o there is nothing wrong with your SEO campaign and the traffic you are getting. It is just that your landing page sucks! More than often, I come across landing pages that are not carefully crafted. As such, they cause great loss to their conversion potential. I have helped several clients fix their landing page for a better conversion ratio and securing better ROI. In most cases, the mistakes were obvious issues that anyone could easily identify. To make it easier for everyone looking to develop or modify a landing, here I am compiling a list of 12 tips which would help you ensure that your landing pages are properly crafted and are ready to bring in more conversions.
What Is A Landing Page?
A page on your website where a visitor from an organic search or a paid campaign lands is called a landing page. In a broad sense, your homepage is a landing page too if you are using your homepage URL for optimization for queries (in SEO) and in your Ad campaigns (in PPC marketing, etc.). Usually, companies and SMBs will develop a separate page for promoting an offer or a product and use it as a landing page for their marketing campaign.
There are various kinds of landing pages; some of these are –
- Lead capture landing pages – those which ask you to enter your Name, Email and few more details in order to receive some sort of information or free product
- Infomercial landing pages – those long and lengthy landing pages where you are loaded with tons of convincing data about a product/service and then at the end, there is a sweet ‘Call-To-Action’ button.
- Homepage as landing page – sometimes companies do not find enough time to create a separate landing page and they use their homepage in their SEO and marketing campaigns
3 Common Design/Development Errors To Avoid
Obsession With Gathering Client Details
Getting rid of those extra few fields of information from your landing page form can boost conversions to a great extent. While you might have an urge to collect as much data as possible from your visitors but it is really not a good idea. Think of it like this – where would you like to request for a free web design quote? A form that has only three fields – Name, Email and Project Requirements or a form that has 20+ fields including ‘Last Name’, ‘Phone Number’, ‘Street Address’, ‘Company Name’, ‘Skype ID’, etc. If you are anything like me (a fast-paced human), you would rather just skip filling up the form and move on to finding better and shorter forms. Remember that the internet is full of alternatives. Any extra effort in your conversion process can cost you some serious loss.
Having Multiple Objectives – Providing Multiple Options
Before you develop a landing page, you shall ask yourself – ‘What is the single most important objective of your landing page? What is the one product or service you want promote? What is the most desirable action you need from the visitor?‘ When you give a user multiple choices; this will create confusion and complexity and would often return in conversion loss.
Putting this theory to real life example – Say you have a web design website that has three objectives – to increase the newsletter subscribers, to increase member-base for their web design forum and to get more quote requests. Instead of having a single landing page pitching 3 offers to a visitor, create an individual landing page for a specific objective.
Avoid Listing Additional Offers
Some of the landing pages, specially for e-Commerce websites, they would list additional best sellers or featured offers on a landing page that is designed for a specific product or product segment. This is a big NO NO! In most cases, you will be sending traffic to additional pages (through these additional offers) providing them various other distractions and reducing their span-attention on the product you actually wanted to market.
Using Rich Media In Your Landing Pages
Employ Relevant Images
Pictures is worth a thousand words and if employed properly; it could grab attention and promote conversion and engagement. Making use of relevant images in your landing page is a good idea. Try using image files which are less in size and can load fast on your website. Designing an infographic style image promoting your company’s USP is one example of relevant image.
Avoid Pictures Which Serve No Use
Everybody likes a good picture, right? No, not in a landing page. Every image you use in your landing page should be relevant and should aim to improve the page’s conversion ratio. Avoid using irrelevant images like those of a beautiful landscape; photo of a beautiful smiling girl or anything irrelevant.
Using Videos The Right Way
Some landing pages make use of videos. While a video can be a powerful conversion tool; but not in all cases. A simple company intro video in your landing page is a disaster. On the other hand, a explainer video talking about your service or a demo video crafted for explaining your product’s/service’s USP is a good idea. Be careful of the video you use. If you were unable to create a landing page specific video due to shortage of time or anything else; simply avoid using any video at all.
