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You’ve spent hours designing a landing page. You’re pouring cash into PPC ads and email marketing campaigns. But, conversion rates are low.
It’s disheartening, right?
You want everyone visiting your landing page to turn into a customer, sign-up or lead.
Yet our survey found the majority of marketers run landing pages with a conversion rate below 10%. And while the average conversion rate of a landing page is 26%, it’s still not good enough.
You don’t have to suffer with poor landing page conversion rates forever.
We asked 50+ marketers to share their best tips for boosting conversion rates on their landing pages. From prioritizing content above the fold to monitoring on-site behavior, we’re sharing their advice to help you improve yours.
Ready? Let’s dive in.
A landing page is a thoughtfully created page for an advertising or marketing campaign that receives traffic from different sources and helps convert it into leads (interested clients/customers).
Let’s back up a little here and see what a landing page is from a visitor’s lens. It’s a page that a visitor who clicks on a link in your ad, social media, post, email or any other source lands on.
Keep in mind that a landing page is different from a home page or any other page on your site. How, you ask? Here’s how: unlike a homepage or other site pages, a landing page has a primary goal that pushes the visitors to convert (hence, the term conversion rate is associated with a landing page).
Homepages often encourage people to explore. But, a landing page encourages them to click on your call to action (CTA) and share their details.
Calculating your landing page conversion rate isn’t rocket science. You will need to note three metrics:
For calculating your landing page conversion rate:
Divide the total number of conversions in a defined time by the total number of visitors on your landing page. Multiple the answer with 100 to get a percentage.
About 23% of our respondents agree that a good landing page conversion rate ranges between 21-50%. However, 20% of the surveyed experts insist that a good conversion rate is between 3-5%.
Around 14% think 11-15% is also a good conversion rate for your landing page. But 10% agree that 15-20% is a good rate. A similar population – 10% of our respondents – have also seen conversion rates as high as 50% and more.
But before you go about comparing your landing page conversion rate, know this: conversion rates vary from industry to industry.
For instance, this report suggests the average conversion rate of the healthcare industry is 8.9%. The same number changes to an average 19.7% for the travel industry.
This is why it’s essential to do what Wpromote’s Simon Poulton suggests: “the only number users should focus on is their own, and how they can actively take steps to be better than they were yesterday.”
When it comes to improving your landing page conversion rate, there’s a lot that you can try.
To begin with, go ahead and settle with: “a good value proposition, set up sales funnels, and strengthen your CTA copy,” as HustleLife’s Jeremy Harrison suggests. Then, “highlight your conversion by adding pop-up and widgets to your site. Provide incentives and special offers to attract more sales.”
Now, that’s a lot to digest in one go, right? So, let’s break down all these recommendations that more than 100 experts we surveyed shared.
If you’re a digital marketer, you know the drill.
If you’re like most marketing teams, you’re doing this multiple times on multiple pages and offers. So how can you assess your landing page engagement as a whole? By looking at Google Analytics 4 metrics and answering questions like:
You could certainly do this by digging through a variety of Google Analytics reports and dashboards, but wouldn’t it be nice to consolidate that information in one dashboard?
Now you can benefit from the experience of our Google Analytics 4 experts, who have put together a great Databox template showing all the most important KPIs for your landing page(s) performance.
It’s simple to implement and start using as a standalone dashboard or in marketing reports, and best of all, it’s free!
You can easily set it up in just a few clicks – no coding required.
To set up this dashboard, follow these 3 simple steps:
Step 1: Get the template
Step 2: Connect your Google Analytics 4 account with Databox.
Step 3: Watch your dashboard populate in seconds.
A good starting point is conducting a “generic, repeatable conversion research audit” that Alex Birkett of Omniscient Digital notes.
The fact of the matter is that: “there are so many components that can impact the conversion rate of a landing page. Let’s assume you’ve optimized the quality of the traffic coming to the page and the offer itself, meaning you’re bringing the right type of person to the page and promoting the right offer — if it’s still not converting, what then?”
In such a case, a research audit can help. Birkett recommends “ResearchXL model” for this “because it starts with few base assumptions and you’re doing research from first principles.”
Here’s what you need to do: “diagnose the probable causes of the suboptimal conversion rate through quantitative and qualitative research and hypothesize some potential treatments for those issues (and then run experiments to quantify the improvements).”
