Three Sure-Fire Steps every Search Marketer should take in Landing Page Optimisation - Step 1 Understand Your Visitors' Persona
July 18, 2007
Targeted landing pages can be a great way in converting visitors into a pre-defined action. Persuasive on-page copywriting and page layout is a key part in landing page optimisation (LPO), although this alone is where many search marketers often run out of steam.
Use this opportunity to move ahead of your competitors with a simple three step approach:
1) Understand Your Visitors' Persona (off-page LPO)
2) Gain Permission and take Visitor to Next Desired Action (on-page LPO)
3) Test, Measure, Refine & Improve (off-page LPO)
Step 1 - Understand Your Visitors' Persona
This is the first landing page post in a series of three and concentrates on the understanding of your visitors' persona. This is a key piece of the jigsaw in defining the optimum user experience, customer journey and the most appropriate landing page.
Dave Chaffey provides a neat overview of web design personas and there is also an interesting seroundtable discussion on the subject.
Personas give a summary of the characteristics, needs, motivations and environment of typical web site users"¦
"¦A customer scenario (journey) is a set of tasks that a particular customer wants or needs to do in order to accomplish his or her desired outcome. Dave Chaffey
As a search marketer it is our job to identify the various types of visitor personas and their desired search journeys.
As part of the customer journey visitors are likely to pass through one or all of following buying decision processes:
- Want or Need recognition "“ prerequisite of further action;
- Search of information on products that could satisfy the needs of the buyer;
- Alternative selection "“ identification and evaluation;
- Decision-making on buying the product "“ choice made;
- Actual Purchase;
- Post-purchase behaviour.
Once you have a handle on the goals of your visitors, the customer journey and the buying decision process - you will be in a stronger position to concentrate on delivering relevant results to your visitors that are aligned to your marketing goals and will help in shaping the most optimal sales funnel.
For a textbook explanation of 'Understanding your Visitors/Customers', Adrian Palmer offers a free chapter Buyer's Behaviour and Relationship Development, kindly supplied by Oxford University Press.
Step 2: Gain Permission and take Visitor to Next Desired Action (arriving in the next couple of days)
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4 Responses to “Three Sure-Fire Steps every Search Marketer should take in Landing Page Optimisation - Step 1 Understand Your Visitors' Persona”
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A good read Joe, just what I am looking for in fact!!!
Hey Joe,
I’m curious - how do you feel about some of these companies like http://www.sitebrand.com which install software to further customize your visitors landing pages?
I’m not toting their software (@ $25K+/year - it’s a little out of my league) I’m just saying I agree with some of their techniques such as determining the users country of origin through ip geo-location and displaying that country’s flag on the page with a quote like “We ship to Canada!” … or for example if you sell sports related products, determine which city they are visiting from and feature products from that city’s team(s).
I am very interested to hear what you think about this level of landing page customization and if you have heard of any studies as to how effective this technology is.
Thanks!
Hey Dennis,
Sorry for the late reply - it seems your post has been sitting in my spam pile for a little over a month, oops - no reflection on the quality of the post - great question!
The site looks interesting and the price you mentioned expensive - although without really know any detail of the company, who’s to say if it’s a worth while solution?
It may be a new technology, but the principles probably less so, although very effective - combine a little database marketing, mixed in with permission marketing and a good CRM integration… and you probably have a mini-prototype solution of your own.
I think more tailored packages based on visitors actions will become more and more popular, although to really personalise targeted pages you have to first gain their permission and offer some form of value, and that folks feel happy about sharing their own personal attention and info for.
Having the technology and little value, will probably get you a little of the way to where you want to go… I guess its a horses for courses sort of thing, if you catch my drift?
[...] float or sink time, so sail that page into the unknown land of your customers’ persona, sit back and enjoy the [...]