Landing Page Content
Sometimes it is just hard for people to sign up for your service (or convert as such) since they are not sure what your service can actually do for them. This is one area you need to work on. Ensure that while trying to not overload your visitors with content, you do not fail to educate them about your offer.
This might work for some people who are not hateful of spam or would do anything today to learn that BIG money-making secret. But seriously, think for yourself. Why would you give your name and email address here when you know nothing here – what to expect, prices (if any), who are these people, why they are giving this for free, etc.
Provide compelling reasons why one should fill-up the form on the page. Let your visitor know that you are some genuine company who is sharing some valuable stuff. Give your visitors an idea about what they are going to receive, what they can expect when they fill out the form, etc. Showing off your customer testimonials and references can work wonders.
Updating your sales copy with the current trends or festive season is a good idea. More than often, they would bring in some extra conversions even if you are selling some e-products or services.
Optimize The Conversion Path
Long conversion path could be another reason why your conversion ratio is not so great. Making sure that the conversion process offers no resistance to visitors is crucial. This mostly applies to eCommerce websites or websites selling some sort of physical products. The conversion path can be optimized by ensuring that the customer has to fill out minimum number of forms and fields. Collect as many required details (shipping and billing address, credit card info, etc.) on the same page if possible. Remember that any resistance at any level of conversion path could be a possible reason for decreased conversion ratio.
Track & Test Landing Pages
David Ogilvy, The Father of Advertising, said –
Never stop testing, and your advertising will never stop improving.
Though this was said a long time ago, it still holds true for all sort of advertising and marketing campaign. This holds true for your landing pages. Tweaking your landing pages after regular intervals and testing the effectiveness of each new design is important. You might be already having a descent conversion ratio but this doesn’t mean that it cannot be further improved. Remember that even a slight increase in conversion ratio from 2% to 2.2% will increase your conversion volume by 10%.
You can learn about tracking a landing page by following the instructions here on this HubSpot page – How to create a tracking URL for a landing page
Treat New Visitors Well
Another powerful tool to improve your landing page conversions can be by providing incentives for new visitors. If you see the statistics of your landing page, you would be finding that the percentage of new visitors would be much more than that of returning visitors.
Why not make use of this info? Now that you know that most people are new visitors why not treat them well so they really like it well here? Offer them some sort of incentive. Let them know that you value their visit and thank them by offering some sort of special offer. Here are few things you can do –
- Offer them a discount on your products/services
- If you are selling physical product and charge for shipping separately, provide them with free shipping
- Offer them a coupon they can use
- Offer them a free session to talk one on one with you and know more about your service
2 Content Errors To Avoid
Only Paragraph-Style Text
Do not forget that the attention span of internet users is like 8 seconds. This is the only time you have to make a good first impression. If you do not have sufficient reason for them to stick around and dig deep in your landing page, you are failing to get a good conversion ratio. Overloading the landing page with too much paragraph style text is not a good idea. Here are few of the content elements you can employ to attract a visitor’s attention –
- Use catchy & attention-grabbing headings
- Use relevant and informational images – texts could be carefully crafted as colorful images
- Bullet-points and numberings – Instead of bragging about your product/service in a long and lengthy paragraph; make a bullet point or a numbered list telling people why they should opt for your product or service over others.
- Bold, Italicize and Underline important words – Highlighting important words or phrases is a sure-fire way to draw attention
Failing To Mention USP
USP stands for unique selling point OR unique selling proposition. It is used in marketing to convince people to switch brands or differentiate a brand from the other companies offering the same products/services. If your landing page fails to provide enough benefits or USP to your visitors; you are going to lose a handful of prospect conversions. I would recommend that before making a landing page, you should jot down at least 5-6 USPbenefits that your company offers over others. Make a list and use it well as your landing page content strategy.
Some of the common USPs for a business could be –
- Making it easier for your customers to buy or use
- Any guarantees/warranties offered
- Any free trial or free shipping deals
- Affordable than competitors
- Providing a better ROI or saving
- Your reputation – as reflected in customer testimonials
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