Introduction to Website Optimization
Improving your landing page or website is a great way to increase your online profits. The worst case scenario for an Internet Marketer who uses landing pages is having people come to their page and not click on any of their links.
So how can you increase your merchant page click-through rates? This guide is going to teach you techniques that can be implemented on your landing pages to help increase your merchant page click-through rates. These include writing effective headlines, proper use of text links, call-to-action phrases, solo links, and website readability & layout.
Lesson 1 - Headlines
We are strong believers that having landing pages and websites of your own convert website traffic into sales at a much higher rate then if you direct link to merchant sites from within your ads.
Let’s assume you pay for 50 clicks in Google per day, and your average cost-per-click is $0.20. This means that you pay $10/day to get these clicks. Now assume that you are sending this traffic to your own landing page where you review several relevant products. If your website is not optimized, you can expect to see click-through rates to the merchant page as low as 10%. This means that out of 50 visitors to your site, only 5 of them visit the merchant site and this results in $9 of wasted traffic.
By optimizing your landing page you can increase your Merchant Page CTR so that you can expect 65% or higher click-through rates. It’s obvious that the higher your Merchant Page CTR is, the more likely you are to make sales. So we are going to tackle this topic head on and provide you with some great techniques that you can implement on your landing pages to increase the rate at which your visitors click through to your merchant pages.
Is Your Landing Page or Website Performing At a High Level?
If Your Visitors Are Not Clicking The Affiliate Links On Your Page, You Are Wasting Money We Are About To Teach You How To Optimize Your Landing Pages!
Headlines are the first thing that a visitor sees when they land on a website. Statistics have shown that a website has 5-10 seconds to grab the interest of their visitors before they exit the page, and headlines are how you do this. We see too many websites out there that are not using headlines to their benefit, and are literally throwing away money because visitors do not know the “theme” of the website when they arrive.
When a visitor arrives to a website you have 5-10 seconds to tell them what the site is about and what benefits they will get if they continue to read. THIS IS DONE THROUGH THE HEADLINE.
Example of a Powerful Headline
"Are You Maximizing The Potential Of Your Website Traffic? If You Are Not Collecting Your Visitor Information You Are Literally Losing Thousands Of Dollars EVERY YEAR! Learn How Building An Opt-In List Can Increase Your Profits Up to 500%!"
This headline is very effective because it has 3 major components that all headlines should have.
| 1 | Component 1 - Ask A Question A question or statement that grabs the attention of your visitors. Asking a question that your visitors can relate to is very important if it is relevant to your ad and keywords. Are You Maximizing The Potential Of Your Website Traffic? This will instantly grab the attention of your website visitors and will entice them to continue reading your site. Ask a question, or make a statement that is captivating and relevant to your ad and keywords. |
| 2 | Component 2 - Provide Doubt or uncertainty If You Are Not Collecting Visitor Information You are Literally Losing Thousands Of Dollars EVERY YEAR! Give your visitors a prelude to what your landing page is going to talk about. Instill some Doubt. Let them know that if they are not doing something that they could be losing out. By using technique you will connect with your visitors emotionally. |
| 3 | Component 3 - Provide a Benefit Learn How Building An Opt-In List Can Increase Your Profits Up to 500%! This headline clearly states that you are going to learn how "building an opt-in list" can help you increase your online profits. It is also a good technique to change the color of the benefit and underline it. There are 3 parts to this example headline but the most important part of the headline is the benefit. Make it stand out. |
Sample Headlines:
Do You Have an Extra 10 Minutes a Day? Learn How I Make $100 / Day Online!
Is Your Golf Game Weak? Learn How You Can Increase Your Handicap OVERNIGHT By 7 Strokes!
Looking For New PlayStation Games? Stop Paying $100 For Games in a Store - Download Unlimited Games Online! We’ll Show You How...
Lesson 2 - Text Links
The importance of text links are something that many marketers overlook. Although text links will not affect your merchant page click-through rate as much as having a killer headline, if you use them correctly they will enhance your landing page effectiveness.
Here is a sample Paragraph that includes a few text links
Are you ready to take your online profits to the next level? How is it possible that you can generate exponential profit from a website without spending more in advertising or lead generation? From the owners of WealthyAffiliate.com and authors of Beating Adwords comes a guide that takes an in depth look "Inside The List". Take full advantage of the traffic that you are receiving to your website, and turn it into money today! Click Here Now to Learn More!
