The most common mistake I see in online marketing, and the online sales process, is what I call a Disconnect between the Origin Page or Origin Piece and the Destination Page (sometimes called a Landing Page). What does this mean, and how can we stop this horrible thing from happening?

Let’s start by defining our terms: 

Origin Page: This my term for the place where your prospect begins their journey to buying your product or service. Here are several examples of Origin Pages:

This is the place that their Keyword Search and your company first come in contact. You have put an ad out there, or built a web page or blog post, that returns after the prospect has put their keyword search in.

Next, the prospect clicks. That’s what I want to address, and hopefully assist in, today.

The Destination Page is the page you bring the prospect to after clicking on your Origin Page. They have enough interest, and your messaging lines up enough with their thinking, so they click…now step back for a second.

Ask yourself this question (in 2 parts), and answer it without reading further:

What do they expect, and What do they want to find on that page?

I believe that if you spend a few minutes of your time on this question before you ever start building the content and structure of that page, you’ll make a lot more happy customers, and money, before you know it.

How Does a Disconnect Happen? 

I’m including a video I made from an experience exactly like I’m trying to help you avoid. I was searching for Microsoft Lync for Mac because a Sales Consulting client of mine uses it, and she wants us to use it to communicate. She says it’s awesome. Therefore, I’m going to do my best to find it, download it, and use it.

I start my search, expecting a giant, successful company like Microsoft to give me clear, easy to follow directions to their product. What do I find? Frustration and cloudy answers (I don’t think this is supposed to be what they mean by “the Cloud”!). I search several pieces and I get a dozen or so varieties of answers, but none of them are what I need.

This is a Disconnect. I searched for something very specific, and was told by implication that the SERP link I clicked on would lead me to it. I went to the page, only to find half answers and misleading link structure.

Make sure this doesn’t happen to you (and your prospects).

How? Glad you asked! 

Below you’re going to find two of the easiest, slap-yourself-in-the-forehead, “Why didn’t I think of that??” steps you can take to increase customer satisfaction, sales, engagement, and reduce Bounce Rate (I know because I felt exactly this way when I finally DID think of them; “Why did this take me so long???”).

First, “Didn’t find what you were looking for?”

This is such a simple question, yet it’s easy to overlook, because we tend to think from our own perspective. Since I built the Destination Page, it’s logical that I can easily find what I am looking for, right?

My prospects aren’t me, and yours aren’t you, so simply dropping in this little line of text, combined with a link, will get you a long way towards making a wayward prospect happy. Use the link to take them to a FAQ page, or if the Destination Page is a Landing Page where you want to make a sale, use a custom contact page that is detailed and specific to their needs. Keep in mind that your goal here is engagement. Think from the Prospect’s point of view and try to come up with anything that might make them leave the page. You want to have that base covered. Past that, you want to give them the opportunity to simply contact you directly to ask about what they want that they can’t seem to find.

Next, use this question: “Would you like more information about ‘X’?”

This is a great question to ask, because it functions in two ways: first, it gives prospects an outlet rather than just disengaging. If someone is visiting your page and wanted something slightly different than what you’re offering, they can use this to get closer to the information/product/service they wanted.

Second, it gives a prospect who is on the fence an opportunity to engage with you rather than taking the other path, which is “I’m going to think about this and come back”. They never come back.

So, in summary, Make your prospects happy, Make more sales, Reduce your bounce rate, Convert more visitors to customers, and in general make your entire life better by asking two simple questions:

1. Didn’t find what you were looking for?

2. Would you like more information about “X”?

Hope this helps,

Happy Marketing!