when HiFi is just not an option

This is another addition to our ongoing series of tutorials and case studies on landing pages that work.

Jill Mitchell wants to increase awareness and sales of her one-of-a-kind French vintage objects that she sells on Etsy and Ebay. She also wants more visiblity and sales for her buying tours of Provence.

She doesn’t actively market her site, although she does enjoy a responsive newsletter following. She doesn’t have a handle on her site metrics — traffic, blog readership, click-through rate from blog to Etsy/Ebay.

Jill is flying blind. Let’s see how we can get these sales sailing.

• The Goal: Sell French tours and vintage gifts.
• The Problem: Not making enough sales.
• The Current Landing Page (homepage): http://www.letrip.org
• Value: $39 — average gift sale

The Maven’s 10-Point Critique

Click image for larger view

#1 — Make sure all your main links work.

I usually save the tech tweaks and tuning for the #7-#10 slots and frontload the marketing suggestions, but in this case, I have to start here.

• When I was putting this makeover together, I got an error message when I clicked the blog link. You need to keep an eye on any issues like this and fix them pronto.
• When I did manage to get to your blog and clicked “Home,” thinking I’m going back to the main homepage, I don’t. I don’t go anywhere. You’ll want to clarify what HOME means on your blog. Add a “Go to Main Page” so your visitors don’t feel trapped. Trapped people lose the mood to buy.
• Make your main logo clickable to www.letrip.org

#2 — Be upfront, be clear as to the purpose of your site and what visitors can expect to find there.

If you want to sell your tours and vintage gifts, you need to be obvious. Say it (and show it) clearly and up front.

I had to spend more than a few minutes reading your homepage and clicking around to figure out that you offer specialty buying tours of Provence with the emphasis on vintage and antiques.

So let’s start there. You need to get the main idea: “LeTrip — Unique Buying Tours of Vintage Provence” or some variation into your headline. Your tagline can be a little more fun but still clear: “Let an American take you vintage shopping in Provence.”

You might also want to work in “Always a Guest, Never A Tourist” and any other descriptors that make sense for you and will be attractive and intriguing to your visitors.

#3 — Push your value proposition forward. Way forward.

I’m sure the competition for French tourism is intense, even in a recession. So you need to be clear (oops, she said it again) about what makes your tours so gosh darn magnifique as compared to other niche tours of Provence. What can you say about your tours that no one else can?

I noticed that your main site talks about wine tours, so you may want to broaden your approach to “Passionate Buying Tours of Provence: Great Wine — Vintage Gifts — Antiques” or whatever works best to capture what is special and unique about Le Trip.

#4 — Get your gift store info and links on the homepage.

Why segregate your gift businesses strictly to the blog, when you should be promoting them in all the spaces and places your visitors are looking?

I’d add an easy-to-see separate button to your current navigation bar with “Unique Vintage Gifts from Provence” and send folks to a separate page where you can highlight your gift items and direct them to your Etsy and Ebay stores.

#5 — Organize your navigation for visitor expectations. Make it easy for them to find what they need.

Why are your visitors there? They love Provence, want to visit Provence, wish they could see Provence. (And if they can’t, they’d like to purchase a little piece of Provence.)

Your navigation needs to reflect the information-seeking needs of your visitors, so I would make the following change:

Home — LeTrip Difference — LeTrip Tours — Upcoming Events — Brava! Meet Jill — Read Jill’s Blog — Contact Jill

Add a search box and a sitemap, too.

#6 — Put your key messaging into the strongest part of your homepage. Sidebars are for sweeteners.

Your best homepage real estate is being used for a long, sweetly worded ramble about Provence. Move that content to Le Trip Difference and start promoting your upcoming tours — the ones that pay you cash Euros — there instead! Give your visitors a tasty intro that will draw them deeper into the site for the rest of the information and reservation details.

Save your sidebars for secondary sweeteners. Add a rotation of testimonials here, or feature a “gift idea of the month.”

#7 — Organize your site for selling and telling. Use your blog to illuminate Jill’s personal style and take.

Following info links about tours, I’m sometimes directed to your blog and sometimes not — what’s up with that? I was confused and confounded. I have to imagine your average visitor would be, too.

So I’m strongly suggesting that you do a complete revamp of your internal site structure to make sure you keep visitors moving along a consistent, intuitive track on your main site.

A leads to B leads to C. (This, after fixing any link issues that might still remain, could be the most important recommendation of the entire Makeover.)

Use your blog to express your thoughts, your personality, your take on all things Provence. Your blog is where your clients and prospects get to know more about the person behind LeTrip. The more they know you, the better they’ll feel about taking a tour with you or buying from your stores.

#8 — Add those essential credibility boosters!

Strengthen your About Jill page with more facts. How long have you been in business? How many tours/people have you given since opening your doors? Are you a member of any travel/tourism associations? Your prospects want to know who they’re doing business with.

Also, provide a physical address in France. A P.O. Box is fine, but if you’re promoting your ex-pat lifestyle and business, I’d like to know you’re actually in Provence and not Passaic, New Jersey.

#9 — Lay the basic SEO groundwork to boost organic search engine rankings

You mentioned in your notes to me that you don’t understand SEO or how it works. There’s a ton of good info out there, but for now here’s what you need to do:

• Identify the words, terms, and phrases people might use to find your kind of services and products, and make sure you’re using that language in all your content.
• Make sure each one of your site pages has its own ‘meta’ title that front-loads the keyphrases before your company name. A homepage title might read like this: Vintage Buying Tours of Provence, France :: LeTrip.org. Your other pages would follow the same syntax.
• Make sure your blog uses best practices for SEO, as well. Check out Copyblogger’s own Scribe SEO for great assistance in this area, as well as our free resources on SEO Copywriting.

Don’t stop there, of course. Good SEO makes all the difference, and these few points will give you a good start.

#10 — Use social media to connect and grow your tour and gift businesses.

You have a tremendous opportunity to widen your prospect universe with social media. So add Facebook and Twitter to your marketing mix. Add the buttons, ask folks to connect with you, and start connecting with others who love Provence and all things vintage.

My thanks to Jill Mitchell for her patience and support of Heifer International. Look for my next makeover in approximately 3 to 4 weeks.

Want your own Copywriting Maven landing page makeover?

Got a landing page that’s more poop than pop? Need to get better results from your online marketing? If you’re interested in a private page makeover, site audit, or other services, please email Roberta directly.)

About the Author: Roberta Rosenberg is The Copywriting Maven at MGP Direct, Inc. Find her @CopywriterMaven on Twitter.

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