A landing page is a website page with a specific purpose — the objective of a landing page is to convert visitors into leads. While there are many types of landing pages the intent the same — get more leads.
Today, I’m going to talk about the best practices so you can attract more prospects and convert more customers.
Landing Page Best Practices to Improve Your Conversions
If you want to improve your website conversion rates, approach landing page optimization using best practices and strong data. The process starts the minute you begin designing the page, but it lasts long after the page goes live. Think of it as building a product. You don’t design the perfect prototype on day one. Instead, you might create 100 prototypes before you’ve perfected the product.
Landing pages work the same way. Just like products, landing pages must appeal to your target audience, compel them to act, and meet their expectations.
Simplify your landing page
A very simple landing page might seem counterintuitive, but it gets rid of the visual clutter. You want your website visitors to focus on the prize: your call to action. Dropbox is consistently one of my favorite examples. The company creates awesome landing pages that communicate volumes without many words.
On this page, there are just five main elements above the fold, and three of them are small enough to fit in a navigation bar space. The fourth provides a pleasing but subtle visual, and the last focuses on the CTA.
Try contrasting colors
The best landing pages I’ve ever seen have made great use of contrast, but in color and clarity. In this example from Starbucks, you can’t ignore the CTA.
Even though the “Join Now” button reflects the star’s color in the left-side logo, it’s far more pronounced and clear. The textured black background makes the headline and CTA pop. Plus, there’s lots of negative space between the logo and the rest of the elements.
Add testimonials to help convert undecided users
I’m a big fan of social proof. I want people to know that other businesses have used my products and services. Not only that, but I want to communicate that I’ve helped them achieve fantastic results.
Testimonials are among the best ways to do this. If you can convince your customers to create a video testimonial, you’ll have an edge on the competition. Quotes work well, too, as long as you use the customer’s full name — and ideally a headshot.
Make your offer clear
When you first start planning your optimization strategy, think about how you can make the customer experience positive emotions. You want them to feel smart, appreciated, inspired, and excited. Start by thinking about your customer’s specific goal, and turn that goal into a headline. Elegant Themes does this well.
The word “empower” in this context makes the customer want to feel the same thing.
Add contact information
You can provide your website visitors with contact information in lots of different ways. You can put your phone number or email address on your landing page, or you can use a contact form. Other companies, such as Shopify, include links to their help centers.
Customers know by now that they can find contact information, answers to frequently asked questions, and tutorials in help centers.
Optimize your landing page for SEO
People find landing pages via organic search all the time. Maybe one of your landing pages is your home page, for instance, which means that it should — at the very least — come up if someone searches for your company’s name.
You can also rank for industry-related keywords. If you search Google for “heat map tool,” for instance, Crazy Egg is the first organic result:
Use tools like Ubersuggest to find the best keywords for your landing page. Incorporate those keywords into headlines, body text, image alt text, and more.
Keep A/B testing everything
The more A/B tests you run, the more accurate your data becomes. Each A/B test should include a single change to one variant, such as your CTA.
If you change multiple elements, you won’t know which one impacted the difference in conversions between the two variants.
After you’ve collected data and gotten to know your audience, you can apply what you learned to a redesign and verify that it improved your conversion rate via A/B testing.
Optimize for search.
Sure, you’ll be driving visitors to your landing page through email blasts, social posts and other marketing methods, but your page should also be optimized with target keywords for your paid campaigns and organic search. When someone searches for your key phrase, they should find your landing page. Similarly, when you target a keyword with paid ads, those words should exist on your landing page.
Remember to use a thank you page.
A thank you page is where you send leads once they’ve completed your form. Now, you could just show a thank you message on the same page or ditch the thank you altogether, but there are many reasons why that’s not the best option.
A thank you page serves three important purposes:
It delivers the offer that you promised (usually in the form of an instant download)
It gives you an opportunity to interest your new lead in additional relevant content
It serves as a chance to thank them for their interest, which goes a long way in promoting them to a customer down the line.
Grow Better with Landing Pages
Landing pages will account for a majority of your new leads, so they demand your attention. With the vast number of tweaks, additions, and variations you can implement, there’s no reason why you can’t have a landing page that converts well.
As long as you’re following the best practices I've covered above, you’ll be on your way to a high-performing landing page
Photo by canmandawe on Unsplash