Does your website generate enough traffic but still the conversions are low? Maybe your website needs the much-needed health checkup precisely named Landing Page Optimization.
In general terms, Landing Page Optimization is the process of improving various elements of a Landing Page with the aim of increasing conversions. A well-framed process that takes into consideration qualitative and quantitative information to create a new version of an already existing landing page.
The main objective of the Landing Page Optimization process is to rebuild certain landing pages to target the audience in the best possible way and drive in more leads and sales. According to WordStream, 52% of the companies use landing pages and also test them to improve conversions. This makes Landing Page Optimization a mandatory process to increase sales and conversions.
To understand the concept of Landing Page Optimization, firstly you need to know what a Landing Page is. In simpler terms, a Landing Page is any page on your website that is specially designed by keeping a single conversion objective in mind.
The reason behind having a single conversion objective on the Landing Page is to limit the number of options available to the visitor and persuade them towards the desired conversion goal.
Why is Landing Page Optimization a Core Component for Lead Generation
Every marketer or advertiser has some goals to fulfil when digital marketing is taken into consideration. However, Lead Generation is one of them. To generate qualified leads, specific landing pages are created. These landing pages bridge the gap between you and your potential customers.
The landing pages offer something valuable to the prospects in return for the contact information of the users. This information is further utilised in the process of converting the leads into sales.
Owing to the fact that Landing Pages are an indispensable part for Lead Generation businesses, however, they should be optimized at regular intervals to improve the performance. As mentioned earlier, the landing pages are laser-focused on conversions, thus, optimizing them would result in a higher conversion rate.
Elements of Landing Page
By now you must have understood what a Landing Page is all about and how they support lead generation. Next in line comes the elements that compose and form a single landing page. Here are the main components of a landing page:
1. Headline
Without any doubt, it is the first thing that the visitors are likely to see or notice when they arrive on your landing page. Since the main purpose of the headline is to communicate your Unique Value Proposition. Thus, ensure that you sum up your offer clearly in the headline.
The headline should exactly describe your offer without beating around the bush. Keep your headline short, concise and to the point. Add a subheading if you have more information to put forward.
2. Benefit based Copy
After putting an enticing headline that grabs the attention of the user, you need to present related text that should explain everything about your offer in a clear and simple manner. Avoid writing lengthy paragraphs. Break all the necessary in either short paragraphs or use bullet points.
Rather than focusing on the features, present a list of benefits that your product/service is going to provide to the users. Benefits have a higher attraction rate than the features as benefits are directly inclined towards solving the pain points of the users.
3. Images and Videos
The internet space is immensely cluttered. Having only blocks of content on your Landing Page might disappoint your visitors and they might bounce back. Thus, to make your landing page more effective, ensure to incorporate images and videos to make the landing page look more visually appealing.
4. Conversion Form
The most critical yet core element of the landing page is the conversion form. This is where the visitors submit the required information in return for the offer. As the conversion form holds so much of importance, it should be visibly noticeable.
Usually, the conversion forms are designed within a box. Shorten the fields that have to be filled (visitors are reluctant in submitting detailed and lengthy information about themselves).
5. Social Sharing Buttons
They are the links that allow the visitors to share the particular landing page on various social media platforms like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram etc. Not only the social sharing buttons expand your horizon in terms on the network but it also increases conversion rate.
6. Trust Factors/Testimonials
It is a widely known fact that most people are more inclined towards the testimonials of already existing customers. You can use this parameter optimally. Putting in trust factors and testimonials will present a positive image of your product and services.
The Landing Page Optimization Process
1. Define SMART Goals
Before you start creating and designing the landing page, define a particular goal that you want to achieve. Defining the goal beforehand prepares a framework that has to be worked upon. All the more, try and define SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely) goals that are easy to achieve.
There are various goals that marketers want to achieve through the Landing Pages. Some may want to gather leads while the other might want to sell a product. There can be goals related to brand awareness and increasing engagement rates. After you have decided on the goal, choose an appropriate landing page that complements your goal.
2. Assemble Your Page
After you have defined the goal of the Landing Page, place and position the various elements of the Landing Page. Create various versions of the Landing Page and test the positioning of different elements like the headline, images, videos, conversion form, CTA etc.
