5- Step formula to help you optimise landing page performance
A landing page is a standalone, dedicated page on your website. Sometimes called a squeeze or slash page. It is distinct from other pages in structure, design, content, etc. A landing page is aimed at lead generation or driving traffic to other pages on your website.
Landing pages can be a powerful marketing tool. When used the right way they are your secret weapon for promoting both new and existing product or services. You can also use it to promote your webinar and increase your email subscription.
Landing pages can boost your conversions tremendously. According to Serpstat, when you use the right testing and targeting on your landing pages, you can boost your conversion rate by as much as 300%.
In this post, we will show you how to use a 5 step formula to help you resurrect your landing page performance.
1. User engagement
For your business to be successful, acquire and keep customers. A potent customer retention strategy is customer engagement. The same idea is true as far as the effectiveness of your landing page is concerned – it must engage your users.
A bounce rate greater than 75% is a sign that your visitors are not finding what they are looking for on your pages. You can notch up their engagement by making their visit more fun.
When a visitor is preoccupied longer with your landing page, it increases the chances of successful conversion. Sprinkling your landing page with interaction opportunity for your site’s visitor is great for increasing user engagement.
Wild Turkey – a beverage company landing page increased engagement by offering visitors to personalize their drink – based on choice, ingredients, strengths and desired taste.
2. Call to Action (CTA)
Every landing page is designed with the intent of getting the customer to perform a certain action – fill a form, make a purchase, subscribe to a newsletter, etc. When visitors perform that action; it is referred to as conversion.
However, there can be no conversion of your landing page if it lacks an effective call to action (CTA). You’ve heard it repeatedly and that’s because it is true – “Your call to action button is the most important element on your landing page”.
Below are a few formulas to craft a high converting CTA.
a. Visibility
Your call to action should be visibly positioned on the landing page. The more visible, distinct and clear your call to action is, the more the conversion rate. Use a contrasting colour from the rest of the page to make it visible.
The colour of your CTA button has a significant impact on your conversion rate.
According to Izideo, a huge e-commerce site that sells hand-crafted art increased product sales by 35.81% by changing the colour of the CTA button.
Your call to action doesn’t always have to be at the end of the page. By placing it as early as possible on the page, you may convert users early.
On Litmus’s landing page, the Call to Action is placed early and you don’t have to scroll before taking action.
b. Action-oriented
Best CTA is action oriented. Hence, you must use short, understood and action-oriented words. The word used must also fit into your landing page objectives. For instance, Alexa uses “Try 7 days Free” call to action.
Alexa.com
Fitness World – a chain of gyms- boost conversion by a whopping 213.16% by making CTA text more relevant
c. Sizeable
Any element on your landing page larger than everything else will be easily noticed. Since you want your call to action to be noticed, it must be sizeable – make it big. You must do this with caution though, the essence of a bigger size CTA button is the distinction, visibility and not a distraction.
d. Arrows
An arrow is a straightforward method of directing your visitors’ attention. You can use an arrow with a contrasting colour to create the urgency for your visitor to look at your call to action.
3. Images
An essential component of a converting landing page is its visual content. Images can be used to break the text-heavy landing page. The human brain processes image 60,000 times faster than text. Your visitors will be attracted and affected by the images on your landing page. Images help to shape the impression of your leads about your brand – be sure to create a good impression.
Images help to personalize the landing page and maintain user engagement. They are also more effective and persuasive. The position of your image is a based on preference though it is advised to place images on the left side of the page. A couple of companies defies the norm and still have great conversion rates
Here are a few tips concerning images
i. Large and clear pictures: A couple of big companies have embraced using large images on their land page.
Examples include Dell and Criquet Shirt
ii. Image Relevance: Your image must be applicable to your product or service. A beautiful image can hurt your landing page if it’s at variance with the page’s core message.
iii. Use images that Connects: People easily connect with a face. For instance, you can use the image of a person looking at the direction you want to draw attention to.
You could also use a situational image – an image that shows your product or service being used.
iv. Optimized image:
Make sure that your image – the entire landing page – should be optimized for mobile devices.
v. Don’t steal the show with your image
If you are selling a service, your image should grab attention and prove relevance to the user.
4. Content Form
The content form is an essential element of a converting landing page. A well-positioned, cunningly crafted form can become your lead magnet. You don’t require a degree in programming to embed a content form on your landing page; thanks to customized templates.
There are two types of forms – short and long forms. Either type of forms has their pros and cons. With a long form, you can capture relevant details of your visitors; the downside to long forms is that it can discourage your visitor as it takes a longer time to fill. Short forms are easier to fill but capture lesser details.
The shorter forms are favoured by most business brands because of a higher conversion rate. See the example of Wistia and H. Bloom below.
A test carried out by Marketingexperiments.com also validates that short forms have a higher conversion.
In designing your form, make sure you ask for relevant details relevant to your product or service.
5. Performance Criteria
The primary goal of your landing page is conversion. When visitors to your website carried out or perform the task for which your landing page is designed; it is referred to as conversion. So how do you know whether your landing page is converting visitors? Simple – measure the performance – the result of your landing page!
Google Analytics is a great tool to measure how many visitors came to your website and how many converted – gave you their data.
Bounce Rate
A higher bounce rate – the number of people that visited your landing page but fail to convert – indicates a problem. Maybe your keyword is not relevant to your audience. Also, your site may attract non-targeted prospects that stumble upon your site.
Another reason for a higher bounce rate is a poorly designed landing page; a page with no logical flow or outrightly confusing.
Average Time Spent on Page
You need to measure the duration of time spent by visitors on your site. As mentioned earlier, a landing page that is more engaging will increase the time spent on your site, thus leading to more conversion.
Understand your Traffics Source
You must possess a working knowledge of your traffic source. Is your traffic from social media or search engine? The understanding of your traffic source will help you design a suitable landing page.
Conclusion
The sole duty of your landing page is conversion – from visitors to lead and from leads to customers, anything else is secondary. It is therefore pertinent to invest time and resources in planning and creating a high-converting landing page. To resurrect the performance of your landing page, the landing page must have a strong user engagement, strong call to actions, catchy images, and well-positioned content form and you must be able to measure its performance.
Do you want to know more about this topic? Discover the anatomy of the perfect landing page!
Leave a comment or share your own experience with me.
