Landing Page
Ankur Goyal
Introduction
Are you here for landing page optimization tips that actually work and can help you drive the desired results?
Here’s a quick summary for you to get started:
Create a landing page for every purpose
Maintain consistent messaging and avoid mismatch
Create an attention-grabbing headline
Get right to the point and remove distractions
Use the space “above the fold” wisely
Use multiple CTAs in longer landing pages
All landing page elements should work in sync
Try different forms of media
Offer something free, even if it is a part of your gated content
Remove unnecessary fields and add enough whitespace
Draw the visitors to the form and make the form readable
Make the CTA copy crisp and clear
Click baits don’t work in the long run
Don’t sound fishy
Place your CTA carefully
Supportive (but less dominant) CTAs
Tweak your headlines and add internal links
Write a long-form copy and get backlinks
Create a checklist
Review your landing page and ask for feedback from as many people as you can
Test all these elements of your landing page
Leverage the power of AI
Use the right tools to track the right KPIs
Be transparent and don’t rely much on industry averages
Don’t forget about qualitative data
If you want to learn how to implement these landing page optimization techniques, you’d want to read more.
Let’s start with the fundamentals.
What Is Landing Page Optimization?
Landing page optimization is the process of optimizing/modifying different elements of your landing page to boost its performance, i.e., converting more visitors into paying customers.
While it may sound a lot similar to conversion rate optimization (CRO), landing page optimization is highly targeted and limited to landing pages only.
Landing page optimization is fundamentally a 3-step process:
Step 1: Identifying potential issues with your landing page.
This step involves identifying potential issues with your landing pages by analyzing qualitative and quantitative data. When you know what the problem is and why it is occurring, you can outline clear steps to deal with the problem.
Say, you notice an unusually high bounce rate and find it’s the slow loading speed causing the issue. You can make the necessary changes to improve the loading speed, potentially improving the bounce rate.
Step 2: A/B testing different elements to identify high conversion variants.
In this step, you need to test different elements of your landing pages to identify a landing page variant that best aligns with your goals.
Step 3: Track KPIs and measure the performance
This step involves tracking the most important KPIs (related to your goal) to measure how successful your optimization efforts were.
Why Do You Need To Optimize Your Landing Page?
Before answering this question, let’s understand what optimization generally means.
Optimization is the process of making changes (which, in this case, to a landing page) until it becomes perfect.
Now, landing pages are an indispensable part of every marketing campaign as they bring along these benefits:
More conversions
Reduced customer acquisition cost
Help make a good first impression
Deliver a personalized experience to your audience
Build trust and credibility
Increase brand awareness
Reduce customer acquisition costs
And when you’re optimizing landing pages, you’re actually increasing the impact of the benefits they bring.
Let’s understand this with an example.
Say your landing page conversion rate is 2%, lower than the industry average of 6.6%.
Now, one option is to be happy with your conversion rate and keep going like this.
The other is to identify the issues and explore opportunities to improve (which you will never ever run out of).
You choose the second option, identify potential issues on your landing page, and optimize accordingly (modify the copy, change the CTAs, add personalization, etc.).
Result? Your conversions jump to 4%, i.e., for every 100 visitors, you are converting 4 into customers, unlike 2 previously.
In a nutshell, if you want to:
Improve your conversion rate
Reduce customer acquisition cost
Make a good first impression on your visitors
Deliver a personalized experience
Build trust and credibility
Improve brand awareness
And reduce customer acquisition costs
You need to optimize your landing page.
P.S. Hubspot says that businesses with 40+ landing pages noticed an increase in conversion rate of over 500%. And you can’t imagine achieving such results if your landing pages are not optimized, right?
Recommended Read: Benefits of the Landing Pages
Now that you know why it’s essential to optimize landing pages, how can you do that?
25 Best Tips To Optimize Your Landing Page
Here are some practical landing page optimization tips to help you enhance the performance of your landing pages:
1. Identify the problems
If you are here looking for tips to optimize your landing pages, one thing is clear: you have a landing page (or pages) that is not performing well. And you want to know what you can do to improve its performance.
So, it makes way more sense to identify the “WHY” before jumping into the “WHAT” part, right? Otherwise, it’ll be like shooting arrows in the dark.
To determine why your landing page is not performing well, you need data:
Quantitative data
Quantitative data includes metrics that tell you WHAT is happening (different from WHAT needs to be done).
