There has been no easily accessible way for account owners to measure and optimise when sales or leads happen offline via the telephone. One solution has been paid for telephone tracking and we’ve offered this as a service for a few years now very successfully but extra costs are incurred with every call so whilst it’s a solution that adds value and does give transparancy it comes at a price.

The new AdWords conversion import feature will assist in the measuring and optimisation of the complete customer journey from start to finish of the process, With the introduction of the conversion import tracking you can upload your offline conversion event data into your AdWords account and get visibility into how clicks lead to sales made offline.

Your can read how to import your offline AdWords conversion data here

As well as being able to import your conversion data, you can also input the sales value to fully flesh out your AdWords data and really asses the value of each keyword.

This will be particularly useful for service industries where sales are closed offline, face to face or over the phone, it will take the guess work out of optimising the account as often it’s difficult to make judgement calls on keywords that have no lead data showing online but may have generated non tracked phone calls etc. that turn into sales.

Google seems to be moving the tracking forward this month hard as they just also released  cross acount conversion tracking and search funnels too, read more here.

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One that came to our attention (thanks to Simon our senior ppc account manager) recently was Bellroy Wallets which is a clean, well laid out site, their concept is to “slim your wallet” and the value proposition is “Same 10 Cards & Cash. Very Different Wallets.” The main image on the home page is shown below :

This is a nice concept, visually the sleek wallet on the right is more attractive so by using the image (doesn’t hurt that the other wallet is old and a little tatty, and the image is set on a beach either) they instantly show what their wallets do for people.

More interestingly from a marketing point of view they have a dedicated landing page where they are pushing paid traffic. This can be accessed from the home page under the “Take the challenge”  link.

The “slim your wallet” landing page is a great model to follow to build attention, interest, desire then action, it’s not only well designed it’s interactive too!

Upon hitting the landing page you’ll see this :

1) Good logo placement, not too big, not too small.
2) Text implies you are going to learn, not be sold to.
3) Prominent value proposition.
4) Good use of imagery, old = bad, new = good!
5) Call to action; ‘scroll down to learn how’.

Upon scrolling down the landing page you’ll see the next section :

6) Progress steps, let users know where they are, sets expectations up too : step 1 of four
7) Tell them what they are going to learn.
8) Section heading, imaginatively titled.
9) Preamble to section, builds attention.
10) Interactive button, when clicked shows huge stuffed wallets.
11) Concise sub heading.
12) Well placed imagery and bullet pointed text boxes.
13) Breadcrumb trail to pull you to the next section.

The next section of the landing page moves to “fix the problem” mode :

14) Showing where the user is; Step two of four.
15) Tell them what they are going to learn.
16) Section heading.
17) Call to action; Take your wallet out.
18) Breadcrumb to keep eyes moving down the page.
19) Educate the user; Tip section.
20) Good use of imagery, too much text is no good!
21)  Interactive area, too much reading is boring, clicking helps keep interest.
22) Concise but useful tip text.
23) Indicator that there are two more images to see, not everyone will see the < and > symbols.

The next screen on the landing page is the “finish” screen on the education side of the page :

24) Breadcrumb trail leading the eye every downwards.
25) Big “you did it” congratulations sign.
26) Statement of accomplishment.
27) Great use of moving imagery; slowly bounces up and down.
28) Positive statement.
29) Call to action to press the button.
30) Call to action to “become a slim ninja” (jumps to next section if pressed)
31) Breadcrumb trail, it’s worked so far so why not one more time!

The next section on the landing page is to consolidate what their offering is, part 1) :

32) Different background colour, conveys different content, breaks the monotony up too.
33) Telling the user where they are; step three of four.
34)  Telling what they are going to learn.
35)  Section heading.
36)  Sub heading.
37) Breadcrumb trail, could have squashed content but use of space adds design clarity.
38) Company philosophy section, point 1.
39) Concise text, neither too much or too little, just right.
40) Strong use of imagery to make a strong visual impact on the product’s value.
41) Interactive slider, really impacts when you move it just how great their product is.
42) Breadcrumb trail, it’s worked well so far, you are still here so comply and read on!

Image below of the wallets when the slider in point 41 above is moved to the maximum setting of 10 cards plus cash :

This tool and resulting imagery alone sells the product to me instantly!