So, what could be some probable causes of a low conversion rate and what are some possible solutions you can try? Let’s explore.
Before jumping to any conclusions on your own, go ahead and figure out how your visitors are interacting with your landing page.
To this end, Olivia Tsang of SuperMoney recommends: “use insight tools such as Hotjar or FullStory in order to see how visitors are really using your website and collect user feedback.”
LIFTOFF Digital’s Nate Rodriguez also vouches for the same approach: “Hotjar allows you to record visitors and create a heatmap of your landing page.”
The obvious question now is: how does Hotjar, FullStory, or a similar marketing reporting software help with your landing page conversion rates?
Here’s how: “depending on where users are falling off, you can see exactly where your page is confusing users or what you need to do to make it frictionless,” in Rodriguez’s words.
It’s all too easy to read a list of tactics, and rush to edit your landing pages.
But Mike Lieberman of Square 2 Marketing recommends focusing on “strategy before tactics.”
He explains: “Instead of jumping in and building a landing page, we take the time to understand who is going to be landing on that page, what we want them to read, watch, and how we want the to feel when they land on this page. This is critical to getting that conversion.”
Before we go any further, ask yourself the questions Mike shared. Focus your entire landing page around the answers–from headline text to video content.
You’ll need to start with solid foundations before we build up.
“Today, consumers demand personal treatment, and when you’re moving them along a path with strategic targeting and retargeting, you’re able to position the appropriate landing page for where they’re at”, says Big Splash Social‘s Anneline Breetzke.
That’s why Breetzke recommends taking time to build landing pages targeted to your buyer personas–because “it makes sense to them as the logical next step, which increases conversions.”
The best part? Anneline has seen fantastic results: “When I started mapping out traffic systems like that, my conversion rate increased from 1.3% to 3-11% (depending on where in the customer journey the page was injected).”
Ashlee Rolkowski, Marketing Consultant at Databox Premier Partner, Lone Fir Creative uses a scene from the Notebook to explain this concept.
She asks, “When’s the last time you watched the movie ‘The Notebook’? Do you remember the scene where Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams are having an impassioned argument? It crescendos with Gosling’s character yelling at McAdams, ‘What do you want?!’”
This should jog your memory…
Rolkowski explains, “Too often, brands come across like this online. They’re not sure what their customers want or what they’re looking for, so they end up with messaging that doesn’t connect with them.
The key to a successful landing page starts with empathy. Relating to the customer on their level and letting them know you understand their problem is the basis of smart marketing strategy.
Speaking of empathy, we know it’s not always easy to identify the problem your customer is facing. It can be challenging to express it in a way that’s relevant to their needs and shows how your product or service solves their problem.
That’s where a framework really comes in handy. Having a content guideline to work off of helps you work through writer’s block and ensures your messaging doesn’t miss the mark. We use the StoryBrand marketing approach to build that content guideline. Visitors convert at a higher rate when you tell a story using this framework:
Whether you’re staring at a blank page wondering where to start or you’ve written 1,000 words too many, the StoryBrand framework helps you understand exactly what your customer is looking for and write a clear message that addresses their problem.”
Want an expert to evaluate your website and landing page messaging to maximize your conversions? Request a free data-focused audit of your messaging from Lone Fir Creative.
Nili Zaharony of Penguin Strategies thinks “it’s easy to go on autopilot when creating landing pages.”
“Duplicate a previous landing page, update the text so it reflects the new offer. With so many different tasks on our plates, it’s easy to take these shortcuts. What suffers the most is the value proposition,” Zaharony explains.
But instead of running on autopilot, Nili recommends to “take a moment to step back, think about what value you’re giving away, why people should care and ask if it’s worth the amount of information you’re requesting in your form.”
Above all, your landing pages should be the gateway to value.
That value could be anything from webinars and eBooks to checklists (as Structsales‘ Emelie Svedberg says “have a good conversion rate”), but regardless of the value on offer, make sure it speaks to a specific type of person–and mould your landing pages around that.
Daniel Lynch of Empathy First Media recommends this strategy too, simply recommending to “be transparent with your offering.”
Summarizing, he says: “People are sick of click bait and hunting for details, give people what they are looking, and if they are qualified they will move through the conversion process.”
People are quick to make a first impression.
That’s why Lewis Kemp, CEO of Lightbulb Media, recommends to “resist the temptation to waste valuable real estate telling people who you are and what you do above the fold. Nobody cares.”
