Landing pages are overvalued. Here's why and what you should do

I hated building landing pages.

I have certainly made mistakes and I had to learn some things the hard way.

For a long time, my landing pages simply did not work. They were weak and barely converted.

Landing pages are considered the magic answer to all our conversion problems, but it's not as easy as we think.

Do not fall into the trap of thinking that you can build a landing page and presto, your conversions will skyrocket.

The conversion rate of a landing page varies by industry, but the average is only 2.35%.

This means that for every 50 people accessing your landing page, only one will actually end the action you are trying to do.

It's a bit depressing, is not it?

I have good news for you. I've learned from experience that most landing pages can do better.

The majority of landing pages are not really optimized for conversions. They look "pretty" but they do not meet expectations because they are faulty.

I'm going to show you why landing pages are currently overrated and how to change your game to boost your conversions.

But first, let's talk about what is really a landing page and what it should be.

What is a landing page, really?

In the simplest sense, a landing page is a page on which you arrive.

The problem with this answer is that it's way too simple.

If someone clicks on a link in one of your ads and that one redirects it to your home page, your home page is a landing page .

Some companies make this mistake.

Let me show you an example.

I'm looking for "Seattle cleaning services" in Google. I click on the paid advertisement:

That brings me to their home page:

Now, here's an example of a well-made landing page.

Click on the search result:

And, here's a relevant landing page to my search preferences:

Your homepage may be a good place to send people if you are just trying to develop a general awareness, but it is not there that you will make your conversions successful.

A landing page is intended to have only one purpose: to convert.

That's all. It should not do more than that.

See this definition of The Landing Page Course:

There are two key points here:

These are individual pages with a singular purpose.
Their sole purpose is to receive "campaign traffic", which means ad clicks from your ads and campaigns. This could be social media ads, PPCs or emails.

This means that you must first run a successful ad campaign that drives the right click of the traffic to your landing page.

After all, if no one "lands" on your landing page, it will be rather useless, is not it?

Assuming your advertising campaign is successful and your CTR is good, the landing page should have two possible goals:

Capture leads to other communications and allows you to market them in the future when they are further into the sales funnel.
Warm up your potential customers so that they are ready and eager to buy your product or service before sending them to close the deal.

Each of these goals requires a different landing page type.

Good landing pages can offer a number of benefits:

They help promote a positive first impression.

Ion Interactive says that first impressions are formed in only 1 / 20th of a second. Landing pages can be customized and designed to quickly deliver positive visual impressions.

They can enjoy the elements of trust.

Landing pages containing images, videos, and graphics can not only help attract people, but they will help you make a lasting impression.

People only remember 20% of what they read, but they remember 80% of what they see.

Landing pages promote customer orientation.

It's easier to capture conversions from a well-designed landing page than a homepage or blog post because they have a single goal. There is less noise to distract your audience.

All of this means that landing pages are the perfect place to convert your audience if they are well done.

Conversion rate experts generated $ 1 million a year for Moz by simply improving their landing page and promoting by email.

So, why are landing pages overestimated?

Well, it's not because they can not work. It's just that too often people use a generic model or slam something together that simply does not work.

Do not worry if you are one of these people. After all, when I started my landing pages also hobbled.

But now I am going to share with you what I have learned and what are the most common mistakes so that you can make sure your landing pages are doing their job.

1. Synchronize it with your advertising campaign

As I mentioned earlier, the very first step to having an effective advertising campaign.

You must target the right audience for your landing page, or nothing else matters.

After all, sending people willing to buy a lead generation page is not going to be very successful.

But timing of the intention is not the only thing you need to focus on.

Your ad and landing page must have a consistent look.

Here is a beautiful example of coherence:

You can see in this Highrise campaign that the ad and the landing page are very similar.

Here are some of the things that they have been careful to keep consistent:

The image of the woman is the same.
The theme is the same, including the color of the background, the logo, the font and the appearance of the ATC.
The testimony is the same.

Now, look at this example:

Advertising talks about the "lowest tax in the EU", then you click on a page that talks about Bulgaria. What?

After reading the fine print, you can see how they bind together, but remember that first impressions happen in seconds.

I think a lot of people click on this end, see a landing page that does not seem to match and instantly hits their back button. I know I would do it.

2. Do it for mobiles

The optimization of the mobile landing page is essential now that Google has moved to a mobile-first index.

The number of mobile users is increasing every year. Last year, 66% of the population had a cell phone.

This is up 5% from the previous year. I'm sure when they come out with this year's stats, it will have gone up again.

Mobile users start to dominate web traffic.

Since last year, more than half of the web traffic is mobile.

Not only that, look at the hourly distribution of the day:

Mobile dominates the hours when people are usually out of work.

These are the times when people are most likely to use the web for anything other than work, such as browsing the Internet or shopping.

Which means that if you want to capture your audience, you have to plan their use on a mobile device.

When it comes to mobile traffic, the two most critical aspects of your landing page are speed and simplicity.

Let's talk about simplicity first.

Take a look at these two examples:

It must cut everything except absolute necessities, and it must be designed for the mobile.

Having a CTA that is only partially visible will decrease your results.

