What I’m Reading
Shareworthy articles and content syndicated from other sites. These aren’t things I’ve written or necessarily endorse, for the record.
Landing Page Optimization: Minimizing bounce rate with clarity
After several months’ hiatus, I was motivated to write an “LPO analysis” blog post by my initial impression of RealGoodsSolar’s landing page. It greeted me with a large photo of solar panels and a worker installing them.
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No children in a blooming meadow playing with balloons, no college students posing as they take on global ills, no grandparents with a pensive gaze—all implying the broader point about the importance of environmental awareness and concern about our common future. Instead, this page told me immediately what it was about in a single image and clearly visible and instantly readable headline: Install Solar Panels & Save.
A landing page is not a magazine ad
If I came across as cynical about protecting the environment, that couldn’t be further from the truth. And not just because I’ve helped out Sierra Club with expressing their value proposition to drive membership or because I drive a gasoline-electric hybrid (can’t wait for the Leaf!).
My point is simply that visitors landing on this page had not clicked on a paid ad to mediate on the idea of saving the planet. If they had, they ended up in the wrong place (for a detailed of my Conversion Opportunity Framework diagram, see Maximizing Optimization Opportunities: 3 Simple Visitor Types).
Qualified visitors to this page were looking for solar panels for their homes or commercial properties, and that’s exactly what the page instantly confirmed in their minds and provided a clear way to take the next step.
We are accustomed to magazine ads that are meant to inspire later action or to build brand (inspire even later action)—but landing pages like this one are viewed by motivated visitors who are deciding whether to take action immediately. It behooves marketers to assist their visitors with that decision.
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Where bounce rate comes from
Why do some visitors take absolutely no action? Some degree of mismatch between content and motivation is inevitable. For example, someone may be just researching news on the topic, rather than considering a purchase.
However, the most frequent disconnect that has been proven through testing is due to lack of clarity on the landing page. The busy consumer, with a specific motivation in mind, ends up on a page that doesn’t instantly answer that motivation.
Ever find yourself wandering around a big box hardware store or a similar customer disservice monstrosity, not sure whether they have what you need? The difference is that with a bricks and mortar store, you’re already there and you can’t switch to a different store with a click of a button. Instead, you endure the incompetence of the store’s floor managers for some time. Online, you click “x” a lot sooner.
So, if your page doesn’t get helpful instantly, answering “Where am I?” and “What can I do here?” then little prevents the visitor from hitting that “x” button. Being relevant is not enough. Relevance must be delivered with clarity.
Related resources
Optimization Summit 2011 – June 1-3
Maximizing Optimization Opportunities: 3 Simple Visitor Types
Landing Page Optimization: What cyclical products can learn from CBS Sports
Offering an API? Create Your Own Console With Apigee’s Free API Tool
Recently, API products company Apigee rolled out Apigee To-Go, a free tool for building an API console, classing it up with a slick UI, and embedding it wherever your developers are.
This new tool gives developers a DIY approach to offering brand-cohesive, usable API interfaces. Devs can create customized API Consoles themselves, skin the consoles to match existing branding, and then embed the console on their own sites. And all of these sweet features are free of charge.
Altogether, Apigee says their consoles can help you get your third-party devs from exploring the code to working with the code much faster. And all it takes from you, the platform provider, is three relatively simple steps: Describe the API, create the console’s look and feel, and embed the console using iFrame.
Web companies releasing APIs is a huge part of the developer ecosystem right now.
At Mashable, we preach about the necessity of APIs and laud innovative ones. And when possible, we try to spread the good word about tools for building APIs.
Apigee’s API Console made its debut last year; it was the company’s attempt to restructure how devs learn their way around a new API. The console, as Apigee staffer Shanley Kane writes, “lets developers view the full surface area of an API, authenticate in seconds, easily view API requests and responses, dig into errors and share their results.”
The consoles also let devs share snapshots of a request/response pair; Kane says this feature “makes debugging social and facilitates communication between the API team and its developers.”
Apigee’s custom-made consoles are used by companies like Twitter, Facebook and Salesforce. Apigee To-Go is the company’s way of giving DIY console-creation tools to developers to use on their own projects and sites.
Already, Etsy, Paypal and SoundCloud are using Apigee To-Go-built consoles for their own APIs.
Here’s a look at SoundCloud’s API console:
Other features include handling OAuth 1.0 and 2.0 and basic authentication, because, as Kane writes, “Authentication schemes like OAuth slow developers down.”
Let us know what you think of this product — and API consoles in general — in the comments. Will you be giving Apigee To-Go a shot?
Image based on a photo from iStockphoto user alxpin
More About: api, api console, apigee, developers
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