The second part of this section on the landing page is below :

43) Breadcrumbs still working nicely!
44) Telling the user what they are going to learn.
45) Concise text again, less is more!
46) High quality imagery.
47) Interactive element again, makes the user get involved.
48) Image indicator, highlights to the user there are four screens.
49) Yup, you guessed it.. more breadcrumbs!

The final screen on this great landing page, finally, it’s been a long journey down the page but you are still reading and so will be most users on this landing page!

50) Telling the user they are on the final screen.
51) Telling the user what they are going to learn.
52) Subheading that directs the user to continue.
53) Question, great sales starts with a question, makes the user sell it to themselves.
54) Choice, “do you want a wallet?” becomes “Which wallet suits you best?”
55) Clear buyer type classification, “Folded” or “Flat” bills.
56) Clarification statement, explains more clearly the quality each wallet style possess.
57) Great product naming conventions, “Card Sleeve”, “Very Small”, “Very Protective” etc.
58) Transparency; Quantifies how many cards will fit.
59) Good call to action; “SHOP” not “BUY NOW” – leads user to a very focussed product page.
60) Pricing, clear, on the page but smaller than the SHOP button.
61) High quality imagery, with pop up when hovered over.
62) Transparency; indicator of qualities, Slim versus featured.
63) Exit buttons options: keeps users on site, back to home page and view range.
64) Social Media buttons, user may not buy but may like product and share.

This brand, site, products and landing page rocks, high quality design, copyrighting and imagery all play a part to educate, entertain and ultimately sell to the user in a very low impact way.

This landing page goes in from an educational point of view, rather than straight into a sales pitch, they could have led with their materials sourcing, the tanning process, the manufacturing process and why their wallets are of the highest quality but the imagery on site conveys the quality anyway and they instead focus upon solving a very common problem of fat, bulging wallets that stick in people’s pockets.

Check out the actual landing page here, go play with the interactive elements and see how it draws you into their products.

The post Landing Page Case Study – Bellroy Wallets appeared first on .

The elements on page work awesomely to convert visitors into free sign ups :

1) Logo – Nice simple logo taking up minimal space but highly visible

2) FREE – Always a good word to include free if you offering is free.

3) Exclusivity – Another great thing, says “It’s just for you” (if you’re a man!)

4) Cool People – Wearing good clothes, cool & diverse range here too, casual to smart!

5) Value Proposition – Says what using Thread will do for  you.

6) Sub Heading – Explains the service more, sells the benefits of Thread.

7)  Data Capture - Sign up area nicely situated after building up desire.

8) Speed  - “Takes 2 mins” – implies it’s fast and easy to complete.

9)  Sentence Based Form – Including text boxes within sentences converts better.

10) Call To Action – “Next” rocks, note that it’s not “Sign Up” or “Join”. This
implies no commitment at all at this stage.

11) Testimonial – This one covers what you are thinking.. you’re unsure still, or you would have filled in the form and pressed “Next” already, and this testimonial addresses this thought perfectly.

12)  People – Putting a picture gives testimonials far more impact and adds legitimacy.

13) Social Proof – Which awesome places feature Thread, This implies that if these places like Thread then it’s good enough for you!

14) FAQ – Answers what you are thinking about how it works.

15) Bullet Points – People scan information so bullet points make this easier to absorb.

16) FAQ – Answers how it can be FREE, Thread is being transparent and honesty here about how they earn money from the service they offer you for free.

17 ) FAQ –  Answers WHY stylists work with Thread.

All in all this is one of the best landing pages we’ve seen in this sector, the only thing I feel is missing is at the bottom where I feel it would benefit from a further call to action area or at the very least a call to action button.
Next Page :

Once you fill in your name, I filled mine in before even realising I’d done it, text boxes in sentences are magnetic, it’s hard not to fill one in! you then go to the next page which has this area on it :

Upon loading this page your name is pre-filled from the previous page and Thread just asks for 3 more items of your data to proceed, which is all the data they need at this point, no doubt they need more info later but not now so they don’t ask for it yet.

The choice to use Facebook is there too, lots of people prefer to login to sites with Facebook so this will boost conversion for them again for those too lazy to type their name or preferring to login in future via Facebook.

