Landing pages play a significant role in turning curious web visitors into paying customers. In addition to generating business opportunities, they help make an excellent first impression, cultivating trust and credibility among prospects.
However, many businesses struggle with creating effective landing pages. They see high bounce rates, poor conversion rates and low or irrelevant website traffic. If you see these issues, you may have made a few mistakes when creating or optimizing your landing pages.
In this article, we’ll tackle how you can address such errors to ensure your pages are effective and conversion-ready.
At a glance:
• Overloading With Information
• Neglecting Mobile Optimization
• Ignoring Page Load Speed
• Writing Weak Calls-to-Action (CTA)
• Confusing Visitors With Poor Visual Hierarchy
• Displaying Stock Photos
• Presenting Multiple Action Steps
• Not Addressing Objections
1. Overloading With Information
Landing pages direct web visitors to a single goal: answering the call to action (CTA).
Sometimes, when trying to boost conversions, it can be tempting to cram as much content on your landing page. However, this can make it confusing for potential customers and counterproductive to your efforts. Customers are left disoriented, clicking out of the platform without taking any action. This is one of the common landing page mistakes driving high bounce rates.
Here are three strategies to help avoid information overload and make your copy concise and compelling:
State the Value You’re Offering
Be explicit. In three sentences or less, express the offer (product or service) you’re promoting, the customer’s motivation for getting it and the specific action point they need to take to receive your offer.
Highlight the Benefit
Connect your customer’s problems to your company’s solutions and talk to them directly.
Rather than saying, “We are a restoration company based in Miami, specializing in reconstructing homes damaged by natural disasters,” opt for brief, persuasive copy emphasizing the benefit, like “Let our restoration experts reconstruct your damaged home and help you recover.”
Inspect the Text Visually
If your copy is one big chunk of text, cut the fluff and limit details. Or, use numbered or bulleted lists to make the information digestible.
Beyond the landing page copy, your form design must not be overloaded with information. Remove any unnecessary fields. If possible, stick to just one. Some businesses only ask for the customer’s email address.
2. Neglecting Mobile Optimization
Mobile traffic has long overtaken desktop, with smartphones generating almost 60% of global website traffic. If your landing page isn’t optimized for mobile users, visitors may struggle to fill out forms and click call-to-action buttons as they access your site from their smartphones or tablets.
One of the fundamental landing page best practices is adopting a responsive web design. Your website should be functional and visually appealing regardless of the device used. It should adapt to different screen sizes and orientations, not requiring users to zoom in and out of the page to read content or tap the call-to-action button. To evaluate your site’s mobile-friendliness and see which parts prevent users from taking desired actions, implement user experience testing.
3. Ignoring Page Load Speed
Almost half of web visitors expect pages to load in two seconds or less. The longer your page loads, the more likely web visitors will leave the page without taking the desired action.
Moreover, if the slow-loading landing page is connected to an ad and frustrates customers, you waste your ad spend; decreasing return on investment (ROI).
Page load speed matters not only for user experience and conversion rates but also for search engine rankings and brand reputation. Remember, part of Google’s core web vitals is measuring websites’ loading performance. At the same time, your customers form opinions about your company based on how fast you can serve them the information they need. For this reason, it’s imperative to not neglect improving page load speed in landing page optimization efforts.
Some of the best practices for improving page load speed are compressing images, removing unnecessary elements from the HTML or CSS codes and using a content delivery network (CDN) that allows users to download data from servers near their location.
4. Writing Weak Calls to Action (CTAs)
CTA copy may seem to be a small element in the overall landing page optimization strategy, which explains why it’s easy to overlook it. However, a well-written piece of content has the power to motivate people to take the desired action.
Here are some common examples of weak CTAs and how to address them:
Generic CTAs
Although they’re simple to understand, the problem with generic CTAs like “Call Us” or “Submit” is that they’re not enticing enough to compel people to take action. Instead of saying “Buy Now,” you can make it more appealing by saying, “Check Out Now and Save 50%.” Again, the same copywriting principle applies: highlight the value customers get from taking action.
CTAs Lacking Urgency
One common hurdle in pushing leads to the bottom of the conversion funnel is that they know they can delay buying because they can always revisit it later. Effective CTA copy addresses this obstacle and highlights the value of urgency. Including phrases like “hurry,” “limited stocks available” and “today only” pushes people to take immediate action.
