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Landing pages are a crucial element of inbound marketing strategies. Companies that have increased the number of landing pages from 10 to 15 see 55 percent growth in the total number of leads, so with this in mind, you need to reconsider your marketing strategy.
What we’ve noticed over our more than 30 years of experience in the industry is that one of the biggest challenges marketers face is landing page optimization.
On average, a typical landing page converts anywhere between 1 percent and 3 percent. But the plethora of companies that are optimizing have landing pages that convert in the double digits.
The simple truth is that you don’t get it right the first time. Only after launching, testing, learning and optimizing can you improve your landing page conversion rate. But sadly, it falls under one of the five biggest problems B2B marketers face. To overcome such hurdles, we have put together a nine-step guide to help you optimize landing pages for improved conversions.
1. Understand your campaign goals
You’d think the goal is obvious, but what we’ve found is that one of the biggest problems with most landing pages is they lack focus on one particular goal or CTA. Many landing pages have multiple offers which confuse users and make them lose sight of the conversion aspect of the landing page.
It’s key to create landing pages that focus on only one offer or solution; this way, your users don’t lose sight or get confused.
The Velaro Live Chat landing page is a great example. To sell their service, they have created a guide that talks about how and why live chat is essential. The landing page’s sole purpose is to get users to download the guide and, in turn, generate a lead.
Take-home point: Create landing pages that focus on one goal to improve your conversion rate.
2. Write simple and straightforward headlines
Let’s face it — you have just a few seconds to grab a visitor’s attention. So it’s essential your headline is bold and straightforward. Inspectlet’s landing page heading is a perfect example. It’s clean and simple.
Take-home point: Keep your headlines bold and short to get your user’s attention instantly.
3. Craft a compelling flow of text
No one will dive into the details on a page if they’re not satisfied with what you have to offer from the outset. For better conversions, you need your landing page copy to be convincing, to get to the point and be genuine.
In Lyft’s landing page to recruit drivers, they have a clear flow of information that drivers would want before they sign up.
The FAQ section is a great addition, as the questions addressed are those that users might need clarified before they sign up.
Take-home point: However pretty your page is, users will not convert if your landing page content is not convincing.
4. Use the right images
Content is important, but images help bring out the necessary emotions to make users take action. It’s important that all images used in the landing page, from the header image to the those used within the page, are in sync with the content to make the messages stand out.
Let’s take the hero image for Codecademy. It’s simple, straightforward and spot on.
Also, Breather, a website dedicated to helping companies find their right meeting rooms, has a landing page that sports high-definition images coupled with cute icons to highlight their selling points.
Take-home point: The best image paired with the right content is all that’s needed for successful conversion.
5. Employ CTAs that make users take action
CTAs (calls to action) are the most important element of a landing page, as it’s the best way to get users to take action. It might seem like just a button, but everything about it matters to get users to take action.
Color — Ensure the CTA button contrasts in color to the background. We’ve found that usually orange, blue or green CTAs work best.
Size — Ensure the size of the button is not so small that users lose sight of it or so big that it scares them away. It should be the right size and sync with the layout.
Message — It’s the message that truly emphasizes the importance of the CTA. Try to instill a sense of urgency or need for the particular product/service to improve conversion rate.
Neil Patel’s webinar CTA is the perfect example of how a message can push customers into taking a much-needed action.
6. Highlight the value proposition
Let customers know the unique things you have to offer to get their attention. Value proposition should be something extraordinary they get by opting in for your service.
Uber’s landing page does a great job with their unique value proposition. We have heard stories about people who have quit their monotonous jobs to drive a cab for Uber. This landing page possesses the right value proposition to attract such people who are looking to have financial independence. Words like “good money,” “work when you want” and “no office, no boss” resonate with these users.
To frame the right value proposition for your product/service, you need to understand your target audience’s pain point and craft marketing messages stating how you can help them.
Take-home point: Highlight value proposition to get your user’s interest.
7. Loading time matters
You can spend hours crafting the right landing page with the perfect images and content, but all of it won’t matter if your loading time is high. It’s mandatory for your landing page to load within a few seconds — or else bid goodbye to your user.
To reduce your page loading time, Google PageSpeed Insights will give you the necessary suggestions. Ensure you fix the issues it reveals to not only improve your page speed but also to help SEO.
Take-home point: Your landing page speed is a deal breaker; ensure it loads within a few seconds.
8. Optimize your form fields
The sole purpose of a landing page is to capture a user’s contact detail, and that’s impossible to do without a form. All your convincing content and images will be useless if users don’t trust the form.
A general rule of thumb is that if you’re not targeting an enterprise client, just stick to asking for the customer’s email address.
Using a multi-page form helps smooth the transition of users to leads. The logic behind this is that you ask the customer to take an action without asking for any of their details, and once they are committed, you get them to give up their contact information.
Bills.com, a debt management system, makes use of a multiform in a smart way by asking its customers to choose their debt amount and then goes ahead and collects their information.
Form placement also plays a major role, since visibility and actionability are two main elements when it comes to landing page conversion.
Take-home point: Users are more liberal in giving out their email address when compared to their contact number.
9. A/B test your landing pages
Testing is a mandatory step for improving your landing page conversion rate. Remember, when you use the right tool to target and test your landing page, you get the chance to increase the landing page conversion rate by up to 300 percent.
The biggest problem is that marketers lack the right tool to test their landing pages. A/B testing lets you test various landing page layouts and content to understand which works best for your target audience. You may try A/B testing by segregating your audience, but adopting a dedicated tool lets you analyze your results better.
Take-home point: It’s hard to determine what triggers your users, so A/B testing is the best way to find it.
Landing page optimization is indeed a tough task, as there’s no proven formula for getting it right. The above nine-step guide should give you a foundation to frame each element of the landing page, leading to improved conversion. We’re eager to know how this helped your campaign. Let us know!
Some opinions expressed in this article may be those of a guest author and not necessarily Marketing Land. Staff authors are listed here.
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