How are your landing pages and blogger pitches?

• Tweet Widget
• Google Plus One
• 
• Share on Facebook

Two great studies surfaced this week that will really help you target bloggers more effectively and improve your landing pages.

TechCrunch: 2010 State of the Blogosphere

Talks about how bloggers drive traffic to blogs (mostly Facebook and Twitter, not surprisingly, with LinkedIn being a distant third).

There's some very useful advice in this study, especially if you are targeting bloggers as the influencers they have become. The study shows that only 20% of the bloggers characterize their interactions with brand representatives as positive (slide 25). Looks like there's a lot of room for improvement there - and the ability to stand out from the crowd.

Hints about pitching bloggers:

• Read the blog before pitching the blogger. You'd be shocked at how many PR people approach me without even taking a quick look at Revenue Journal.
• Personalize your pitches, based on what you've read. Mass-mailed pitches are ignored.
• Focus on the most appropriate bloggers as well as those with the highest readership.
  

Visual Website Optimizer: Landing Page Optimization tips

This article, showing the results of analyzing 50+ landing pages, lists the four most common causes of poor conversion rates:

• Too much text
• Off-target headline
• No prominent call to action
• Lack of proof

The call to action issue is big, when you consider it in light of those pesky "barriers to the sale."

I went to a website today for the express purpose of buying a specific stock photo for a graphic designer who is working on a project for me. The designer sent me the link. I went right to the page where the photo was displayed and was ready to click "BUY." But there was no "BUY" button. Instead, it took me about 10 clicks before I could BUY that photo. On a competing site, every photo or illustration has a BUY button, right there.

Hmmmm....I think I feel a website comparison post coming on...