Surveys are an interesting feature. People always love to give their opinion, after all. Somehow when you see a little survey that has two or three choices, its compelling to click. After all, people also want to see where they stand in the forum of public opinion. If you can derive business value from a survey on your site, it presents an even better reason to have one. For example, you can run hypothetical products or ideas past your customers. Or you can ask them questions about current business issues. A survey may make a customer interact more with your site in other areas, and stay longer.
Is a blog necessary? What would you blog about? Who is going to write it? A blog can be very useful to convey your brand because it is essentially, the “voice” of your company. However, a blog which has been launched and abandoned is not a good thing to find on a site.
Some considerations: decide up front who will be blogging, a number of topics, and if you have passion for the topics. If you blog about something that you love, you will convey that passion to your customers. This will add value to your blog and your site. Blog on a somewhat-regular schedule. The way to make your site sticky is to keep updating new content.
What’s the difference between an FAQ and a Q&A page? A “Question and Answer” page is more interactive, like a forum. This feature is useful when your company has a number of customers who require help, and you can empower them to help each other. You may have a good FAQ on your site, but there may be be extra questions, more specific that need to be addressed. If you have a Q&A feature on your site, it may make it more lively because of the community element, there is discussion going on. One caveat is that you may need to moderate it, an important issue to address before launching a forum/Q&A page.
You can format helpful customer service on a page with Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). These questions will be so commonly asked that you can provide the answers before prospects ask. For example, “How does our service work?” “What is the warranty/guarantee?” “What are the benefits of using our product,” etc. The point of this page is to intercept your prospects’ questions and give them answers that you know they might be searching for in one page.
If you analyze the traffic to your landing page, you can compare click-through rates to conversion rates. In other words, how many people clicked on your ads and came to your landing page compared to how many people bought the item, signed up for the class, etc. This is your “conversion rate.” If you test a variety of elements on your campaign and your landing page, you should be able to hone both for better results. Some things you can test are: coupons, headings, “P.S.” messages, bonuses, discounts, and guarantees. If you change something out, and conversion rates go up, you know which wording or images work better, for example.
If your site visitor has clicked on an ad you’ve posted, then you have someone who is interested in your product or offer. You need to provide relevant, detailed information specific to your ad for your customer. If clicking on search results led them to your page, they need to immediately see what was promised and have a clear way to buy what you are selling. Your web designer should be able to design a page to which you link your advertisements. The landing page should reflect the offer from the ad. Remember, make it easy for your customers to find what they are looking for, and obviously simple how to buy from you.
Sometimes your home page is not specific enough. For example, if you are targeting a segment of your market and offering them something special, they will want to get to that exact page right away, and not have to make their way through your entire site looking for the deal you promised them in the ad.
Or you will want to offer different deals to different segments of your market. Your home page may not be the ideal place to do that, so you want specific customers going to specific landing pages. Your customers who are searching for what you offer – through Google or by clicking on ads – are using specific keywords. When they find what they are looking for, you want to provide the right info and allow them to buy from you.
A landing page (also sometimes called a “lead capture” page) is the page your visitors come to after clicking on your ad or search results. If you are running a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising campaign online, then the landing page is the customized page you are leading your prospects to. For example, you can offer a special item, discount, etc., and bring customers to that exact special offer directly. This way, they don’t have to wade through your entire site. It should be a quick way to lead interested customers to a deal and convert a sale.
The reason this page is so important is that your site visitor has expressed interest in your ad, so its your job to deliver to them more information, specific to what you advertised.
Observation can be a powerful thing. If you watched one of your customers interacting with your website, what would you see? Would you see a customer struggling to find what they want to buy, or having trouble checking out? Or would you see a delighted customer sending your site to their friends to “come check this out!”
When you develop a site, its important to see how your target market uses that site. You can’t be objective – its your business, which you know inside and out. Testing gives you the opportunity to see how real users, and real customers are going to move through your site and find out where they might get stuck.
If you run a shop, when your customers come in to purchase you have a chance to talk to them face-to-face. Its a one-on-one focus group. (”Did you find everything you needed, Sir?”) If you run your business completely online, you don’t have that type of opportunity, so you have to make more of an effort to find out what your customer needs from your business, and your website. Ask for feedback – if you find out there is a problem, you can address it. Your customers can be a good sounding board. Provide them the opportunity to communicate with you to make your business better.
