Brandon Leibowitz
One might think that landing pages are annoying and useless, but just because you’re not fond of them it doesn’t mean they don’t work.
As a matter of fact, landing pages work extremely well, and are considered a major factor in website performance, conversion and marketing in general.
Don’t take my word for it – according to the free 2012 Marketing Benchmarks Report which you can find on this link, companies which have increased the number of landing pages from 10 to 15 have increased their leads 55 percent. Now that’s impressive.
Also, looking at the MarketingSherpa 2011 Landing Page Optimization Benchmark Report, written by the training and publications center MecLabs, layout of the landing page is of extreme importance.
That report can be found here.
Not only should you not neglect your landing page – you should make it your number one priority, no matter what business you’re in.
Luckily for you, I’m here to bring you 25 landing page optimization tips that can be applied to any business.
So, without further ado, let’s get down to it:
1) Don’t cheat – Don’t try to scam the system, as it will break you. Use white label SEO (optimize your landing page for the search engines in accordance to the engines’ rules).
2) Hit them straight to the head – Your landing page must be fast to the point.
3) Pay attention to the layout – People are faster to remember colours and shapes rather than text.
4) Use contrasting colors – Do you know why most Hollywood posters combine blue and orange?
5) Don’t forget your logo – As I said, people are faster to remember shapes, use that to your advantage.
6) Avoid visual noise – Don’t put everything on the landing page, just the essentials.
7) Use the A/B technique to test them – Make two different landing pages and place both, see which one works better.
8) Remove navigation – Don’t give visitors a chance to navigate to another page just yet. Force them to pay attention to the landing page.
9) Congruence – Whatever you do, whatever you write, all must point to the exact same goal – conversion.
10) Sharing is caring – Don’t forget to add the share button, as it will definitely increase your traffic.
11) Extra value – Make sure that people who are converted from the landing page get something in return.
12) Show contact info – Email address, Phone number, Facebook and Twitter accounts – whatever you have, let your visitors know you have it.
13) Don’t be lame – Try to steer clear from the format used in telemarketing and similar – “BUY NOW”, “BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE” and such will get you nowhere, fast.
14) Endorsements – If you know a celebrity which uses your products, or know someone famous who might, make sure you have their face on the landing page. If you don’t know anyone, reach out to them.
15) Testimonials – Same as with endorsements, only these people don’t need to be famous. But the testimonials need to be authentic, don’t forget that!
16) Privacy – Don’t ask for information you don’t need, people are very sensitive about placing their data online
17) Forget about Flash – Just stick to HTML and you’ll be fine. Remember that most people surf on a tablet or a mobile device, so make sure they can open your site properly.
18) Show it to your colleagues/friends/co-workers – Don’t go live with the landing page without double-checking with someone you know. Maybe you’ve missed a typo or your messages aren’t clear enough – you’ll make good use of such feedback!
19) Call to action – If you don’t call your visitors to action, you’ve missed the whole point of the landing page. Make sure the visitors act on your landing page.
20) Button colour – Make sure your main button, be it “subscribe now” or whatever, is in such colour that it evokes strong emotional reactions.
21) Avoid speaking in superlatives. Saying your product or service is the best in the world, ever, will only make you sound silly. Even if you really are the best ever.
22) TL;DR – Or as we used to say: KISS (Keep it short and simple). Whatever copy you have prepared, cut it in half.
23) Don’t lie – Make sure that you can stand behind everything written in the landing page
24) No background music – If there’s one thing that stands out as annoying online, it’s music I didn’t ask for.
25) Use copyrighted material – Don’t use someone else’s photos without permission. This can only get you in a whole lot of trouble, and it’s not worth it. Flickr has a huge database of creative commons licenced photos.
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