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There are more than a thousand ways to optimize your website to maximize conversion rates. The following excerpt from Andrew B. King's Website Optimization explains one of the top 10 factors to maximize conversion rates.
Your initial headline contains the first words that your visitors will read on your site. So, to improve conversion rates, grab their attention. Use headlines that clearly state the most important benefits that your product or service offers. For example, emphasize saving money, time, and energy. Think search engine optimization (SEO) when writing your headlines by including the keywords that you want to target. Finally, design your headlines for scanning by placing your most important keywords up front. [61] Note how this feature-laden headline:
| Use half the watts with low-voltage fluorescent light bulbs! |
can become the following benefit-oriented headline:
| Energy-efficient fluorescent light bulbs save you money! |
The use of passive voice permits the placement of keywords early in headlines. Used in body copy, however, passive voice creates impersonal and potentially confusing language. Headlines that ask visitors to act can boost click-through rates (CTRs). Combining these headlines with free offers increases conversion rates even more.
Headlines are often used as link text. Longer link text, on the order of 7 to 12 words, has been shown to have higher success rates than shorter link text (see Figure 5.2,).[62]
Success here is defined as the likelihood of a link bringing the user closer to where she wants to go. Longer link text is more likely to contain the right trigger words that the user seeks. The more likely that a trigger word is present, the higher the scent of a link.
[61] Nielsen, J. September 6, 1998. "Microcontent: How to Write Headlines, Page Titles, and Subject Lines." alertbox, http://www.useit.com...box/980906.html (accessed February 18, 2008).
[62] Spool, J. et al. 2004. "Designing for the Scent of Information." User Interface Engineering, http://www.uie.com (accessed March 30, 2008). Figure 5.2, “Link length versus success rate” reproduced by permission.
Is your site easy to find, simple to navigate, and enticing enough to convert prospects into buyers? Website Optimization shows you how. It reveals a comprehensive set of techniques to improve your site's performance by boosting search engine visibility for more traffic, increasing conversion rates to maximize leads and profits, revving up site speed to retain users, and measuring your site's effectiveness (before and after these changes) with best-practice metrics and tools.
