11 ways to boost your landing page conversions: best tips, tricks, and practices
This article was prepared by Ugljesa Djuric, the content marketer at Competitors app.
Creating a landing page is a very important part of any business process.
If you want to collect information about your users by offering some value in the form of free demo or free e-book and similar, or you want to make a direct sale, you need an effective landing page.
Without pre-invested effort and research, a large number of landing page conversions will not come by itself.
The biggest problem is that people quickly leave landing pages that do not attract their attention and therefore you miss the opportunity to acquire landing page conversions.
What you need to know at the very beginning is that 48% of landing pages contain more than one offer.
That is a big mistake. The most important rule is that one landing page should contain only one offer, otherwise you will overload the visitor with the information.
There are many more things that affect the landing pages negatively: bad title, not engaged copy, too little information, too much color and so on.
Nevertheless, in this article, we will help you deal with these issues and create a page that will bring you many landing page conversions.
1. Make an effective landing page
In order to increase landing page conversions, your page needs to be carefully designed.
Instapage highlights that a good landing page should have these 8 elements:
- A compelling headline
- An effective copy
- Engaging media (images, videos, gifs)
- Trust indicators (statistical evidence, trust badges, customer testimonials, third-party seals, privacy policy)
- Lead capture form
- Strong call-to-action
- No exit links
- Sufficient white space
These elements are not always enough to make one landing page also effective. Even more, carefully implementing all of these elements will help you to improve SEO rankings of your landing page.
Design is a very important item.
Corresponding colors and eye-catching images are essential if you want to boost your landing page conversions.
There must be a strong contrast between the background color and the color of the buttons.
Certain button colors such as red or green are said to increase landing page conversions.
In order to find out what will keep your visitors, test different colors, positions of the elements and fonts.
Tip: When selecting fonts for your landing page, do not experiment too much with a large number of different fonts or, even worse, with those fonts that are too hard to read. Try to limit yourself to two, maximum of three effective fonts.
If you’re a fan of colors in general and want to put everything on your landing page at the same time, refrain yourself from doing it. Too little elements and text that do not provide enough information about your offer could be as bad as the overloaded landing page.
Provide enough free space so you do not “suffocate” your visitors or draw the attention from the action you want to implement on your website.
You can test your landing page effectiveness by using AdWords Landing Page Grader for free and see best practices, conversion rate optimization and more.
2. Increase your landing page speed
One of the visitors’ main reasons for leaving a certain page is its slow loading.
Even if you aren’t crazy about someone spending your precious time, are you?
Well, the same goes for your visitors.
If you want to maintain their interest and to boost your landing page conversions, the speed of your landing page is something that you have to pay attention to.
Sunny Landing Pages mention that 53% of all visits are abandoned if a mobile page takes longer than 3 seconds to load.
Business is one of those activities where the seconds are of crucial importance.
Every second is valuable.
People do not have enough patience and they will not take a moment to think: “Hey, maybe I should wait, maybe this is something I might be interested in.” No, their interest disappears immediately and switches to something else.
Also, the upload speed directly affects the ranking of your ad.
However, you can solve these problems by testing and accelerating the load speed of your landing page.
Use these five ways separated by BloggingPro in order to improve your landing page loading speed:
- Clean up and compress the code
- Keep redirects to a minimum
- Get rid of extra plugins and widgets
- Resize and compress the images
- Upgrade your hosting plan
3. Landing page flow
To improve landing page conversions, your landing page should have a specific structure.
That structure should be designed in a way that keeps your visitors’ attention and stops them from rushing by clicking on “X”.
Your landing page flow should look like this:
- Headlines
- Visual content
- Benefits
- Social proofs
- Call-to-action
The title should intrigue your visitors, and all the other elements should successfully lead to that key element that represents call-to-action which helps you in getting what you want from them.
Source: Unbounce
- Headlines
At the top of your page is the main headline.
The main headline should match what the visitors first clicked on in order to avoid causing their confusion.
Right below, set up a supporting headline which explains more closely what’s on your landing page and provides some additional information.
It is implied that you have already done a detailed analysis of your target audience before creating your landing page so that everything you do is in line with their characteristics and interests.
That also applies to these titles.
Depending on the type of your business and the characteristics of the target audience, you will know in which direction the assembly of your titles should go. Whether they should be creative, simple, or should they directly point to a problem that you want to solve with your product or service, and similarly.
2. Visual content
When creating a landing page, keep in mind that “a picture is worth more than a thousand words”.
Next, what your visitor needs to come up with, is an eye-catching content that describes your offer through visual content such as pictures or videos.