Finally their call to action “Get Started” is action orientated, it implies that something good is going to happen rather than acquiescing to a standard “Sign Up” or “Join” button etc. that most sites use.

In closing.. Only Thread know how well this page is working for them but we feel this has the right elements in place to be converting at a fantastic rate!

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PPC has evolved massively over the last decade, but so have companies using it, so it’s now harder than ever to get the full value from AdWords, as a PPC Agency we have to focus on squeezing every ounce of value from each visitor that we can and this means designing landing pages for conversion rather than just looking pretty.

It’s also critical to be thinking about visitors as being on various levels by identifying what stage they are at in the sales cycle, what they are looking to do and finding some way to relate to them that creates a positive impression if they aren’t ready to buy just yet. Ideally either capture  their data via a newsletter sign up, report download or facebook likes etc. so that you can then reach out to them at your will rather then relying on them to come back to you.

Also under utilised are call to action statements and buttons,  and enquiry forms, far too many sites just expect users to click the contact page, hunt for an email or fill in the form there, there’s nothing that boosts conversion like a well designed, compact, enquiry form.

One example of enquiry form which we worked on was a cosmetic surgery clinic specialising in non invasive procedures, their current landing pages explained what they did, had pictures and video on but didn’t really have call to actions that generated much response, we totally redesigned their landing page and placed prominent “Send us your enquiry” forms on the page (in addition to call to action buttons sprinkled through the page). The enquiry forms combined with AdWords optimisation increased the conversion rate by a whopping 2,525 percent.

The landing page that we built was designed to tell a story, build the picture of who the client is, where they’ve appeared in the media, address common questions, who’s used them and what they think of the experience, why you would use them, what they do and how etc. and finally bullet points again as to why to choose them, then prompt to get in touch via the enquiry form.

As a result of this approach and the optimisation of the AdWords account the cost per lead has reduced from a percentage reduction of NINETY SIX percent! from a high hundreds of pounds figure that has now been knocked down to a nice double digit figure.

This enquiry form works far better to “Book your surgery now” as that’s too much of a commitment step for many potential clients, After testing we found that “Arrange your consultation” worked best, it’s the right wording to convey that you are moving toward solving your problem but haven’t committed to spending your money until you are comfortable, after the consultation.

They still need to be sold on the procedure so whilst the landing page does generate firm booking requests where the client gets in touch and wants a procedure ASAP, it’s often the first point of the lead nurturing cycle for many others, it could be weeks or months before they ultimately book in. The important thing is that the landing page generates interaction, details are captured and these can then be followed up on actively, no need to pay for another PPC click to target the same person.

Thinking past just getting people on site is an important aspect of ppc management, any ppc agency that just sends traffic to your site and  doesn’t really offer any advice or direction on converting it is dropping the ball, you just can’t afford to think you have the best website or landing page ever, you must test to optimise past the visitor and turn them into a lead that you can nurture or sale.

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First; Badging and how not to do it :

The VIP section in a night club operates by making people feel special, they skip the queue, they get an area cordoned off from everyone else, aka the “normal” people, there’s no value attached to anything that’s the same for everybody and that’s the same with badging, if you badge every product up with the same offer then it loses it’s value, it may convert better than having zero badges but you should use the same badge sparingly to really emphasis a few main products, this hopefully then turns it into a question of “WHICH item do I buy?” rather than “Do I buy?” :

The above example of badging that just fades away, the “Save” is pretty bland, generic and doesn’t really stand out, unlike the example below, but they could both go even further with sale badges, discount amount badges, perhaps advice badges too like “Best for Hiking” or “Best For Coastal” etc.  :

As you can see there are two different badges there, one is essentially just saying “New” the other infers a discount by buying online, but they do stand out more than just “sale” – One test to do here might be to remove the rating stars until there is a rating as it could look negative to some people.

How to Badge To Highlight Products You Wish to Sell :

Try to highlight positives, this could be new stock, best rated, fastest, cheapest, free delivery, hard wearing, low weight, most weight, durable, etc. basically try to think about what the purchaser would want to see to make the buying decision, what is important to them etc.

The above examples to the left, whilst offering Free Backrest, paddle and delivery also sets the seed in the users mind that the other two will incur backrest, paddle and delivery costs so a double message is served which makes the first two look good value for money, even though they are  the a little more expensive items.

Show The Savings! 

