I’ve been trying to explain my job to the people in my life, and to clients who know they need conversion optimization, but don’t quite have a grasp of what it really means. Metaphors and similes are a great way to introduce someone to a topic they are unfamiliar with – by comparing it to something they are familiar with.

For example, my love for you is a chipotle burrito – fulfilling, spicy, and I miss you when we’re far apart. (The boyfriend was not a huge fan of that one).

I was wracking my brain, trying to think of an effective comparison to explain what it is I do, and I found the perfect one. A relationship (romantic or otherwise) and CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization). In order to increase conversions, you must really understand, interact with, and truly develop a relationship with your customers. While trying to explain that, I realized how much my relationship has taught me about Conversion Optimization and overcoming obstacles on the job.

So here are the top 7 tips for conversion optimization you can learn from relationships:

1) What works for others may not work for you.

Everyone likes to ask friends and family for relationship advice. And sometimes you hear pieces of advice that sound so great, yet they don’t seem to work in your relationship. What works for one couple, just may not for another – there are many factors that influence this dynamic.

The same goes for conversion optimization. Looking to your competitors for advice is a good thing. Doing a competitors’ analysis can be really helpful for understanding the market better, your users better, and understanding yourself better as well. But while you could look at their strategies and tactics, these may not work the same for you. It is important to develop your own strategy with your own tactics that fit your product, your users, and your vision. Test different designs, understand your audience and make sure that your overall strategy fits with the designs you create.

The Take-away: Competitors’ Analyses are crucial to understanding the market, realizing the similarities and differences, and seeing what strategies and tactics others are using (or not using). With that information, create a site that works for your customers’ emotional triggers.

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Create a site that works for your customers’ emotional triggers
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2) You have to really know your customer/partner.

In order to succeed in a healthy relationship, it is important to understand your partner. Before you move forward with them, you need to ask questions, get to know them- their likes and dislikes, their interests and habits, their hang outs and favorite tv shows.

 

Understanding your target audience is the key to success in Conversion Optimization. Sometimes we are able to survey our users and actually ask them directly how they feel, which is ideal. Surveys, polls, and even pop ups are a great way to communicate with your users to see how they feel about your product/service and why they decided to use it, or not. This is key to understanding how people view you. In addition to surveys and polls, we can use other tools to learn about our user, like Google Analytics (what pages are viewed, what events take place, what buttons are clicked), Heatmaps (where people move their mouse, what do they click) and recordings. Another great way to gain an understanding of your users is to read reviews! Using this information, we can build marketing personas for our target audience, and then develop a strategy on how to increase conversions.

 The Takeaway: Use surveys and polls, analytics programs (e.g. google analytics or kissmetrics), heatmaps (e.g. hotjar or crazyegg), and reviews to understand your users and learn the most effective ways to emotionally target them, and through that, convert them.

3) Communication is the key to success.

Once you get to know your partner, and really understand them, you now can communicate with them better. You know what things will upset them and what will make them happy, and you should communicate with them appropriately. You need to communicate with your partner about your emotions, and theirs as well, in the most effective way.

With CRO, communication is even more difficult! You are trying to reach your target audience, and they may have a lot in common, but they also have a lot of personal history, emotional triggers, and who knows what emotional reactions to different words! You have to consider your strategy, structure, images, and copy and what emotions they may trigger in your audience to make sure you are affecting them the way you want.

The Takeaway: After you’ve gotten to know your users, with the tools mentioned in #2, you need to really think about what and how to communicate with them.

4) Be Clear About What You Want.

In our busy day and age, between work, relationships, family, life goals, and friends sometimes we are so overloaded with information that we don’t catch the hints from our partners, and our partners miss the hints we send. No one is a mind-reader.  So instead of getting all upset that they aren’t listening or don’t understand, you have to just be clear about what you want.

