The benefits of having landing pages on your website cannot be overemphasized. According to HubSpot, websites with more than 30 landing pages generate 7x more leads than those with 10 or less. A good landing page should prompt your visitors to leave their contact information, usually their email.
However, having landing pages on your website is one thing and converting visitors to leads is another. Most landing pages fail to convert because they are poorly designed and optimized. Let’s look at some ways in which you can optimize your landing pages for higher conversions.
Have Unique Landing Pages for Different Offers
If you have several offers and campaigns running simultaneously, you should have a unique landing page for each of them. Regardless of where your visitors are coming from, they should be directed to a landing page that is related to the offer they are looking for. Every landing page should be centered on a single offer or campaign. A landing page that directs visitors to a different campaign from what is being sought will result to lower conversions. This is why it’s important to every offer tied a relevant landing page.
Reduce Distraction on the Landing Page
Your visitors will come to your landing for a specific reason; to get the offer you promised. Therefore, it is important to let them get your offer by completing the action you desire with minimal distraction. On your landing page, eliminate anything that will distract the visitors from taking the desired action.
A good example of a distraction is navigation links to other parts of the website. Check the examples of distractions on landing pages outlined by Wider Funnel. Do you recognize some of the distractions in your landing pages? Effective landing pages are straight to the point devoid of distractions.
Take Advantage of Social Media
Use social media buttons on your landing pages. If your visitors find the specific thing they are looking for, they will be inclined to share the landing page with others. Social media buttons also help to provide social proof. The number of shares, likes or retweets of a particular landing page can entice visitors to take the desired action, hence improving your conversions.
Split Test Your Landing Pages
Split testing, also known as A/B testing, can help to improve your conversion rate. Split testing simply involves testing two or more landing pages for the same offer by optimizing different elements on the pages. The landing pages have to be exposed to visitors of the same demographics to find out which of them results to more leads. The testing can be in two forms:
- Incremental level – In this test, you switch the position of a single element on the landing page and measure which placement results in higher conversion. For instance, you can have the same landing page but with the form placed at different positions. By analyzing the conversion rate of the two pages, you will know which position is getting more attention.
- Page level – With this option, you have two completely different landing pages for the same campaign.
ConversionXL was able to improve their client’s conversions by 79.3% by testing and optimizing different elements on their landing pages.
After identifying the more effective landing page, you can pull down the other. For the testing to be effective, it has to be done continuously. Even after identifying the highest converting landing page, trends and characteristics of your visitors, they may change over time. Therefore, it is important to keep testing and optimizing the landing pages to maintain high conversions.
Have Thank You Pages
After visitors have filled a form to download your offer, it will be courteous to thank them. Alternatively, you can send them an auto-response email with a thank you message. The “thank you” page gives you an opportunity to reconvert visitors and make them feel special, and is the first step towards building a more personal relationship. In the “thank you” page, include your site navigation so that the visitor can move to other sections of the website. You can also have relevant offers related to the landing page the visitor is visiting from.
It is also important to have social media buttons on the thank you page. If the leads appreciate what they have just received, they will proudly announce it to the world. To make the thank you page more efficient, have a message customized to the particular campaign.
Designing an effective landing page is not something that is set and forgotten. For the best conversions, you should continue testing and optimizing your landing pages. Tweak different elements such as the header, graphics and content to see how they perform in terms of conversions. This will ensure you conversion rate is always on an upward trend. Partnering with an agency that provides inbound marketing services can be a great asset if all of this is seems like too much to tackle yourself.
