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But don’t just stop at one! According to research, the more landing pages you build for your website, the more you can amplify your conversion rates. Most notably, companies see a 55% increase in leads when growing their number of landing pages from 10 to 15.
In this blog post, we’ll walk you through 12 of the most common
What Is Landing Page Optimization?
First, let’s get on the same page about what a landing page is. Simply put, it’s a web page, created specifically for a marketing or advertising campaign. It’s where visitors land after they click on a link in an email or an ad.
Landing page optimization means that every inch of a landing page is refined in a way to directly or indirectly impact a user’s decision to purchase.
There are different ways to optimize a landing page. You can zero in one or many of the following elements to support your conversion goals:
- Page design or page experience
- Page copy
Call-to-action (CTA)- Colors (especially button colors)
- Other visual elements (embedded videos, GIFs, images)
- Interactive elements (pop ups, chatbots, etc.)
To do this right, it’s important to understand your audience. Then, to figure out how you want them to interact with your content on the page. Not knowing your target audience is one of the biggest mistakes online entrepreneurs make when starting out.
Take a quick example from ClickUp, which speaks directly to their target audience, people in the field of marketing, by including
Source: ClickUp
One way to ensure that you’re targeting the right users is by relying on data to drive your strategy. You can either survey an existing audience right before a landing page campaign launches, or do a search through Google for existing customer studies in your niche.
To get the best results, it’s also important to find out what your audience’s main pain points are, along with what they like, and even what they consume.
12 Landing Page Best Practices to Convert More Traffic
To convert more visitors into paying customers, there are some general landing page best practices to follow. You can use the data from A/B testing regularly, for example, to learn about your prospects’ preferences and advance your conversion rate percentage by percentage.
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Let’s review some of the best optimization strategies for your landing pages.
Align Your Goals with Your Landing Page
Ideally, landing page optimization should start with your
Let’s say you want to reach 1,000 subscribers by the end of the year. In this case, your landing page should revolve around an offer that’s exclusive to new subscribers and will encourage
Once your monetary goals and the landing page’s theme are aligned, you’ll need to connect individual campaign goals to the big picture. This involves setting up both your ads and your landing pages to mirror each other’s language, look, and feel.
Let’s take a look at how SEMrush is keeping the copy and design consistent:
Source: SEMrush Facebook ad / SEMrush landing page
This type of soft repetition is good for conversions. In more scientific circles, they say using consistent word choices and visual clues creates a sense of positive familiarity. Repetition is also one of the simplest, most effective landing page best practices because it creates a feeling of assurance for hesitant users, in giving them something both novel and somewhat familiar.
This tactic is especially helpful for ecommerce landing pages that rely heavily on
Simplify Your Landing Page
Landing page design matters. Don’t overload your page with too much text or too many distracting visuals, which can overwhelm website visitors.
Follow the simple rule of less is more. Use plenty of negative space to help guide the eye towards the page’s most important element: the main call to action.
The most effective landing pages use engaging but subtle visual cues, such as arrows, whitespace, copy alignment, or color contrasting. Following these will keep visitors on the site longer.
For example, Grammarly uses a minimalistic style and contrasting colors to get their main message across.
Source: Grammarly
Even if you’re not too familiar with coding, you can design a landing page with help from a plugin or template.
Keep the Action on the Upper Half of the Page
Visitors are impatient. A study found that internet user’s collective attention spans are decreasing. Therefore, site visitors need to know exactly what your landing page is about right when they land on it.
To do this, you need to ensure that visitors can easily understand what it is they’re supposed to do on your page, and why they should be doing it.
This means keeping the following elements above the fold:
- Headline
- Sales proposition or description
- An image or video
- Your main
call-to-action button.
For example, you can get the most important question about Wise answered right above the fold: How much would my transfer cost? Calculate it with your actual numbers!
They provide a clear value proposition and make their calculator easy to understand and use.
Source: Wise
Use Scarcity Techniques
Even the most seasoned online shoppers get ruffled from headlines that warn of limited supply availability. Scarcity techniques create a sense of urgency and encourage visitors to take action.
Here are some examples:
- Limited time discounts. Our sale ends in 2 days or 50% OFF through Friday
- Unspecified time left. Enjoy while it lasts or While supplies last
- Limited supply availability. Only 2 left or even Out of stock
- Other users’ purchases. 15 people have already bought or 5 people are looking at this deal right now
- A visible countdown timer. 1 day 3 hours and 14 minutes left.
Source: CyberLink
Keep Your CTA Straightforward
Your CTA
The ideal CTA is
Examples:
- Join
- Learn More
- Get Started Now
- Download Your Free Guide
You’ll see that the best examples of CTAs follow the
For example, Convince & Convert is a brand that loves using
Source: Convince & Convert
If the main goal of your landing page is to encourage visitors to buy your product, consider using Ecwid’s Buy Button. This button is a shoppable plugin you can easily add to a landing page, blog, or anywhere on your website. By clicking a Buy Button, customers are instantly taken to their cart on your site.
A CTA button on a website selling the Baby Snack Time book
Use Compelling Copy and Headlines
Your landing page’s headline is the first thing your visitors see on your site. So it’s important to make every word count! In general, it’s important to make your landing page copy compelling, clear, and readable.
Here are a few techniques to help you craft effective landing page copy:
- Keep your sentences short (20 words or less)
- Make your copy
easy-to-read (check it with a readability test) - Compose a
high-converting headline - Use you and your to build a personal connection to the readers
- Add
industry-related words that your target audience will recognize - Try out the
AIDA-model or thePAS-model to make your words flow together well - Sprinkle effective power words throughout your copy to evoke an emotional response.