In Conversion Optimization, the same rule applies. But in CRO, it’s even more important to be clear because we are exposed to much more content and so many things are happening all at once.  You just have to tell your users what to do. We have run tests upon tests and have found that when we make a large, stand out Call To Action, with an image that directs the attention to that call to action, and large arrows, you get a higher conversion rate.

Of course, your design has to match your strategy. But at the end of the day, with your emotional triggers, your images, your CTA (Call To Action), and your copy, you should always show your users what you want them to do.

The Takeaway: Remove any unnecessary messaging and make it easy for the user to understand what they should do next.  Essentially, all parts of your landing page should work towards getting your customer to take one action.

 

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All parts of your landing page should work towards getting your customer to take one action
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5) Looks aren’t everything.

When you just start a relationship, appearance is important. You have to be attracted to that person . But in the long run, it’s who they are inside that really keeps you going.

While  appearance is very important in CRO, it’s more about the strategy and tactics behind it. You have to have that powerful image that will move your target audience to do what you want them to do, but your content, your testimonials, your colors, and your trust icons (emotional triggers) are what will help your target audience take that next step and convert. We have learned from experience that the designs that may not be as aesthetic as we had originally planned -with neon colors and flashing lights – get the best conversions.

The Takeaway: Don’t limit yourself to only things that work with your set design. Be willing to step beyond what you think is aesthetic, and base your decisions on strategy and tactics – work towards what converts.

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Step beyond what you think is aesthetic and work towards what converts.
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6) Learn from your mistakes.

In a relationship, things don’t always go as you thought they would. Sometimes you plan a surprise picnic in the forest and you have everything set, only to find out they have a fever, or are allergic to the food you brought, or it’s raining!

These are all learning opportunities! Like how your partner acts in these situations, what they are allergic to, and that you should check the weather next time.

 

Unexpected things happen, in Conversion optimization as well. The results don’t go the way you thought, or your users surprised you, or the traffic suddenly dropped and with them, the conversions. Things happen! What do you do? You learn everything you can, you implement changes and you test again!

The Takeaway: Just because a test didn’t go as you expected doesn’t mean you failed. It means you should find the reason, reassess, and try a different strategy or tactic.

7)  It’s a continuous process. You have to keep working on it.

If you want a relationship to make it past that honeymoon stage, you know it’s constant work. You have to work through fights, and you have to constantly improve it. You have to continue to put in the effort – bring gifts, plan surprises, cook nice dinners, go on date nights, go on some romantic trips…You can’t just invest in flowers on the first date and hope that keeps you going for the next 10 years.

 

Conversion optimization is never-ending, constant work as well. You can work on this great CTA, and see an improvement and then create an awesome landing page that brings an even bigger increase. But you can’t just stop there. You should continuously test to see if you can improve further. Maybe you can get an even greater e-commerce rate increase with a certain design you haven’t found yet! Maybe you can decrease the load time even more, and add quality content that will increase your conversion rates by another 10%. Also, things that have worked before may, at one point, stop working. Every improvement is good, and continuous testing is key to optimizing your page.

The Takeaway: There is always room to improve, so keep testing. But don’t just change things by following your gut. Test test test! Optimization is a continuous, never ending process.

 

Overall, the intricate dynamics of relationships and their rules have a lot of applicability to conversion optimization. Looking back, here’s all the things we learned:

1. Research your competitors and get to know your market, but create your own strategy and tactics.

2. Know your target audience. Contact your users to gain a better understanding of them

3. Communicate! Think about the message you want to send your target audience and how you want to send it.

4. Be Clear- You have to communicate clearly what you want the user to do.

5. Focus on data and what works

6. Learn from everything – whether a test goes well or not, there is always a lesson to learn and something to improve in the next test.

7. Continue optimizing and working on improvement.

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Optimization is a continuous, never ending process.
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So that is why Conversion Optimization is like being in a relationship.

What’s your perfect metaphor for CRO?

