No matter whether you’re using paid advertising or search engine optimization, the first page on your website that each visitor sees will have a huge influence on whether the site is profitable or not. If you capture their attention straight away with an excellent landing page, then you stand a good chance of converting that visitor into a customer. If not, there’s a whole Internet out there, and the chances are that visitor will never come across your site again. This is the reason conversion rate optimization is as important as search engine optimization for any website.
So what can you do to improve the power of your landing pages? Here are eight best-practice tips which are sure to boost your conversion rates and profits.
Don’t overload the visitor with choices. Tell them what you want to do, and make it easy for them to carry out your wishes. Don’t make them read too much, and keep their required activity as low as possible – a single click is ideal, or at the most an extremely short form to capture their basic details.
A landing page isn’t the place for elaborate, in-depth copy. All this can come later in the conversion process, to give more detail to prospects who require it. A landing page should consist of the well-crafted marketing basics an attention-grabbing headline, a clear benefit, and a compelling call to action. That’s not to say every landing page needs to present a sparse, minimalist experience, but don’t
A landing page can be highly targeted to a visitor’s needs and desires, especially with the granular flexibility offered by paid advertising. Use this to your advantage by making every page focus on a specific benefit, and hammer this point home at every opportunity. Your headline, any copy, and the call to action should all be tightly focused on the chosen benefit.
Make sure your call to action gives a compelling reason to comply. Whether this be a discount, a free offer, a promise of valuable information, or even the hoary old tactic of scarcity marketing, you need to present your prospect with an offer they can’t refuse.
As you’ll know what your landing page is offering to a visitor, you should also be able to anticipate any objections or worries that may dissuade them from clicking through to your main site. If you can counter these worries, conversion will improve hugely. As a simple example, promising a no-quibble money back guarantee can reduce the perceived financial risk of taking the desired action, as can spelling out the fact that no credit card details will be required.
As well as dealing with specific objections and worries, try and increase the overall atmosphere of trust and reliability your page inspires. Consider using security badges, ‘Better Business’ logos, industry-specific association memberships and certifications, anything that can push up the trust level a little.
Studies have shown that using photographs of real people can help in conversion rate optimization from landing pages. However, be careful to avoid clichéd poses or stock images which will lower credibility rather than enhance it. If you use a human face, pay attention to which elements on your page the photo subject appears to be looking at. The human eye will naturally follow a line of sight, so use this to attract attention to your most important page elements.
Lastly, testing your landing pages for effectiveness should be a high priority. Although all the aspects above are known to be successful, conversion is not an exact science, and different combinations of techniques can have varying and often unexpected outcomes. Even small changes can have a surprisingly large influence on a visitor’s behavior, so don’t be afraid to experiment so long as you have good systems in place for evaluating the results.
In the fast-paced world of digital marketing, you’ve typically only got one chance to convert each visitor into a customer. Especially if you’re paying for visits through advertising, it’s vital to maximize the effectiveness of your visitors’ first impressions of your site. The difference a well-crafted landing page can make to a campaign cannot be understated, and optimizing this aspect of your marketing can pay by far the best dividends when done correctly.
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