When badging sale items it’s also good practice to show the saving, rather than just saying “sale” but not quantifying how much they can save, below are a couple of examples of this :

As you can see, three of the items are on sale, showing not only the price (with previous crossed out) but also “Save x%” too in red, The sale stripe isn’t highly visible, trying a different colour background for the stripe could be a good A/B test.

The above badging example shows Free delivery, sale saving percentage as well as the RRP v Sale price.

More sale badging badging below but rather than just all being one type there are some on sale, some not, most show the 50% but it creates a feeling of more choice than just the first example with “Sale” on everything, even though in reality below there’s a saving to be had on every item.

Two examples below of badging v no badging, the first site highlights free boardbags and delivery for two items, then just delivery, also note that the brand logos are there, sale price and even a video icon on the last item.

The second example is pretty bland by comparison, it has a better call to action (the first didn’t have any button!) but doesn’t really offer the same level of incentive to click as the first site does.

Advice Badging :

Rather than just price or delivery information you can use badging to advise potential customers on which products might suit their needs, below is an example with “Our Experts love” which infers that it’s the best camera.

Advice badging works well if you have products or services that appeal to a range of people, for example in Kayak sales you could badge up for “Ideal Beginner”, “Best for Intermediates” or “Expert Kayak”, Snowboards could be badged up for “Best For Powder” or “Fast Board” etc. For camping it could be “Lightest” or “Smallest”. For computers it could be “Fastest” or “Our Choice” etc. For Mobile phones it could be “Longest Battery Life” or “Largest Screen” etc.

If you just wish to sell more of an item, simply putting “Best seller” or “Most Popular” will highlight it, giving social proof to items like that infers that most people choose it.

You might not be sold on the benefits of badging but it’s worth running some tests to see if it makes a difference on site for your product or services.

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We’ve already previously covered that what you are selling isn’t always what people are buying, e.g you sell drills but in reality the customer wants holes, You may sell walking holidays but your client is buying adventure, or  so in AdCopy or AdGroup building and targeting. So when trying to build landing pages or your product pages you really need to understand your potential customers to ensure that you tick all the boxes to appeal to and persuade to as many of them as you can.

One way to do this is by telling a story, or painting a picture with words, obviously photographs help but people throughout history have relied on stories to pass information and it’s a known fact that stories are believed more readily than

Hotels seem to have a good handle on appealing to potential clients with stories, of course they target and bullet point with benefits : Free or super fast WiFi, Pool, Free Newspapers etc. but also the wiser ones push hard on local interests or perceived guest requirements. It could be proximity to a conference centre, or city views, or maybe industry leading quality of their standard room, there’s often something that sets each hotel apart from others.

Here’s an example from the Best Western Donjon Hotel, Carcassonne, France :

They sell the quality in this AdCopy with “Unique Privilege”, they use romance with “UNESCO World Heritage site” , they use exclusivity “the only 4-star hotel in the centre of the medieval citadel” and they add further romance with Become an “Honorary Citadin” as well as “Once over the drawbridge and across the moat” – Most girls are probably day dreaming at this point!

The copy above just sells the place, it creates a sense of adventure, quality, history, culture, architecture and romance, above all it doesn’t fail to deliver either, having stayed here I can say it lives up to all of these things and as a result transference occurs as you seamlessly class the city and hotel as one fantastic experience. Result being very impressed customer more than happy to recommend the hotel. (see it here)

Adcopy like the example above tells a bit of a story, it paints a picture that you fill in yourself, your should consider doing this with your landing pages and sales copy too.

Below is a less romantic example that still works well by the Hampton Inn Washington D.C

Rather than just bullet point so it’s a list of features they paint a picture and extoll the benefits to the busy professional that is their target market.

Below is an example of the Marriott Hotel in York, England :

As you can see it doesn’t really capitalise like the previous examples, they could make much more use of the historical city of York, it was founded by the Romans in 71 AD! so there are 2000 years of history there and the only mention is “Walking distance to historic city walls” – compare this to the DonJon!

The page is just a list of features, rather than benefits woven into an appealing story.

It’s often up to you as the supplier to educate your potential clients whether you offer a product or a service; some will come in at entry level with minimal knowledge, others will have researched a fair bit already, as long as you offer information and advice that is true and highlights the benefits (rather than features) you should do better (price being equal) than those who just push features even if your “Story” is a little sparse it’s still better than just a feature list.

