I’m assuming if you read my blog it’s likely you either blog yourself, run PPC campaigns, or content sites of some kind, or at least write articles to promote products as an affiliate.
Something we often forget when writing content as affiliates is that our content pages (blog posts) are “landing pages”. They’re pages that we’re trying to have rank in the search engines that people will land on, have a read of, and then hop on through to our affiliate link to make a purchase…
So while the job of a piece of content or a blog post as an affiliate is rarely to “sell” it still has the role of pushing the reader in a direction that you desire… sometimes called “pre-selling”.
But we don’t often think of our blog posts as “landing pages” and hence don’t see the need to “optimize” them for “conversions”.
But we should.
The more people you get clicking on your affiliate links, the more sales you make. And there’s a lot of things you can do to ensure that of the people reading your blog posts the highest number possible are clicking through to your offers and hopefully making you money.
I just read a REALLY detailed article on 30 Ways To Improve Your Landing Page Conversion Rates and I knew instantly I had to share it with you and point out how relevant it is to affiliate marketers and bloggers too.
The guy lists 30 things you can do to improve your click through rates on your landing pages – plain and simple.
I knew I liked it after point 1 which was “know your visitors”… something I tell our Firepow members ALL the time.
He mentioned some killer strategies like…
“6. Consistent message: A landing page’s design should match the related promotional creative as much as possible. If a user clicks on a PPC ad (or a link on your blog): “10% off lawn mowing service,” they expect to see the same headline on the landing page. If the user clicks on an ad with a blonde model dressed in a red cashmere shirt, they expect to see that same blonde model as they arrive on the landing page.”
Gotta confess, I don’t even do that, but it makes SO much sense… KILLER tip!
Or…
10. Build their trust: It’s always risky to enter into an online transaction with someone you don’t know. People may fear giving you money or their personal information because they do not know you. How can you get potential customers to trust you without ever meeting them? Trust is established through credibility.
And he goes into building credibility too.
These are simple tips that you can go out and change on your blog posts, articles, and landing pages and see serious improvements in income.
Seriously, the post could have been a $47 ebook.
You’ve gotta check it out then COME BACK and tell me your thoughts and the changes you’re going to make to your blog content, and affiliate landing pages!
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That was a helpful article, for sure. I have been converting 1 in 12 on a $27 program with a landing page I built, 1 in 8 that click through my link, but…unfortunately, I am only getting about 65% of the people who land on the page to click through. I am currently split testing to get that percentage up to 75% or more, which would increase my sales by 15%!
This post had some excellent tips on things to test, including removing distractions like top nav bars (on landing pages only, especially when working with PPC), that I would like to try. Also, I liked how they really hit home the above the fold points. I still have trouble with this, but point taken. =)
Thanks Andrew,
Kyle
Cool article. Thanks for posting it.
But… the point about trying to “blend” your pre-sell page as much as possible with the eventual (affiliate) landing page – well, that’s a bit tricky, isn’t it? If your blog has a collection of pre-sell pages for a variety of affiliate products, you might end up with a real inconsistent blog theme (depending, of course, on how far you push it). There are a few themes that have a lot of built-in options and are very flexible, but those themes are few and far between.
As far as removing distractions – I have found a couple Landing Page plugins – or perhaps “theme additions” would be a better term for them. However, I’m not entirely certain how much distraction should really be removed from a landing page. Should you keep navigation in case someone decides to bail – yet you want them to stay on your blog and perhaps look at another offer? Or, do you go all out and give them two choices – continue on or leave?
Thoughts?
Thanks for the interesting post. This brings up some extremely important points and, even though it is not always practical to follow every recommendation to a ‘T’, one can improve their conversions by incorporating even one or 2 of the recommendations.
Obviously, one will do even better if you can use most of the recommendations – the more the better. The idea would be to use each blog in a specific theme, so that it can relate to your advert without straying.
Barry
HI Andrew… I read the article and WOW.. I thought I knew landing page optimization, that was as comprehensive as comprehensive can get. Thanks for sharing this resource.
Thanks for an awesome post. The points you outlined are extremely helpful as I recently started a blog as a newbie . I am also a member of Google Conquest which uses Blog Colony
Thanks Andrew
Steve Reh
You have brought up some very valid points in this article, which are most useful to many people who are your followers.
Thanks for sharing. I will most certainly take this on board.
Yeah… ONline business is not built in one day. It needs process.