Instead, he says: “As soon as a prospect lands on the page you should be telling them how your product/service benefits their lives. Let them make the choice to scroll further to find out more about you as a business.”
Since using this tactic, Lewis has also seen improvements to his conversion rates: “Switching up the standard layout saw one of our pages go from 9% to 23% conversion in two weeks.”
And we agree. Sure, an opt-in or freebie is a good way to encourage people to convert. However, it doesn’t work at its best if you don’t share the benefits of the opt-in or the value that it offers clearly.
Even so, Echoworx’s Ney Lins spots: “this is a common mistake most companies do in landing gages. They add too much and not necessary information, making the landing page very long and boring, and do not feature the promise, the main benefit that the prospects are getting by buying or signing up to.”
“If the benefit your prospect is getting by buying or signing up to is clear and right in front of them, the better will be your conversion rate.”
So, it all boils down to: “clear promise and conciseness.”
No wonderCopyfluent’s Daniel Heuer insists: “the value needs to be front and center. Getting people to do anything is difficult, so the ‘what’s in it for me’ needs to be in the main headline.” Pair this with “great supporting copy and a clean UX to bring them [your visitors] down the page to a compelling CTA.”
“Chances are that the reader is not going to read every word on the page, but they will definitely read the headlines. You should change and test the copy of your headline, making sure that it is attention-grabbing, clear, concise, and sums up your value proposition”, says Codal‘s Jenna Erickson.
Tamas Torok of Coding Sans runs experiments on her landing page headlines, by creating “some headline variations that trigger emotions. These emotions could be: feeling attractive, assertive, sense of belonging, exclusivity, feeling safe, etc.”
Torok recommends CoSchedule’s Headline Analyzer tool “to check the emotional score of your headlines.”
Tamas is dead on the money here: Studies have shown that people rely on emotions, rather than information, to make decisions.
…Including whether to purchase a product, sign-up for an eBook, or gain access to whatever your landing page offers.
It’s no surprise why Tamas’ team “were able to increase the conversion rate of one of our landing pages by 8.4% with only one experiment.”
Related: 23 Examples of Highly-Engaging Homepage Headlines
I’ll bet that copy is already pretty high on your landing page checklist; it’s the way you’re communicating with visitors.
You can’t persuade them to convert without text to tell them why, right?
“In my experience, one of the most effective ways to improve your landing page conversion is to craft a compelling flow of text,” explains Ollie Smith of ExpertSure.
He says: “You need your landing page copy to be convincing, to get the point across and to be genuine.”
You know copy is important, but it’s not easy to craft a seamless flow of text for a landing page if you’re unsure what to include.
Constellix‘s Blair McKee has some advice: “Answer or address user intent within the first paragraph of the page.”
User intent is the solution people are looking for when they land on your page. Are they looking for a blog post filled with information, or are they further along the sales process and almost ready to convert?
You’ll need to suss-out the user intent for your landing page (and the keywords you’re targeting to drive traffic), Blair says.
Here is how to put this into practice: “You could offer a solution to a problem, or incite urgency with a call to action headline that begins with an action verb. The latter validates the user’s intent and suggests that a solution is further down the page, or will be delivered after an action is taken (ie: a form or signup).”
Blair isn’t the only marketer who’s seen results from urgency-focused copy, though.
Tom Berry of Autus Consulting Ltd also recommends to: “Create a sense of urgency e.g. Limited time offers, or say only the first x people will get this freebie,” in order to boost landing page conversion rates.
Ever heard the phrase ‘a picture speaks a thousand words’? Hyfa of Aufait Technologies believes it’s true, and echos the advice of other marketers by saying: “Your landing page should engage users to the point of converting them.”
She doesn’t rely solely on cleverly-crafted, copy though.
“One of the ways you can engage users on your landing page is by adding videos,” she says–a tactic that she predicts “can increase conversions by 80 percent.”
ClydeBank Media‘s John Donnachie also uses video on his landing pages, and says it’s the “the single biggest thing we have done to improve landing page conversions for cold or warm traffic.”
Again, Clyde places the importance on the content of the video, rather than the format he’s using.
He explains: “What we have found to work best is an honest, face-to-face, conversational format that addresses the viewer/prospect. We focus on ‘the big idea’ of the landing page and frame the offer using traditional sales techniques (overcoming objections, qualifying the audience, etc).”
