Featured article by Gabe Nelson, Independent Technology Author
Landing pages present online businesses and platforms with opportunities to convert visitors into leads. A good landing page provides users with an experience that is both personable and stress-free and leads to conversion. A bad landing page is annoying to navigate and drives visitors to exit the tab or app immediately. Unfortunately, many sites have bad landing pages.
Thankfully, there are some steps you can take to improve or maintain a positive conversion rate via your landing page. It can be hard work, but it is hardly impossible and can be highly rewarding. Here are six mistakes you should avoid with your landing page.
1 – Don’t Be a Stranger – Know Your Audience.
Web design firms usually construct an effective landing page, you will have to understand who you are trying to convert into potential leads. This includes paying attention to a lot of data and thinking through the lens of the visitor and potential customer. If possible, consult the available analytics. This information indicates what your visitors are like, what they search for, and where they are from.
Moreover, don’t try to appeal to everyone at once; this almost always backfires. Instead, think thoughtfully and specifically: try to answer or pre-empt specific questions you believe will appeal to your target audience. And if you have multiple target audiences, have multiple landing pages. Different strokes for different folks!
2 – Don’t Be Inaccessible – Be Straightforward.
A good landing page is clear and concise in the content that it presents to the visitor. If the landing page comes across as elusive or inaccessible, you can guarantee that visitors will not stick around to find out if you have a great product. This is the psychology of first impressions.
When constructing your landing page, find the sweet spot: avoid having too little or too much information at once. You don’t want your webpage to feel cluttered or desolate. Again, think like the visitor: do you find your page to be distracting or boring, or does it make sense and provoke your interests?
Having fewer steps and getting to the point is always the best way. This includes having a clear “Call to Action,” or purpose. Be self-reflexive and constantly question whether your landing page is straightforward and thus accessible to the visitor, or inaccessible.
3 – Don’t Prioritize Desktop Browsing – Mobile Matters
A vast majority of visitors are likely to be browsing on their mobile devices rather than on their desktop or laptop. When this happens, the mobile viewer is likely unwilling to spend much time on a landing page. This presents a problem: if your site is only easily navigable on desktop, you have failed to convert a huge potential target audience.
Therefore, it is crucial you specifically design mobile landing pages instead of relying on a one-size-fits-all approach. Additionally, mobile landing pages ought to be simple and use fewer images and videos because these require more data usage. Mobile-friendly landing pages should also condense information. A visitor should be able to get to the point even quicker here as opposed to on a desktop.
4 – Don’t Ignore Aesthetics – Branding Matters
Aesthetics is concerned with the appreciation of visual components, and even aesthetics drive business. Visitors are more likely to become customers if they can buy into the presentation of an idea. And since landing pages are specifically designed to make a good first impression for your business, aesthetics are doubly important.
Make sure you have an effective logo and backdrop and stay away from tacky stock photos. It’s not superficial to care about these things as the designer; it’s simply a matter of branding. And a balance of efficiency and aesthetics is the best way to ensure an effective form of branding.
The landing page is your chance to introduce your business’s branding. Make sure it feels good to you first and foremost. And remember to ask yourself what is easy on the eyes of your target audience(s).
5 – Don’t Get Slowed Down – Speed Matters
If your landing page takes more than a few seconds to load, it’s bad news. Visitors are likely to leave due to a snap judgment before your site is given a fair chance. Here are three steps you can take to ensure your page runs smoothly.
Clean up your site speed through minification, or by removing unnecessary or redundant data, of the files on your webpage (HTML, CSS, JS). Conduct regular speed tests on your webpage, especially if it has a lot of content to load. Minimize the number of page redirects; not only does this come off as annoying, but it can often slow the site down.
It’s also important to keep in mind that search engines such as Google rank sites based on speed. Improving your landing page’s efficiency improves the likelihood of conversion, which is the whole point of having a landing page!
6 – Don’t Be Shady – Preempt Buyer Concern
If you are a lesser-known or small business, chances are there is going to be a hurdle of skepticism your business must overcome. This is also known as buyer concern. A successful landing page quells buyer concern by the process of preemption. Preempting buyer concern uses any skepticism to the business’s advantage by taking a moment to be transparent.
Showcasing positive feedback from customers is one way to ensure your business is presented in a transparent and thus reassuring way. Additionally, listing guarantees, such as money-back and privacy policies, can help ease the mind of any skeptic visitor. Preempting buyer concern on your landing page will make a huge difference in your page’s conversion rate.
Finally, have fun and don’t mess up!
There are plenty of ways to biff a landing page and thus minimize your business’s conversion rate. Being able to think as both visitor and designer will amplify sound decisions in constructing an effective landing page. If you would be proud to visit your landing page, chances are you are on the right track.
By avoiding these six crucial design mistakes, you will have increased the potential of your conversion rate greatly. Just remember to run regular tests. Oh yeah, and have fun with it!
About the Author
Gabe Nelson is a content specialist of over 7 years of experience, currently working with Thecreativemomentum.com Just out of high school he set off crab fishing on the Bering sea in Alaska. From there he went back home to finish his college degree at the University of Montana. He has a passion and keen understanding when it comes to Web Design and Marketing inside out. He has written hundreds of content pieces in numerous niches. Currently, he lives in Missouri with his wife and kids.
