Landing pages are a critical component of inbound marketing. They need to be done well, or your campaigns won’t be as successful as you would like. A standard landing page is made up of a few components like a headline, sign up form, and a call to action. These are fairly straightforward, but it’s easy to make an easy mistake if you aren’t careful. Avoid the following at all costs!

Lack of a compelling headline.

A headline is the hook that you lure users with. A great headline can secure many leads, while lackluster ones will only drive bounce rates. Make sure your headline is concise, compelling, and straight to the point. The point of the headline is to keep users on the page, and drive them to the forms below. Try A/B testing to see which types of headlines resonate the best with your audience.

No clear call to action.

A landing page isn’t complete without a clear call to action. The point of a landing page is to acquire leads, and a clear call to action facilitates this. It’s important to ensure that the user knows what he/she is supposed to do on the landing page. Don’t confuse them with tons of links to click on, or a variety of call to actions. Keep the decision tree as simple as possible so your users can get from A to B without having to visit C and D first. More choices equals more confusion. If a child can’t figure out what to do your call to action isn’t clear enough.

Too complicated of a sign up form.

A user’s worst nightmare are long, complicated, tedious forms. Users love great content, but will decide to forego that content if they are greeted with an enormous form. It’s crucial to keep your opt-in forms as simple as possible. Focus on the bare necessities. If you can live with just an email address, use that as the only field on the form. Again, A/B testing with different versions of contact forms is a great way of finding out the perfect number of fields to use. This will help to balance consumer insight while minimizing bounce and form abandonment rates.

Designers love designing. That’s a fact. However, there are quite a few designers out there who dislike coding. The good news is that’s why there are developers to help you out! Focusing on doing what you like to do, and leaving the dirty work for developers is great if you like things like more sales and profit. Why’s that you ask? Well…

Outsourcing development means you can take on more projects.

Depending on the website, it can take a great deal of time to both design and develop a project by yourself. Also, you are limiting your sales by having to do all the work yourself. Outsourcing means you only need to focus on the design and can handle multiple projects at once. More projects in the funnel means more sales!

Outsourcing development can be more cost effective than finding a domestic solution or doing it yourself.

How much do you value your time? $25 per hour? $30 per hour? I guarantee you that you can find someone in places like India that is extremely skilled and is willing to work for less than you or a US developer. Outsourcing means saving costs and receiving the same high quality of work. That means a better bottom line for your business.

Outsourcing development can create a symbiotic business relationship.

Outsourcing helps both you and the developer out. Initially, it means you are finding the business for the developers, but this can change as time goes on. If you can create a close business relationship you may find yourself receiving design projects from the developers in the future. That means you won’t have to spend as much time searching for leads, and will be able to focus on designing. Sounds like a win-win to me!

There's always been a bit of confusion over the differences between web designers and developers among the mainstream. What does development even mean? Isn't it the same thing as design, but just a fancier word? Who drinks more coffee? Who has a scruffier beard? What do I study in college to become a designer or developer? To answer all these questions and more we have scoured the web for a handful of the best infographics. Check them out!

H/T to Visual.Ly , Web Design Ledger , ThemeAlchemy.com , and SixRevisions.com for the great infographics!

Content marketing can be a huge asset to any business that uses it. It drives traffic, brand awareness, SEO, and lead generation. The trick is to avoid some common pitfalls that can really inhibit the success of your online marketing and implement best practices. So what should you be careful to avoid?

Not having a clear plan and appropriate metrics established.

Every marketing tool needs to have a solid plan and strategy behind it. Otherwise, it’s like having a ship with no compass. You have a great tool but no direction. It’s important to build a content calendar to know when/where to post. Also, be sure to clearly define metrics to measure your success. Depending on your budget, there are a lot of great free and premium tools out there that you can use. For instance, bit.ly is a URL shortener that you can utilize to measure clickthroughs. Metrics and analytics are crucial for building on previous success, and continually optimizing your marketing.

Not clearly defining your audience.

Another common mistake businesses make is not clearly defining or understanding their target audience. Understanding your target audience is one of the most critical success factors in content marketing. Create an audience profile so that you have a clear direction to go in for every piece of content. Not knowing your audience means a lot of your content can be hit or miss, and that’s not a recipe for long term success.

Not making content easy to digest.

Online marketing content should not be like reading a college textbook. It needs to be concise, informative, and compelling. Don’t write something in two paragraphs that can be done in one. Use pictures or infographics where appropriate to quickly convey information. Also, make use of sub-headings that allow users to skim content, and still have the same basic takeaways as someone who read every word. Internet content marketing is about turning a whole meal’s worth of info into bite-sized chunks.

There are a ton of CMS options out there for your business to use, but only a few are ideal. It’s important to ask yourself some key questions when deciding which CMS to implement. The answers you give will help to evaluate your options and come to a decision.

How much do I want to pay for my CMS?

This is a very important question because it immediately eliminates many options. Take a look at your budget and determine how much you want/can pay for a CMS. Also, keep in mind that even if there’s room in your budget for a paid option, there are many awesome open-source solutions like MojoPortal, Joomla!, etc. It’s important to remember that if you don’t have an in-house designer/developer, you will also need to allocate money for web design or content migration. Choosing a CMS is only part of the website puzzle.

How many customization options are there?

Another key question is what sort of customization capabilities a CMS has. More customization is always good, but it doesn’t really matter if you won’t need it. Focus on what you need, like crucial add-ons. For instance, e-commerce store integration, or blog/newsletter add-ons. Make a list of all the customization options you will need and then evaluate your options based on that.

Is the solution scalable?

An important factor to consider when choosing a CMS is how scalable it is. Scalability refers to a website’s ability to grow with a business. You will eventually need to invest in a new CMS if your current website management system doesn’t scale very well. It’s important to think long term as well as short term, and find the best trade-off for your business.

How user/novice friendly is the CMS?

User/novice friendliness is crucial if you will be managing your website in-house. It’s even more important if you know that you don’t have any experience with that CMS and need to adjust to it. On the other hand, if you are outsourcing your website management to a development firm, this may not be as big of an issue.

What sort of support options are there?

Customer support is critical in any product. A lot of CMS options out there like WordPress and Drupal have tons of community support available. If you are dealing with another lesser-known option, make sure that the company has great support plans or documentation. It will save you a lot of headaches in the long run!