There is SO much good stuff in here it’s like, making me freak out.

Get your butt over to ConversionXL and read The Landing Page Optimization Guide You Wish You’ve Always Had

This post is a treasure trove of tools, guidelines, and further reading that we could probably mine for ideas for a long time to come. (And I’m not just saying that because it was written by former rad coworker & all around cool guy Tommy Walker.)

Each one of us involved in the internet marketing cycle has something to gain out of this. Advertising, content creation, images & design, linking. We’re all part of like, an ecosystem, man. Or maybe it’s more like a nuclear sub crew.

Reading through it I immediately came up with questions for my crew to answer based on every section of the guide:

• Are we speaking to our target market? – do we even know who that is?
• Do our analytics tell us the answers to questions or is it a data pile? How can we improve that?
• Are our off site efforts (banners, copy, &c) in sync with our landing pages?
• Are we using our “first impression” moments wisely on our landing pages?
• Do we have a consistent emotional tone or are we leveraging stereotypes at the expense of a cohesive mood? (God there’s some existential stuff, eh?)
• Going back to value prop – are we conveying what we have to offer clearly, quickly, and effectively?
• Do our images work with our messaging goals or is it visual noise?
  • If we’re using images of people, does their gaze and expression work with our tone and point people in the right direction?
• Could we benefit from video? Sure we could! But video is often put off as to hard to do. We should create a small bucket of achievable goals and set ourselves some deadlines around getting those goals met. (P.S. take a break and watch the dollar shave club ad if you haven’t yet. it’s comedy gold.)
• Social proof is something every company does to an extent via testimonials. We can do better.
  • Are we listening to social channels for good & bad press?
  • Are we missing out on opportunities to show off support from highly respected sources?
  • Do we have testimonials that we can use to really highlight specific benefits of our services?
• Does our copy get the job done, or really compel our visitors to act? How can we de-frump our language to get people super fired up?
• Do our CTAs get right to the point? Do they clearly communicate that yes, this is the next step in getting the desired result?
• And of course: Always Be Testing! Big or small, we should be testing it all. Got an idea? WE CAN TEST IT! WHOO. From copy to images to headlines to full page do-overs, if we can dream it, we can test it. Testing is good for us. It keeps the site fresh, and limber, and it keeps our game from getting stale.

I really hope people get as excited as I am about this guide. I mean, maybe I’ve just had WAY too much caffeine and not enough sleep, but broken down like this it really seems achievable, sensible, and like a no-brainer to really chase down plans for more effective pages.