One of the most critical parts of the ever-discussed conversion optimization (that our Search Visibility team just happens to excel at) is that of landing-page optimization. There are many, many things that can go into influencing the conversion of a customer on your website, but this is one of the most powerful. We thought we’d give you a quick how-to guide so that you can get started on turning your website visitors into customers.

The overall point of landing page optimization is to make the web page relevant to the user (know they have reached the right place), easy to read or skim (prove expertise), and to guide the user to further action (purchase, sign-up, etc). It can be extremely challenging to boil it down to those three aspects when you are writing a landing page, but those are the critical elements. Any other content on the page should either help inform their decision or be a vehicle for keywords.

Working with Existing Content

Landing page optimization can seem completely overwhelming, especially when some websites have hundreds of landing pages. One of the first things to realize is that landing page optimization doesn’t mean rewriting hundreds of pages of content, it means optimizing existing content.

So one of the best ways to get started is to identify poorly performing pages (high bounce rate, low graphic quality, high density of text) and knock them out one by one. Make sure that you come up with a flexible but consistent page structure and items needed on each page (calls to action, in-line links). This will help you ensure consistency across your optimization.

Establishing Relevance, Right off the Bat

It’s been said over and over, but keyword relevance is really the top priority for search visibility as well as effectiveness. Because each ad group in your paid search campaigns can contain different kinds of keywords, it can be difficult to pick the best keywords to put into your landing page. One of the best ways that you can reassure your potential client that they have reached the right page is to put the search term (or the closest form of it) right at the top of the page. Besides allowing you to rank (paid and organically) for that term, it establishes an immediate connection with the potential client. You understand what they are searching for; you are the person who can answer their question.

Keyword Selection

There are a few ways that you can pick the other best search terms to include. However the best method is to pick the highest performing paid keywords, as well as some long-tail organic search terms you’d like to rank higher for. For example, these keyword phrases could include: ‘frozen corn distributors,’ or ‘top frozen corn distribution companies.’ Try to identify 3-5 keywords for a single landing page, in order to get a few in, but not too many.

Once you have identified the top keywords you would like to include in your landing page, it is then time to get crafty. There really is an art and a science to adding keywords into your landing pages, without it looking like keyword stuffing. Though it can be tempting, try to avoid putting strings of keywords together too closely (3+ in a sentence), or sticking them into a sentence that doesn’t make sense. When you get down to it, you can really easily read online copy that is the victim of keyword stuffing. We will suggest an instance where you can have many keywords close together, but it is less noticeable.

Try to build meaningful sentences around your keywords, so that they naturally flow, are relevant and answer the needs of the person landing on the page:

"As the leading frozen food distribution company in the greater northwest, our company strives to not just meet but exceed your needs by delivering the highest quality ingredients matched with efficient service."

Calls to Action/Next Steps

If you think about it, most web pages are simply a vehicle to take a user somewhere else; deeper into the website, to get more information, to an inquiry or check-out. This is why an impactful call-to-action is critically important. Whether people know it or not, when they reach a webpage they are always looking for the next step, and they want this next step to call out to them ASAP. Keeping the call-to-action as close to the top of the page will help drive them faster to their end goal, and will yield better conversion results for you.

However, users are pretty savvy when it comes to the common call-to-action phrases. Choosing a few different impactful and engaging action-phrases will help make it seem less ‘sales-y.’ Stay away from such common phrases as ‘Click Here’ or ‘Buy Now.’ The phrase ‘Learn More’ can be easily worn out, but is still a valuable phrase to keep in the toolbox when used sparingly.

It is also important to put a highly-targeted keyword within your call to action. This not only leads them where they ultimately need to go, but adds additional credibility.

Think of your call-to-action as a solution oriented sentence, learning more information about your company or purchasing products from your company should solve a need for them. So what would be an engaging and impactful call to action for our frozen food friends?

‘Speak to one of our representatives to find out how Sweet Pea Frozen Organics separates itself from other frozen food distributors by providing the highest quality organic frozen vegetables that can increase your product offerings to satisfy every customer.’

White Space, Lists, Graphics

Landing page optimization isn’t just about keyword insertion; it’s rooted in user experience design as well. If the page is not intuitive enough to guide your prospect to where they need to go, contains too much dense text, or is just plain ugly, then you are in trouble.

Having a balance between white space and text is important because too much text overwhelms your user, and they will likely skim over the text until they reach what they want. This means making the information easy for them to find. Try to limit the lengths of your paragraphs to three sentences at most. If you have a lot of critical information, try to break it up into paragraphs so that it looks easier to read.

Another great technique to not only summarize information on your landing pages, but also include keywords is to use bulleted lists, matrices or graphics that represent the information. Interactive graphics can be a great way to represent text in a more meaningful way.

So that’s a pretty basic how-to on landing page optimization, but it should get you started in the right direction for your website conversion optimization to make sure that your web pages are converting users into customers.