 

Ecommerce optimization is a constant challenge of finding the right starting point, tracking and understanding the results. That is why when we set out to work with WallMonkeys we had a clear path in mind: identifying the consumer, optimizing user experience, designing a flow that suited our consumer and ultimately increasing revenues.

Ecommerce Optimization – Where to Start

One of our previous articles, 30 best practices and tips for boosting ecommerce sales, focuses on actionable tips and changes for increasing ecommerce conversion rate. But how do you know where to start and what changes to make first?

A common place people typically start optimizing ecommerce sites is at the checkout page. Assuming this is where people have the most issues, marketers run many tests on the checkout page trying to ensure that as many peoples as possible complete their purchases. However, in our experience, we’ve seen time and time again that this is seldom the right way to go.

Constant testing has shown us that the best place to start is at the top of the funnel, where the majority of visitors arrive and the greatest impact can be achieved. The first message and visual a visitor experiences has the greatest impact on ecommerce conversion rate and revenues.

The Research Process

During our research period for Wallmonkeys we studied the funnel closely using heatmaps, analytics and other tools that helped us identify and analyze visitor behavior. In addition to the behavioral analysis we dug deep into the consumer psychology and profiled the different types of customers WallMonkeys has.

The behavioral research:

Analyzing the heatmap showed us that 97% of visitors don’t scroll and see the bottom part of the homepage, which led us to focus on the top part of homepage.

The original homepage had 5 rotating images featuring living rooms and offices decorated with wall decals.

Using the heatmap we set on the homepage, there were two big elements we wanted to address:

1. Many people were clicking on the bullets thinking they’re clickable, but they weren’t.
2. The majority of people were using the search bar to start their shopping experience.

The Emotional Research:

In addition to our behavioral research we focused on our emotional targeting methodology.

1. Analyzing and understanding the emotional reason for customer purchasing.
2. Identifying how a customer should feel during the shopping experience.
3. Defining the messaging, colors and images that should be used to create a better, conversion oriented experience.

Initial results:

1. The emotional added value for customers was missing on the page
2. The messaging focused on products and not on the consumer – e.g. “Browse the world’s finest art”.
3. The experience of purchasing a decal or the end result of  a purchase wasn’t communicated well.

Once we completed our research, we decided to focus our initial strategy on our main target audience – parents, mainly mothers purchasing decals for themselves and their children’s bedrooms. Using design, messaging and different images we wanted to communicate the change a decal can make not just to your wall but to your entire home. We wanted to instill a feeling in Wallmonkey’s customers that buying a decal is a fun, fresh and a cool experience that can transform everyday life.

Optimization Round 1:

Originally the look and feel of the site was a business one that included rotating slider images of men and women standing in an office or an empty room.

Rotating Image #1:

 

Slider Image #2

The Changes:

To focus our messaging on our main audience, women purchasing decals for their home or their children, our changes included UI & UX and psychological strategic changes:

1. The slider: It was completely removed to increase conversions and page functionality (e.g. load time). Similar tests we ran in the past demonstrated that one main image works far better than rotating images.
2. Images: To create a more fun, vibrant and lively feeling, we tested two main images. One was a more fun and easygoing image (cats), and the other combined the original business look and feel with new surroundings.
3. Search: Our heatmap and analytics research highlighted the fact that the majority of people search on the site, so we gave it an entirely new look by enhancing it and making it the main focal point for visitors. As you can see below, we used brighter colors from the brand and connected it to the logo. The call to action for search was made more prominent and lively.
4. The bullets: They were removed completely as the heatmap clearly showed that people were clicking on these bullets even though they weren’t clickable.
5. Color Theme: Moving away from the dark background we used a more clean and white background to give the site a lighter and easygoing feeling. The colors of the decals we used were more vibrant and lively in order to communicate a more fun experience.
6. Call to Action: At last we added a call to action button: “Shop Now”.  This was a great way for us to test usability and intent of visitors – would they prefer to search or choose from a vast collection?

