Using Quizzes to Catch Web Surfers

I don’t spend a lot of time these days surfing traffic exchanges or the PTR sites, since I’m spending a lot of time at The Advisory Panel, and creating content for niche sites. But now and then I do to get a sense for what’s being promoted.

Normally they’re all the same, they show you an affiliate page, which is pretty much 0% effective at getting results (I really get tired of seeing that beach bum with his laptop). The more advanced people show you an opt-in page for an ecourse, and give you just enough information to make you want more, so you sign up.

But today I came across something that completely hooked me and kept me on that site for a good five minutes.

It was a quiz about Search Engine Optimization.

This was brilliant! A quiz is an immediate challenge to the surfer’s knowledge. If you can target the topic of the quiz to something the surfer feels they know, or feels they should know, then you’ve got their attention. And for anyone trying to make money online, search engine optimization is a natural topic.

All told, I went through 17 pages of quiz, answering various multiple choice questions. I went back later and looked at the ad I clicked to get to the page, and it mentioned a prize of $50,000 for one lucky person who took the survey. But that was only afterward, I normally don’t pay any attention to the ads, it’s the sites that I evaluate.

And at the end of the quiz? I had to enter my email to get my results. You’d better believe, that after wading through 17 pages of questions, I was darn well going to enter my email to get those results.

This is the first time I’ve seen this technique, and I have to admit I’m surprised. It worked so well, although that might just be because it was new. But if you’re sending people to a landing page and having trouble getting them to stick around, try putting the start of a quiz on that landing page.

You just might build a targeted list out of it. And the answers to the quiz questions can be a guide to what products the person might be willing to buy.

2 Replies to “Using Quizzes to Catch Web Surfers”

  1. Also polls and such are a good way to get people to interact. If you can get the user to give a response, then other people will see they aren’t the only one seeing the site. Nobody likes to be the first. Once you get a decent amount of comments and such, more people will be apt to put in their two cents.

  2. Excellent post! Collecting your visitors email addresses will do a lot of good for your business.I offer a free marketing course on my site that is quite successful.A quiz is a very good idea because not so many people offer one.Refreshing ideas, I have stumbled your blog!

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