“Split testing landing pages with and without video showed a difference in conversions that soared into the double digits in favor of video. This does mean that each landing page with a different offer will need a different video but because the videos are straightforward and uncomplicated very little editing work is needed.”
If you’re interested in putting Clyde’s tip to work, he has some recommendations:
“Keep it simple, but a few video best practices apply – low volume background music increases the engaging quality of the video and helps mask audio inconsistencies. Captions keep viewers who have their devices muted (or browsers that mute autoplay video) engaged. Simple chyron (lower third graphics) can be used to amplify ‘the big idea’ and keep your videos focused.
…And remember: “Videos make landing pages shine, and they don’t have to be expensive or complicated.”
Think about the last time you lingered over the “confirm purchase” button. Did you buy the product off your own bat, or was the need for recommendations a huge role in your delay?
I’ll bet it’s the latter.
88% of customers will check out reviews before making a final decision on a purchase–which is why these marketers recommend including trust signals to boost your landing page conversion rates.
“Adding trust signals like previous clients, awards, certifications, or testimonials will work wonders”, says Market 8‘s Brian Schofield.
Jonathan Aufray of Growth Hackers says this is because “customers trust other customers. Users trust other users. People trust other people”, and recommends to collect social proof by asking “your happy users or customers to send you a testimonial”, then including “the best ones on your landing page.”
So, where should you place these testimonials? Your landing page’s design is just as important as the copy.
Catalyst Marketing‘s Ollie Roddy says: “Adding a relevant quote next to the form is a great way to improve conversion rate; it increases the trust in your piece and makes the action of filling out the form social proof.[…] Even placing a carousel of customer quotes next to the form on your ‘Contact Us’ page can work wonders for increasing response rate.”
It’s easy to go overboard with your landing pages.
But Luuk Harleman of Vsee Search Search Marketing advises to “always go for as few distractions as possible. You want to get straight to the point without leaving too much room for your attention to be grabbed away from what the goal is of your landing page.”
That bears one question: Is it possible to create simplistic landing pages with flowing copy, video and social proof, whilst also boosting conversion rates?
The answer is yes. Here’s how the marketers we surveyed remove distractions, while simultaneously improving conversion rates for their landing pages.
JR Griggs of Red Wall Marketing explains the plan is to: “Make sure the goal is very clear. Too often there is unnecessary clutter on a site, and the visitor can’t figure out what you want them to do.”
Griggs also shares an example to back this point: “we often see client sites that rely on phone calls for business but have the phone number buried somewhere on the contact page. That phone number should be in a prominent place and easily seen within seconds at all times.”
Jacklyn Heinlein of Denamico adds to this: “with attention spans getting shorter, we adopt the KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) mentality. This means we focus on conveying our message as clearly and concisely as possible and including no other ‘fluff’ on the page.”
You can also do two more things here: remove your top menu and give all the information clearly as Jeroen Minks of Vazooky Digital insists.
Minks elaborates, “remove the top menu. Your landing pages should be focused on one primary goal and the content should be tailored for this. In other words, people shouldn’t have to browse around the website to get the information they are looking for. The key point of the landing page is to get people to convert, and this is less likely to happen if they leave the page to browse the website.”
Latana’s Joy Corkery shares “we made the mistake of putting too much information on our landing pages.” Why? Because: “Our premise was that visitors would be convinced by our level of detail and convert.”
But the team at Latana learned their lesson: “we eventually found that this wasn’t the case. Our target audience (brand & marketing managers) don’t have the time to read through a small essay.”
“I have found that reducing the navigational elements can improve conversions significantly”, says NoExam.com‘s John Holloway. “Many times I see advertisers sending traffic to landing pages with tons of links in the top navigation and sidebar. This is distracting to visitors, and can lead to reduced conversion rates.”
Instead, John recommends to “minimize distractions on the landing page to allow users to focus directly on what you want them to do.”
The team at NoExam.com put this into practice by looking “at heat maps of our landing pages and discovered that even just 1 or 2 extra links on a page were being clicked frequently. We removed these distractions and have seen a roughly 10% increase in conversion rates.”
Ganesh Narayan of Freshworks also recommends: “remove navigation bars or links that could lead the user away from the landing page. The objective of the landing page is to make the user sign up, not to find other resources. It is ok to keep the footer, as long as it is not easily visible or is one scroll beneath the first fold of the website.”
