YNOT – If viewers hit your landing page and bail almost immediately, chances are you’re either failing to engage their attention or your search engine profile isn’t producing the results you want. Research indicates it takes the average user only seconds to decide whether to stay on a website, so you have precious little time to convince a surfer you offer what they seek.

Here are a baker’s dozen tips to help you keep a user on your landing page long enough to make a sale.

Make your headline refer to the ad copy that drove the click. Match your language as exactly as you can. Close is good; exact is best. This way you keep your visitor oriented and engaged. This is the most important part of your landing page.

Provide a clear call to action. Whether you use graphic buttons or hot-linked text (or both), tell your visitor what they need to do. The text you use here will give you the biggest bang next to headlines.

Write in the second person using “you” and “your.” No one cares about you, your company, or even your product or service except as to how it benefits him or her. Tell him or her what you can do for them.

Write to deliver a clear, persuasive message, not to showcase your creativity. This is business, not a creative writing contest.

You can write long copy as long as it’s tight. Rule of thumb: Think longer copy when you’re looking to close a sale. Think shorter copy for something that doesn’t necessarily require a cash commitment.

Be crystal clear in your goals. Keep your body copy on point as a logical progression from your headline and offer. Every digression is a conversion lost.

Keep your most important points at the beginning of paragraphs. Most visitors are skimming and skipping through your copy.

People read beginnings and ends before they read middles. Make sure you keep your most critical, persuasive arguments in these positions.

Make your first paragraph short — no more than one or two lines (lines not sentences.) Varying your paragraph length will break things up and make it easier for users to read your copy. No paragraph should be more than four to five lines long.

Write to the screen. Consider how much of your copy will be visible on the first screen. If your content requires users to scroll, you’ll want to make sure you repeat essential calls to action.

Remove all extraneous matter from your landing page. This includes navigation bars, visual clutter and links to other sections. You want the reader focused solely on your copy and the offer you’re making.

Don’t ask for what you don’t need. Ask for only enough information to complete the sale or the desired action.

Assume nothing. Test everything. Design elements are critical, as are video, audio and other interactive elements that deeply engage the reader and boost response. Make sure everything works. Try different versions of each element to see if one provides more or better results than another. Refine, retest, repeat.

Jim “GonZo” McAnally is marketing consultant and a veteran of the adult online industry. For more about him, visit GonZoConsulting.com.