Conversion Rate OptimizationA/B TestingWeb AccelerationWebsite BuilderWebsite-PersonalizationSearch Engine Advertising (SEA)
Landing Page Optimization: With These Tips & Tricks, You Can Improve Your Conversion Rate
Tobias Giesen9/14/2022
In this article, you will learn what to pay attention to when optimizing your landing page and will be provided with suitable tools for this purpose.
Table of contents
- What are typical errors on a landing page?
- What are the advantages of landing page optimization?
- Who should optimize their landing page?
- What should you consider when optimizing landing pages?
- 8 Steps to a Conversion-optimized Landing Page
- Tools that help you optimize your landing page
- Conclusion
The new landing page is online, the advertising campaigns are starting, but the expected conversions are not coming? Then it's time to give the landing page another check-up and optimize it. How to get more out of your landing pages and achieve more leads or sales, you will find out in this article.
A landing page is a conversion-optimized page, whose primary goal is to generate leads or promote sales. Typically, it is part of the marketing strategy of a product or service. Via advertisements, e.g. Search Engine Advertising (SEA) or Social Media Advertising traffic is directed to the landing page. With the user's click on the link in the advertisement, the landing page optimization already begins: The loading time must be as short as possible so that the visitor does not bounce and gets to see the content of the page. Once this is achieved, your page must convince. Visitors of your target group must immediately understand what it is about and how your offer helps them. The path to the optimal landing page can be full of hurdles, we show you step by step how you can get more out of your website traffic.
What are typical errors on a landing page?
Sometimes it's minor technical flaws, sometimes a completely wrong target group approach. When optimizing landing pages, there are some mistakes you should definitely avoid. Common mistakes are as follows:
Target group not defined
The clear definition of the target group and communication tailored to it are the foundation of any good landing page. It must be clear who you want to address with your landing page and what target action the visitors of the page should perform. In general, the more the target group can be segmented, the more targeted you can communicate the problems of the visitors and the added value of your offer. The limit here is also the resources. More landing pages for different target groups (segments) mean more effort in conception, strategy and development. For target groups with similar purchase motives, it can therefore be economically sensible to address them on one page.
Loading time not optimized
The classic among the mistakes in the optimization of landing pages. The relevance of short loading times is known to every SEO or customer experience manager. Nevertheless, the topic is often neglected. Especially when the content for a landing page can simply be uploaded via a CMS, the images are often forgotten to be compressed beforehand. In addition, many websites can benefit from the use of Web Acceleration-softwares. Also the choice of Website Builder can have an effect on the loading speed of your website.
There are too many chances to bounce
The optimal landing page guides the users clearly and purposefully over the site and makes achieving the conversion goal as easy as possible. Everything that does not contribute to this goal, but distracts from it, should not be part of your landing page. For example, the header navigation can be dispensed with in order not to give visitors the opportunity to get to other pages and thus to get out of the funnel structure of the landing page. In general, you should try to use as few external links as possible. Everything that users need to be convinced of an inquiry or purchase, they should find on your landing page.
No (clearly formulated) Call-to-Actions
Call-to-Actions are propositions aimed at visitors, which encourage an action to be taken, e.g. an inquiry or a purchase. Every landing page should contain Call-to-Actions that enable the users to take the next step. They should describe as precisely as possible what action happens when users click the button with the call to action. A “learn more” button that links to a contact form is very unspecific. Try to consider the tonality and word choice of your target group when formulating the calls to action. To formulate a fitting CTA, you can ask yourself these questions:
- What should users do on your landing page?
- What exactly happens when users click on a button / link?
- What goal does your landing page pursue?
A good guide is also to take the user perspective and to describe what the user wants to achieve on the page. E.g. “I want to arrange a first consultation now.” The CTA would then be “Arrange first consultation now”. With appropriately descriptive calls to action, the probability that landing page visitors will actually perform the desired conversion on your page increases.
What are the advantages of landing page optimization?