Making it too difficult to read on a small device will also hurt your conversions.

3. Check that your loading speed is fast

The loading speed of the page may not be the first thing to do when designing a landing page, but it is of utmost importance to the traffic mobile and office.

In fact, Google announced in January that from July 2018, pagespeed will become one of its ranking factors for mobile searches.

40% of your audience will leave your landing page if it takes more than three seconds to load.

It does not matter if you have crossed all the others if no one is hanging out long enough to see your page.

Many businesses are struggling with this, especially for the mobile.

According to Google, the average time needed to load a mobile landing page improves, but it takes on average 15 seconds.

I just told you that 40% of people will leave if it takes more than three seconds.

When you isolate mobile traffic, that number actually increases to 53%.

So, more than half of your audience will leave in three seconds or less and the average site will take 15 seconds …

Simply setting the speed of your page could have a huge effect on your conversions without changing anything on your landing page.

Google also found that the bounce rate continued to increase the loading of longer pages.

Here are their results for mobile traffic:

How do you know if your page is too slow?

For desktop computers, you can test with Google PageSpeed Insights.

For the mobile version of your site, try Test My Site.

If your speeds are not at their level, then make sure to take the right steps to increase them before you worry about anything else.

4. Make sure your topics work

Once your page is loaded, one of the first things your audience will notice will be your header and subtitle.

When thinking about designing a landing page, always keep in mind that first impressions count.

Your title is one of your first impressions. It must be clear, attract attention and reflect the purpose of your page.

Take a look at this title:

It's simple, straightforward and you know what they're selling.

Their subtitle reinforces the message and adds more information, without being too long or distracting.

Take a look at this one:

The title is catchy, but it gives you no idea what the product is.

The only thing that saves this is the subtitle is perfect. It provides the context they lack in the title.

The subheading must complete and complete the main title.

Its purpose is to give your readers a little more information while keeping them engaged and encouraging them to continue on the page.

Visit Slack's homepage:

Although it actually acts as a home page, it captures the main aspects of the headers that you should use on your landing pages.

5. Remove all distractions

One of the main differences between landing pages is that they serve only one purpose.

Even though Slack's home page is rather clean, it would fail as a landing page for different reasons.

The first is that like any home page, it has distractions.

Your landing page must not contain a navigation bar.

Why?

It has been shown that removing the navigation menu on your landing page can increase your conversions by 100%.

But only 16% of the landing pages do not have a navigation bar.

This is a simple solution that more people should enjoy.

Another way to distract your audience is with too many words.

There is a direct correlation between lower word counts and higher conversions, particularly in the health and travel industries.

Do not put too much text on the page. Keep it as visual as possible with chips or infographics.

You must include enough information to clearly indicate the problem you are solving for your client, but in as few words as possible.

I know it's a bit of an art, so it's crucial to test your landing pages (we'll come back to that later).

6. Use the right CTA

A landing page should have a call to action .

More than 68% of companies own at least five CTAs and links on their landing page, but statistics show that having a single CTA increases conversions.

Choose a specific goal and CTA for each landing page and stick to it.

Make sure your call for action is relevant and consistent with your offer.

The use of something vague like "click here," "submit" or "continue" will not convert either.

Your incentive to action is the complete reason for a landing page. This is the most important element.

You must bring it out.

Choose a bright color, make a big button with a bigger font.

Attract attention, with arrows or other visuals. You want the eyes of your audience to be attracted naturally.

7. Limit what you ask

The abandonment of a landing page can occur in the same manner as the abandonment of a basket.

One of the big triggers for dropping out is asking too many questions.

Most companies want to get as much data as possible. However, there are conflicting results when you collapse the form fields.

You do not necessarily have to limit the form fields to an artificial number. But you should just focus on what's important.

For example, asking your audience for their age immediately reduces your conversion rate.

It is often unnecessary to collect this data in advance!

Here is a simple example of Optimizely:

You can also use interactive screens, like Oscar Health, to divide the questions.

This increases your chances for your audience to interact and fill in the form fields without giving up, since it breaks the fields, which gives the impression of being less.

Consider adding a progress bar so that your audience knows that it is nearing the end and that screens do not last forever.

Also, keep in mind that our fields need to be optimized for the mobile. If it's painful to do on the phone, people will run away.

8. Have the good visuals

First, I should be clear that visuals are not just images anymore.

I saw video landing pages converted to 56%!

Here are some of the benefits of posting a video on your landing page:

They increase the retention of audience. An attractive video allows people to hang around longer, allowing your message to penetrate.
They also increase confidence. Assuming your video includes a real person, it gives your product a life and a voice. This will immediately increase the confidence of your audience.
Your audience wants to watch videos. Unbounce has found that people prefer to watch a video by reading an article, as long as the video lasts 5 minutes or less.

If you want to embed a video, make sure to incorporate your call to action (as well as elsewhere on your landing page).

See how Derek Halpern included his CTA:

Videos are also a great way to demonstrate your product.

If you have something difficult to assemble or use, the videos are ideal.

For example, Long Tail Pro includes a video that explains exactly how to use their software.

Do not do it too long; Keep your video short, relevant and useful.

