8 Essential Ingredients Your Landing Pages Must Have To Increase Conversions by 325%

So you’ve spent time and effort creating a landing page for your new product, download or service only to realise that you’re not making enough sales.

People are coming to your page in droves, but nobody is taking any action.

You’re baffled.

Is it your offer? Your copy? Or is it due to poor quality traffic reaching your landing page?

Traffic Isn’t Your Problem…its Conversion

There is an obsession online with generating traffic to your key landing pages.

Traffic, traffic, traffic. Everyone wants more, but many entrepreneurs like you, fail to understand that it’s simply a vanity metric.

It makes you feel good, but it doesn’t aid you in your goal to get more sales.

You might be able to generate 1,000 visitors to your website, but if you’re only making 1 sale a month, then you need to give your pages a makeover that compels your audience to take action.

The one thing you’re probably not giving enough attention to on your business is conversion.

Conversion marketing is the act of converting site visitors into paying customers.

You need to find out the percentage of people who buy your product or service after viewing your landing page.

If you are spending £1000 a month on Google PPC, conversion becomes much more important because you’re paying for every person who visits your landing page.

This blog post will give you 8 powerful ingredients your landing pages must have to boost conversion rates.

Let’s Take A Step Back – What Is A Landing Page?

Landing page are web pages designed to get your visitors to take a specific action.

Most marketers use them to collect personal information about a lead, usually their name and email address in exchange for a free report, whitepaper or access to a free training library.

Whilst every page on your website is a landing page (in theory), they each have a different purpose for your business.

Creating Effective Landing Pages Requires A Blend of Art and Science

A great converting landing page will make you more money.

You’ll have more opportunities to market your product or service to your audience– and if done correctly, it’ll cost you less to acquire new customers whilst increasing your return on investment.

1. Less Is More – Strip it down to the bare essentials.

Buffer did an A/B test on their homepage to boost new customer signups.

Which landing page do you think converted better: The first one or the second one?

The second one improved sign-up conversions by 16%

Why?

Because there are less distractions and options.

By getting your visitors to focus on one specific thing – you give them an ultimatum.

1) Sign-up if you like what I offer.

2) Leave if you don’t.

Monitor how your audience behaves as they reach your landing page with tools such as Crazy Egg.

1. What are they doing once they reach your website?

2. Which areas of your landing page draw the most attention?

Use this information to get your audience to focus on the elements of most importance on the page. (Hint, hint: “Your download/buy button”)

2. Craft A Compelling Headline

You have approximately 8 seconds to attract the attention of the modern web user.

What better way to do so than to use the first and most important thing your visitors will see – your headline!

Your headline will make or break your landing page.

The more emotional triggers you can spur in your visitors, the more likely they’ll convert.

People want things that will make their lives easier and more hassle-free. If your headline can relate to your audience’s pain points on an emotional level, you’ve won half the battle.

Use words which entire happiness, clarity, relief and satisfaction.

Buffer is the easiest way to save time Social media

170, 327 Smart Online Marketers have a head start – don’t be left out

It’s human nature to want to belong to a group and fight a common cause.

Who doesn’t want to be a “smart online marketer”?

As you can see, simplicity is key.

There is no need to be funny or snarky. Just tell your audience exactly how your offer will make their life easier and if it feels right, what they’ll be missing out on if they don’t sign-up!

3. Consistent Messaging From Lead Source

Nothing turns a potential client or customer off more than being lied to.

Whether you’re doing an advert vis social media or Google PPC, never promise your readers the world, if:

The rule of thumb in marketing is as follows: Under promise and over deliver.

For example if you created a Google PPC ad “Discover the 8 most important secrets for permanent weight loss”, your ad shouldn’t direct them to a landing page selling hair growth pills with a different colour scheme to your original advert.

This lack of congruency is a sure-fire way to throw your money away.

Over deliver on this promise by adding in 2 or 3 more secrets! And when they do eventually sign –up, ensure you’ve got a strong email autoresponder series in place to build a relationship with them over time.

4. Visual Content and Multimedia

Visual content has become even more important to web users today; having a clear image that displays the product or whitepaper people are signing up for will make them more inclined to sign-up to your list.

Go to the next level and include a video if you can.

Having a video of a person to demonstrate your product’s benefits is a sure-fire way to increase conversions. In fact video has been shown to increase conversion rates on a landing page by 80% according to eyeviewdigital.com.

If you show your audience that you share their problem, pain-points and can relate to them on a psychological level, they will be more inclined to make a purchase.

Your video must be able to relate to the struggles and frustration of our audience, as your audience will be more inclined to make a purchase or sign-up, if you address their pain points.

Remember, some people learn better by watching a video or listening to an audio rather than reading.

Don’t ignore them.

5. Strong Call To Action

It goes without saying.

No matter what you’re offering, your call to action should be bold, strong and clear.

Your button is the most important asset on the page bar the headline!

It’s the element which pushes people onto your payment page or shopping cart.

You’ve just spent many hours trying to create a stellar landing page to increase leads and boost your sales.

Now is not the time to rest on your laurels!

The colour of your button tells me where I should click, so make sure you choose a colour which contrasts well with the background.

Your copy helps me decide why I should click.

Using weak active words like “subscribe now”, “download” or “submit” don’t really give your audience a compelling enough reason to do business with you.

Strong active phrases with context like below, helps to give your audience the extra push they need to take you up on your offer.

Use stronger phrases like “download now” or “get access today” – as they are words that will entice users to take action.

Remember: The strength of your CTA should be proportional to the strength of your headline. Don’t underestimate it.

6. Demonstrate Your Authority with Social Proof

Use numbers and testimonials to let people know that they are in good company. People only buy from those they know, like and trust. Why would they give you their personal details if they’re unsure that you won’t spam them? If you can show that you’re an authority, a likeable expert, and 15,000 other people agree, then a new user will be more inclined to follow suit, as people like to feel like they’re part of a group.

7. Optimise for Mobile Users

Ensure your landing page has the right look and feel on the small screen. Check your analytics to see the % of users who visit your site on mobile devices (you’d be surprised).

There are over 2 billion people that use the internet on their mobile. This number is set to rise to over 3 billion by 2017.

If you know HTML/CSSS, you can use lessframework.com as a starting point for making your landing page responsive.

8. No Out-going Links or Navigation

If you’re driving traffic to a standalone page, the last thing you want a visitor to do is click away to another page. If you’ve just spent money on advertising to drive visitors to your landing page, why would you give them the opportunity to click on anything other than your call-to-action?

Remove your navigation, footer and all links in your copy to further boost conversions.

Here is a good example of a landing page with no out-bound links or navigation.

Hubspot did a good test on 5 of their landing pages and found that removing links and the navigational bar increased conversions across the board.

Example of an Effective Landing Page designed to boost conversions

Codecademy

Codecademy has done an excellent job creating a landing page to increase sign-ups. However just like with everything in marketing, their landing page could still be improved.

They should flaunt their numbers! They have a user base of 24 million people – it should be mentioned above the fold.

Rather than saying “Learn how to code interactively for free.”

I would change it to;

“Join 24 million others learning to code interactively for free”

Much stronger!

Bonus: Someone to regularly test, tweak and optimise the Landing Page

It’s difficult to tell whether your landing page is actually effective at doing what you expect it to do without tracking, testing and tweaking it.

Making simple changes to headline copy or button colour can have a positive impact on the conversion rates of your landing pages.

Tip: Remember when A/B testing to teak one element at a time for optimal results.