Digital marketing comes in many different forms, but anyone who has ever visited a sponsored website or even done a simple Google search has definitely entered pop-up ads on the screen, usually related to your current search or possibly something in your recent browsing history. Since these ads are related to a current or recent online agenda of yours, the ad itself has an advantage when it comes to getting your finger to slide your cursor over and click on that pair of shoes you keep coming back to or that set of wine glasses you know your mom would love. However, simply making sure that the ads are targeted at the right consumers is not enough to ensure a purchase. Once you’ve clicked on the ad, you’re typically redirected to something called a landing page. In theory, these pages are made to showcase the product/service you were originally attracted to in the pop-up ad, and strongly encourage a call to action for you, the consumer. However, a company’s success with these marketing campaigns can be strongly influenced by the elements of the landing page, including the design, color scheme, reliability, and the call to action. In this blog post, I’m going to suggest 5 ways to ensure that a landing page is doing the most for a company’s conversion rate.
- Use the images that make consumers think and feel. Earlier today as I was conducting research for this blog post, I decided to do an online search for Christmas pajamas (never too early to start looking!). I clicked on multiple different ads that came up on my Google search to compare the landing pages each company offered. In my opinion the most effective landing pages I visited had one thing in common: they all had images at the top of the page of happy families opening presents or drinking hot cocoa in matching, festive pajamas. Seeing these images immediately got me thinking about my own family in a similar setting, and inspired me to keep clicking deeper into these sites. Images that get consumers to feel something are much more likely to encourage them to think more seriously about purchasing something or responding to your call to action, which is the ultimate goal of a landing page.
- Use call to actions that make consumers actually take action. Once the consumer clicks on your ad, they have already taken one call to action to direct them to your landing page. Once they are there, the next step is to get them to continue to the call of action that really matters, whether it be purchasing a product, signing up for an email list, or making a phone call. In order for this to happen, it is important that your call to action is clear, contrasting, and centric. Ensure that the color of the button or pop-up matches the page design up also contrasts enough to make it stand out. Consumers like easy and quick, so the more simple and painless your call to action can be, the better. Lastly, it is important that the call to action is BIG (literally). A tiny box in the top left corner of your page or a few words underlined next to a giant image will likely be ignored, so make sure your CTA is a central part of your landing page.
- What you see should be what you get. When a customer clicks on your ad or pop-up in the first place, it is most likely because they are interested in whatever product or service was showcased in the original advertisement. If this product/service is not clearly displayed on the landing page when the customer clicks on the link, this may deter them from digging deeper into the website. On this note, I am going to emphasize the important of having a landing page in the first place. One of the biggest mistakes a company can make is simply directing the customer to the home page of their site. This will most definitely discourage consumers from looking further for the product or service that caught their eye. The more obviously you can display and highlight this initial commodity that inspired your customer to make the click in the first place, the better the chances are that they will take the hint and continue with your company’s call to action.
- Don’t isolate your consumers, give them reasons and ways to dig deeper. It is definitely possible to overwhelm visitors to your landing page with too much information, but one mistake that many companies don’t think about it is not providing them with enough information and options. When a consumer arrives at a landing page, you not only want to display the original product that made them click on the pop-up in the first place, but you also want to provide them with other options and links that could inspire them to head farther into your website. Isolating your customers will likely leave many of them frustrated, and decrease traffic to other areas of your website.
- Don’t make guesses or assumptions, test it out! Instead of just following your instincts, trusting your gut, or “hoping for the best,” test out your different landing page ideas and see what works the best. A/B testing (when you show some consumers one version of your page and the other half another version) is a great way of figuring out how you can most effectively increase your conversion rate. Test your ideas, run with the good ones, and never stop improving! These are five great ways to increase your company’s success with your landing pages, but there are so many more ways to increase your conversion that are not touched on in this post. As with most things in life, there’s always room for improvement, and as the market and customer insights and preferences continue to change, your landing pages will need to as well. So keep testing, keep updating, keep innovating, and keep your conversion high!
Hopefully you found these strategies helpful! For more information on landing page conversion and how to make sure your page is as effective as possible, feel free to visit any of the websites referenced below.
References
- Saleh, Khalid. “A 9-Step Guide to Increase Your Landing Page Conversion Rate.” Marketing Land, 5 July 2018, marketingland.com/9-step-guide-increase-landing-page-conversion-rate-202814.
- “12 Tests to Increase Your Landing Page Conversion Rate, Starting Today.” WordStream, www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2013/07/11/landing-page-conversion-rate-guide.
- Wilson, Lee. “10 Landing Page Tweaks That Will Increase Conversions.” Search Engine Journal, Search Engine Journal, 13 Nov. 2018, www.searchenginejournal.com/increase-landing-page-conversion-rate/274815/#close.
- Larson, Jeff, and Stuart Draper. Digital Marketing Essentials. Edify, 2014, Edify, edify.stukent.com/app/publication/d801ea3f-55b7-4374-ac5a-03d0e2cff93f/cb47ca6c-e25b-460e-a11e-acb31043218b/9360d5e9-ea3c-4674-83a9-306ae005add1/25fcd625-0453-4844-8075-d4799d62f0a4/view.
