Human nature hasn’t changed and neither have the priorities required for successfully conveying your message.

Contrary to common opinion, David Ogilvy didn’t have a preference for long copy.

What he had was an overwhelming bias towards anything that had been proven to work (which included long copy).  Ogilvy’s real, professed preferences were for consumer testing, research-driven techniques, and performance-based advertising in the truest sense of the term.

Based on those things, the conclusion he came to was that messaging and relevance had…

...continue to read "Tests Indicate Ogilvy’s Old-School Layout Still a Winner"

In our last post, we looked at LandsEnd product page and showed you how we would change the flow of the page to maximize conversions. Today we’ll look at a scenario for LandsEnd, that starts at a pay per click ad for “Polo Shirts” and ends up in the cart.

Our search on Google started with the term “polo shirts” but provided us with an ad for “Polo Shirts for Man.” I guess women must never search for “polo shirts” even though…

...continue to read "Conversion Makeover: LandsEnd.com – Part 2"

Jakob Nielsen’s new post regarding how to optimize for online visitor’s F-patterned scanning is a must read.  There’s a lot of sound advice there, many of it confirming or aligning with Future Now recommendations.  Stuff like:

Don’t waste hyperlink words on non-descriptive or generic words.  Make links keyword rich and ensure that customers can predict where the link will take them.  Plan and link for maximum “scent” Use plain language.  In other words, talk to the dog in…

...continue to read "Doesn’t Graphic Design/Layout Affect Scanning Patterns?"

It’s a commonplace on the Internet that the traditional 30-second TV spot is dying.  What with increasing media fragmentation, the new “attention economy,” and TiVo/DVR’s, etc, etc.

Of course, there have always been some level-headed voices of dissent, but it was still interesting to read this bit of research on the effectiveness of fast-forwarded / DVR-ed ads.

Turns out that viewers have to pay attention to their TV Screens in order to fast forward through ads.  A real shocker that…

...continue to read "Early Rumors of Commercial’s Death Greatly Exaggerated"

Google has become the 8000 pound search Gorilla. During their meteoric growth there has been a trend that people’s expectations have gotten higher and their attention span shorter. There was a time when people would click though a page, two or even three of search results, but that is not so common any more. Today, if you don’t rank in the top 3,  searchers will barely notice your listing.

Our good friends at Think Eyetracking recently completed an eyetracking study and compared…

...continue to read "Why Rank #1 in Google"

One of the most effective — and overlooked — ways to differentiate yourself from the competition and improve conversion is to optimize the images on your website.

Granted, a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but online, your customers don’t quite have the luxury of taste, touch, or smell. So one thing we can learn from ProFlowers.com’s impressive conversion rate last month is that images matter. A lot.

But what works for one website may not work for yours. Oftentimes,…

...continue to read "Boost Conversions With Better Product Page Images"

The ClickTale Blog has some valuable insight regarding page length and visitor interaction.

According to ClickTale, total page length is not a strong factor in terms of how many people will scroll below the fold or reach the bottom of page.

The average location for the fold is between 430 and 860 pixels down on the page. 76% of people will scroll below the fold. 15-22% of people will reach the bottom of the page. 64-68% of people will reach the halfway point…

...continue to read "Below the Fold, Size Doesn’t Matter"

It’s no surprise that marketers use faces to draw people into their websites. They know that, from birth, humans are naturally attracted to, and engaged by, faces. In fact, one of our studies showed that people perceived websites as more “professional” when they had images of people on the site.

Be careful! Simply picking a “pretty” picture isn’t enough. Too often marketers will take people pictures and show them to a focus group to see which ones they relate to best. As…

...continue to read "How A Pretty Face Can Push Visitors Away"

Designing web pages is challenging. Unlike almost any other media, a web design’s integrity is compromised by the nature of a fluid medium. In other words, just because you want something to look a certain way doesn’t guarantee it will — differing browsers, resolutions, screen sizes, monitor calibrations and operating systems all distort the experience.

The one good habit I’ve picked up over the years: learn to compromise. Compromise, however, should be done intelligently and accountably.

One of the more contentious issues…

...continue to read "Revenge of the Pixels: The Battle for Screen Real Estate"

All you heatmap lovers out there, Uncle Jakob (Nielsen) has a great new post for you. Today’s Alertbox features a topic near and dear to the Grok’s heart: the overuse of fancy words in Web copy.

These “dollar words” are truly excellent… at going over your audiences’ heads while keeping them from accomplishing their goals by taking the actions you’ve set out for them. Anyone who’s taken our Persuasive Online Copywriting course would agree; Jakob is singing our tune in his discussion of…

...continue to read "“Eyetracking, Heatmaps & Gaze Plots!” Oh My…"