Landing page optimization is probably the first thing most website owners try when their sites are generating traffic but few sales. For most website owners, optimizing a landing page boils down to two strategies:

1. Website Split Testing

This is a pretty straightforward technique: Simply switch out headlines, price points, value propositions, etc. and then split test them against the original. It sounds simple enough but most website owners will quit within a few weeks after failing to produce any needle-moving gains in conversions. This is because most website owners are either testing landing page tools that either have no bearing on conversions (like headlines) or weren’t a problem in the first place.

2. Rewriting and Redesigning the Landing Page

This is another very logical landing page optimization strategy but it has one major flaw: This is extremely wasteful. Most landing pages are designed with around 12 or more sales tools (like value proposition, post script, testimonials, etc.) and in many cases, only 1 or 2 tools are suppressing the conversions. So rewriting and/or redesigning a landing page from scratch is like killing the cow to get rid of a tick. Sure, you’ll kill the tick-but at what cost?

Now are you ready for the crazy part? In many cases, the landing page isn’t the biggest conversion problem on the site so investing precious resources trying to optimize it is inefficient and won’t net you the best ROI. To avoid wasting resources, conversion rate optimization experts use web traffic analysis. And for landing page optimization in particular, heat mapping analysis helps avoid the guesswork and zero-in on copywriting and landing page design issues.

In many cases, the CRO experts find that the landing page isn’t the primary conversion problem. Now that isn’t to say that the landing page doesn’t have some issues. But in a significant number of sites, conversion rate experts find these three issues are suppressing sales more than the landing page:

1. Weak Traffic

Is your time on site less than 2 minutes and you have a high average bounce rate? Well unless you have a very simple squeeze page or lead generating site, that likely means you have one or more weak traffic sources. If the traffic is untargeted and you are targeting a large proportion of non-transactional keywords, then the best landing page in the world will still convert poorly.

2. Poor Sales Funneling

Are 50% or fewer of total website visitors making it to your primary landing or sales page(s)? If so, then you have a weak sales funnel that simply isn’t prompting enough visitors to your primary sales tool. And if they never reach your landing page, how can it convert them into buyers? This is a common problem for sites with strong seo (and a lot of articles or blogs driving traffic to the site) and can be fixed with a strong CTA placed at the bottom of all traffic generating content to funnel them to the primary sales or landing pages.

3. Shopping Cart Problem

Do you have an abandonment rate above 60% (abandonment rate is the percentage of visitors who reach your shopping cart but don’t purchase)? If so, then your problem is isolated to the shopping cart and could be caused by any one of these factors:

-Confusing Shopping Cart Design

-Inaccurate Information (discrepancy between pricing on landing page and in shopping cart)

-No Credibility Logos (like BBB, verisign, etc.)

-Too Many Add-Ons and/or Forced Continuity Billing

Concluding Thoughts

Make no mistake: Landing pages are the prime suspects if a website is not converting a consistent and profitable level of visitors into buyers. However, if you have been trying website split testing or replacing the landing page copywriting/design but still having conversion problems, consider looking at the traffic quality, percentage of visitors to the landing page, and abandonment rate as other possibilities.

Neil Rimmer is a conversion rate optimization expert specializing in boosting conversion rates and online profits. To learn more about how a conversion rate expert can deliver far higher ROI than SEO, SMM, PPC, or content marketing experts, just visit: http://www.conversionomics.com.au today.

Neil Rimmer is a conversion rate optimization expert specializing in boosting conversion rates and online profits. To learn more about how a conversion rate expert can deliver far higher ROI than SEO, SMM, PPC, or content marketing experts, just visit: http://www.conversionomics.com.au today.

Author Bio: Neil Rimmer is a conversion rate optimization expert specializing in boosting conversion rates and online profits. To learn more about how a conversion rate expert can deliver far higher ROI than SEO, SMM, PPC, or content marketing experts, just visit: http://www.conversionomics.com.au today.

Category: Internet
Keywords: landing page optimization, conversion rate expert, conversion rate optimization, CRO expert