A landing page that meets your business goals is an exciting thing. Without the right attention to detail, however, your conversion rates may fall flat. Fortunately, there are many ways to optimize your landing page and improve results.
The average conversion rates vary based on industry. For example, e-commerce sites average 2.9% conversions, while business to business (B2B) sites average as high as 10%. Understand what a reasonable conversion rate is for your type of business so that you’ll know when you’ve improved beyond average. No matter what kind of company you own, there are 10 key things you can work on that will make your landing page the best it can be.
1. Know Your Goals
Your first step should be to write out your objective for each landing page. Do you want to gather information on new leads? Then the page’s intent is to get the user to sign up for a free newsletter. Perhaps your goal is to sell something. If so, your focus for the page will be quite different than a mere collection point. You should have multiple landing pages, and each needs a purpose.
Hypersonix has a clear purpose for their landing page — to show users the benefits of using their product. They use an interactive animation to highlight a scenario where a business owner utilizes their AI system, walking through the advantages of tracking with them.
Takeaway: Know your intention for your page and think of creative ways to present it to your customer. Look at the situation through their eyes and what benefits them most.
2. Improve the UX
Strong optimization tactics lead to excellent user experience (UX), but a stellar UX also leads to more optimization. The two go hand-in-hand. Your first step toward improving UX on your site should be to walk through the buyer’s journey just as they would.
Does the page load quickly? Is the text easy to read? How does the site look on mobile? You should also click through any links and fill out forms to make sure the page functions the way you want. If you have a free offer, fill out the form, and see if the gift sends as expected.
3. Analyze Your Audience
You’ll hear this advice over and over again about marketing, web design and customer service. It’s one of the most important components of improving conversions. If you don’t understand your customers, it’s much more difficult to tap into their emotions. Analyze your audience list to see if there are patterns. Then, look at traffic to your site. Where is most of it coming from? What demographics has Google Analytics collected for you? You can even poll your customers.
Once you have a good amount of information, create buyer personas to represent each segment of your audience. Now, look at your landing page via the viewpoint of your typical client.
Advanced Cooling Technologies caters their landing page to their target audience’s needs. In the slider at the top of the page, they speak to specific industries they serve, such as military, space industries and medical. They also list the different solutions they provide, so companies and individuals easily see the advantages of doing business with them.
Takeaway: Know your audience well enough to address their needs on your landing page.
4. Integrate Shopping
If a user has to go through too many different steps to complete a purchase, they may bounce away before completing the sale. The easier you make the purchase process or data collection, the more likely you’ll convert browsers into buyers. Software such as WooCommerce offers regular updates to help you make things as easy as possible for people.
5. Include Video
Studies show viewers retain about 95% of a message via video as opposed to other methods. Adding video to your landing page adds visual interest and conveys more information than text alone ever will. Visual enhancements help site visitors understand your offer and make a more informed decision.
Taskade offers a video on their landing page, but the site visitor decides if they want the video to play or they’d prefer to scroll on down. The bright colors of the page are repeated within the video itself, tying the two together with consistency.
Takeaway: A video is an opportunity to present information in a more streamlined way.
6. Use Heatmaps
Heatmaps show you user behavior once a person lands on your page. Use them to analyze areas on your page that your audience doesn’t use. You can also identify hot spots and put more emphasis on those elements of your page. If the majority of your users click on a specific button, then try moving it up a bit on the page and see if you increase conversions.
7. Reduce Distractions
It’s tempting to add as much information as possible to your landing pages. After all, if you can show consumers just how great your product or service is, they’ll want to become customers. However, a lot of noise distracts people and may reduce conversions. Look at what is truly necessary and cut anything else. Some experts advise no navigation other than to your offer. However, that isn’t realistic for most businesses, so look for ways of reducing your navigation.
Monte Zovo keeps things to a minimum when you land on their site. There is a video streaming in the background, which shows the location, vineyards, people drinking their wine, etc. There is a large “Play Video” button. There is also some basic navigation at the bottom, and their mega menu hides within a hamburger menu.
Takeaway: You can still offer navigation, just reduce it to a point where it doesn’t distract from the main purpose of the page.
8. Test Calls-to-Action
Your CTAs tell the user what to do next. However, the wording, colors, and placement that works with your specific audience can vary. The only way to figure out the specifics of your CTAs is by testing them. Try changing the wording from the second person to the first person and conduct some split testing to see how your users respond. Make changes as needed to improve responses.
9. Show Trust Factors
When people first hear of your brand, they have no reason to trust you. Unfortunately, dishonest players burn the general public, and then consumers lose all faith in companies doing the right thing. You must convince visitors you are worthy of their trust. There are many elements you can add that help with this, including contact information, customer testimonials and banners of any professional groups to which you belong.
10. Create a Sense of Urgency
Start a ticking time clock from the minute the person lands on your page. It might be a limited time offer where they get free shipping or some sort of discount if they sign up within a certain amount of time. You need to create balance with a limited time offer, though. You don’t want them to feel rushed, so create an offer that spurs them into action but doesn’t shut them out from buying at all or say something about it being their last chance to save money.
Another big no-no with a timed offer is offering a discount if they buy in 24 hours and then sending out an email and offering the same thing again. If the offer is limited in length, it should go away when the clock ticks down to zero. You can offer something different but never present that same one again.
Keep Your Landing Page Simple
Your landing page should have a specific purpose and not deviate too much from it. Eliminate anything not driving customers toward your goal. Cut out the clutter and only leave what is truly necessary. With attention to detail and regular testing, you’ll have an optimized landing page and convert more users than ever before.
Author Bio
Lexie is a digital nomad and graphic designer. She enjoys hiking with her goldendoodle and creating new cookie recipes. Check out her design blog, Design Roast, and connect with her on Twitter @lexieludesigner.
