Thw Twelve Weeks of Christmas-Week 2

Welcome to Week 2 of the “Twelve Weeks of Christmas” series designed to assist your preparation for the 2008 Christmas shopping season. This week and next, I’m going to address standard prep practices to get your landing pages up to speed.

Statistics show that 75 percent of online shoppers are dissatisfied with the shopping experience and most of the other 25 percent are not jump up and down happy with it either. The opportunity does exist, however, to make your visitors very, very happy with a minimum effort on your part. A little planning and foresight goes a long way.

Think like a customer and ensure where they land is specifically relevant to their search terms. Nothing hacks searchers off more than getting to a web site only to find that they must continue to search to get where they need to be. Send them directly to the product information page they were seeking. Landing pages should be highly specific and easy to navigate to the point of sale. Make landing pages part of a micro-site to avoid overhauling your main site. Ensure you include all discounts and coupons there as well.

A random set of shoppers surveyed (Bryan Eisenberg, Nov 2007) uncovered some unsettling facts about what a shopper needs to make a purchase online. Roughly 80 percent reported they rarely, if ever, make a purchase without being completely informed about the product. Of those, 72 percent find a competitor that does give them adequate information to buy and they will make their purchase on that site. This should kill any doubts you may have as to value of your content.

Landing pages must offer up not only first rate products but as much relevant product information as possible for buyers to make informed decisions. Merchants who fail to do this are going out of their way to drive business to their competitors.

These two examples are not that uncommon. There are ways to offset many other obstacles to successful landing pages as well:

* Offer multiple images views of products

* Offer customer reviews

* Use easy to read fonts or allow customers to change the font

* Offer free shipping

* Offer in-stock information on the product page

* Offer in-store pickup for online retailers that have physical stores

* Offer shipping costs early in the checkout process and use 4 or fewer steps in the checkout process

* Respond to e-mail questions within 24 hours

* More ways to pay means more ways to buy – offer pay-by-check, Google Checkout, PayPal and Bill Me Later

That’s a lot to digest in one setting and more than enough to keep you busy for the next week. Come back and see us then for the next installment on perfecting your landing pages. See you then.

Oh, I almost forgot. If you’re an Article Marketer Affiliate, you’ll want to scoot on over there and check out the latest post by Jim Slader as well as snatch up a new batch of marketing material he has for you.

To your success,

Brad

Brad McGovern is the Marketing Manager at Article Marketer, and offers advice and news of note to article marketers. Watch for more from Brad in the coming days!