Landing pages are a key part of your sales funnel and are hyper focused towards a single goal. Where your website may share your story, inform potential customers, and educate users, a landing page usually has a single goal and aimed towards a single audience.
As the first step in the buyer journey for specific campaigns, you need to boost landing page conversions to make the most of advertising budgets, and the traffic you’re bringing in.
Basically, a high-converting landing page is one that’s successful in its ultimate goal: to make visitors do what you want them to do – be it click on your services, send a request for a free first consultation, make a sale, or even subscribe.
How do you build a high-converting landing page?
Landing pages aren’t generally hard to create, but making sure they convert is usually the tricky part. Here are my top tips based on my experience on what does and doesn’t work!
#1 Be clear on what users should do
You know what you want visitors to do once they land on your page but are you sure they know it too? A Call-to-Action is the element that communicates this to them. Keep one CTA for a landing page because it needs to have a singular purpose to get people to do what you want.
Multiple actions tend to dilute your message and when it comes to sales pages you want to make sure it’s coming across loud and clear!
Top Tip: Want to know if your call-to-action is clear? Ask friends and family to test the page, view it and ask them what you’re asking. If they are confused or getting it wrong, it’s time to review the page.
Make the CTA stand out
Your call-to-action must be easily detectable within seconds of landing on your page. Use a specific colour scheme for your button elements and don’t use these colours anywhere else.
If you have more content below the fold, make sure you repeat the buttons so people won’t have to scroll up. Keep it in front of their eyes as a ‘decision’ to make sure you get the most landing page conversions.
#2 Have a clear attention-grabbing headline
The headline is what is seen first, so make it big and prominent, but keep it simple! Plain language is your friend, so tell people what you are about in a short statement. If people still have no clue on what you do, you need a clearer headline. It should be more prominent than your brand name or logo.
Top Tip: Try to keep your headline below 15 words, but use language specifically for the audience you’re trying to attract so they immediately connect to the statement.
#3 Put the most important info above the fold
It’s unlikely you will be able to get everything above the fold, so prioritise. Know that people have a tendency to land on the page and make a decision based on what they see first (without scrolling down.) It’s sometimes the only chance you have to make an impact!
What should you include as a must above the fold?
- Your headline
- Your call-to-action button
- A compelling visual
- [Potentially] a sentence or two about the offer, the page, or yourself
#4 Use white space to your advantage
This is the “empty” space between the different elements on your page. Leave it there and fight the urge to fill every pixel. Empty space can make your most important elements even more prominent, as there’s nothing that’s distracting your focus from them. It also helps with the flow of the page to avoid getting distracted or overwhelmed.
#5 Put your unique value proposition front and centre
Tell your visitors what makes you different from the competition and be concise about it. For health and wellness websites, vague statements and tons of jargon won’t help much, as they are empty words that don’t relay your value to your potential client.
Top Tip: Avoid things like lowest price points, statements of being best in town/region/industry, or being unique, they have been done before. Your UVP is what you specifically do to make prospects into happy clients, so create a good one.
#6 Make the copy scannable
Wherever possible, break up long sentences and paragraphs. People don’t read websites in the same manner they read the paper or books. They scan and skim much more, so make it easier for them. Use bullets to communicate key points, have bold headings, and use images to get points across.
#7 Combine with impactful visuals
People are visual creatures, and images and graphics pique their interest much more than just plain ol’ text. The right image or graphic will make people act on their emotions and take action. Combine them with your brand colours well, so they make sense for your brand.
It adds to the meaning of your copy, gives your branding a style and face, and helps people recognise your unique style.
The video format does this best but should be handled with care or it might take the spotlight away from your call to action.
When adding a video
A video that talks the visitor through your proposition and shortly introduces you is the best way to build trust right away. It communicates you’re not afraid to showcase yourself and your expertise which makes you more trustworthy than a lot of scammers out there.
You are not just a face from an image anymore – you are a real person with a voice that will accompany them on their journey to betterment. Just make sure the video is short and sweet, somewhere between 1 and 3 minutes. Oh and, NEVER put it on autoplay. Let visitors have all the power over the play button.
Top Tip: Add subtitles to the video so that viewers can get the benefits without listening to sound. Particularly if you’re promoting the landing page on mobile.
#8 Social proof can boost landing page conversions quickly
Have satisfied clients already? Showcase this on your landing page! It boosts people’s confidence and trust in what you offer. Don’t go overboard with them – a few is enough. Make sure you include a picture of your client so visitors see that these are real people who praise what you do.
Don’t stop at testimonials. Showcase a list of your partners (if they are willing to share), or include any mentions of you in press and news outlets. You can add some fun or interesting statistics on what you already accomplished with your clients. For example, hours of training, weight lost, laughs had, and so on. It brings you closer to your prospects.
#9 Keep all forms short
The most important rule for any type of form is to ask only for the bare necessities. The smaller the number of input fields, the better your conversion will be.
Nobody should be forced to write middle names, last names, or pick how they found out about you right away. Just ask for an email, name, and have a compliance checkbox, then worry about the follow up and gathering more information later. Getting them to fill out the form is the hardest part.
#10 Have a follow-up page
When visitors do what you want them to – when they convert – have another page ready for them, one that will engage them further. Say congrats on signing up or booking a call, and lead them to your follow-up page.
This page should have additional information on what’s next. It could be finding you on social media, upsells, a freebie or more value for them.
#11 Try ditching the ‘menu’
Conversion rates fall when people have too many choices and directions to go. So, for a landing page that only has a singular purpose remove menus or navigation options except for in your footer. That way you know they are reading until the end and interested before letting them click elsewhere.
#12 Test what works (and drop what doesn’t!)
Nobody creates a perfect landing page on the first try! Use A/B testing and see how the different changes influence conversion rates. It’s all about testing and tweaking all the different elements of your landing page.
When doing A/B testing, test one thing at a time or you won’t know the exact reason for the positive or negative change that happened. You can also install specific tools like HotJar that record page interactions so you can see a heatmap of what people click on and what they don’t.
Improve your landing page one element at a time
A landing page is, as everything else about your website, a process. It’s not a “set it and forget it” type of deal. There are constantly things that you can improve upon. As trends in the industry come and go, you’ll need to update and tweak your landing page, your marketing campaign, and your whole online presence.
But you don’t have to do it all by yourself. Set up a consultation call with me today and let’s work on your landing page conversions together!
Leave a Reply