Landing Page Optimization

Inside Edge – November 2012

Landing Page Optimization = Increased ROI

Quality Traffic + Conversion

A landing page is, literally, where your online visitors ‘land’. It is your web page that is displayed when a visitor clicks an online advertisement, or a link from search engine results pages, or scans your QR code with a smart phone. This may or may not be your home page, but it definitely needs to be a page that is designed to convert quality leads into customers.

Visitors to your landing page will stay there only a few seconds before they decide if they have come to the right place. Your landing page can either grab their attention in those precious few seconds or it can make them click away from it. How can you make these visitors stay on to become potential customers? Read on…

Landing pages are critical to your Internet marketing efforts.

Your landing page must be optimized to quickly provide visitors with essential information about the products and services you are offering; and what they need to do to get hold of them. Thus, the landing page must tell them:

About the same products or services that they were searching for online when they found you

  • What they need to do next to make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter, download your whitepaper, or whatever your conversion goal is
  • About links to other sections of your site that they may want to visit—do this carefully, without distracting them too much!

Improve the Conversion and ROI of your Marketing Campaigns

 How can you improve your landing pages for greater conversion?

 Headlines. The page must open with a few attention-grabbing lines that highlight the benefits to the prospect.

  • Visual appeal. Good visual design supports the content. However, the wrong graphics or too many images can distract from the offer and conversion goal.
  • ‘Scannable’ pages. People should be able to scan or read through the page quickly, so use bullet points, simple sentences and crisp content.
  • Reinforce the call to action. No two visitors read a web page in the identical manner. To make sure your call to action is not missed, reinforce it more than once on the page and ensure that it is clearly visible.
  • Focus on a primary keyword. Define your product or service for each keyword and drive everything on the page to it. This means having many landing pages — at least one per ad group and ideally one for your each of your top keywords. Less confusion and decision making for your visitor means better conversion rates for your landing page.
  • Simple design. Simpler pages always work better for lead generation. If you find that some elements like navigation bars, visual clutter, and links to other sections do not aid the visitor in their decision making process, get rid of them.
  • ‘You’, not ‘we’. Write about the prospect – more of ‘you’ and less of ‘we’. Your visitors only care about how taking that step (your call to action) will benefit them.
  • Ask for less. Keep your form simple. Get only as much information as you need immediately; you can always collect more during your lead nurturing process.
  • ‘App’ less. Yes, not all computers run the latest fancy graphics or video apps, so think about whether you want your lasting ‘brand image’ to be a dialog box that says “you can’t view this site because you don’t have the latest version of…”?

 Going Beyond the Standard Landing Page—Continue to Engage

Your landing page does not always have to be a final destination for a visitor. Use your discretion and decide whether or not your landing page can encourage further engagement with the same target audience. Without distracting from your specific conversion goal for that page, provide one or two teasers or links in the corner that allow them to explore more of your products or services. For instance, if your landing page promotes your new software product, you could benefit from encouraging registration to your upcoming free webinar about how to use the product. It pays to think beyond the short-term objectives of a landing page and integrate your online strategies for the long term.

Use “click paths” to capture implicit information, and design the landing pages to capture additional information about your leads, such as the keyword used, the search engine they came from, and the ad they clicked on.

A ‘thank you’ page is a must after you convert a lead. Other than being courteous, it’s also a great opportunity to develop the relationship by making another offer, promoting your blog, asking for feedback, or running a poll.

The Key Takeaway

Don’t waste your online advertising budget by sending clicks to your home page! While a great looking website can grab the attention of your visitors, a strong landing page will keep them involved and get them to buy your products/services.

The landing page is the most important persuasion point for the user. Create targeted, product or service focused landing pages that simplify customer activity and improve conversions. The more compelling and clear your offer is, the more qualified your prospects will be. As a result, you will drive better conversion and garner greater return on investment.

As landing page design and implementation experts, WSI Consultants are trained to deliver the highest ROI on your Internet marketing campaigns.