Ed Knowles
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

This is the first installment of our weekly Web Wisdom Wednesday series, in which we will cover topics ranging from social media, email marketing, sponsored search, SEO, and more! Each video will aim to inform and educate you on simple tips that you can use for your own online marketing efforts!

Stay tuned to the Spyder Trap blog, the Spyder Trap YouTube Channel and the Spyder Trap Facebook Fan Page each Wednesday at noon for a new video!

Happy Web Wisdom Wednesday!

Glenn Seaberg
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

At the core of every successful sponsored search or e-mail campaign stands a great landing page.   Designing a great landing page, however, is counter-intuitive to everything most website designers think they know.

If you want the highest conversion rate possible from your landing page, follow these absolute rules:

Designate only ONE purpose for your landing page.  Allow your visitors to take only one course of action such as request more information, subscribe to a newsletter, submit an inquiry, or make a purchase.  If you offer them a choice, chances are great that they will decide on neither and bounce.

• Answer these inevitable visitor questions in less than five seconds.

- What are you offering me?
- Why should I care?
- What do I do next?

You have six seconds to convert your visitor.  Do not expect them to stick around longer.

• Unless your goal is to repress response, don’t ask the visitor for more information than you need to begin the relationship.

• Keep both the offer and the response form above the fold.  This will increase the visitor’s ability to process your offer.  Adopt a side-by-side layout to ensure this occurs regardless of a visitor’s monitor size or settings.

• Your landing page is not a portal to your website!  The only link you should include is the one that links your submit button to your “Thank You” page.

• Be prepared to test.  Split-test your landing page constantly to determine the most effective mix of headline, layout, message, and call to action.

Ignore these rules at your own peril.  Clutter your landing page with too much information or too many options and you will scuttle your chances for success before the first visitor reaches the page.

Glenn Seaberg
Spyder Trap Online Marketing

Anyone who has ever taken a marketing course probably remembers the product adoption curve. Remember that? This theory explains that products are adopted over time as an increasing number of customers accept the innovation. About 3% of the market adopts the product quickly, academics call these people “Innovators.” The next group, about 14%, is called the “Early-Adopters.” Then come the “Early Majority, etc. The entire process, when depicted, is shaped like a standard bell curve.

It strikes me that this adoption process applies directly to the online marketing industry. Every week, in the course of meeting with prospective clients, I witness some marketing executives whose vision for online marketing is tightly integrated in their overall marketing plan. Clearly, they are Innovators or Early Adopters. Others, however, treat online marketing as completely separate from their traditional marketing initiatives. Their toes may be in the water, but they remain unconvinced.

Sound like you?

If it does, I want to meet you. When you witness for yourself the real-time benefits and trackability of a sponsored search or email campaign, or even the powerful information that simple web analytics provides, you will quickly become a believer. You don’t even need a huge budget to get started. One of my clients spends less than $15 per day to generate qualified foot traffic at their upscale condo project.

That’s what makes online marketing an easy sell. Online marketing, devised and executed by professionals, produces measurable results. Period. So… how do you treat online marketing? Have you seen its power to generate measurable ROI? Or are you behind the curve?