In the above paragraph, text links were added around keywords that are highly relevant to the message that you are trying to convey. They were also added to the references to the actual products and websites. The purpose of this paragraph is to tell people how they can increase their online profits, and turn their existing website traffic and turn it into extra money. Here are a few tips that you need to follow when adding text links to your landing page:
| 1 | Do not use too many links as it will make your site look tacky and unprofessional. A few words in your main paragraphs are ok. You DO NOT need text links in every paragraph on your website. Conversely, if you do not provide adequate links, your merchant page click-through's will suffer. |
| 2 | Add text links on keywords that are highly relevant to the main purpose of the paragraph. This includes references to products/services/websites as well as relevant keywords. |
| 3 | Add text links on “call-to-action” phrases. Call to action phrases receive great click-through rates and entice your audience to act on what you say. It seems so simple, but adding action based links can improve conversions greatly. Examples: Click here to… |
The main purpose of a landing page is to pre-sell the products on your website before your visitors reach the merchant site. We have tested direct linking strategies against landing page promotion and have always found that a highly optimized landing page will convert much higher. With this being said, it is important to provide your visitors with many exit links so that they find their way from your site to the merchant site. The most common misconception about landing pages is that you can simply create one, and your conversions will increase. This is not true because a landing page that is not optimized will will "kill" your conversions altogether.
Embedded text links (or links within your content) within your landing page are a very good way to discretely add links to the merchant sites.. All outgoing links on your page should be using your affiliate links, or a system like My-Linker (a tool here at WA) to cloak your links. In the case that you have a review page, it is a good idea to use your #1 rated product link in any text links that are not directly related to the review of a particular productLesson 3 - Listing Benefits
This is one of the most important aspects of a landing page. People often time think about features when they are creating a page, when in fact the benefits are what your audience is looking for. They may care about what your product does and how it works, but they really want to know what it is going to do for them and how it will improve their current situation. Simply offering a review of a product is not enough! You need to clearly define exactly how it will benefit them if you want to turn that visitor into a customer.
Adding benefits to your landing page can be done very easily. Here is an example of how you could list benefits for the products that you are promoting:
Inside the List will allow you to:
Make more money from your existing website!
Use your website traffic to its full potential!
Increase your opt-in rate by 500%!
Turn your mailing lists into pure gold!
Build huge lists of customers that are hungry for your products!
Get lifetime traffic to your website!
By simply listing the benefits of a product, you can very easily persuade your website visitors to BUY. Your visitors are hungry for information, and if you have targeted traffic, they will also be eager to learn about the benefits that a product will provide them and how it will benefit their current situation.
Here are a couple of different ways that you outline the benefits on your landing page using a list:
| 1 |
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| 2 |
To save these check marks to use on your own website, right click on them and click the "Save Picture As" option. |
Make more money from your existing website!Listing the benefits of a product is an important part of creating an optimized landing page but few Internet Marketers do this (well the successful ones do). The easier your content is to understand, the better. Few website visitors will spend much time on your site, so it is important to highlight the benefits of a product like we have done above.
Lesson 4 - Solo Links
Solo links are the most sensitive link, meaning that they get clicked the most by visitors. The beauty of a Solo Link is that it sticks out like a sore thumb and is used to break-up sales copy and text, adding much needed whitespace to your pages. Below is an example of how Solo Links can be used.
Example:
Are you ready to take your online profits to the next level? How is it possible that you can generate exponential profit from a website without spending more in advertising or lead generation? From the owners of WealthyAffiliate.com and authors of Beating Adwords comes a guide that takes an in depth look "Inside The List". Take full advantage of the traffic that you are receiving to your website, and turn it into money today!Learn how Kyle and Carson literally took their online profits from $1000/day to over $3000 (that's over $1,000,000 a year) on a consistent basis by implementing a few little changes to their email marketing campaigns.
Click Here To Learn How You can Increase Your Online Profits!
