This week, we sat down to chat with Web designer and landing page expert Alex Harris to discuss best practices around landing page design and how to improve conversion rates for Web sales. You can read more about Alex on his blog, or follow him on Twitter.

1. Tell us a little bit about how you got into landing page design. What is the most interesting aspect of your job?

I started my first Internet job in 2000 as a graphic designer. Originally, I never wanted to be a marketer or Web strategy person, however, after doing A/B and Multivariate testing for many years, I realized I know more about Web marketing than most people in the industry. Initially, no one had heard of AB testing—so I built my personal brand (Alex Designs) to focus on conversion rate optimization. I then created a niche blog to focus specifically on landing page design: http://www.landingpagewebdesign.com

The most interest part of creating landing pages is that these pages really define the product being sold. Once you have a successful landing page, you can build your whole marketing plan around it. Landing pages are necessary for offline advertising, print, direct mail and PPC.

2. In your blog, you write about “smart” landing pages– what purposes do these serve?

There are many different types of landing pages– good and bad. Their purpose is lead generation, E-commerce sales, Internet subscription sign up processes and more. Most simply, “smart” landing pages are able to create a simple user experience to achieve a goal—the conversion of a generated lead.

I read a study recently showing that you have less than 2 seconds to capture a users attention when they arrive at your site and this is especially true with traffic from PPC ads. The design of a “smart” landing page will quickly introduce your product in a professional way, engage the user with a compelling offer, demonstrate credibility and ultimately give them something in return for their time and effort.

3. What are the most common design challenges associated with landing pages, and how can these be resolved? What do you see as the largest hurdle to creating effective landing pages?

The most common design challenge with landing pages is trying to tell a story in short paragraphs or a simple bulleted list of words. Marketing copy is extremely important when creating your landing pages, but usually it is very tough to get the right message across with a limited word count. This can be resolved by using A/B or multivariate testing. For example, you can test using all text above the fold of the average user’s monitor resolution versus using long copy in scrolling page.

The largest hurdle to creating landing pages is closing the sale. Generating leads and email addresses are certainly challenging, but actually getting a potential customer to put in their credit card and close the sale is the ultimate goal. You need to be getting qualified traffic, have a very professional and informative design and earn the visitors trust so they will consider buying your product.

4. How do you see landing page design and optimization playing into the whole marketing automation process?

Landing page design is the most important part of building a marketing automation process—it helps companies target different types of people flowing through a sales funnel, then isolate the user experiences and increase conversion success rates. Successful landing page also help generate leads, making it possible to re-market to potential customers later on.

A “smart” landing page is also an important part of a company’s paid online advertising plans and can help improve quality scores from Google AdSense.

5. What is the biggest mistake you see companies make with landing pages?

The biggest mistakes that I see companies make is not outsourcing to experts. There are a lot of great Web designers out there, but these great designers may not understand conversion rate optimization.

I often see the following common design mistakes like:

• Designing for larger resolution monitors.

• No clear focal point

• Not targeting different personas

• Trying to collect information before earning trust

• Using flash

• Not optimizing for speed

• Not using the right copy

6. What are your top 5 tips for businesses looking to improve their landing pages?

• Test, Test and Test - Use Google Website Optimizer - It’s Free

• Design for 800×600 monitor resolutions & IE6 - Worst Case Scenarios

• Create a scent trail - Match your PPC text with the message on your landing page

• Have a clear focal point on the landing page, with main emphasis on the button

• Deliver the WOW factor - Make the user want to purchase or submit their email address

And finally, always give them something in return.