April 25, 2013

Increase Adoption to Cart:
Amy Africa’s Key Tips on Landing Page Optimization

James Giese UWEBC Communications Director

The UWEBC Web & Multichannel Marketing Peer Group recently held a web clinic on landing page optimization. World-renowned web usability and e-commerce expert Amy Africa, CEO of Eight by Eight, talked about best practices for designing landing pages and getting maximum Adoption to Cart (ATC) rates.

Here are five key tips from Amy Africa:

#1 What makes a good landing page? One that makes the user take immediate action, such as adoption to cart, a sign-up, or a click off the page they entered on to task. It is important to realize that users see things in views, not pages. Every view must be able to stand on its own. Users will scroll but their focus remains up top.

#2 Each view must have an action directive to get traffic to convert. The majority of websites have plenty of traffic but they just don’t know how to effectively convert it. If the site doesn’t have action directives on every view, you aren’t going to get the ATC rate that you should. Action Directives are key: the bigger, the better. The more, the merrier. The language on your "call to action" button makes a big difference.

#3 Navigation accounts for the majority of your success on a website. Top navigation is typically most important but don’t underestimate the left hand column either. Navigation is likely the best example of website interaction: the user does what you provide them with. If you don’t give it to user, you will not get the interaction you want. Navigation accounts for 40-60% of your success online. And, it is even more important for mobile devices: over 80% on a mobile device.

#4 Forms produce physical reactions! Best practice with forms: ask for the email address first; keep the fields vertical; pre-fill information if you can; don’t ask irrelevant questions; and don’t use Captchas.

#5 The reason people hate pop-up windows is also a reason why they work well. Creative has a huge impact on the success of pop-ups.

Member companies can access Amy Africa's Mediasite recording and other meeting materials>>