Inside The List will show you how to maximize the potential of your website, and the profits you make from it. Learn direction from real-life case studies performed by the Wealthy Affiliates, Kyle and Carson. PLUS - a special bonus section outlines a new technique that has EXPLODED sales on many of their websites. "Inside The List" will take your Internet Business to the next level, and teach you many secrets, techniques and strategies that these two young entrepreneurs use to make thousands of dollars in profits every day!
In the above example the text link is placed in between two paragraphs to break up the text and provide an excellent exit point for the website visitor.
Here are a few things to consider with adding Solo Links:
| 1 | Use Call to action phrases to entice the visitor to click the link. For example: Click Here and Learn How to Improve Your Golf Game by 7 Stokes |
| 2 | Use a Larger Font and different color than the other text on your page. You can exaggerate the font. Size does matter! |
| 3 | Center the links in the middle of the section so that they stick out even further. |
| 4 | Capitalize each word in your sentences to make the link look strong, more exciting, and more prominent. |
Lesson 5 - Readability
There are many conflicting theories about color and layout of a website, however we would like to list a few rules that will help you improve your website visitor experiences. We have seen hundreds of landing pages that have great sales copy, are promoting products that convert very well, and have a lot of potential to be a great, but the page looks horrible. In this section we are going to focus on the readability and layout of a website.
The purpose of a landing page is to get your visitors to read what you have to say so that they can make better, more informed purchasing decisions. Having black text on a white background is by far the easiest text to read. Every book you pick up will be black text with a white background...and this is for a reason. Great readability!
Not all color contrasts work well together and below we have provided a few that will negatively affect your landing pages (and subsequently, conversions).
White on Black
| Are you ready to take your online profits to the next level? How is it possible that you can generate exponential profit from a website without spending more in advertising or lead generation? From the owners of WealthyAffiliate.com and authors of Beating Adwords comes a guide that takes an in depth look "Inside The List". Take full advantage of the traffic that you are receiving to your website, and turn it into money today!Learn how Kyle and Carson literally took their online profits from $1000/day to over $3000 (that's over $1,000,000 a year) on a consistent basis by implementing a few little changes to their email marketing campaigns. |
Red on Blue
| Are you ready to take your online profits to the next level? How is it possible that you can generate exponential profit from a website without spending more in advertising or lead generation? From the owners of WealthyAffiliate.com and authors of Beating Adwords comes a guide that takes an in depth look "Inside The List". Take full advantage of the traffic that you are receiving to your website, and turn it into money today!Learn how Kyle and Carson literally took their online profits from $1000/day to over $3000 (that's over $1,000,000 a year) on a consistent basis by implementing a few little changes to their email marketing campaigns. |
Dark Text on Dark Background
| Are you ready to take your online profits to the next level? How is it possible that you can generate exponential profit from a website without spending more in advertising or lead generation? From the owners of WealthyAffiliate.com and authors of Beating Adwords comes a guide that takes an in depth look "Inside The List". Take full advantage of the traffic that you are receiving to your website, and turn it into money today!Learn how Kyle and Carson literally took their online profits from $1000/day to over $3000 (that's over $1,000,000 a year) on a consistent basis by implementing a few little changes to their email marketing campaigns. |
Using color schemes that clash, or that cause the text to become difficult to read will deter your visitors from reading your text. Without them reading your text, you are wasting your time! If you want to use a different color background or text color, make sure that readability is not negatively affected. Below are a few rules that will help you improve your website.
| 1 | Do not use Dark Text with a Dark Background. |
| 2 | Do not use Text colors that Clash with the Background Color |
| 3 | The web standard text is Arial Size 2 (12pt). Do not use large text for your main sales copy paragraphs. It is OK to use larger text for links and headlines, but the main text of your page should be consistent throughout your page. |
| 4 | Do not waste the space at the top of the page with a banner that has no purpose. Simply listing the name of your website or domain name is a very poor use of this prime real estate space. The first "fold" of your website is the most important space that you have because it is visible as soon as your page loads. Do not take up this space with unnecessary graphics, flash, or banners. A strong headline is always better than a banner that has no purpose. |
If you follow what you’ve learned within this tutorial and implement any necessary changes to your landing pages, you can to see an increase in your merchant page click-throughs, as well as your overall conversions. It is not necessary to use all of these techniques all of the time, however, using a combination of these techniques will prove to be very effective.
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