Landing Page Testing & Tuning - SES San Jose 2005

Search marketers spend so much time, effort and money getting people to their web sites that often the quality of landing pages feels like an afterthought. It shouldn't be. A bad landing page is like a bad first impression. If you don't come off well, the visitor may go elsewhere.

New for SES San Jose 2005, the Landing Page Testing & Tuning panel gives landing pages their due, an entire panel just for the topic. Moderator Allan Dick of Vintage Tub & Bath has served as ringleader for the session, pulling together and organizing the other speakers to explore this popular topic.

Tim Ash of Epic Sky will start out discussing landing page "best practices" to consider, theory backed by some case study examples.

Matthew Roche from Offermatica will pick up the case study theme using Allan's site as the example. He'll be getting interactive on the audience, showing them various landing pages that have been tested and letting them vote with handheld controllers on what things they think worked.

The results will probably be surprising. I tried a little card-based version of this game Offermatica handed out at a Shop.org event I spoke at earlier this year. Things I could have sworn helped conversion didn't -- and I wasn't the only one surprised.

Testing, of course, is the only way to know for certain what works -- and for this session, Scott Miller of Vertster will wrap up with testing tips to consider. Then there will be time for Q&A and discussion.