Ways to improve your landing page

Your landing page could work wonders for you

But first, let’s just agree on what a landing page is. A landing page isn’t necessarily your homepage – it could be a page within your site that is dedicated to a certain offer, product, feature or service. The main point is, a landing page should abide by one specific purpose with a single-minded message, whereas a homepage usually presents an overview of your business.

So, how can you get the most out of your landing page?

Set a goal for your landing page

If you know what you want to achieve with your landing page it will be easier to judge and test the options you set up for it. Ultimately, of course, you want to attract more visitors and increase sales; that goes without saying. But to be successful you probably want to dig a bit deeper than that.

What’s the one thing you’d like to achieve right away? Let’s say you are running a promotion that offers a 2-for-1 deal. Let that offer be the hero of your landing page. However you choose to display the offer (visually and verbally), the important thing is to stick to your single-minded message. Your audience is ready to act on your offer but may not be ready to engage further until they have found what they are looking for.

Have a clear call-to-action

Recommendation number one: Keep the call-to-action above the fold. If someone has seen and clicked on one of your ads, then they may want to get to the point as quickly as possible. Even if that isn’t the case, you won’t scare anyone away by accommodating for the ones who are in a hurry.

Recommendation number two: Make sure the call-to-action message is not misleading. For instance, you may not need to say ‘Read more’ on a button that sits on a page that has sufficient information on it. Consider phrases like ‘Pick your colour’, ‘Select model’, or even ‘Buy it’ depending on the next step of the customer journey. Most importantly, you need to understand the mindset of your audience and where they are on their path to purchase. Are they ready to purchase? Do they need further convincing? Are they choosing between models? etc. This is in many ways a guessing game, but there are indicators and behavioural patterns that can be interpreted and considered before you design calls-to-action that will align with the mindset of your audience.

Keep your copy clear

Keeping your copy clear does not necessarily mean keeping it short, although short copy as introductions or summaries makes the reading experience more pleasant. Remember that the primary purpose of your writing is to make information accessible to your readers. If you need a lot of words to do that, then so be it. One way of getting past the resistance some readers have toward long copy is to section it into shorter chunks divided by subheadings.

Add reviews and/or testimonials

Testimonials and reviews build trust. But they need to be credible; if they reek of something put together with stock imagery and fake names, you will probably end up damaging whatever trust you’ve established so far.

Some testimonials or reviews are more valuable than others to you and your potential customers. A positive statement from an expert within your field will score better than one from someone who isn’t familiar with your target industry. You’ll strike gold with reviews that mention specific pain points your product or service overcame. Use them, unabashedly.

Remove unnecessary navigation

As I mentioned at the start of this article, your dedicated landing page should fulfil one specific purpose with a single-minded message. Consequently, the navigation should be simple and clear. Minimise or even remove the usual menu at the top of the page. This will keep the page focused on the task. Make your form fields easy to understand and fill in. And try to keep the fields to a minimum; only keep the ones that give you the information you need to establish contact with a new prospect. Every additional piece of information you ask for will lower your conversion rate.

Cure web blindness – a summary of sorts

There are other actions you can take to make the most of your online marketing, and some of the above tips may not apply to your specific needs. But the main purpose of these actions is to weed out the fluff so your audience will have a better experience on your site. We all suffer from web blindness to some degree; we tend to automatically ignore monotonous repetitions as well as clichéd phrases and ideas. Is there a cure for this blindness? I’d say yes: Be less obvious – without losing clarity. It’s a balancing act that takes some time to master.