My intention here is to create a checklist that will help your business with landing page optimization tips so you can turn your website into a truly effective customer acquisition tool. A landing page, also known as a squeeze page, must have a form on it. And for those of you who are now asking, the answer is: No, your homepage never counts as a landing page.
The Goals of Landing Pages Are to:?
- help get qualified leads
- find out where your leads are in the buying process
- turn your website into a net, not a backboard
- quantify ROI of your online marketing activities
Before we get started here, think about how you and your company can create a valuable offer. This offer must be available to every visitors to your website! (Consider only 3% of visitors to your website are ready to buy at that exact moment.)??If you think a valuable offer can simply be a free consultation or assessment, you’re not thinking big enough! A free consultation could be one available offer, but it would need to be coupled with other more education resources. The content or offer we are talking about here must be valuable, useful, relevant and educational. In fact, a valuable offer is the most critical component a landing page must have!
For a great example of an offer and landing page optimization combination see: http://info.farotech.com/a-comprehensive-guide-to-internet-marketing
Now, for what you’ve all been waiting for!
Our Landing Page Optimization Tips
Tip 1: Make visitors aware of the value around the offer.
The landing page has to explain the benefits of receiving the offer. You should spend a significant amount of time creating this offer. Make visitors aware of the value by bolding the most compelling statements on the page. Viewers may be wondering, “What’s in it for me?” Make sure the content answers visitors’ questions.
Tip 2: Write titles that match the CTA’s.
The landing page’s headers should clearly explain what the offer is and should be very consistent with the call to action visitors had clicked on to reach this landing page. Visitors will immediately recognize the same offer that was promised to them. At the same time, they will be confused by mixed messages. The headers should start with an action verb like “learn” or “download”.
Tip 3: Bullet point usage.
Visitors to your website need bullet points! Chances are they are looking at 4 sites in a half hour. Typically, a visitor on your website needs to scan the article/content to find out if it is even helpful to them. And, of course, they’ll want to know quickly and up front what they receive when they complete the form. Use a few bullet points so there is no confusion what what they are getting!
Tip 4: Put information above the page fold.
The content and form on the landing page should always be visible above the pages’ fold. Testing has proven you will see a higher conversion rate with the form above the fold. By doing this, you keep the visitor from having to scroll down to see a CTA or landing page.
Tip 5: Do not use navigation and links.
Make it easier for visitors to understand why they are and point them in the direction of the one action they came to this page to do. It’s a give and get…so make it easier for the visitor to get! This is simple, just keep them focused by eliminating the distraction of any links that would take them away from this page!
Tip 6: Include one image.
Interesting images on the landing page will assist visitors in visualizing the offer. Examples include the use an image of a book cover for an eBook or a presentation slide for a webinar, or screenshot of free-trial software.
Tip 6.5: Perform the blink test.
Visitors to your landing page should know what the offer is, the value, and what they need to do to get the offer. And they should be able to gather this info all this in 5 seconds! Test your landing page with friends, family, co-workers. Remember 5 seconds is all it takes for someone to leave your website!
Lastly, I’ll be glad to give you an extra tip here: whatever you do, please test your results and the return on your time spent! You should implement these steps, test your landing page and see what resonates well with your audience. Change one element on the page at a time, so that you can identify and determine if that change had an effect.
I hope these landing page optimization tips suite you well – again, if you need some guidance please check out our website for more marketing tips.