Bryan Coles of RKD summarizes by saying: “The best thing you can do to improve conversions is to remove the site menu from a landing page. This increases conversion by keeping the users focus on that landing page.”
Corkery notes audiences prefer: “quick, easy-to-digest information that will help them make a decision.” That’s exactly how Corkery’s landing pages are now: “our landing pages are much shorter and get to the point. Our conversion rate has increased as a result.”
Michael Alexis of Team Building shares some ways to make your landing page easy to consume:
Don’t keep the landing extremely short though. That comes with its drawbacks too as Alexis cautions, “a landing page that is too short may have the opposite effect as you could be missing important elements for SEO.”
Brian Lenney of Direct Response Copywriting advises you give only one CTA to your audience. Here’s the tip: “eliminate all distractions. Give people ONE THING to do. Not 2, not 3, not 10. No link to follow you on social. No YouTube embeds to click off and get lost in. Just your CTA. The more stuff they click on, the less chance they’ll convert.”
Put simply, “make it EASY. ONE CTA ONLY!”
Take a look at the lead capture form you’re using on your landing page.
Make sure you’re not one of the “too many brands try to collect too much data all at once”, says The Good‘s David Hoos, who recommends to “consider where your audience is in the funnel, the amount of value you are asking of them, and what you’re delivering in return.”
He says: “If your user feels like they’re giving up more than they’re getting back, they won’t convert.”
Our survey found the majority of landing page forms have five fields:
But Alexandra Zelenko of DDI Development says the general rule is “the less information you ask for, the higher your conversion rate will be.”
Zelenko says: “That’s why your forms should be easy, clear and functional, ask for minimal information, establish an atmosphere of trust and provide support information. This helps to decrease leads’ abandonment when filling out the form.”
Put this tip into action by establishing the information you need, and the information you’d like. For example:
You can live without the last three, but you’d struggle to create engaging retargeting or nurturing campaigns without the first three.
This follows Meghan Hultquist of HQdigital‘s advice to “Align what information you are requesting or requiring with the value and type of offer you presenting to your audience.”
However, Meghan recommends taking it a step further by using “progressive profiling to simultaneously limit form fields for the user while gathering additional data on your leads. When a previously converted lead or prospect returns to your website and accesses a form, progressive form fields automatically replace one or more fields to capture new information from your visitor.”
Some might wrongly assume that landing pages are all about a prominent ‘call-to-action’ or ‘click me’ button. But that’s not it. Good landing pages that convert well are those that offer a good pre-click experience.
Omniscient Digital’s Alex Birkett considers this: “really foundational” as it helps you “maintain your ‘advertising scent.’ What this means is the copy, design, and overall ‘scent’ of the message that leads someone to your page (generally called the pre-click experience) should lead seamlessly into the landing page experience, maintaining similar copy, imagery, and ‘scent.’”
Read on to understand each of these elements that add to your landing page’s scent below. But first, let’s talk about the elephant in the room next: designing a simple landing page that’s clutter-free – an essential step for a great pre-click experience.
“Once your webpage visitors land on your page, they need signals of where to go next”, explains Laura Gonzalez of Audi Bellevue.
This can be done with a clear call to action–something Laura says “will not only help your visitors navigate your site, but this is what will convert your visitors into customers.”
The best part? Building strong and compelling calls to action has helped Storage Vault’s Kraig Martin experience “a marked increase in the number of conversions we’re now generating on problem pages – around a 40% improvement.”
Here’s how you can create your own.
There are hundreds of studies that share ‘best practices’ for calls to action.
But “when buttons are colored the same as design elements on the page, you’ve failed to optimize for UX and conversions”, according to Tommy Landry of Return On Now.
He recommends to “make all CTAs the same color, and a color that doesn’t appear elsewhere on the page”, along with banishing “buttons that say “Submit”–which Tommy describes as “a conversion killer.”
Instead, “use actionable text like “Shop now” or “Download” and you’ll see a fast improvement on your conversions rates.”
We’ve touched on the fact the placement of elements on your landing page is just as important as the elements themselves.
The same applies to a call to action–something these marketers recommend placing above-the-fold.
“When you design a layout, make sure that important elements like CTA and information are at the top. This will help the user to interact with your page easily without having to scroll through the whole page,” says Janil Jean of Logo Design Guru.