Landing page optimization results in a larger proportion of all visitors who call up a page ultimately performing a target action (e.g. a purchase or an inquiry). The advantages of conversion-optimized landing pages are therefore clear: more sales, more leads, thereby more revenue. The topic is particularly relevant if you are sending paid traffic to your landing page. Each visitor who is purchased via an advertisement and brought to your website costs money. The more visitors convert on your page, the higher your ROAS is.
Would you like to know which are the best conversion optimization tools for our users? Then have a look at our article.
Who should optimize their landing page?
Landing page optimization is a lever for revenue growth and therefore relevant for anyone who uses landing pages as part of their customer journey. The optimization of a landing page is also frequently carried out as a measure of Conversion optimization for online shops or websites.
Improving the content or technical aspects of the page can be very resource-intensive. For businesses with little traffic, this may be a reason against comprehensive optimization. But as ad spend, website traffic, and the value of the product being sold increase, so does the importance of an optimized page. Landing page optimization can result in more sales from your site at the same advertising expense. That sounds too good to be true but is simple math.
In addition to the measurable effects on the conversion rate and sales, landing page optimization has another advantage. By exploring your target group extensively and analyzing user behavior, you gain valuable insights that help your company in general to better understand customers.
What should you consider when optimizing landing pages?
By optimizing landing pages, companies can increase their lead inquiries or sales. In general, best practices can be relied upon when optimizing landing pages. However, not every change also leads to an increase in conversion rate. Changes on a page can also make it perform worse and generate fewer inquiries. To prevent this, it is essential to work data-driven and to test every change. This is the only way to prevent, for example, a new headline (unexpectedly) worsening the conversion rate.
8 Steps to a Conversion-optimized Landing Page
More leads, more sales, more revenue. This sounds great not only in theory, but can quickly become practice with the following optimization steps.
Understand target group and classify landing page into the customer journey
Understanding your own customers is generally one of the most important conditions for successful marketing. This skill is also essential for building optimized landing pages.
Define target group
Who exactly are the users you want to reach with your landing page? The clearer you differentiate between different target groups in this step, the better you can respond to the individual requirements of this group when designing the landing page. If you have already created buyer personas or ideal customer profiles, these can be a good starting point for defining the target groups for the landing pages. For example, if you sell a software solution for companies, decision-makers from a large corporate enterprise might need to be addressed differently than a team in a start-up.
Understand target group: Detailed development of purchasing motives
This leads to the next step: detailed development of the purchasing motives of your target group. There is often a lot of optimization potential on landing pages, because the setup of the landing page is not or too little aimed at the target group. You should definitely ask yourself these questions when you are planning the setup of your landing page or you want to optimize it:
- Which target group do you want to help with your offer and how do you do it?
- What is the greatest benefit your target group receives from your offer?
- Is the target group aware of the problem you are solving or does problem awareness need to be created first?
- Are you aware of typical objections of the target group and are these addressed on the landing page?
- Which terms/ synonyms or phrases does your target group often use?
Once you have worked out the motives and requirements of your target group, try to view your landing page from the perspective of your customers and critically question whether it perfectly addresses the users. Sometimes it makes sense to completely redesign the structure and content of the site. To check whether the new version functions better than the previous one, both sites can be tested against each other with A/B Testing Tools, like Varify.io in a split test.
Classification into the customer journey and consideration of traffic sources
To optimize a landing page for conversions, it must also be considered how traffic is directed to the page and which touchpoints the users had before calling up the landing page. If you have already created problem awareness among users in your advertisements, this point needs to be addressed less on the landing page, for example.
The setup of the landing page should also be aligned with whether visitors of the site are still in an early stage of their purchase decision or are already convinced. The AIDA model can be used as a guide here. If users are in the interest phase, for example, your landing page should explain how your offer works and what added value it brings to the users. In this phase, the conversion goal does not necessarily have to be a direct purchase / inquiry. In the early stages of the customer journey, a demo booking or the download of a report can also be a good conversion goal.