CTAs Not Aligned With the Customer Journey Stage
If your landing page comes from a product ad, there’s a good chance that leads clicking on it are already at the bottom of the sales funnel.
“Download our ebook now” or “Subscribe to our newsletter” CTAs won’t be effective in that context and you may miss the opportunity to make a sale. When crafting CTAs, take into account where prospects are in the sales funnel.
To ensure landing pages have compelling content, run A/B testing on different sets of CTAs. Conduct these experiments every time you create a new landing page.
5. Confusing Visitors With Poor Visual Hierarchy
Visual hierarchy or the arrangement of web design elements in a landing page matters a lot in conversion. People rarely inspect all of the page’s content, only skimming through. Poor visual hierarchy drives away people because it renders the information confusing and undermines your brand’s professionalism and credibility.
This manifests in different ways: Not using contrasting colors between backgrounds and texts, having the same font size for all information and not providing enough white space, among other factors. Ultimately, this leads visitors out of your site.
To address this, adopt these landing page best practices for effective visual hierarchy:
Consider the Most Important Information
This may include the products and services offered, the call-to-action button and imagery. Those elements should be more prominent not only in the web copy but also in the form design. They must be displayed in a bigger scale or font size or in a different color or typography than the rest of the content.
Use White Space Strategically
Elements shouldn’t appear cramped. There must be enough separation between them, allowing for an effortless reading experience.
Follow the Visitors’ Reading Flow
The Z-shaped reading pattern assumes that visitors consume content from the top left to the top right, then to the bottom left to the bottom right. This means the most important elements must be in these critical areas.
To objectively assess the effectiveness of your landing pages’ visual hierarchy, use heatmaps to analyze actual user behavior. These tools offer insights into which parts of the page web visitors interact the most and the least, how users read content and how effective the call-to-action button is.
6. Displaying Stock Photos
It’s common practice among businesses to use stock photos for landing pages because it’s convenient and time-saving. However, this is one of the most overlooked landing page mistakes.
Imagine you’re a web visitor looking at two pages offering the same products but with different sets of photos: one with generic images of professionals with their big smiles and folded arms and the other with real-life customers using the promoted products. The more compelling choice is obvious. Intentional selection of images is key to increasing conversions.
Part of landing page best practices is investing in custom, relevant photos that make sense to the web visitor’s customer journey stage. Similarly, adding high-quality videos is effective in capturing people’s attention. Running A/B testing on different sets of creative assets will likewise help determine which images and videos resonate better with your audience.
7. Presenting Multiple Action Steps
One of the most common landing page mistakes businesses make is having too many calls to action on a single page. It’s easy to get fixated on increasing conversion rates, thinking that having more gives people several options that fit their wants.
This strategy rarely works and only backfires because it confuses web visitors. People may experience decision paralysis and end up not choosing any of the options provided.
The best way to optimize a landing page is to stick to a single call to action. To get people to download your exclusive content and sign up for an upcoming event, create separate landing pages dedicated to each action or various customer journey stages.
8. Not Addressing Objections
Even if prospects are already at the bottom of the conversion funnel and your CTA makes a compelling offer, some may still hesitate to take action because of last-minute objections.
For example, a free trial of your services sounds enticing, but web visitors may have reservations about providing credit card information or dealing with hidden fees. A free ebook is attractive for web visitors seeking in-depth information but the requirement of signing up with their email address and receiving unnecessary emails can turn them off.
Here are two effective ways to tackle these common objections.
Include Reassuring Copy
Using copy like “Free forever. No credit card required” or “We promise not to spam you!” in your form helps compel people to take action.
Implement A/B Testing
Comparing landing pages with different web copy helps identify which is more effective and generates more conversions.
Create Conversion-Focused Landing Pages With Thrive
Landing pages are critical to the overall effectiveness of any conversion rate optimization strategy. It allows you to highlight offers and include clear, specific CTAs.
However, if you’re not familiar with the fundamental principles of user experience, web design and content creation, mistakes can happen – which could cost your bottom line. For this reason, it’s better to hire a digital marketing agency specializing in conversion rate optimization.
Since 2005, Thrive has been helping various businesses uncover conversion issues on their websites, implementing results-driven landing page optimization campaigns. We have a strong team of conversion funnel experts who expertly create compelling copy and arrange website elements for a seamless user experience.
Contact us today to get started on creating effective landing pages.
