

I would argue that this is probably the best approach to designing anything. Less is more. Whether you’re designing a website, promotional email or even an email newsletter - keep it simple. Keeping your design simple, using less code, being clear in your message will offer you the best chance of your email being read, regardless of the email client (either on PC or mobile device).

You can really say more with less. In addition, people really don’t have time to read through long emails. Your headline or subject line should give the end user everything they need to know. Follow your headline with clear, easy to read paragraphs (I would say no more than three) and use simple graphics (right aligned). Just keep it simple. Remember, simple is safe. And with all the various email restrictions out there, you’re better safe than sorry.

• Keep graphics to a minimum

Graphics are great, but keep them to a minimum. Many email clients today have images turned-off by default. It’s a great security measure for the user but a pain for marketers when they want to get their brand message across. The best approach is to keep it simple and stick to no more than three graphics in your email. One, for your logo/header, and possibly one to two graphics within the body.

A few other tips on using graphics - you shouldn’t use graphics for important information such as headlines or key messages. Also, test your email and make sure that the main point in your message can be read if images are turned off.

• Always provide a link to a web version of your email

You’ve probably seen this before where there’s a link at the top of an email that reads something like this: If you have trouble reading this email, please click here. This is a must have!

Sometimes your email design isn’t that simple, but quite informative and packed with tons of information (such as a monthly newsletter). And with the various email clients and restrictions, your email design for whatever reason may not display properly. So linking to a web version of your email allows every recipient on any email client (PC or mobile device) the chance to read and view a complete web version email in it’s entirety within their default web browser.

There’s a ton of information out there to learn on email marketing. Lot’s of valuable stuff to discuss another day. But for now, using these simple tips in designing your next email will assure you that your message has the best chance of being read.

If you are currently running an email marketing campaign or looking to start and are in need of assistance, simply send me an email. I would be glad to discuss your project in more detail.

I’m sure we all know the importance of a strong brand. But not everyone understands what it takes to develop their brand. When I speak with clients and business owners, they’ll often agree with me on the importance of building a strong brand. But quite often, I’ll find that the people in charge of maintaining the brand (the employees) are often so busy and caught up in day-to-day work that they lose focus and simply forget about maintaining brand consistency.

Consistency Is Key
Consistency solidifies a strong brand, while inconsistency weakens it. Creating a brand is instant. But strengthening that brand takes time. The number one rule in building a strong brand is consistency.

At VigorFish, we primarily deal with the web so we’re often preaching the importance of a consistent web presence to our clients. It’s very important to keep a consistent style throughout your site. Whether it’s being consistent with color scheme, font choice, button styles or quality of stock photography – keeping the website consistent and using consistent brand elements will only strengthen the company’s brand image over time.

Inconsistency Weakens Your Brand
This concept of staying consistent not only applies to the web, but any portion of your business where the brand is being represented. An example I like to use is with Bank of America. For the record - I’m a happy customer with BofA for over 14 years. Also, I think BofA has a great brand. I only use BofA in this example because they’re the first bank that comes to mind. 

When I think of Bank of America, I get this image of a large company that values great customer service. I imagine it’s a part of their brand image. Let’s say I walk into the bank and I’m helped by a representative that has a bad attitude and that isn’t so helpful. As the customer, I’ll leave the bank thinking BofA offers terrible service. I then tell my friends, they tell theirs and so on. On the other hand, other customers served by other representatives with good attitudes will leave the bank on better terms. 

In this example, Bank of America’s brand is still intact – it’s just inconsistent. Some customers will be happy with their service, but others will not. The inconsistency of quality customer service will only hurt Bank of America’s brand image over time.

It’s the same when you visit a website with a poor design, inconsistent behavior or an unfriendly user interface. Most users will leave the site with a bad impression. Others may not. In the end, the inconsistency only weakens the brand.

Keep it Consistent
The concept is quite simple (Consistency) but the follow-through can be difficult. That’s why companies like VigorFish and other brand agencies are so important. Our passion is brand development. We’re passionate about building strong brands and improving brand awareness. So having a team like VigorFish on board to maintain your company’s brand image is invaluable.
 
Thanks for visiting and reading our first blog post here at VigorFish. We hope to continue to share our insight, thoughts and feelings over the next several decades.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss how we can help improve your brand or online web presence, send me an email.