If you are using your landing page for advertisements later in the customer journey (e.g as a link target in retargeting ads), another setup may be better suited. To a target group ready to buy, you should make it as easy as possible to take the necessary steps to purchase or make an inquiry. In such a case, less content on the landing page is necessary, the focus should be on the calls to action, ideally underpinned by trust-building elements, such as customer reviews.
Optimize Hero-Section of the landing page
The Hero-Section is the area of the website that users see immediately after calling up the page without scrolling (above-the-fold). It is your first and maybe last chance to convince the visitors with your offer. Here it’s about convincing in terms of content and already communicating in the headline how your visitors can benefit from the service or product. Pay attention to the visual hierarchy of headings. The most important thing should have the largest font size / thickness and be at the top left. Also a quickly understandable infographic can contribute to visitors already understanding what it is about in the Hero-Section. The Hero-Section should definitely contain:
- Headline with your Value Proposition-/ the value promise
- Subheadline or Bullet Points with the most important benefits of your offer
- A clear call to action (CTA)
- A clear graphic or an emotionalizing picture
- If your landing page is a pitch, then your Hero-Section is the elevator pitch: short, to the point and makes you want more!
- Optimize Hero-Section Screenshot of ClickUp with annotations and optimization tips
Optimize Hero-Section Screenshot of ClickUp with annotations and optimization tips
Build trust
Trust is good, a lot of trust is even better. Visitors only convert on a landing page if you manage to convey trust and seriousness. There are many ways to optimize a landing page by adding trust-building elements. The classic are reviews and testimonials, which provide a social proof. Creating more trust has a direct impact on the conversion rate.
- Incorporate logos of customers or partners
- Embed review platforms
- Show references/ customer testimonials
- Present case studies/ results
Communicate benefits rather than exclusively features
A good landing page clearly explains to users what advantages they have through the offer on the landing page. It manages to evoke emotions beyond facts and features and to address the actual buying motives of the customers. For target groups who attach a lot of importance to data and hard facts, it may be sensible to focus on the technical features of a product or service. But in general, you should make sure that you always link features to a benefit. You can understand the principle well using this example:
- Feature: The XPhone has 256 GB of storage.
- Feature with Benefit: The XPhone has 256 GB of storage, so you can always access your favorite photos.
Use lead magnets
A lead magnet is a content element that offers users value even without a purchase of your service/ your product. In the B2B sector, this usually involves reports or white papers that visitors can download if they provide their e-mail addresses. The advantage of this method is that your sales team receives the e-mail address of a potential lead. Against this you can hold that users do not necessarily provide their regularly used e-mail address or are only interested in the lead magnet, but not your offer. In the worst case, your sales department will complain about the unqualified leads. By then, at the latest, an alternative should be developed.
Use sales psychology selectively
This is not about manipulation, but about understanding how people think and make purchase decisions. There are countless ways to optimize a landing page with the help of psychology. Two effects you can implement well yourself are these:
Set price anchors
Build as high a number as possible in the upper area of the landing page. E.g. 30,000 monthly users, 2,000 satisfied customers etc. This makes the price for e.g. a software tool of 49 € no longer seem so high.
Use the decoy effect
To make the price of your offer on the website appear lower, the decoy effect can also be applied. In this case, an offer option with a significantly higher price than the other options is presented. This makes the other options appear cheaper in comparison.
Keep contact forms slim
The contact form is one of the most important elements of your website if you want to generate inquiries with the landing page. It is a way for potential customers to ask your sales team questions. The longer this way is, the fewer visitors will go all the way and end up in the inbox of your sales team. On the other hand, the users who fill out a detailed form are particularly committed and show great interest in the product/ service. So what is better: a short or a detailed form? As so often, the answer depends on several factors. Ask yourself the following questions to find out how detailed the contact form on your landing page may be:
- Do you currently receive any inquiries via the form?
- How qualified are the inquiries via the current landing page?
- Are you fully occupied and therefore have to decline orders?
- Are there mandatory information that you absolutely need from your visitors in the following process step?