Lastly, after you have assembled your Landing Page, build a Post-Conversion Page. This page gives you complete information on what happens after the visitors have completed your conversion goal. After the visitor completes a certain conversion action, you can ask them for a social follow or share to become connected on social networks as well. Moreover, you can also ask them to subscribe to your newsletter to continue the conversation through emails.
3. Attract traffic to your Landing Page
By now you must have created a Landing Page along with the Post Conversion Page. The next aligned thing is to direct traffic to your Landing Pages so that the conversion objective is completed. Simplicity in the Landing Page is the key to drive more traffic. Keep the theory simple.
If you are a new business just starting out to gain an online presence, you should start with paid advertising or banner ads. Moreover, if you are an already established business you can move on to other platforms of marketing like email marketing, social media marketing along with paid advertising.
Content Marketing is another major component that comes handy irrespective whether you are a new business or an already established one. Providing users with valuable content (generally in the form of blog posts, ebooks, guides) naturally draws attention and builds your online reputation.
4. A/B Test Your Landing Page
A/B testing of the Landing Page is a strategical process where different versions of a Landing Page is tested to see which one performs better. Various elements are placed and positioned in different places and tested. While performing the A/B tests, test one element at a time to gain the exact information.
Testing various elements at once might not give the exact working performance of each element. There are some standard elements that should be A/B tested which are the main headline, the call-to-action, images, CTA button design, CTA button colour, form, fields included in the form and copy.
Landing Page Optimization Best Practices
1. Minimize the number of actions on the Landing Page
Remove all the excess and unnecessary information from the landing page like extra form fields, ads, pop-ups, images and even text. If your Landing Page includes too many actions, then the visitor is likely to get confused or irritated. Hence, they would then bounce back. So ensure to keep your actions just limited to the conversion objective.
2. Put Relevant and Original Content
Measure the relevance of the content of your Landing Pages with your Primary Keywords. Thus, ensure to create a landing page that is relevant to your keywords as well ads. Ensure that your Ads and Landing Pages are consistent with the keywords that are mentioned in your ads.
Your Landing Page should clearly depict the solution of the search query that the users have processed. When the search query of the user matches with the content on the Landing Page, it gives a positive impact on the visitors and this builds a trust factor.
3. Clearly Mention the Offer
Beating around the bush is a complete No-No when it comes to Landing Page Optimization. Be very clear with you are offering so that your visitors don’t have to look for it. Put in the offers in a language that matches search queries of your visitors.
4. Landing Page Loading Speed
Online visitors are always in a hurry. They want accurate information in precisely no time. They are more likely to bounce back from your landing page if it takes forever to open. All your efforts of Landing Page Optimization will go in vain if your Page Speed is low. Having a low page speed also reduces the overall Quality Score which is further a setback.
5. Simple and Easy Navigation
Just because you deal with a lot of things online does not necessarily mean that you are going to include all the information in a single landing page.
Do not clutter your landing page. Place only the necessary elements on the Landing Page and ensure that it is easy to navigate. Limit the amount of internal and external links on your website.
Distractions are those elements that prevent your visitors from taking the relevant conversion action and diverts them to something else. Hence, they should be avoided at all cost.
6. Make your Landing Page Device Compatible
Users do not only use a single device to search for things on the internet. Some of the users use desktops, while some use laptops and tablets. Also, a majority use smartphones for conducting searches. Rather than creating a single layout of your Landing Page, make your landing page compatible with all the available devices.
7. Include Social Proofs
To make your potential customers trust you, you need to support all your product/service with proper social proofs and testimonials. People generally refer to the reviews of a certain product/service before making the purchase. They are inclined towards the social proofs and testimonials more than the product descriptions. Thus, to add credibility to your landing page, include testimonials in it.
8. Use the Scarcity Technique
This is one of the most adopted techniques by marketing professionals to initiate more sales and conversions. The word “Limited” defines the scarcity factor in the best possible manner. All the more, it compels the users to take the action before they miss on the offer. As a result, it has a positive impact on the conversions. Adding a limited time discount or a countdown can help you in increasing your sales and conversions.