Below is an example of bullet points from Amazon for a “Necky Chatham 16 Kayak :

And then here’s one for the same Kayak with a bit more story from Backcountry.com :

A bit of a difference in sales technique there huh? You can see the full sales page from Backcountry.com here. As you can see it’s more than a bullet list, it paints the picture of being between islands, challenge of rough seas etc. and then explains and educates why each feature is a benefit, i.e Polyethlene hull, is actually able to withstand high impact and abuse as well as UV rays, Amazon’s listing never makes mention of this whatsoever, it just lists Polyethlene hull as a feature without explaining the benefits.

Review your pages now and see if you can work a story into the page, whilst educating and informing, swap features to benefits  you’ll also find that rapport and trust is built by default when you educate .. as long as you are totally honest!

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Conversion optimisation relies on various factors but the one potential bottleneck is your landing page and not having effective call to action buttons or links, you’ve gone to the trouble of targeting via themed AdGroups, writing compelling and highly relevant Ads, landed the clicker on the most relevant page on your site, and then left  your landing page design and story to try to build interest, desire and finally action, yet it’s your call to action that might be letting you down.

Bear in mind that when writing Call To Action text people are usually trying to solve a problem or need that they have, so your product may be a drill but in reality they need a hole, you may sell sporting coats but they really need a warm and waterproof jacket etc. You may sell insurance but they are buying protection, peace of mind or security for their family so think about what words and short phrases that would trigger your users into clicking as it’s what they need.

Our key approaches are :

Trigger Words – These are simple words and key phrases that resonate with your users, if they are looking for a free trial then “Free Trial” would help conversion more than “Read More”.

‘Ronseal’ Names – Ronseal has a reputation for their products doing what it says on the tin, and your CTA’s should be the same, don’t use “Submit” buttons as that’s very dated and subliminally it’s like a command with negative connotations. Internet users have seen thousands of sites and somethings are pretty consistent so don’t get too inventive with the basic Call To Action commands i.e use “Read More” instead of “See Why”.

Slow Date – There seems to be a trend of trying to get a sale made or lead taken sooner and sooner yet you are asking for some commitment just for even an email address these days as they expect to get spammed so your landing page should have trust elements on there (Testimonials, accreditations, reviews stars, partner logos, “as seen on/in” logos etc.) so think about breaking down the the journey into compliance steps.

Egyptian shop owners have this down to an art, they ask you to sign their guestbook, they then give you a cup of steaming hot tea, they then give you free samples, they build rapport by telling you about a relative that lives in your city and how your football team is great, they then sell you stuff you never wanted. (This also relies on reciprocity a little too as you feel like they were nice, free tea and samples etc. deserves some payback).

Don’t try to sell from the outset focus more on telling your story, build the trust, show why they should buy/work with you then ask for a smaller commitment. We do this on our landing pages and sites by having call to action/call me back mini forms around the sites so people can do the action as soon as they like but they can keep reading until they are ready to convert as we lay the story out logically so the conclusion call to action leads them to the next step.

Friends With Benefits – If you can add some benefit statement around your call to action then that helps, “Try Free Now – No Credit Card Required” is stronger than “Try Free Now” as it implies less commitment and you really can try it for free. Other examples could be :

Social proof – “Subscribe now Free and join 108,567 subscribers” (numerous)
Speed/low effort –  ”Get Started Now! – Sign up in 60 seconds” (numerous)
Free  - “Get Started (it’s Free)” (numerous) (Eventbrite)
Information, implies not asking for commitment just yet  - “Learn More” (numerous)
Financial – “Save for something big” (Airbnb)
Benefit – “Get started and say goodbye to spam” (Akismet)
Action – “Click to look inside” (Amazon)
Incentivised – “Unlimited access for $50” (appstemplates)
Alternative – “Get our summer box” “Join the waiting list” (Curator And Mule Inc)
Prestige – “Go Premium” (Skype)
Motivational – “Get Started” (Dailymile, ZeroCater)
Timed – “Limited Time Only” (HandsOnNetwork)
Creative – “Create Your Store Now” (Shopify)
Tour – “Try it free for 30 days” or “Take a Quick Tour” (Freshbooks)
Portfolio – “Get In Touch” or “View Our Work” (TheoryDesign.ca)
View – “See The Collection” (Curator And Mule Inc)
Challenge – “Watch a Video” or “Take a Challenge” (KhanAcademy)

The key really is to test Call To Action text, buttons and position on the page, even if your conversion is rocking, you still might be able to improve it, if not they at least you know you can take comfort in the fact that you are squeezing every possible conversion out of your Call To Actions, but do test them, don’t just assume you are getting the best you can get.