All images on your landing page must be relevant to your product or service.

Try to choose images that meet the following criteria:

They should be great.
They must be relevant to your product or service. Make sure that if you sell a product, there is a real image on your landing page.
Never use stock images.
All your images must be of high quality.

Include an image of a person looking directly at your call to action is an easy way to instantly increase conversions.

Here is an example:

When we see someone looking at something, we are naturally attracted to look at it too.

This is a simple but effective way to attract the attention of your audience where you want it.

9. Include reassurance and testimony

Want to hear something controversial?

The best seller of your business is not really the best in my experience.

Instead, the best sellers are often your old customers.

People want to hear the experience of others.

That's why make sure you always use customer testimonials on every landing page that I create.

Testimonials help build trust in your personal brand. People trust others more than business.

More than three out of four marketers do not include social proof, but this can increase your conversion rate by more than 1%.

1% may not seem like much, but the conversion rate of the average landing page is only 2%.

If you are new and do not have many testimonials yet, there are other ways to reassure your clients.

Consider showing your trust indicators to reassure users that your site is safe.

You can also create a relationship of trust by sticking to the facts and using specific numbers each time you enter statistics.

Make sure you do not overestimate the results.

To say that something is better without backing it up will make people believe that you are trying to deceive or defraud them.

Avoid superlatives like "better", "faster", "cheaper" unless you can prove it through research.

Another way to reassure customers is to offer a guarantee.

Free trials or money back guarantees help build confidence and drive conversions because they are low risk.

You can also increase customer trust by providing contact information.

Giving people a way to reach you can help reassure them about your site and the product or service is trustworthy.

10. Add some pressure or encouragement

An additional incentive to encourage customers to click on your call to action may increase conversions, especially if your landing page is for lead generation.

The offer of an ebook or a free guide can help increase the number of registrations.

Just make sure that the content you provide is valuable, or that any future marketing efforts toward these people will not work well.

Any free gift you choose should be considered an investment for paid conversions later.

Remember the old saying about carrots or sticks?

The gift is a carrot to attract conversions. You can also use a stick or a "threat" to scare people.

Now, I'm not talking about a real threat.

I mean using a language such as "limited time offer", "only 24 hours remaining" to increase your conversion rate.

11. Test, test and test again

There is a science to the structure of the landing page, but there is also an art.

To find the best landing page design for each of your campaigns, you need to test them.

Many marketing blogs will ravage on long form landing pages. But guess what? These do not always convert the best.

The problem is that some companies, like Verve Conversion, have discovered that shorter pages are better converted.

So even when you read what works best on average, it does not mean it will work best for you.

Unfortunately, just half of businesses are currently testing their pages today.

But the tests showed that they were increasing the conversion rates.

Companies whose conversion rates have improved from one year to the next average 50% more tests.

A good way to test your pages is with heat maps.

A heat map gives you a simple overview of where your visitors are viewing and click on your landing page.

You can see which areas of your page people are paying attention to and what is not working.

Sure, I'm a bit biased, but my favorite heat map software is Crazy Egg.

Il vous suffit de saisir l'URL de votre page de destination, de créer un compte et de consulter votre carte de chaleur.

Voici un exemple d'une carte de chaleur de rouleau:

Les zones en rouge attirent le plus d'attention.

Dans cet exemple, vous pouvez voir qu'il n'y a pas beaucoup de gens qui descendent vers le bas.

Si votre CTA était en bas, ce serait un problème.

Vous pouvez utiliser les cartes thermiques pour voir où les gens cliquent:

Les cartes de chaleur peuvent rapidement vous montrer si vos manchettes, votre contenu ou vos CTA ne reçoivent pas suffisamment d'attention.

Conclusion

On s'attend souvent à ce que les pages de destination convertissent les gens sans effort, mais le taux moyen est d'environ 2%.

Bien sûr, le problème n'est pas avec les pages d'atterrissage exactement. C'est avec la façon dont ils sont construits et utilisés.

Une page de destination doit avoir un but unique, et chaque partie de celle-ci doit être conçue pour amener les spectateurs vers cet objectif.

Tout d'abord, assurez-vous que votre page de destination est cohérente avec votre campagne, puis assurez-vous qu'elle est optimisée pour être rapide et adaptée aux mobiles.

Vos rubriques doivent attirer l'attention, et toutes les distractions, le bruit et l'encombrement doivent disparaître.

Utilisez un CTA réel et limitez la quantité d'informations que vous demandez aux clients de fournir.

Assurez-vous d'utiliser de superbes visuels et de fournir des preuves sociales ou des garanties pour rassurer les gens que le risque de conversion est faible.

Rappelez-vous que vous pouvez toujours offrir une incitation ou un peu de pression pour encourager les gens à cliquer sur le bouton.

Enfin, assurez-vous toujours de tester vos pages. Utilisez les tests A / B ou les cartes de chaleur pour voir ce qui fonctionne et améliorer ce qui ne fonctionne pas.

Quels conseils ou astuces n'ai-je pas mentionnés qui ont contribué à booster les conversions de votre page de destination?

A propos de l'auteur: Neil Patel est le cofondateur de Neil Patel Digital.

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