The anatomy of a landing page is a complex thing. And with so many potential barriers to conversion that need to be considered before hitting publish, it helps to have a clear idea of what to avoid when building a well optimised landing page.
Review your landing pages using our guide below to decipher the good from the bad, and to help you decide on what split testing to undertake.
Here are the top six landing page mistakes you should stay clear of.
1. No Specific Purpose
Your landing page should be crystal clear in its purpose – users shouldn’t have to search for the specifics of your product or your service. As soon as they land on the page, your copy, imagery, and the sequence of all these elements should tell the story of your service.
The story that you tell on a landing page should always be informed by the worries and fears of your customers, addressing their questions with clear-cut answers before they’ve had a chance to ask them. That way, you know you’re painting a picture specific to your customer base.
2. Marketing Spiel
Your copy should not be ‘marketing copy’. It should be written in the same language that your demographic would use, helping you to identify with them and making your purpose known much quicker. Using language that’s familiar to potential customers means that you’re going to build a rapport with them more successfully, as well as a sense of trust.
3. Absence of Images
This comes right back to telling your story as clearly as possible. Text is the core of your landing page, but imagery will heighten the text, assisting in presenting your product to the user directly.
Images can also inspire action. A carefully placed image can lead the users’ eye directly to a call to action button. If you use an image with a person as the main focal point, make sure they’re looking in the direction of your call to action.
Studies have shown that people are drawn to what other people are looking at, so it pays to think carefully about the images you use as well as the placement – they can make a major impact on landing page conversion rate.
4. Invisible Call To Action
Your call to action is the focal point of your landing page – the place that you want users to reach, ideally, within seconds of landing on the page. But what if there is more than one call to action? Other buttons on the page? Or a tiny call to action button at the very bottom of a long landing page?
Each landing page should have a clear focus, and with that focus, one clear call to action. Any buttons used should be carefully placed and should state exactly what the customer needs to do next to proceed.
5. Unprofessional Typography
The font you use is how you package your story. And let’s face it, if it’s Times New Roman, pt 10, you’re not going to turn many heads. Use a more creative font where possible but remember it still has to be clear and legible. Don’t be scared of using colour, but again, consider the readability of the text. The typography used has to lift your landing page story while still being functional.
6. Infinite Choices
A common misconception is that more choice is always better. But this is only true of specific circumstances. If your demographic is willing to put in the extra work to find the right fit for them then they’ll put in the effort to do so.
But generally speaking, it is much more likely that your customers are part of the majority of online users who have short attention spans. When presented with too much choice, it actually hampers our ability to make a decision.
Sometimes referred to as ‘analysis paralysis’, the infinite comparisons users will have to make to find the best deal takes so much effort that it’s actually easier, and more appealing, to simply move onto another task.
By reducing the amount of product options on a landing page, sales will potentially increase – because you have now taken away the choice overload that’s put in front of your customers.
There you have it – our top six mistakes to avoid when building landing pages. If only those six were the be all and end all of building landing pages that convert, and you’d be sorted. Unfortunately they’re not. In fact, there’s a lot more to CRO than you might think.
Our conversion rate optimisation experts can provide you with all the necessary support to re-work your landing page designs and increase your conversion rate. Contact our CRO experts and web development team for data-driven landing page optimisation.