Variation #1

Variation #2

The Results:

Round one results showed a 27% increase in direct revenue for the second variation.

The more personal, fun and festive variation won by a large margin. The images of the cats, the colors and the new flow of the homepage provided a better experience for our customers. Adding a direct call to action on the homepage helped navigate visitors in the site to the next step.

Ecommerce Optimization Round 2:

In round two we took the winning variation and made another change in the experience: moving the search bar from the top navigation header to the center of page, essentially making it stand out.

Now that we’d already supplied the visitors with a “shop now” call to action, we hypothesized that centering the search bar for visitors would increase revenues even more.

The results:

At the end of a 30-day testing period there was a 550% increase in revenues. The combination of both enhancing the search bar in this test and the change in strategy in the previous one gave visitors a more meaningful shopping experience.

Taking the next step

While the majority of marketers focus on A/B testing user behavior and technical changes, a more meaningful impact can be achieved when both the behavior and the emotional profile of our customers are taken into account. Remember, it is most important to think of how the product ultimately makes the customer feel rather on the function of the product itself.

Have you made any meaningful strategic changes on your site lately?

Colors can have a tremendous impact on a consumer’s decision to purchase. With today’s 3 seconds to convince visitors to convert kind of world, it’s important to use colors, images and messaging the best way we can. As our brains process images 60,000 times quicker than text, color can have a huge impact on your landing page’s conversion rate. In the following article we will explore the emotional power color has on our brains and decisions, along with tips for how you can incorporate color psychology into your landing page designs.

The Emotional Power of Color

Colors are a way of communicating certain messages and feelings in a matter of seconds.  When we use the right colors, they can have an emotional effect on our visitors and direct them in to action.  According to Kissmetrics, 85% of shoppers place color as the primary reason for why they buy a product and color increases brand recognition by 80%.   People are also said to make subconscious decisions in under 90 seconds, and color is a great way to trigger action.

 

Segmenting Colors by Gender & Age

In general when we design our landing pages we don’t put a large emphasis on gender unless we’re targeting our product to a specific gender. We use colors to portray specific emotions and make a memorable experience for our client’s users. Depending upon the type of product or service you offer, and the industry in which you operate, gender preferences may play heavily into purchase decisions.  It pays to understand which colors persuade a particular gender to stay on a page or make a purchase.

According to research from Sherwin-Williams colors that appeal most to women are blue, purple and green, while orange, brown, and gray are least appealing.

Earlier this year we worked on a women’s ecommerce store selling prom dresses in the US. In this test we introduced the color pink to project calm, hopeful and positive feelings towards shopping prom dresses online. The color pink was introduced to more than just the banner or background; the images on the page were given a pink hue and were all directing to a certain type of experience – our goal was to help women (mothers and daughters) experience the delight of shopping online in a world of calm and positive emotions. These changes and others increased revenues by 86%.

Before:

After:

According to the same research from Sherwin-Williams, men preferred blue, green, and black, while brown, orange, and purple were the least loved.  Again, again and again we see that the emphasis shouldn’t be on the gender or age but on the experience you’re creating for the visitor.

When designing your landing page you should also take into account the age of your audience.  You may already have a clear sense of the age of your audience, or if you are using Google Analytics, you can find this information under the Audience tab.  Children and younger generations tend to prefer warmer colors that are associated with positivity and high energy.  These include red, orange, pink, and yellow.  Brown, purple, yellow, and blue are generally associated with sadness and negativity by children.

Colors & Types of Consumers

Color also has a unique ability to attract certain types of consumers and impact shopping behavior.

• Impulse shoppers tend to gravitate toward black, red orange, and royal blue.  This is evidenced by the colors found in fast food, outlet malls, and clearance sales.

• Shoppers on a budget tend to be influenced by navy blue and teal.  This is evidenced by the typical color schemes found in large department stores and retail banking.