Visitors will find it easier to imagine what you want to present to them. This type of content is great to explain how something that you’re offering is used, and people will remember subconsciously what they have seen.
3. Benefits
What are the potential customers getting if you do not show them the benefits of using your product or service?
Don’t leave them beating their brains out.
Benefit list is an extremely important segment that will separate you from the competition and enable you to gain potential customers.
State what you offer, what makes you different from the competition, and what will make your customer’s life better if he or she decides to use your product or service.
Sometimes, showing just one benefit that will excite your visitors is enough, but make sure that the expression of that benefit is remarkably presented.
Analyze how your competition works and you will know where to go from there.
Do not forget to be original.
4. Social proofs
This is a segment where you will present your analysis, as well as the experiences of your customers.
Social proofs provide this authentic moment of conviction thanks to the opinions and experiences of the right people who have already tried what you’re offering.
5. Call-to-action
CTA represents the goal of your landing page.
Everything that one landing page contains is set in order to accomplish the ultimate intention, which is — the visitors taking a certain action.
There will be more about the testimonials and the CTA segment in the rest of the article.
These are some of the most important elements that should be on your landing page, but, in accordance with the offer you promote and your business, you should also select and test potential moves that could bring you the most landing page conversions.
Try to squeeze the USP (unique selling proposition) through the whole landing page.
The USP is what distinguishes you from the others.
Let the whole page “reflect” why you should be the ultimate choice of your visitors and someone to whom they will give their trust.
4. Make your ad and landing page look similar
97% of ad clicks don’t end up converting.
Why is that?
Many forget that the advertisement that people clicked on must be similar to the page that the same click would take them to.
For example, if you are exaggerating with clickbait titles, and the landing page and the offer do not meet those expectations, people will get frustrated and probably will never want to visit your site again.
That’s why your advertising and landing pages must be connected.
Connectivity does not only mean that they come to the website by clicking on the ad, but that they are interconnected.
The experience that you create for your visitors must be consistent.
To incorporate ad and landing pages, the message offer should be displayed on both of them.
Use the same color scheme and fonts.
Also, make sure to use the same copy and keywords.
The ad needs to interest people enough to click on it and find out more about it, and the landing page should provide information and include a click-to-action field in order for visitors to do what they intend.
In this way, you’ll get more landing page conversions.
Pay attention to the following examples:
Source: Acquisio
Source: Unbounce
5. Optimize your landing page for SEO
If you use Google Ads to advertise your business, doing a search engine optimization is inevitable in order for you to place yourself as high as possible in search results.
The keywords you use to target your audience should also be incorporated into your ad as well on your landing page.
Tip: Try Ubersuggest to find relevant keywords that you will use afterward.
As previously mentioned, the speed of the landing page also plays an important role.
Do not forget to put ALT tags in the image captions.
6. Great copy
You only have a couple of seconds to get people interested in something before they continue scrolling.
How will you achieve that?
You need an excellent copy that will keep them intrigued enough that they want to find out more.
Brian Dean gives excellent guidelines for writing an effective copy:
- Write as you talk
Write in a simple language, or, if you are addressing a particular target group, use the terms they understand, do not complicate it.
When you write a copy, repeat it out loud.
If it does not sound right to you, write it again.
2. Use short sentences
Short sentences will not “smother” the visitors.
Try to write concisely and distinctly, to say more with fewer words.
3. Write to one person
Regardless of whether you are dealing with B2B (business to business) or B2C (business to customer) activities, always refer to only one person.
Avoid using the plural.
Example: A lot of companies have a problem with SEO.
If you want to establish a more intimate contact with people, use the singular: Does your business have a problem with SEO?
4. Use active voice
Avoid the using of passive.
Example: The article is published by Mike.
The active voice sounds much better: Mike published the article.
5. No big words
Complicated words are difficult to read, and instead of using them, you should use everyday words that are used in communication or at least the frequently used synonyms of the complicated terms.
Words like humongous or demonstrate will draw attention from the main meaning of copy, and you certainly do not want that.
Don’t forget that copy and keywords also should be placed on both the ad and the landing page.
7. Click-to-action
Click-to-action is the goal of your landing page.
You must maintain the visitor’s attention successfully in order to reach the CTA form because this is the place where they need to make the specific action. Whether it is a course reservation, a free e-book download, or a check in for a webinar, the options are varied.
If your offer is clear and tempting enough, people will leave you their data in exchange for the value you offer.
Contact information will be of the utmost importance for building a customer base.
You can set CTA anywhere on the page, but, in order to build your customer base and maintain the visitors’ attention, we suggest that you listen to the tips we have mentioned concerning the Landing page flow.