Selby’s Stan Tan uses this technique, and takes his inspiration from an eCommerce giant.
“If you look at Amazon’s buy now button and YouTube’s subscribe button, you will see their CTA is above the fold. You don’t see Amazon hiding all their buy now button below the fold or all the way to the bottom.”
Summarizing, “you have to grab the attention of the visitor in the first sight,” says Archideators‘ Muhammad Roohan.
When we asked Jeff Rizzo of The Slumber Yard for his best technique to improve landing page conversion rates, his answer was simple: “Hands down, the most effective format that we’ve tested is one that includes a floating coupon.”
Here’s the exact floating coupon used on his landing page:
So, have Jeff’s team seen any tangible results from floating coupons?
“We’ve tried including multiple in-text buttons as the reader scrolls down, but got a 12% increase in our click-through rate by using a floating coupon. Even more astonishingly, that increase was 27% on mobile simply by having the floating coupon,” he explains.
Even if you’re offering small perks like free shipping, it’s a fantastic way to encourage more conversions.
Conversion rates are based on the number of people who land on your URL and convert.
It makes sense that these marketers are focusing on referring the right kind of traffic to boost the conversion rates of their landing pages.
“When utilizing pay-per-click to drive traffic to your landing page, making sure that those clicking on it will already be interested in the content is probably the most important part of getting it to convert,” says Noticed‘s E.M. Ricchini.
You can do the same with targeting a specific group of people through your ads.
Only refer people who are actively looking for a solution to the problem you’re solving, and you’re bound to increase conversion rates for your landing pages.
Richard Owens of firstfiveeight.com says: “By implementing a retargeting strategy to display social or Google Display Network ads to a user who has visited the landing page, but not seen the thank you page. […] This target audience has displayed an interest in the content, and may be assessing alternative options before engaging with a website.”
He says: “By displaying ads to this audience, you stay top of mind for when the researcher decides to take the next step with a business.”
It’s tough to know which elements are performing well until you test them in isolation.
A/B testing is a technique that changes one thing on your landing page (such as the video you’re using or placement of your call to action), and monitors the change to your conversion rate.
Over 90% of our respondents use A/B tests to improve the performance of their landing pages:
But Milan from Adoni Media says this process should be adopted by everyone.
“Tag everything,” he says. “Put a number to all elements on the page and track their click rates, hover rates, etc. and look at what can be altered to increase engagement and overall conversions.”
A/B testing doesn’t have to be on a small scale, though.
You might find something surprising if you’re making big changes–something AccuraCast‘s Nazish Iram has found “leads to greater improvements in conversion rates rather than minor changes like font colors.”
Are you aware of the actions people are completing on your landing pages before they convert?
If not, “one great way is to use heat mapping, so you can see user interaction,” says Jeff Stanislow of Chief Internet Marketer.
And although many of the popular tools used to build and host landing pages don’t offer built-in heatmaps, software like HotJar, Lucky Orange and CrazyEgg can be installed to gain extra insight.
Jeff continues: “I want to make sure that my top KPI matches user interactions. For a large online car shipping company, we noticed attempted user interaction on a non-actionable element below the fold.”
After converting this area “into an action,” Jeff says conversions increased “by 5 percent.”
Editor’s note: Monitor your website’s behavior wherever you go with Databox’s dashboard reporting tool. Track your performance in one tool, pull in your company’s metrics from anywhere, visualize any metrics in only one click, track current and historical performance and more.
Chances are, you’re driving traffic to your landing pages from Google Ads campaigns.
Instead of sitting blindly and hoping for the best, Lindsey Broussard of Online Optimism recommends diving into your Google Ads data and making personalized tweaks based on the results.
Broussard says: “Check in on QS frequently to make sure that the correct keywords are used.”
Luke from Ascesis agrees with using Google Ads data but has another technique.
“If you find that you’re pages are converting for a specific keyword, create a separate dedicated landing page, advert & keyword selection to lower your CPC & CPL,” he says.
It seems like two highly-targeted landing pages are better than one.
Sadi of RunRepeat believes there’s no one one-size-fits-all approach to landing page optimization.
“You cannot go around reading and implementing random tips from experts. The best place to find the problem and the answer to that problem is your site analytics and visual data reports,” she says.
“Start from a session recording and replay tool to see how a typical visitor scrolls, clicks, or browse through your website. Use a heat map to see which part of the page is getting the most clicks and which part is getting ignored. You can also consider the live chat option to actually have a real-time chat with some of your visitors to see what they are looking for.”
