10 Things To Make Landing Pages Convert

Landing pages are the most important thing to have optimized, once you have a source of quality traffic.  If the landing page isn’t made to convert, you are not using your ad spends as well as you can.  Below are 10 of the most important things you need to think about and try to use (if it fits within your business model) with your landing pages to help them turn more visitors into leads and sales. 

1.  Your call to action and forms above the fold.

This is the most important thing in my opinion.  You have to have your calls to action and main message across the top and popping out.  If you make people scroll, click through to find them or do any extra work to know what your page is about and how to convert into a sale or lead, you could cause people to leave your page.  Even if they watch your video or read your thousands of words of copy, if they cannot easily see and use your calls to action, or enter the exact basic amounts of information you need, your page is not as useful or user friendly as it could be.

2.  The consistency of your messaging and campaigns.

If you sell a solution to make blue widgets better, but you also have red widget solutions and other products, you need to make sure that your message remains clean and you do not place to much irrelevant information on the page.  If your campaigns, banners, ads and emails are all about blue widget services, make sure the landing page speaks directly to that.  You don’t want people that have both blue and red widgets but only need something for the blue widget to have to search through red widget copy to find what they are looking for.  You can start out more general if you are testing designs, but once you know the design that works, or if you have the capabilities to do this from the start, keep everything as customized as possible for your traffic.

3.  Your wording.

I did this post about onsite copy that has a section about wording.  If you saw we, our or your company’s name more than a couple of times when talking about your product or service, you are only pitching yourself and talking about yourself.  Make sure to always talk about how this solution makes your visitor’s life easier, helps their company grow and try to use adjectives to help the visitor picture themselves using your product or service so they can see the benefits of going with you.  When you read your copy, try to see if there is a better word for We, Our or I and then replace it with a benefit that uses you, you’re or can better relate to the visitor.

4.  The images you use.

Images are great, but if someone on a landing page is staring at you, chances are their eyes are amazing and their faces are meant to get and keep your attention, but that could stop the visitor from paying attention to your messaging and moving towards your CTA.  This is great for a banner to move people from the content on a page of a to your ad, but this isn’t always good for landing pages.

If your goal is to drive a lead, get someone’s email address or even make a sale, have the product or service clearly defined in the image and make sure the face or lines are focused or point to the beginning of the form or the call to action.  It’s great if you have a gorgeous model with a beautiful face, it’s better if she’s looking at or pointing towards your call to action so people don’t focus on her but focus on converting into a lead or sale.

5.  The flow and your design.

This goes along the same lines as the images above.  If your design uses angles or is meant to balance, you may want to throw it off a bit.  By having the flow thrown off so that your eyes keep moving towards your form or CTA, then you can help keep people moving towards your call to action and going through your sales or lead path.

try to make sure all arrows and points lead and direct people through your site messaging and into the call to action and that all design aspects do not take away from the main goal, give them your quick pitch and moving them through your sales funnel.

6.  Security seals.

One thing that can help increase landing page conversions for some companies is to add a security seal on the checkout process.  By showing your site is secure and that the person is safe from Hackers, you can help to build their confidence with your site.

7.  Reassure your user why they are making the right decision by giving you their information or shopping with you.

By adding a star burst or something onto, next to or under your call to action, you may be able to help people know that they are making the right decision by shopping with you or asking for a quote by helping to reduce any thoughts that they could be stuck with the product or service.  You can try using a free trial, money back guarantee or whatever your extra value statement is.  By having this on the button, you not only help to get the visitor to have more confidence that there is less risk by using you, but you can also help to encourage them to click through the last step on a form or to check out.

8.  Having an as seen in section.

One thing that can add credibility to your store is featuring the logos of major media brands on the page that have done stories or featured you.  The trick is making sure the icons and logos are the ones that relevant to your visitors and not just big names.  If they are shopping for XYZ consumer products, having magazines that relate to the product may be better than having a financial or investor type of site and article.  These logos (if they are accurate and you didn’t buy ad space) can add a lot of credibility to your site, products and services.

9.  Include a “We do not spam” or “We respect your privacy” link by your call to action.

Some people get worried with sensitive information like social security numbers, email addresses and now phone numbers with SMS and Text Spammers hitting mobile devices.  By reassuring people that they are safe with you and having that appear on the page or next to or under the field can help the end user to feel safer when they need to provide you with their information.  Make sure that it opens in a small window so that they can also read it without having to leave your form.

10.  An image of the owner or a customer.

One of the things that can sometimes help increase conversion rates is having a picture of the owner of the company on the page and a quote from them.  A lot of company owners don’t want to see themselves on a site, but having this connection with the visitor can help to add trust and show that there are real people at your company.  If you cannot get your CEO to let you use their photo, see if you can get a customer’s picture and a quote from them.  It isn’t always as good or as effective, but it can still add trust and credibility, if the person looks like a peer and can directly relate to the visitor.

There are a ton of other things you can do to help convert landing pages.  You could have live chat support if you have tricky fields, re-marketing campaigns as the person leaves, pop up windows to offer help or a deal or even making sure you are using the right fonts and font sizes for your demographics. If you have a favorite thing that helps to convert landing pages that I haven’t mentioned here, please feel free to share it in the comments section below.