• Traditional buyers are drawn to pink, sky blue, and rose.  Clothing stores will use these customers to attract traditional buyers to their shops.

 

Designing For Emotion

Color is one of the most subtle and effective ways to instill a specific emotion.   Colors can make us feel happy or sad, relaxed or hungry.  Different research shows that certain colors elicit particular emotions, and by understanding the psychology of color you can establish an emotional connection with consumers.

Yellow

Yellow is a great color to give a gentle energy to a landing page. It is mainly used to inspire happiness, laughter, hope, and sunshine. However, you should use yellow sparingly as it can also irritate the eyes if it is overused. In the landing page below we used the color yellow and other yellow elements to generate fun and sunshine.

Red

Red can be a great way to draw attention to an element, like a call to action, but use in moderation as the color can become overwhelming.  Red can can bring out emotions of  passion and love, as well as anger or danger. Red also has a tendency to cause us to feel hungry, which is why you see fast food chains like KFC and McDonalds make heavy use of these colors in their branding.

Green

The use of the color green can be done to emphasize regeneration, clean, health and wealth.  Green is commonly found in financial institutions, as it is indicates growth, financial health, and possibility. Earlier this year we introduced the colors green to establish a look and feel of wealth, relaxation, fresh and new. Green is also known as being the easiest color our eyes can process making it easier for us to focus on other elements on the landing page.

This increased conversions by 65% in the first round.

From:

 

To:

Orange

Orange is more inviting than Red, but still grabs attention.  Orange is one of the most common colors for creating call to action buttons.

Blue

Seeing the color blue causes the body to release chemicals that are calming, which causes it to evoke feelings of soothing, calmness, and spirituality.  Dark blue is commonly found in corporate designs because it promotes stability and professionalism.  Lighter blues give a more relaxing and friendly feel.  Take Twitter and Facebook, for example.

Purple

This color is associated with creativity, royalty, nostalgia, and wealth.  Like blue it can also have a calm and soothing effect, however depending on the shade it can also be used to create intrigue.  Purple can be used to make a design appear more luxurious or wealthy, and is often used in beauty and anti-aging products.

The Impact of Color on Conversions

There are plenty of examples where a simple change in the color of increased sales and conversions, since other than copy, design and color play a huge role in the success or failure of any landing page or product. Although changing an elements color on a landing page can have great impact on conversions, it is very hard to analyze results from these types of tests and scale from them. Deciding on the colors of your landing page or brand is more than just the color of your Call to Action button, it’s a strategy. Since colors portray emotions, you can use them in a way that communicates a certain experience.

I just got back from Europe and witnessed all of the McDonalds chains around me in Green. It intrigued me to understand why such a strong brand known for its RED color would change to Green and apparently McDonalds is swapping its traditional red backdrop for a deep Green — to promote a more eco-friendly image in Europe. The power of color.

McDonalds isn’t alone,iIn a marketing study, Heinz changed the color of their signature ketchup bottle from red to green and sold over 10 million bottles in seven months, resulting in sales of $23 million.

What’s Next?

With all of the information and data provided you should be able to start incorporating color psychology into your landing page designs in order to see which colors resonate with your target audience.  It’s important to understand that work does not end with simply creating a landing page and that continual testing of copy, layout, imagery, and particularly color is need to truly impact conversions.   How have you incorporated color into your designs?

A few weeks ago we finished running our first rounds of conversion optimization tests for one of Asia’s dating sites.

One of the most important and unique things about emotional conversion optimization is the possibility of increasing revenue right from the first step of your funnel before starting to optimize the checkout process. In less than 3 weeks the tested strategies increased signups by 38% and more importantly increased the number of paying users by 304%.

In this conversion optimization case study I will explain what we did, why we did it and what was the conversion optimization strategy. I will also discuss the methodology of the test and of course, the results and the winner of the test.

Test subject: A dating service website. The service itself is offered for free while you’re also asked to upgrade for further matchmaking services and help.

