by Roberta Rosenberg

Omniture recently released a white paper called, Best Practices for Conversion: The New Engagement Funnel in 7 Steps. Their Step #3: Organize and Optimize Site Structure does a nice job of laying out some basic guidelines that will help you organize and format your copy for maximum results:

• Scrutinize your competition’s design and organization flow of their landing pages: Go through their conversation process and note the places where you feel a bit stumped or put off. Then go back to your own landing page and compare. Consider what you could revise or eliminate for better effect.
• Put your most critical landing page elements in the upper 300 pixels of the page: Usability research shows over half of your site visitors will NOT scroll “below the fold.” So forget the warm-up copy, get right to the point, and keep your value proposition at first screen view.
• Think simple: Use a one-column format with ample margins and white space to increase reading comprehension. Break up big paragraphs into smaller paragraphs — and no more than 5 lines per. You want to encourage visitors to read and engage with your message. Dense-looking copy doesn’t get read, period.
• Be obvious and use standard usage conventions: Underline your links, be clear. descriptive and specific when describing them. No visitor should have to work to use your page or understand your message.
• Make sure your page loads quickly: There are still millions of people using dial-up. Depending on your marketing and your product/service mix, strive for an 8-second or less page load. Don’t plump your page with unnecessary graphics. Optimize essential graphics to reduce file size and load time.

But wait, there’s more! Here are 5 more tips you’ll want to review and keep handy:

• Format your page according to the F-Pattern Eye-Tracking Principle: Web readers tend to track through content in a rough F-shaped pattern. So format important images flush left. (For more on this, see Jakob Nielsen’s eyetracking research.
• Use the same color palette/visual elements from your ads on your landing page: There should be a smooth, consistent flow to help keep your prospect oriented and assured that they are indeed “landed” in the right place.
• No clipart! Choose a single dominant photo image to be your hero shot: Use a product photo or, in the case of a service, you could use your logo or even a photo of your location. Make it clickable and don’t forget to add a benefit-rich caption.
• Put your message, copy or image, close to the middle of your page. Less critical elements can be placed in sidebars or perhaps even eliminated.
• Make it easy to complete your input form: For example, have the input cursor hop instantly from field to field upon completion. Let your user tab around fields. No drop-down menus, require only a checkbox action. And my personal favorite — auto-populate any fields you can.

Remember, your landing page is your visitor’s last stop to buy something outright or Step 2 if lead generation is your goal. Whether it’s one step or one of many, your copy and design has to focus on firing-up your visitor’s self-interest as well as build confidence and trust in your product/service and in you/your company.

So be honest, forthright and leave the “cheese” behind.

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