Fantastic conversion Rate - but struggling to get People to the landing page - Help

Here's a couple of things I saw...

> The very first thing I see when the page comes up is a site logo for an oil price site, with a banner ad twice as large talking about gold bullion and offering free gold.

> Scrolling down the page a bit, the attention grabber is a sidebar ad that offers advertising opportunities.

> Next is a large block of sponsored links.

> Finally, what I'm guessing is a CPA offer for yet another newsletter.

Why would you expect anyone visiting such a page to take your offer any more seriously than any of the others? My first reaction would be that the whole site is only there as a structure on which to hang the ads.

Which is really a shame, because the article on the example page is really very good. It's exactly the kind of longer article I preach about, drawing some of its authority from links to credible sources. The kind of article I would use if I were seeking syndicated content for a site on, say, energy issues.

Unless those ads are earning you a significant income, I'd consider either eliminating them or replacing them with another ad for your own newsletter.

I'm not a big fan of the sliders, but that's just my own personal preference. One thing to look at, though, is the close link is almost the same as the background of the slider. It might be inadvertent, but some folks might take it as a sneaky way of hiding it...

Edit:

Another con for the other ads is that each and every one of them is a way to exit your site, a classic example of a "leaky" landing page...

Building off of John's comments - you are giving people too many options, which is watering down your click through rate.

If you are seriously interested in using your blog for lead generation, you need to pare down the static and only give them one or two options.

I use a Wordpress theme that allows you to create a squeeze element and place it in the header of every blog post. That way every article gives them an opportunity to opt in directly without having to click on anything.

Your landing page is too big and busy for that, but you could pare it down to something more reasonable and adopt that kind of theme.

I had the same reaction to the gold ad as did John. I saw it, expecting oil, but there was gold. ????

The links in your article take people away from your article too. And the links open in the same window. Poof - readers are gone away to read something else. If you must have those links, make them open in a new page.


How and where are you advertising? Many people have no idea as to what "peak oil" means. They come to your site from and ad, and suddenly see an article about peak oil, and they are confused because they don't understand what that means.

:-Don

The optin along the bottom of the screen doesn't pop up for me, my firefox browser prevented the popup.

Guys - this is great - thanks for all of you're comments. I make very little from the external so will be removing them now. I'll als ochange the colour on the slider at the bottom (that was just a mistake) - but you're right - it does look sneaky.
There are some other great ideas - i'll be trying them all out.

Got it - Thanks John

The moment I landed on the site a second window popped up for your website with a 404 page error. I would definitely fix that problem first.