Let’s look at a few examples:
These examples contain everything that an excellent click-to-action form should have:
- simple and effective copy
- contrasting colors
- a call-to-action button
There is no need to overload the call-to-action segment because the previous elements should provide all the other information.
When the visitors come to this part, nothing should distract their attention from taking a certain action.
8. Testimonials
Testimonials represent a “living word” of people who have already tried your product or service and have something to say about it.
Their experiences and opinions that you will put on your site can have a huge impact on increasing landing page conversions.
Testimonials are important because new visitors will gain more trust in your business when they see the opinions of your previous users and find out that you offer something that has already been tested and proven well.
Also, they will be able to see the benefits of your service or product represented in some entirely different way.
Visitors will get the opportunity to find out why certain people have already chosen you, how your business helped them, what you did for them, and so on. When writing testimonials, people often include emotions unintentionally, which will greatly affect new potential users.
In addition to this, visitors will consider testimonials to be more objective than you yourself mentioning the benefits of your own offer.
Your customers are the creators of your story, and storytelling is something that certainly contributes to increased sales.
Tip: If you want to raise your testimonials to a higher level, the video content will contribute for sure. When people see your customers talk about you and when they connect a story to your face, they will give you their trust more quickly.
If you do not have any idea how to obtain a video material, maybe your satisfied customers can make it for you as you prefer to create a more realistic picture of your business.
Using testimonials, you build a connection with potential customers and gain certain credibility, which means that this is one of the most effective ways to boost your landing page conversions.
9. Pop-ups
Pop-ups are windows that appear when a reader makes an action on your landing page.
They can appear while scrolling a certain part of the page or when a visitor wants to exit the landing page, click on a specific link, and so on.
The purpose of using pop-ups is to keep the reader’s attention.
Pop-ups allow you to provide some additional information without leaving the page on which you’re located.
Use pop-ups for all your need
There are many types of pop-up windows, and Wishpond points to some of the most common:
- Click pop-ups
Click pop-ups appear when a visitor clicks on a particular word, image, or a link.
- Timed pop-ups
These windows appear after the reader has already spent a certain amount of time on your website.
With Google Analytics, you can find out how many people stay on your landing page on average and determine what is the best time for a pop-up to appear on it.
- Scroll pop-up
They appear after the visitor has scrolled down a certain percentage of your landing page. A great example of how to use scroll intent pop-ups comes from Userpilot:
When you scroll their blog’s landing page, this popup shows. It’s great because it adds a certain dose of the human element (which is really powerful these days), and it has a compelling copy that “forces” readers to subscribe.
- Entry pop-ups
They appear as soon as the landing page is loaded.
- Exit pop-ups
These windows appear when a visitor wants to leave your landing page.
Do not overdo the number of pop-ups, because instead of keeping the readers’ attention, you will make them run away from your landing page.
The goal is to boost your landing page conversions, so be careful. Here’s an instruction of how to launch pop-ups within 5 minutes.
10. Monitor competitors’ website changes
When it comes to business, it is very important to keep track of what your competition is doing.
Observe the changes on their website, analyze them, test them on your site.
Keeping up with the innovations and with the state of competition is a prerequisite for success and for increasing landing page conversions.
Pay attention to what their ad and landing pages look like.
Even at first glance, you will be able to see what works for you and what not and what changes on your ad and landing page can you make.
Explore how well are the competitors doing when it comes to their position on Google rankings, which keywords and phrases are used and which are forgotten. Review their strategy to create an advantage and earn a higher position in Google search.
To save yourself some time, you can use one of the tools that will find important information about your competitors instead.
One of the tools that can help you monitor your competitor’s website changes is Competitors.app.
This tool offers you regular reports about new competitors, their advertising campaigns, updates on social media, keywords ranking and more, and automatically informs you about competing websites’ changes.
11. Test your landing page
You can test your landing page through A/B testing or multivariate testing.
A/B testing allows you to compare two of the same landing pages (A and B) that differ in just one thing and to discover which affects the behaviour of your visitors more positively.
This will help you realize which page would bring you more landing page conversions.
Another option is multivariate testing, where you can test different elements on one and the same page.
Also, check the page loading speed and how much is the overall structure of all the elements on your landing page functional.
Although it’s assumed, we remind you once more to check if each word is grammatically correct.
The bottom line
Congratulations!
You’ve finished going through all of the 11 ways to boost your landing page conversions.
It’s time to start using these tips in order for your landing page to provide a friendly-user experience to the visitors, and for your offers to become something that they couldn’t refuse.
Get ready for an enormous number of landing page conversions!