Test goal: Our main target was to increase sign ups (thus getting more leads) and more importantly getting more people to complete the online purchase funnel instead of completing it on the phone with a sales representative.

 

The Research:

As we do at the start of every emotional targeting research, we start by going through the funnel, locating leaks and recognizing frictions.

It’s extremely common to find many issues with Google Analytics account. The najority of companies are usually not tracking information well or don’t have the right goals set up. We  found 2 technical issues on Google Analytics that needed to be addressed:

Issue #1: First, the goal for sign up completion was set with a destination URL. All users, including already signed in users enter this URL, therefore we had no way of knowing who converted from the new landing pages, and who was already an existing user.

Issue #2: The second issue we found related to the paying subscribers. Again, the goal for payment for each of the pricing packages was defined as a destination URL. However all paying users were sent to the same URL, giving us no way of telling which user purchased which package.

The solution: For both technical issues the solution was the same – We added a parameter in the URL that distinguished between new customers and existing users.

Following the technical part of our research we started inspecting the target audience, and we  found major differences in the motives, reasons and behavior of different people within the platform. As usual, different people use the service in different ways and need different emotional triggers. The result of the research was building 2 different emotional strategies that covered: Trust and variety.

Strategy & Emotional Targeting:

The original landing page:

On this landing page you can see a great use of image pointing towards the call to action. In addition, the usage of testimonials and known icons are a great way to increase conversion.

 

Variation 1

The first strategy we designed was trust. We chose a romantic picture of a couple on a sunny day in the beach and created messaging designed to be more personal. We wanted to present the service and brand as unique, experienced and reliable – giving people the understanding that they will find their match in this place.

Variation 2

The second strategy revolved around creating a design that demonstrates the great variety of people they can meet if they use this service. The importance of this strategy was to show the simplicity of the service following the high success and satisfaction rate.

So, what do you think? Which of the variations won? We’ll get to that soon.

First, here are the main elements we changed in the landing pages:

• Design and colors: The images we used all have very pronounce eye contact. Showing the happiness of a young couple in love on one hand, and showing the variety of attractive people on the other hand makes the service become more real and vivid. Both landing pages keep soft and hopeful colors which are associated with feelings of love such as pink, white and soft blue.

• Messaging: The entire messaging on the pages  focused on finding the match of your life. Further more we wanted to show that the dream of finding your soul-mate can come true and is closer than ever. By using specific messaging for these young men & women we were able to trigger a hopeful reality for them which brought them closer towards their dream of finding a partner.

• Call to action: For both our variations we changed the titles and subtitles in order to add a call to action to them, making the call to action more visible and converting.

• User interface: This part includes many small and different changes. We added an explanatory video of the service, to show users what the service is about. Other technical changes were made such as replacing some of the fields of the form, minimizing escape routes out of the site and making the texts more readable by adding icons to each text bullet and shortening the texts.

 

The Results:

Variation 2 won the test. As mentioned earlier, signups were increased by 38% and the number of paying users was increased by 304%. Different emotional targeting triggers were applied along with technical changes that made all the difference. Our current test includes a mobile conversion optimization process and optimization to the desktop funnel. We’ll keep you posted.

Imagine going to a friend’s house for the first time. You get to the house and see a “welcome” sign, but no door. It doesn’t have any windows and basically there’s no way to get in. Seems strange right?

Your landing page is the front door to your website. It is the first thing your visitors see, and it needs to be inviting, welcoming and most importantly easy to understand and access.

To make sure your landing page is optimized in the best way there are various elements you should include on your landing pages. We’ve gathered the 5 most important of elements for you to implement:

 

1. The Call to Action

We wrote a whole post on call to action buttons alone, but here are some quick tips for CTA optimization, and making you call to action buttons stand out:

• Size- If you want your users to click on your call to action button, it is only logical to make it stand out. One important way to get your call to action buttons to stand out is making them the center of attention. Make sure the call to action button is large, and that no other element on the landing page is blocking its attention. For example, make sure the image or any other external links don’t overtake the attention from the button.

