Over the years, what makes a positive user experience and what will drive conversions has changed dramatically.
10 years ago, banner ads were all the rage and offers for a free laptop
actually drove customers towards a particular brand. Today’s online
customers are much more sophisticated. They ignore flashy advertisements
and pop-up ads merely drive people to ad blocking software.
Instead, you need to engage and convert these customers in a much more subtle way.
You need to use a little psychology. By understanding what people like to see and what resonates with them, along with some machine learning and a few industry best practice techniques you can create landing pages that connect so people convert.
A landing page that successfully brings in new customers has a number of
different parts. Neglecting a few of these essentials has the power to
drastically reduce the success of your page and therefore minimize the
leads and customers that would be otherwise cultivated.
Headings
Your headline will let customers know if they have found the right page.
It is your chance to draw the customer in and encourage them to keep
reading your content. Your headline should not be the same as your page
title tags, but ideally it will tie-in to the searches and keywords that
you are looking to attract.
Design
The design of your page will have an incredible impact on your
conversion rate. There are multiple psychological principles at play
that can guide your design process and help you maximize your layout.
Here are some that you can use right away.
The power of people
People themselves can also be used to influence the eyes. Customers
respond favorably to images of real people and faces, which naturally
help them connect to your website.
You can then take this a step further by having those image subjects
looking at your product. We feel an innate desire to see what people are
looking at, which means customers will follow the model’s glance to
your product.
The importance of lines
You can control where your visitors look next with careful
modifications. Arrows and lines naturally draw the human eye because
people are inclined to follow a line from its beginning to the end.
Pointing arrows at particularly important parts of your copy or your CTA
itself can draw attention to these aspects of the page.
The importance of contrast
Contrast can help make certain aspects of your page stand out, which in
turn makes them more memorable and noteworthy. This means you should use
contrasting colors on your CTA and to highlight other important parts
of the page. Using blank space around the CTA can enhance the effect
even further.
Content and copy
The content is your chance to connect with your audience and provide
them with immediate answers about why they should care about your
offer.
Generally, you do not want to have too much content on the page. A study by
Google has found that visitors are more in favor of sites that are not
too visually complex and follow a predictable pattern, making it easier
for them to process quickly.
Certain types of copy have been found to be more successful than others.
For example, people hate the idea that they may miss out or lose
something, this is a phenomenon called loss aversion (or scarcity
marketing). That is why advertisements that hint at limited quantities
of products or very little time until the sale is over tend to succeed
so well. The same concept can apply to your landing page.
Copy that spells out clearly what customers are going to receive from
you, such as a decrease in expenses, can also help. So too can
testimonials where genuine past customers articulate how exactly your
service made their lives better.
Forms
The human brain is wired to minimize cost. This cost might come in the
form of actual money, or it might be something as simple as extra fields
in your form.
Even if you add just optional sections, the brain will interpret this as
an additional ‘expense’ and therefore you will reduce the motivation of
visitors to fill in the form.
In fact, MarketingSherpa found that
one additional form field decreased conversions by as much as 11%.
Instead, you should keep your forms as concise as possible. If the
information is not absolutely necessary, do not include it. You can
always collect more information from your leads as you build the
relationship.
Calls to action
Most people want to spend their time maximizing pleasure and minimizing
pain. That human desire also applies to your landing page. Your call to
action (CTA) is your chance to invite your customer to take the next
step in building a relationship with you. It should come at the end of
positive, engaging content and tie in nicely with the message you are
trying to communicate.
Focus on the user and include personal language, such as ‘Start My Free Trial’ instead of a generic, ‘Click to Download’.
You should make sure there is only one CTA on your page. While you might
think offering multiple options will give you the chance to entice more
people, all you end up doing is confusing people about what you want
them to do and they click off the page.
Make it simple for visitors to know and complete the desired action.
Check the competition
Looking at competitors’ pages can offer you key insights about how to
improve your page that you might not have otherwise considered. It also
can help you better position your own page to outperform those
competitors and better position your brand.
Optimization is where machine learning plays such an important role. You
can use technology to analyze the landing pages used in your industry
to determine the best practices and how you can make your pages more
successful.
Information such as the layouts on the top performing pages, the styles
of the CTAs, the lengths of the headlines and the colors found on the
pages can be compiled and provide you with ideas for A/B tests.
Eye-tracking
Eye-tracking is a capability that lets you know exactly where people are
focusing when they see your web page. This has led to some amazing
insights, such as the importance of the direction where your photo
models are looking, as discussed above.
Image courtesy of Kissmetrics.
When you use this technology for your own page, you can also see if
customers are paying attention to your content, where people look before
they convert and what seems to be connecting best with visitors. This
will help you make modifications as needed and further optimize your
page.
Measurement
Successful LPO is driven by A/B testing.
If you have not done A/B testing before, the concept is
straightforward. You create two versions of your landing page. These
versions should be designed to test specific characteristics, such as
the wording on your CTA. When you run the A/B test, some of your
visitors will be randomly sent to one page and the rest to the other.
Since this is done randomly, you can then interpret differences in
conversion rates between the two pages to determine which page should be
permanently live.
Testing should not be limited to major changes, however. Even small
details can impact conversion rates. Do not forget to test things like:
- Layouts
- Design
- Language and wording
- Font and type size
- Heading length
- Amount of copy on the page
In conclusion
Landing page optimization is a critical part of online engagement. These
pages are designed to capture the attention of the customer and drive
them forward to make a purchase, fill in a form or otherwise convert.
Most pages have tremendous room for improvement. Although the average landing page conversion rate hovers around 2.35%,
the top performing pages see conversions over 5%. Review your landing
pages and see how well they line up with the LPO essentials.
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