9. Add Contact Information
The contact information of your business should be easily available. This is to ensure that your visitors get in touch with you according to their requirements. You can include your phone number, email address or even your physical address in the contact information. The contact information on your landing page increases the chances of generating more conversions as it makes your business more reliable.
10. Add a Strong CTA
The Call-to-Action is the most important element of your Landing Page. It basically represents the conversion action that you want your visitors to take. If you do not have a CTA on your Landing Page, then your visitors won’t convert. Make your CTA prominent enough to catch the attention of the user in one click. Also, keep your CTA short and concise while using action words.
Immediate Benefits of Landing Page Optimization
Landing Page Optimization is a process of creating a well-formulated page with the enhanced user experience. This process is further directed to increase the number of visitors that complete the desired conversion action. However, many marketers are still unaware of the immediate benefits that Landing Page Optimization provides. Here are some of the benefits:
1. Increased Conversions
Landing Pages are specially designed keeping the conversion factor in mind. Thus, the process of Landing Page Optimization is totally inclined towards increasing sales and conversions. Moreover, an optimized landing page can get you more conversions without letting you spend some extra dollars.
2. Increased Organic Search Ranking
Landing Pages increase conversions as they convince the visitors to take the desired action. The Search Engines then notice that your Landing Pages are highly relevant with the search queries of the user. As a result, your landing page is ranked higher in the SERP.
3. Increased Online Presence & Reputation
An optimized Landing Page includes certain social proofs and testimonials. They have the potential of presenting a strong brand value & reputation of your brand. Furthermore, this builds trust and credibility among the users and also enhances your online reputation.
Common Landing Page Optimization Mistakes to Avoid
1. Unclear Call-to-Action
Call-to-Action is the most important component of the Landing Page as it initiates more conversion. Hence, you should make sure that the CTA is prominent and noticeable. It should further communicate a clear and strong message. By not including or having an unclear CTA would lower your conversion rates. Thus, ensure that the CTA stands out clearly.
2. Slow Loading Speed of the Page
The internet users are impatient. They want the required information in almost no time. Waiting for a landing page to load is out of their patience level. They simply bounce back when the page takes too long to load. To make sure that your visitors don’t bounce back, work on the loading speed of your page to make it quick.
3. Too Much Text
If you have too much of text on your Landing Page, the visitors will again get confused and bounce off. The main aim of the Landing Page is to gather the attention of the user and not to confuse the user. Offer the most important information clearly and keep all the other information precise and in bulleted form.
4. Distractions
Avoid all the textual and visual distractions at all cost. Remove the flashing banners, popups, and other similar distractions. Having too many Call-to-Actions can also be considered as distractions. Thus, it is advised to keep a clear CTA which is clearly noticeable.
5. Mismatch of Message
This is probably the most common mistake that most of the advertisers make. To drive traffic to their websites, they put in a misleading text in the ads which are not consistent with the offer on the Landing Page. This creates a mismatch between the ads and the Landing Page. Also, this damages your online presence and creates a negative impact on the visitors.
Landing Page Optimization Tools
To make the process of Landing Page Optimization easy for you, here are some tools that can assist you in the best possible manner.
- CrazyEgg
- Unbounce
- Optimizely
- Visual Website Optimizer
- Google Analytics
- InstaPage
- LeadPages
Conclusion
Your Landing Page either makes or breaks the conversion. Thus, you have to be sure that it gives a positive impression of your business. The confirm that your landing pages are effective and productive, you have to conduct the Landing Page Optimization process.
Irrespective of how well your landing page is performing, ensure that this process is conducted thoroughly at regular intervals. As there is always room for improvement, Landing Page Optimization further enhances the productivity of your Landing Pages.
Moreover, you can also enrol in the SEO Course to become proficient in implementing the right SEO Techniques which does include the Landing Page Optimization process.
Pic Credits: WSI World, Lure Marketing, Solwin Infotech and TIS India.
Thnak you for sharing this informative article,landing page is very important for an website,thank you for giving ideas how to make effcetive landing page.
Hi Rakesh,
Thank you so much.