This is part two in a series of six topics discussing the eCommerce Conversion Funnel. Once qualified visitors have been found, it is important to take them to a relevant and effective landing page. What is on this page will vary depending on the web site. It may be a product page, a category page, a content page, or a form page.

Regardless of the type of page, for this example they are all categorized as landing pages. A landing page is simply the first page a visitor encounters on a website. Many websites utilize their home page as their most frequent, and sometimes only, landing page.

Sometimes the home page is a good landing page, and sometimes it is not depending on the product and/or visitor. However, what is most important about any landing page is that it have a few common traits.

First, it must be relevant to the search phrase linking to it. A clothing manufacturer should not send visitors who searched on swimwear to the fall collection category page. Ideally, you would like to have a nice snug fit between search phrase and resulting landing page.

Sending the swimsuit visitor to the swimsuit subcategory page, or perhaps a particular swimsuit product page will result in higher conversion then sending it to the women clothes category or to a home page without swimming suits on it.

Second, it should have an easy way to navigate off the landing page and onto other relevant or similar pages. No matter how carefully landing pages are planned, there are always going to be visitors who are brought to a landing page that does not match what they were looking for. It is at this critical juncture that navigation plays a huge role in conversion.

If the visitor is presented with easy to find links to similar items or content, or has easy access to the web site’s internal search, there is still a chance to convert the visitor. If the landing page is a one way street, a page with confusing or muddled navigational properties, it is highly likely that the visitor will bounce (bouncing is a term used to describe visitors who only see one page of a website and then leave).

Lastly, the landing page needs a call to action. Two of the biggest mistakes websites make is offering either too many calls to action or none at all. A call to action is simply a suggestion or offer made to the visitor that leads them into the beginning of the buying funnel. Many times if you simply ask a visitor for their business, and hold their hand a bit walking them through the process, conversion rates will increase dramatically.

The mistake comes when either there is no call to action at all, or there are too many calls to action on the same page which dilutes the power of each. Examples of calls to action would be Free Shipping Links, Promotions, Add to Cart Button …anything that propositions the visitors to proceed further into the web site, and eventually, into a converted sale.

The role of the analytic tool here is to measure the effectiveness of individual landing pages, various calls to action, and landing page designs. The analytics tool will help identify landing pages with high and low bounce rates, measure the effectiveness of a banner ad promo (top) and a tower ad promo (side), time on site, average page depth (number of pages per visit), and more.

Analysis again leads to testing and determinations about which elements work best together and result in the highest conversion rates. (If you haven’t yet, read part one of our series here.) Stay tuned for Part III of our eCommerce Conversion Funnel - Optimizing Checkout & Cross Selling.