- Do you have to decline inquiries because the leads are too bad?
As a rule of thumb, the shorter the form, the more inquiries the landing page generates, but the lower the lead quality is for inquiries.
If there is already a very high number of inquiries, it makes sense to ask for more information about the lead with a longer form (e.g. with Typeform), and possibly to insert filter questions (about the budget, industry key figures etc.).
SEO landing page optimization
Search engine optimization on landing pages is possible, but should then already be considered in the objective in the concept of the page. Texts on a landing page that is supposed to generate conversions need to be to the point. Too much text can result in higher bounce rates and have a negative impact on the conversion rate. Those who want to include small search engine optimizations can find out with SEO-tools in a keyword research which terms and wordings users use most frequently and integrate them into the website texts.
Popular keyword research tools
Seobility
Sistrix
SE Ranking
Keyword.comTools that help you optimize your landing page
When it comes to the conceptual setup in the optimization process of a landing page, a lot of creative and strategic input is required. For the analysis and optimization of your site, as well as for the personalization, there are some exciting tools that facilitate your work and help to get measurably more conversions from your traffic.
Analysis tools for landing page optimization
To improve a landing page, you first need to understand how the users currently interact with your site. Here too, it applies: “You can only manage it, if you can measure it.” It is important to identify the weak points of the site, but also which sections on the site are already working well.
With these questions you find out where there is a need for action:
- How many users leave the landing page without an interaction? (KPI: Bounce rate)
- Is the content consumed/ do users deal with the site? (KPI: Duration of stay)
- Do users look at the entire site or only the uppermost sections? (KPI: Scroll depth)
- What is the percentage of users who perform a target action? (KPI: Conversion Rate)
These KPIs can be measured with Web Analytics-tools and thus help you to better understand how your target group uses your landing page.
In addition, a session recording can be used to anonymously evaluate individual user sessions. Particularly UX problems of the landing page can be uncovered this way.
Heatmaps and Session Recordings can be implemented with Hotjar for instance. Also, through the survey function, qualitative feedback from users can be obtained. The question “What keeps you from buying / asking X?” often reveals deep insights into the behavior of the target group and brings you a step closer to the conversion-optimized landing page.
Once you have analyzed your landing page, you can derive hypotheses from the results that will improve the landing page performance.
A/B Testing Tools for Conversion optimization of landing pages
Not every change on a landing page is also an improvement. In these cases, to prevent a sinking conversion rate, you should use A/B testing tools. With them, each change can be statistically validated with a determinable level of significance. For example, you can test two different headlines against each other. As a result, 50% of users are shown Headline A and the other 50% see Headline B. In the end, you can evaluate which headline led to more conversions.
Popular A/B Testing tools
ABlyft
Kameleoon
trbo
Varify.ioMore conversions through personalization softwares
Personalization of landing pages also requires the use of tools. There are separate website personalization tools that, by monitoring user behavior on various channels and other databases, adapt a landing page precisely to the user needs of website visitors. The even more targeted approach to your users can lead to an even better conversion rate of your landing page. Often Website personalization tools are part of A/B testing software.
Conclusion
The optimization of landing pages is a strategic process, which requires a deep understanding of the target group. With all the tips for landing page optimization from this article, you are well informed to optimize the Conversion Rate of your pages upwards and to generate more leads/ inquiries or even purchase completions. However, be aware that landing page optimization is rarely a one-time project. The best results are achieved in the long run if you see the improvement of your pages as an iterative process and continuously introduce new optimizations with the use of analysis and A/B testing tools.
Author
Tobias Giesen
Tobias Giesen ist Co-Founder der Webdesign-Agentur Growably aus Köln. Growably unterstützt Start-ups durch conversion-optimierte Websites dabei, Leads und Kunden zu gewinnen. Mit Strategie, Copywriting, Design und Development bekommen Start-ups die optimale Website, mit der sie skalieren können. Die best-practices aus diesen Projekten teilt er in diesem Ratgeber.
