Why should landing page optimization be your before-all for a better conversion rate?

Think about this: You start your website and spend countless hours designing, putting in all the SEO strategy to make it SEO-focused. You even invest in search engine optimization, pay-per-click advertising, and social media to boost your site ranking in the SERP (Search engine result page).

Few months in, you successfully have your website on the first page, you get more and more visitors. But that’s just one problem solved. Visitors are coming to your site but the bounce rate gives you a headache, they take no action on the page, which leaves all your marketing efforts to fall short. 

At this point, a well organized, optimized landing page plays a crucial role when it comes to convincing the visitors that the offer you provide is worth their money and time, thus helps to drive more conversion rates.

So today in this article, I’ll lay out some of the best-proven tips and tricks to improve your website landing page, elements by elements. 

So come on and check this out!

What is landing page optimization (LPO) and why does it matter to your business?

Landing page optimization is the process of optimizing every element on the specific website that helps to convert more visitors into customers or to encourage them to take desired actions on your site. In another word, your goal is to boost the conversion rate of a given landing page.

So what makes a landing page so special and indeed, a must-have for the business of all sizes and industries? 

• A landing page is a key opponent to make your website highly focus on driving conversion rates. It’s also a great tool to improve SEO and build your brand in the long run. 
• A campaign-specific landing page cuts out all the distractions and allows showing your targeted audiences detailed but enough-to-understand information about the service or the product you’re promoting. 
• A landing page is not only low-cost but also one of the fastest ways to improve the look of your business. A conversion-focused landing page gives a better experience for your customers. 

Every tiny element is essential

This part might be varied for different goals you set for your campaigns and landing pages. But these elements we’ve listed below are the most common one you should pay attention to:

1.Clickable call-to-action button: Your CTA should be displayed prominently yet relevant to the whole content on the landing page. And this CTA should be transparent and point to one specific goal only in order to avoid misleading your customer to take the wrong action. 

Airbnb clear Call-to-Action page

2. Competitor analysis: Try to make your products more appealing by showing the image/table of comparison of yours to other brands’. Think of those USPs (unique selling point)that you have but your opponents don’t.  

3. Zero-in on the best offer: When it comes to selling a product, it’s not about the product itself, but the benefits that can actually bring you profit. So focus on highlighting how your products can effectively address customers’ pain points. This is best done when writing a product description. 

4. Product demonstration/breakdown:

• Submit a clear headline that should bring out the greatest advantage of your products
• The sub-headline is to explain clearly those benefits in detail, what your best deal is, who you’re targeting, and why they should buy your products. 

Videofruit with a clear headline (Source: www.crazyegg.com)

Note: If the images are not enough to convey the product’s usage and convince customers to make a purchasing decision, it’s better to have at least 3 bullet points listing all the product’s best features/benefits under the format of videos (a 2-3 minute short instruction video), GIFs, or infographics for customers to visualize your products more clearly and vibrantly. 

Don’t forget to put in the keywords you aim for your landing page. 

>> Learn to write a product description that will pump up your sales almost instantly 

5. Use scarcity technique: A sense of urgency compels your visitor to take action as soon as possible. That’s why “Timer countdown”, “Stock quantities”, “Product sold out”, etc are common phases in every marketing strategy. However, this is an element that is not necessarily required so you can consider leaving it aside if it’s not relevant to the purpose of the landing page you want to create. 

6. The wisdom of the crowd: When you’re promoting your product or service, it’s your side and your biased words only. That’s why showing customers’ testimonials, product reviews or feature publication, or anything related to user-generated content (UGC) is the key to improve brand trust and loyalty in the long run. 

Add testimonials on landing page just like Lifelock added to theirs to build trust to your website (Source: instapage.com)

7. Guarantee commitment: Whichever the product or service you’re selling and promoting, always arm your business with a good customer support team to assist your customer with unexpected issues, difficulties (technical problems, faulty product, long shipping delivery time, etc). Also, make sure to be clear and be mindful of whether it’s the shipping or refund policy for your customers.

8. Other trust elements: As a seller, if you were in customers’ shoes, what makes you keep wondering instead of purchasing products? if your service can’t answer your customers’ questions right away, prepare those materials like FAQs, help documents, etc in the most visible ways to prove that your site is very insightful and responsive. 

9. Visual is crucial: The images appearing on the landing page must be user-friendly for both desktop and mobile interface versions. 

• Images need to be at high resolution. No broken or blur images are allowed
• Every image must have an “alt” tag that helps to describe clearly its content or location.
• Avoid naming the ịmage indiscriminately, creating a feeling of unprofessional. The names should all be relevant or SEO-oriented.

Before letting your landing page “go live”

Now you’ve read all the essentials to create a high-converting landing page, we bet that you’re confident enough to launch your landing page. However, let’s just take a few moments to do some final checks before publishing everything since one small missing piêc can ruin the whole process. Ask yourself these questions and just simply do a quick checklist:

• Do all the URLs work perfectly in order to track your result?
• Is your headline/ tagline clear and strong enough to leave customers a deep impression?
• Is your landing page user-friendly on different devices (mobile/desktop)? So this is really something you need to be mindful of because according to SmartInsights, more than 80% of people use smartphones as their primary method for accessing the web. So if you only care about the desktop version optimization but miss out on the mobile interface, you’re leaving at least 80% of customers turning their backs on you due to this avoidable unpleasant experience. 
• Are you using too many pop-ups on your landing page? (These pop-ups can really annoy your customers if they’re showing up too aggressively and wrong-timing)
• Are all the text, font, images, designs relevant to the whole content you put in or not?

All in all, you should at least check once, twice, and make it five times before hitting the “go live” button for your landing page. 

A/B testing after launching your landing page

Everything isn’t done yet. Apparently, having an A/B split test on the effect of different variations on your landing page to see which one works the best for your goal, also for the sake of your audience. 

Keep these in mind:

• With or without this photo/ trust badges
• Place this on the bottom or at top 
• Video or ebook work better?
• This dark or vibrant color affect more?
• ….

There’s no end for A/B testing and the landing page is one of the perfect places for you to try out all the variations. Literally put every element on the scale, constantly test everything until you find the perfect piece to complete the whole picture. 

Now back to you

Now that you’ve reached this part of the article, we think that you’re more than ready to create your own landing page. 

While in the making process, if you feel like missing anything, just come back here and scan what we’ve listed to make sure you have everything on your list.

Don’t hesitate to take your time looking upon others to dig into how they create such a conversion-oriented and fully-optimized landing page.