Optimization of landing pages - AIDA principle

How make sure visitors to your web sites don't leave seconds later?

(source: FRII Creative)

Landing page optimization using the AIDA technique can help you keep visitors on the site, get them to buy your product, support your cause, or attend your event.

What is Landing Page Optimization?

A landing page is the first page that a visitor sees on your web site. This may be your home page, a custom-built page tailored to an ad campaign, or – thanks to search engines – almost any page on the site. That page is the first, and often only, chance you have to grab a visitor’s attention and get them to take action. Each desired action a user takes is called a conversion.

Landing page optimization is the methodical process of modifying a page, monitoring its conversion rate, then repeating the process till the page is performing the best it can. It’s not uncommon to increase the number of conversions your site receives by 50% or more through basic optimization techniques.

What is AIDA?

AIDA was coined in 1898 by Elias St. Elmo Lewis to describe the process we all go through as consumers. It stands for:

• Awareness
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

Each of us take these four steps every time we take a non-trivial action like making a purchase. Examining your landing pages using AIDA is an effective and intuitive way to optimize your visitor’s experience.

Awareness

Attention and awareness are in short supply in the modern world. Most site visitors will only dedicate a few seconds to you before they move on. Unless your landing page can answer the question "Do you have what I want?" within that brief span, you will lose the visitor.
A successful landing page can almost always be summed up with a single sentence:

• "We sell high pressure hydraulic valves."
• "We help parents find affordable child care."
• "We provide building permits for the town of Smallsville."

That short message tells your visitor that they’re in the right place, and should stick around.
Ask yourself these questions about your landing page:

• Does the page have a concise message about what it offers?
• Are you distracting the visitor with unrelated items – ads, other offers, motion, unnecessarily bright colors or images?
• Are you providing too many choices up front?

Interest

Your visitor is now aware of what you do or offer. To keep them you have to interest them in it. Generating interest in your visitor depends on a narrow and accurate focus on their needs.
We expect the world to be tailored to us, and to our exact needs that instant. Your page has to oblige. The two most effective ways to do this are to let the visitor tailor it themselves by letting them choose the need they’re trying to fill, or the group they fit into:

• "Browse valves for Caterpillar tractors."
• "Subsidized child care providers in Colorado."
• "I am a homeowner."
• "I am a contractor."

These tailoring opportunities can be links to other pages, or sections within the landing page.
Ask yourself these questions about your landing page:

• Is it immediately clear which audience(s) this page is for?
• Are the available options clear and prominent?
• Do the options accurately line up with the needs of your audience?
• Is the list of options short enough that visitors will be willing to read through it?

Desire

A better name for this step might be "Decision." The visitor knows that you offer what they want (at least at a general level) and now they have to decide if they’re going to pursue it.
A visitor’s goals and mindset change dramatically once they make it to the desire stage. They’ve now more willing to put in the time to learn about you. It’s your job to keep them happy, well fed, and comfortable.
The web has radically changed how we optimize the desire stage. "Sell the sizzle not the steak" worked in the 1950s, but now people want to know more about what they’re buying (or eating.)

You have to give them all the information they need to make a decision. If you don’t – or if you try to pressure them – they’ll just click to the next web site. "Call for details" or a pushy "Buy Now!" can be a death warrant.

Ask yourself these questions about your landing page:

• Does it accurately and concisely outline what features my product or service offers, without any useless puffery? ("Greatest ever," "Award winning," etc.)
• Can the visitor easily compare my product with their other options?
• Is it clear what they’re getting?

Action

The Action step turns "I want it" into "I want to get it from you." This final decision is based almost entirely on trust in your company or organization. The visitor has already decided that they want to get the product, service, or information from someone. It’s your job to show them that it’s safe for that someone to be you.

Some organizations are lucky enough to have a strong brand identity that can create trust on its own. This includes well-know federal, state, and local governments, large non-profits, and a handful of private industries. The rest of us have to build that trust on the fly.

Online trust can come from two sources: credibility and risk reduction.

Credibility tells your visitors that they can trust what you’ve told them, and that you’ll be around to support the product or service you’re offering. Credibility builders include:

• Clean professional pages
• Customer testimonials
• Industry awards
• Reviews
• Partnerships with well-known companies
• Case studies

Risk reduction techniques convince the visitor that they are safe, and have recourse if the transaction does not go well. These methods include:

• Secure pages (SSL/TLS)
• Clear privacy policies
• Third-party security verification
• Guarantees
• Lenient return policies
• Free trials
• Clear contact information including a phone number and physical address.

Finally, the landing page has to make taking the final conversion action easy. Avoid complex checkout processes, unnecessary information collection, and unwanted up-sell/cross-sell interruptions.

Ask yourself these questions about your landing page:

• Does my page make it clear who the visitor is dealing with?
• Am I asking for any information or commitment from the visitor that I don’t absolutely need?
• Have I referenced third-party sources of credibility?
• Is it perfectly clear what the desired action is?

 

Summary

AIDA is a great technique for examining your landing pages, but it’s just a part of a successful page optimization program. Other critical components include:

• Conversion tracking: You have to know how successful your page is, and how your changes affect it.
• Iterative testing: You will not hit on the right page design the first time. You have to tweak, test, and repeat.
• Audience segmentation: There is no such thing as an optimal landing page for everyone. Your site will need many different landing pages for different audience segments.

Finally, you have to view landing page optimization as an ongoing process, rather than as a one-time project. Audiences change, products get updated, and competitors change their tactics. A page that performed well six months ago may be ineffective now. Make optimization part of your regular site routine.