If your copy is not clear or engaging enough for your readers, it will be harder to get them to stick around and take action. Before you go live, show your landing page to people who are unfamiliar with your business and gauge their first impressions. Ask them how clear your message is, and if they have a clear understanding of the action the page wants them to take.
Keep Your Landing Page Mobile-Friendly
The
Here are a few pointers to keep in mind for making your landing pages mobile friendly:
- Design your
mobile-ready landing page first and then work backwards to build your desktop page - Make sure your text is large enough to be read on a small screen
- Make all buttons and links easy to click or tap
- Keep in mind that a longer landing page is OK, as long as you use plenty of whitespace between each element
- Use a
single-column layout - Do thorough testing of all multimedia (like videos and forms) on both mobile and desktop
- Check your load speeds on mobile, and simply your design if you find the page isn’t loading quickly enough.
Make Sure the Page Loads Quickly
People can’t stand slow websites and tend to leave pages that don’t load right away. This means that each second your site takes to load could be additional dollars lost. On top of that, a bad visitor experience can also damage your SEO efforts.
Speeding up your pages comes with some sweet rewards. Vodafone saw an 8% increase in sales after they optimized their Web Vitals. Sounds good, right?
Here are some quick tips for
- Keep your images small
- Avoid running too many scripts
- Use a caching plugin
- Use a CDN to host your files.
A high bounce rate could be a good indicator of page speed issues. Run a speed test to see specific issues.
Regularly Test and Update Your Landing Pages
Whether you sell digital downloads or run an online store, regularly testing and revisiting your landing page is the ultimate optimization method. Because the only way to know what works and what doesn’t is to test it out.
There are a ton of things you can run an A/B test on:
- Landing page copy
- Headlines
- CTA
- Design elements.
Conduct different A/B tests to see which combination results in the highest conversion rate. Try a tool like Optimizely or Google Optimize to run and track your tests.
Tip: test one thing at a time (for example, using a yellow or red CTA) so that your experiment is clear and has no hindering factors that might sway or confuse your results.
Regularly updating your content is also important, because it ensures your page is populated with up to date and relevant information. It also shows that you’re committed to providing the best possible experience for your visitors and encourages frequent site visitors to check in with what’s new.
Add Testimonials to Act as Social Proof
People are more likely to convert when they see that others have had a positive experience with your product or service. That’s where testimonials come in. They provide social proof and increase trust in your brand.
In a recent study, 31% of consumers reported that they read more online reviews in 2020 than ever due to
The best landing pages are ones that can integrate testimonials into the natural flow of the site. For example, adding positive user reviews near the pricing section can help persuade users to convert without making it seem forced.
Including a headshot and the name of the person giving the testimonial can add an authentic, human touch. Having a short, specific quote from the customer that showcases how your product or service has helped them can help convey information on your product without coming off as overly boastful.
Usage of video testimonials is on the rise, and for good reason: video marketers get 66% more qualified leads per year.
For example, the AI software, Jarvis, knows the importance of a human testimonial for their product. They placed this video testimonial just below the fold of their landing page.
Source: Jasper (former Jarvis)
Videos are more engaging than
Make Your Landing Page SEO-Optimized
Even if you only use your landing pages to connect to your ad campaigns, you should still optimize them for SEO.
Stats say that 53.3% of total website traffic could come from organic search. Search engine optimization should serve as a
- Use targeted keywords in both your headlines and copy
- Create an
attention-grabbing title - Add
industry-related keywords for your target audience - Optimize your alt tags
- Add a meta description
- Ensure your URL (slug) is short and simple.
Use tools like Ubersuggest or SEMrush to help find the right keywords to use throughout your landing page. For further ideas, you can look into customer reviews or comments to see how they talk about your product or service.
Don’t Forget to Say Thank You
In our world of quick sales and constant remarketing, it’s easy to forget about simple things like saying thank you to customers for their support.
After a customer finishes their checkout, consider creating a unique thank you page with a heartfelt message thanking them for their support. This acknowledgment shows that your business genuinely treats your customers well and is willing to go out of your way to recognize their contribution to your success. Little practices like this can go a long way in increasing customer loyalty.
For example, VPN provider TunnelBear shows off a graphic of a bear, along with a thank you message and some
They also add a big, bold CTA to their product to move the users along in their journey.
Source: TunnelBear
Here are some additional tips to make your thank you page stand out:
- Thank them for their purchase, visit, or
sign-up (use big, bold letters) - Explain what will happen next (for example, Your order has been processed and will be shipped within 24 hours)
- Get ahead of
post-purchase aversion and reinforce the main benefit to purchasing (“You’re now secure with our VPN”) - Include a CTA to encourage further engagement (such as a discount for their next purchase or to download the purchased product)
- Include social media icons so they can share their positive experience with their friends
- Optional human touch: add a personalized message from the founder or CEO, or copy that goes above and beyond a form message.
Start Optimizing Your Landing Page and Get More Conversions
We hope this article has been a helpful resource for learning all about some landing pages best practices. Remember: the best landing pages are the ones that get to the point quickly and seem effortless.
Your goal is to provide potential customers with an
Many moving parts go into making a
Landing pages are a vital part of your advertising campaign, but these days, successful businesses also need a robust online presence. If you don’t have a website or online store yet, set one up with Ecwid’s Instant Site. It’s a free website with a
No matter how you use landing pages to sell online, we wish you the best of luck in your journey!
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