When it comes to landing pages, conversions is the name of the game. Why else go through the trouble of running ads on search engines or boosting posts on Social Media, only to fall short of your goals with a poorly designed landing page. Today I will be discussing landing page design best practices. If you are struggling to drive conversions with your landing pages, I hope these tips can help you make the necessary changes you need to in order to increase your conversion rate.
Keep Call To Action Above The Fold
This should be pretty straightforward but I am still amazed how often calls to actions are not placed above the fold. When a user first lands on your page you want your CTA to be visible to them right away. You don’t want to have a lead from an inbound link from an expensive advert have to scroll down to find exactly what it is you are offering. A good rule of thumb would be to put what you have to offer, or an image of an eBook or white-paper you are offering directly below your logo on the left-hand side of the screen, while your call to action or sign up form to this content’s immediate right. Both the gist of the offer and call to action are above the fold. If you are confused, fear not. Scroll to the end of this article, and download a Landing Page Template.
Keep One CTA / Goal Per Page
The purpose of a landing page is to be very specific towards one objective. That said, you don’t want to give your inbound leads too many options, as you may be misleading them with your offer. It makes little sense to include a schedule a demo, talk to a rep, view video and download our ebook and anything other misleading CTA’s on a single landing page. Doing this will only distract the user and make the buyers journey that more difficult to follow. Pick only one that is related to your offer. The idea is, each landing page should be focused on one specific goal you want the user to complete.
Include Testimonials
Social proof and testimonials feature quite prominently on landing pages. Yet, some digital marketers seem to overlook this on their landing pages. But social proof is one of the biggest driving factors to get someone to actually convert after landing on your page. If they can see that other people are happy with what you have to offer, or your services in general, then they will be more likely to convert in the end.
Align Landing Page Form With Offer
If you are offering a white paper, you probably don’t require how many employees the lead has at their business, or what their job title is, or what their marketing budget is. Doing this might cause friction in the actual conversion process and your lead might not fully convert and complete the landing page form. That said, if you are offering a free assessment, or your landing page is designed to have inbound leads request a free consultation, then these additional questions probably are necessary so your sales team can get a better idea of how to frame the conservation you will be having with this lead. The takeaway here is to make sure that the amount of information you are requesting aligns with the value of the actual offer.
Use Directional Design To Boost CTA’s
This can include things like an arrow pointing in the direction you would like the reader to be directed to, or adding scroll down anchors and buttons which serve the same effect. What these achieve is help draw the readers attention to the main goal of that landing page. For example, you can use an arrow and some text which reads “here is what people like you are saying about our services”, and display some testimonials from happy clients a bit lower on the screen. You can also include another call-to-action or a form directly beneath these testimonials; that way, the visitor doesn’t have to scroll all the way back up the screen in order to complete a form or sign up to your newsletter.
Include Important Information About Your Offer
This might appear to be self-explanatory, yet more often than not I have seen a few businesses build out an entire landing page without really telling the user what they are going to get exactly after completing the form, and download whatever is being offered on that landing page. For example, if you are offering an ebook, have a brief synopsis of what they can expect to learn by reading it. If you are offering a free consultation, go into some detail about what they can expect to be discussed during the consultation, how long will it be, what kind of questions of theirs will you answer and so on and so forth. The point here is, your landing page text should provide them with your clear value proposition for them and why they should trust you with their information.
Use Tools To Analyze User Experience
Always analyze your landing page data and make changes accordingly. I use a tool called Inspectlet; in addition to allowing me to view user recordings on any landing pages, it also gives me a heat map so I know how much of the page people are reading and figure out where I should put pertinent information. For example, if people are not scrolling all the way down to the bottom of the landing page, it makes little sense to keep any images or forms just above the footer. You should analyze how inbound leads are reacting to the page, and then set up the page in a way that is best for your inbound leads.
Final Thoughts
Creating and publishing landing pages is fairly easy nowadays; there is no shortage of software and applications that will take the heavy lifting or coding off your hands. Yet, creating highly convertible landing pages are a challenge even for digital marketers. While the reasons are many why some visitors bounce from your landing pages or don’t fill out your forms, but I hope this advice mentioned will help you improve your landing pages.
That’s a lot of information to digest, right? When it comes to landing pages, thankfully, you don’t have to go at it alone. I am Inbound Marketing certified, and would welcome your feedback if you would like some additional advice if you need help converting more from your landing pages. Of course, I always welcome outside opinions. If you have any suggestions about how to go about improving landing page conversions, please share them with everyone below. I would be very happy to read your comments.
Thank you for reading this article. As promised, please go ahead and download a Landing Page Web Template by clicking here.