The post Call To Action – Tell Them What To Do appeared first on .

We will cover some great tools to highlight how users are interacting with your site which should give you some data to work with to identify things that you can test changes on to help boost the on site conversion rate.

Firstly if you don’t really see the value in making on site changes then take a look at Which Test Won and sign up for their free newsletter of conversion optimisation case studies.

This site has over 360 A/B testing examples to highlight what even small changes can do. For example see here how adding a “No Thanks, I’m Not Interested Link” changed the ROI of the campaign. There are plenty of examples online how changing one word or an image or value proposition really boosted the conversion rate.

Crazy Egg is a great data gathering tool for conversion optimisation intelligence as it gives you the full insight of how your users interact on site, you can see heatmaps see were people click on your site :

There’s also a Scrollmap to see how far people scroll down your page (eg. 100% see the top but only 70% go below the fold and by 3/4 of the way down the page you may be down to just 5% of users) add to this Overlay view and Confetti and you’ll see that these are a nice set of reports that can help you pinpoint where users are clicking etc.

Lucky Orange is a similar tool but uses video to let you watch users on your website, you can watch them as they’ve moved around the site, you can see if they are using the navigation as you intended them to or if they are struggling to do things that you thought were simple etc.

You can watch a genuine Lucky Orange recording of a user on a site here http://youtu.be/XMvxD4n6x3g

MouseFlow is another excellent conversion optimisation tool that combines heat maps, scrollmaps, in page analytics, live mouse tracking and helps you decide if your site is intuitive enough or needs some A/B testing or copy rewriting etc.


These tools are great for showing you where genuine users on your site are clicking and how they are intereacting with your site, often it’s in ways you didn’t expect, even on our site we found people clicking images that weren’t linked, text that wasn’t linked etc.  and whilst you can’t please everyone, you get to find out how may people are doing things you didn’t expect they would or that they are doing exactly what you hoped they would.

UserTesting is another great tool but it’s more people orinetated as it uses real people as live testers for you, so in reality they aren’t real customers like the above conversion optimisation tools are but it does give you videos with real feedback, user thoughts, questions etc. which sometimes are annoying as you feel your website is an obvious and intuitive to use site yet the testers may click around like drunk sheep, but ulimately the more feedback you get the better so it’s worth a test.

There are plenty of other tools with which to gain feedback (we’ll cover these in subsequent posts) but finding out how your users are interacting with your site is a number one priority so test the above tools and see which you feel is the best to work with, which adds value and helps you realise where to look on your site to start making tests to see if you can boost the conversion rate.

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Your online lead or sales process should have some thought into it and depending if it’s a lead generation site or a sales site different thoughts will take the lead. For sales sites trust is a big issue that needs plenty of work, as does the checkout procedure and delivery information so be very clear on delivery information with timescales and pricing (free delivery is a HUGE friction reducer too!) and a strong call to action buttons with obvious data fields will reduce friction further.

Take a look at the example below where we put far more emphasis on the Registration box (users had to hunt for it before) and the call to action button, we put all the supporting information below the new area so it’s there for those users that need more info but out of the way for returning users and those that make faster decisions, you’ll also note we added a “New look site” image at the top so as many users are daily repeat visitors so we didn’t want them to think they were on the wrong site as it’s such a big change in design, we also had them default back to the .co.uk domain as it’s a UK only service and the .com is often perceived by users to be a USA site (hence the GB and Union Jack in the site name/logo too) :

The page has a far better flow too, users land, read the value proposition, their eye is drawn by the arrow over to the registration box and then the “Check” button, conversion increased by 110% over the old page with the hard to find text box and small call to action button.

