How to Optimize Landing Pages for Conversion

Whether the purpose of your landing page is for lead generation, selling products or something else, conversion rate is important. It’s likely that you’ve invested money and time to get leads to your landing page. If it’s not converting as many people as possible, then you need to fix this sharpish.

A study by WordStream found that the average conversion rate for landing pages was 2.35%. How does yours measure up to this?

Landing pages generally have one purpose, to get visitors to click your all-important call-to-action button. Your whole page should be working together to achieve this goal.

Psychology, coupled with good old trial and error, through A/B testing, can be a winning combination when it comes to optimization.

Let’s take a more in-depth look at some tips that may help to increase your conversions:

Headline

Your headline is one of the first (and potentially last, if you get it wrong) things that visitors to your landing page see. It needs to attract attention and get them to read on.

Instapage suggest 3 features to bear in mind when crafting headlines, no matter what the function of the landing page:

• Clarity: Your headline should not be vague or ambiguous, it should be straight to the point.
• Relevance: It should be relevant to the visitor’s journey, did they come from an ad about a summer sale, then the title should talk about the sale.
• Empathy: Empathizing with the visitor’s problem and talking about the benefits of your product.

KlientBoost recommend keeping it “value-centric”, telling the reader what they are going to gain from your content.

Layout

Pay attention to the layout of your landing page. A crowded page is likely to distract and put off readers.

Whitespace can help to emphasize certain elements of your page. Check out Unbounce’s short video here.

In a study by the Nielsen Norman Group they found that the majority of website readers scanned content instead of reading it fully. Subheadings and bullet points can help to ensure that readers still get the main points of your page without having to read it fully.

Clear Call-to-Action

Your call-to-action (CTA) is generally the driving force behind your landing page, the reason it exists. Everything on your page should be working together to get the visitor to click. It needs to stand out, prominent from all the other elements.

Unbounce offer some tips for optimizing your CTA including:

• Contrast: Contrasting the colour of your button to the rest of the page can help to make it eye-catching.
• Size: Buttons that are too small can get lost in the rest of the page.
• Copy: The text you use on the button is important. Take some time to get this right or pay an expert to do it for you.

Copy

The words you use have the power to turn undecided customers into leads but also to put them off your company altogether.

Your landing page copy should be relevant. It should work together with the rest of the page to drive readers to click that call-to-action.

Here are some tips for copy from CopyBlogger for all types of landing pages:

• Create engaging headlines.
• Use simple and specific language.
• Add benefits before features.

Social Proof

Social proof can be a great way of showing visitors that your product works and is trusted by others. There are a number of different types that you can use. Helloclicks offer some options including:

• Customer testimonials.
• Expert opinions.
• 3rd party reviews.
• Verified case studies.

Images and Videos

Images

Images grab attention and conjure emotions in a different way to words. Design wizard describe them as the emotional foundation of landing pages. Did you know that images are processed up to 60,000 than text, so your image is going to be the first thing visitors see.

You can use images for a number of different functions on your landing page. BloggingWizard offer some ideas:

• Helping visitors identify with your product.
• Portraying an emotion you want visitors to feel.
• Attracting attention.

Videos

Videos add an extra dimension to your landing page. They offer another format to get information across and they can be emotive and attention grabbing too. They can also be useful for explaining complicated features.

In Wyzowl’s State of Video Marketing Survey 2020 92% of marketers who use video say it’s an important part of their marketing strategy.

Neil Patel warns against expecting video to do all of the work in your marketing campaign. Instead, use it to complement the content on your landing pages.

Optimize for Mobile

Today, a large proportion of the population use their mobiles to access the internet. Landing pages designed for desktop or computers, generally, will not have the same impact on mobile devices.

Neil Patel believes that just having a responsive page isn’t enough anymore. Elements of the page need to be changed such as simplifying the design and shortening copy.

Moosend gives some best practices for optimizing your mobile layout here, including using the ‘arm’s length’ rule and being clever with the use of your copy.

A/B Testing

It’s important to A/B test the elements of your landing page and find what works for your company personally. The tips suggested are not one size fits all. What works for one company, may not work for another and what works in one campaign may not work in the next; you get the idea. Continually testing can help you to stay ahead of the game and optimize your landing pages for conversion.

Landing Pages and MailOptin

Optimizing your landing pages is a great idea, but all of this may be a waste of time if the traffic you are getting to your page is minimal. One good source of traffic can be an email list. And the bigger your list the more chances you have of increasing your visitors.

A quality email sign-up form could help to increase your subscribers and grow your email list.. With MailOptin it’s easy to build eye-catching, lead generation forms that are optimized for conversion. With a host of display effects to choose from, device optimization and a split testing tool to help you make data-driven decisions. And it also includes integrations with popular mailing providers such as Drip, AWeber and Mailchimp.

Wrapping it Up

Paying close attention to your copy, adding an image or video, and some enticing social proof may help your landing page to convert more efficiently. Remember to keep things simple and have each element working towards a single purpose for each page. And MailOptin’s lead generation forms may be the secret sauce you need to keep a steady stream of visitors to your pages.

This post was written by Nick Stephens, a freelance writer specializing in digital marketing. He is a massive geek when it comes to learning how to drive business  online. And loves crafting word magic. Check out more of his work at njstephens.com.