What’s worse than investing in a high-quality landing page… only for it to not convert leads into business? The worst part? There are so many simultaneous moving parts that finding the weakest link in your chain of conversions can take days, if not longer. And the cold, hard truth is, most businesses simply aren’t equipped with the know how needed to drill down into in-depth landing page mechanics.
Well, you’re in luck today because we happen to know a thing or two about landing pages. In fact, we’re known for diagnosing and implementing cutting-edge tactics for winning landing page over winning landing page. But where do we start?
Diagnosing The Problem
You can’t fix a problem that you can’t identify. So the first step is to establish what needs to be fixed.
We can’t stress the importance of this enough…
Here are some of the most common stress-building, conversion-killing issues that you should always check first.
Check For Back-End Issues
Imagine all the parts of your landing page are running smoothly… except for your lead capture system? As embarrassing as it sounds, it’s happened to companies you’ve heard of. The difference is, some learn from their mistakes and others don’t. WordPress sites have an array of simultaneous plug-ins and other factors that can affect the performance of not only a landing page, but an entire website.
Among the most common culprits? Issues with your page load speeds.
Monitor Your Bounce Rate
If your page load speeds are even remotely slow (if it takes a second or longer to load), you’ll notice a large percentage of visitors leaving your site almost immediately. This is because people have short attention spans, especially on mobile devices. Besides, you’ll want to see if from their perspective.
? If they found you via a paid ad, the momentum of the message will likely dry up.
? If they found you on the SERPs, they’ll just click one of the other available links.
? If they found you from another website, they’ll just head back to where they were prior.
You can check your Bounce Rate on Google Analytics to determine if people are bouncing off your page without even interacting. If you Bounce Rate is under 20%, you can proceed. If not, you have some work to do!
Map Out User Behavior
If it’s the landing page itself, rather than its backend mechanics, then we’ll have to get serious!
When performing Conversion Rate Optimization practices, a lot comes into question… but it doesn’t have to!
Because the truth is, there’s no reason to have to play detective when it comes to your audiences’ on-page behavioral patterns. Investing in low-cost heat mapping tools can put you in the driver’s seat, allowing you to literally see how people are interacting with your landing page(s) first-hand. This works to take a lot of the guesswork out of diagnosing your landing page blockers. You can use this intel to establish:
✔️ what’s grabbing users’ attention
✔️ which section(s) of your landing page they’re gravitating towards
✔️ what parts they’re reading/clicking on
✔️ where they’re bouncing off your landing page(s)
This information will help you identify the exact strengths and weaknesses of your landing page(s) so you can fix what’s broken and build upon what’s working. All with minimum effort and without wasting hours of your precious time!
Hypothesize & Test Your Variables
Landing pages consist of several parts, and ultimately are only as strong as their weakest link. With that said, if even a single element of your landing page(s) lacks in any area, it can create devastating results for your conversion rates.
Let’s take a look!
Test Your Headlines
Your headlines are mostly used to grab your audience’s attention and to promote on-page retention. They should convey why your audience should be interested and read on. Consider testing multiple headlines to determine which works best.
Monitoring your bounce rate and referring to your trusted heat mapping tool is a great way to measure what is or isn’t working. At the end of the day, a weak headline will yield weak results.
Test Your Body Copy
Similar to your headline, your body copy will serve to retain your customers’ attention. But most importantly, they should be guiding your audiences’ eyes down the landing page, leading them to your Call to Action. Landing page copy should operate almost through a story arc, with a beginning, middle and end, only with examples of social proof throughout the page.
Test Your Images
The images you choose for your landing pages aren’t everything, but they can impact your conversion rates. As with Display Advertising, compelling images should compliment the concept and impact of its corresponding headline.
With this in mind, you’ll want to take two major things into consideration.
- Does your landing page imagery directly align with the imagery of your inbound content? One of the leading causes of bounces stem from users thinking your content is clickbait. Maintaining cohesive messaging and imagery prevent this, while piquing their interest.
- Are your images engaging and do they enhance the message of your core offer? If your images aren’t enticing your potential customers, they’re working against your long-term efforts.
Bottom line, you don’t know for sure, which is why you should be testing your images. After months of testing, you’ll find strong enough results that justify the time required to get there.
Test Your Calls to Action
What good is any landing page without a powerful Call to Action? From your headline, all the way down to the final word – your copy should be introducing your audience’s problem, while pitching its “easy” solution. Your Call to Action being how they can turn said solution into a reality.
Weak Calls to Action void the entire landing page, no matter how strong the rest of it is. This is what the entire landing page leads up to — it’s like being the weakest link, but magnified. When it comes to your Calls to Action, you can’t spare any expense, it’s do or die. So be sure to test multiple Calls to Action, this will pay off more than anything else!
Wrapping Up
Your landing pages don’t support your campaigns, they ARE your campaigns, so why settle for just any design? Active Web Group has helped create high-converting campaigns time after time for businesses of all sizes and industries. Don’t leave your important campaigns and projects to just anyone, hire the best! You can contact one of our experts here or give us a call at 800-978-3417.