• Attention – Another way to attract attention to your call to action button is by using images, for example having an image of a human or animal looking at it, or an object pointing to it. Let’s take a look at two examples:

• The landing page below has an image that captures all the attention and does not compliment the call to action. The image makes it very hard to single out the call to action and use it.

• This landing page has different images all pointing towards the call to cation and form section, making sure that the attention is towards the action:
  • Check out our article to learn more about increasing revenue with images.
• Color – color is yet another great way to make your call to action buttons stand out. Make sure your CTA is contrasted in color from the rest of the colors in the page. Also, allow space around your call to action button, to make sure it stands alone and is not interfered by anything around it.

• ONE call to action: Use one call to action on your page. Don’t confuse your visitors with too many messages and requests, decide what you want users to do and ask for that only.

 

2. The Colors

Colors have a huge role in driving your users into action. It is far more extended than just preferring one color over another, colors have proven emotional effects on people. Check out this emotional color guide we created to better understand what colors you should be using to provoke different emotions.

Each color triggers a different mood or emotion. Colors may affect us slightly differently as each individual has slightly different perceptions about each color, however some colors have a common universal perception.

Unfortunately there are no thumb rules to use when it comes to colors. For example, you will find endless case studies in which red buttons don’t work, and green buttons are the best, but you will also find case studies that show the opposite. I wish it was that simple, but what works for one landing page will not necessarily work for another. The truth is that everything should be tested, since the success of the color of your button may be depended on many factors such as the rest of the colors in your page, the layout, the images, the emotion you should convey and how they all interact together.

Important tip: Try not to have more than 2-3 colors in you page. More than 3 tends to confuse your users and will make it harder for you to draw their attention to places on the page which deserve their attention.

3. Titles & Content

A good title is one that is inviting, short and to the point, includes a call to action, and talks about the benefits to the users, rather than the features of the product. With emotional targeting, it’s crucial that your messaging focuses on what you want your visitors to feel and gain from your product or service and not the actual product.

In your landing page, keep your content short, relevant and valuable. You have a wonderful product with many great features? That’s great, but don’t give it all away. Most times less is more. Figuring out what your visitors are actually looking for in your product emotionally (not the price and features) can help you design better messaging and more accurate landing pages that will convert much more.

Pro font tip: Another good tip to avoid confusion and overload is to use the same font in the page. A simple thing as that can increase your conversions.

 

4. Images & Visuals

Content featuring images has 94% more total views than content without images (MDG Advertising). According to the Picture superiority effect, images are better remembered than words, so the pictures and images you use in your landing page have an enormous effect on how memorable you are, and this in turn can boost your conversions. What is a converting image? To know the answer to that, you should know your target audience. An animated image might be very converting in one landing page, but can drive your traffic away in another. Sometimes it is better to use an image of a cat or a dog, sometimes a baby and sometimes older folks. It depends on your product and the emotion you want to convey.

When choosing an image for your landing page optimization efforts remember to ask yourself 3 questions:

1. What are my test goals? What do I want people to do?
2. Why do people want my product or service?
3. How do people feel about themselves once they’ve purchased my product/service?

These questions will help you better understand your audience and the emotions you want to convey.

Click to learn how to design a memorable logo.

 

5. Above The Fold

80% of our time online is spent above the fold (Nielsen Norman Group). Above the fold is the top 400 pixels of your landing page. Therefore, you should keep all of the elements I discussed above, and particularly your conversion actions in this area.

On a previous post about Shutterstock, I showed this image of their landing page, where you can see the call to action placed under the fold, forcing users to scroll down.  

For the complete list of landing page tips, visit our landing page optimization tips article.

Want to dive in deeper into landing pages tips? Check out our checklist and see how well your landing page is doing.