For a lead generation site considerations such as collecting only as much information as you need to service the lead (why ask for a full address if you are ringing someone and don’t need it until you speak to the lead?). Too many sites have huge data capture forms that users get fed up with. If you must collect multiple fields try to break up big forms into 2-3 steps, but make the user aware where they are at each step : “Step 2 of 3″ etc.

Below we cut fields from 8 to just 4 on the form and substantially boosted the conversion rate as a result, you’ll note other friction reducers that build trust such as testimonials, prominent use of a freephone number three times instead of just once, clear contact information at the bottom of the page too.

You’ll also see that the 5 steps are far more clearly shown and the page has a more upbeat vibe to it too, Conversion increased substantially after implementation.

The main points to consider when reducing friction are :

Shorter forms
Value proposition
Core benefit statement
Case studies
Media coverage
Prominent company/contact details
Trust indicators (professional accreditations as well as security certificates/awards and testimonials)
Clear jargon free language
Clean design with minimal distraction
Logical flow to the page, a path to direct users through to your desired goal

A good landing page will be clean and display elements to reduce conversion friction such as those below :

Don’t forget to test social media plugins if it’s appropriate for your service or products, but only implement social media proof when you have plenty of fans as “9 people like this” isn’t very strong and could be harmful compared to “7,142 people like this”.

Treating conversion friction reduction the same as landing page optimisation is the best way forward, don’t assume that just because you like the page other people will, your tastes aren’t important; what converts best is! So test many different elements and layouts to find the best converting page with the lowest conversion friction, don’t just stop once you’ve doubled conversion, you still may not have the best combination of elements and layout.

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Most landing page designs focus more on what elements are on the page than than the actual call to actions that trigger the user to take the desired route or carry out an action on site.

In landing page design several factors need considering such as those listed below. In an ideal landing page the more of these there are on the page the better the conversion, things like a prominent logo to identify who you are, contact number (in most cases), prominent contact form for lead generation programs, and a very important point number 4: A strong call to action!

This along with a compelling value proposition (number 5) are two of the most important and influential elements on the page that affect conversion and they are often the two most overlooked and under considered two pieces on a landing page!

Below are some examples of how a strong and relevant Call To Action can help boost conversion over an average one.

SmartShoot Call To Action Case Study :

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The SmartShoot call to action case study tested the industry standard term of “Post a Project” against “Get a Quote” and even though the industry standard had “it’s Free” under it, the “Get a Quote” call to action boosted conversion by a whopping 35%. Sometimes it really does pay to go against the established industry norm!

WriteWork Call To Action Case Study :

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Subscriptions increased by 31% when WriteWork tested “Create Account & Get Started” over “Create My Account” call to action. It’s surprising that this worked so effectively as “Create My Account” is quite compelling, but by removing the “my” and adding “Get Started” an extra 31% in subscriptions were generated, it really pays to test wording even on busy pages like the one above!

Sometimes to increase conversion it’s wise to offer a choice, you’ll see many pricing pages that use a choice of 3-5 options so the user can pick which suits them most, or avoid which suits them least!, below is an example of how a “Free Trial” call to action placed alongside a “Buy Now” call to action actually increased sign ups without affecting sales.

GetResponse Call To Action Case Study :

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GetResponse tested if a “Free Trial” call to action would influence the number of paid signups it generated as well as free trials, so they added a “Free Trial” call to action at the side of the “Buy Now” one. The two variations can be seen above in the animated image.

By adding this “Free Trial” call to action GetResponse increased free sign up trials by over 158% with no negative impact on the number of paid accounts generated over the test period, a check on the site today showed a new variation below, keeping the same two choices very prominent :

Gym Relevancy Call To Action Case Study :

A Scandinavian gym tested the simple “Get Your Gym Membership” call to action over “Find Your Gym & Get Your membership” call to action and found that the latter generated a whopping 68% increase in conversions :

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The original “Get Your Membership” is quite generic but is on target, it conveys the action you’d be expected to take, but the new one adds that little something more, The “Find Your Gym” just piqued interest or resonated with users just enough to make a positive impression and get them to click and follow through to convert, a great increase from just three more words!

Don’t Just Let It Ride! :

You can’t afford to simply pick a call to action and stick with it without testing any further, your competitors will be testing so you need to be too, even when you get an fantastic result you should still divert a statistically significant portion of your traffic to new variations, always be testing to try and get that extra percentage of conversion!

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