Summarizing, Sadi says: “All this data and information will help you make changes that actually make things better and improve conversions.”
“By far the most important aspect of improving conversion rates is to focus on speed & accessibility,” in Wpromote’s Simon Poulton opinion. “It’s not a secret that this is important, but it is often overlooked in the CRO process.”
Wondering why? Because “you could make a thousand optimizations to the page, but if 80% of users bounce because of page speed, you’ll only ever be able to optimize to the 20% that do wait. This is particularly important for landing pages with a majority of users visiting on mobile devices.”
Besides, users expect optimal page load speeds. Kaitlin Cooper of 201 Creative spots: “on average, visitors expect pages to load within 2-4 seconds, and if your landing page is delayed by even one second, your conversion rate can drop by 7%.”
Hence, to improve your landing page’s speed, pay attention to the following factors:
The page weight (aka size in megabytes)
Brendan Tully of WP Speed Fix explains, “the loading speed of the page will always be constrained by the size of the page in MB and smaller is ALWAYS better. Often we see pages that are 5mb+ in size which is huge especially if you’re targeting top of middle of funnel visitors who have low or weak intent. They’re not going to have much patience and will click away even with a small 1-2 second delay so often ad campaigns will burn through budget as a result of this.”
According to Tully, “some simple ways to reduce the page weight are:
The FCP (first contentful paint) timing
Tully shares, “the FCP time is when the page starts to render. It’s when the user sees something happening, in their head they’re saying ‘ok I see the page is loading.’
So what’s the best FCP time? “Ideally you want that FCP time under 1 second,” Tully answers.
Here’s how to achieve it:
To test your page weight and FCP, Tully shares: “our speed test tool will test both these metrics and many more in under 60 seconds and will give you detailed recommendations on how to improve them. It’s also 100% free!
Remember these metrics will vary from page to page and by location so make sure to test landing pages individually and from the geographic locations you’re targeting.”
Cooper also recommends, “check for elements such as large images and plugins that might be causing your page to load slowly and focus on optimizing them to increase the overall page speed.”
To recap, “make sure to reduce the page load time because the faster the page the more conversions,” as PureVPN’s Usmani sums up.
Live chat makes sure any questions your viewers may have are answered immediately, helping them bridge the distance between themselves and the CTA.
As Acquire’s Ashwini Dave remarks, “A simple act of answering customers’ queries at the time of their purchase can mean the difference between bounce and sales because it is the most critical time. It leaves a positive impact on customers and they feel satisfied with your response and customer service.”
Eric Quanstrom of CIENCE Technologies comments that live chat is “table stakes that when a visitor has questions, they should be able to get them answered immediately. Responsiveness matters.”
Dave also thinks in the same way: “designing a great landing page takes more than slapping on graphics, a call-to-action (CTA) button and text. Building a personal connection with customers will impress them immediately and for that having transparent and immediate communication is important on the landing page itself.”
Of course, live chat is a good way for encouraging immediate communication. Dave opines, “I personally feel that including a live chat will keep your customers for longer time compare to the websites not offering live chat option. It will be a game-changer for your business.”
One tip to keep in mind always: “train your customer support team well for decent behavior because they are the lifeblood of live chat system.”
With over3.5 billion global citizens using their smartphones, this is an important step to take when aiming for increasing your landing page conversion rates.
Smallpdf’s Hung Nguyen insists, “more and more users are browsing the web and signing up for services via their phones. However, not all businesses recognize the need to optimize their website for a ‘seamless mobile browsing experience.’”
Ensuring your landing page is optimized for mobile is also crucial from a user behavior lens. “users’ behaviors will also vary, as the content is displayed differently. What fits on a PC monitor may not render correctly on mobile, which makes for a tedious scrolling experience. Microcopy that is of perfect length for desktop use may be too long for mobile.”
Thus, here’s your homework:
For all this, “it’s essential to work hand-in-hand with your UX designers to appease those that browse the web on their smartphones. Otherwise, it’s a significant loss of opportunity for businesses that omit mobile optimization from their goals.”
Hopefully, you now know where to start to improve your landing page conversion rate. It’s best you start with understanding the way users are interacting with your page and decide what to do next from there. Irrespective of where you start though, test out the change you make and map out your next moves accordingly.
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