Examples include:
Bounce rate: tells you the percentage of visitors who left your website without exploring other pages.
Conversion rate: tells you the percentage of visitors that performed a specific action.
Average session duration: tells you the time a user spends on your website in a session.
Average order value: tells you the amount a user spends on an average per transaction.
With quantitative data, you can determine what is wrong with your landing page.
If your bounce rate is below the average value, 41.1% (through Google search), it indicates your content is not engaging. Or there’s a message mismatch.
See? From quantitative data, you were able to identify what’s wrong and what could be potentially causing the issue.
But the WHY is still guesswork. Now comes the qualitative data.
Qualitative data
Qualitative data is not as simple as quantitative data as it tells you about the user behavior, which can’t be quantified. Here’s what qualitative data includes:
On-site surveys: Using tools like Hotjar, you can integrate exit popups with multiple questions to understand user behavior. This way, you can understand why a visitor is attempting to leave your website and what you can do better.
Heatmaps: Heatmaps tell you where your visitors click on your landing page. With heatmaps, you can determine If your visitors are ignoring your CTA. And if they are, you’d know why your conversion rate is poor.
Here are the types of heat maps you can use:
Scroll maps: they show you how far down a page users scroll.
Click maps: they show where, i.e. on what elements the visitors click on a page.
Move maps: they show you the areas where visitors paused or hovered for a long time. This highlights the areas of interest.
By combining quantitative and qualitative data, you can identify:
What is wrong with your landing page?
And the reason behind that issue
Follow landing page best practices
Following the landing page best practices when creating a landing page can help you avoid rookie mistakes, reducing the likelihood of making heavy optimizations. Here are some landing page best practices you must follow:
2. Create a landing page for every purpose
If you create different ad campaigns or email newsletters for different audience segments, (based on gender, devices they use, and traffic source), sending all of them to the same landing page won’t make sense.
Okay, answer this. Would you like to see the same landing page on your mobile device primarily targeting desktop users? Of course not.
The same page that makes more sense on desktop devices (with larger screens) would feel clunky on your mobile device.
Always remember the goal of a landing page is to increase conversions. However, driving the wrong (not entirely, but still) audience to the wrong landing page would be similar to intentionally losing out on conversions. And that is something you’d not want to do.
So, always create different landing pages for different purposes. This will:
Add a touch of personalization and reduce distraction
Allow you to test different segments more precisely.
We know just the right platform (not bragging) that can help you create personalized landing pages for every platform based on different factors (gender, device type, traffic source, operating system): Fibr AI
Here’s an example:
3. Maintain consistent messaging and avoid mismatch
This tip is an extension of the above.
Yes, you need a dedicated page for every marketing campaign, including audience type, device type, gender, and more. But that’s not enough.
Say you create multiple landing pages. However, your landing pages are inconsistent with the ad or email that brought in the visitors. This can confuse or even frustrate your audience, leading to a high bounce rate.
The culprit? Inconsistent messaging and a message mismatch.
When creating landing pages, make sure they offer the same experience and value promised to the visitors when they click on your Facebook ad. This will help your audience connect better with your offer, build trust, and eventually lead to a desired action.
In addition, you need to offer a personalized experience to your visitors, which you can do with the help of Fibr AI: an AI-powered personalization platform.
With Fibr AI, you can create 1:1 landing pages i.e. a personalized landing page for each audience segment, and deliver a better customer experience. And you can do all this with the help of Fibr AI’s visual editor which doesn't require coding expertise.
4. Create an attention-grabbing headline
The headline is probably the most important component of your landing page, as that’s what visitors see the moment they land. If your landing page headline is unclear or boring, it will push the visitors away.
Your landing page headline should immediately grab the attention of the visitors. And how do you do that?
Make it clearer, shorter, and more relatable to your target audience.
If your headline addresses the pain points of the visitors or provides what they’re looking for, it will grab the visitors’ attention. And the same goes for your supporting copy beneath the headline. If that’s good, your visitors will continue to read further.
5. Get right to the point and remove distractions
According to Forbes, internet users have an average attention span of just 8 seconds. This means from the moment a user lands on your page, you have 8 seconds to:
Grab their attention.
Promote your offer.
Get them to take the desired action.
So, you better be good at it. How?
Try to get to the point right away! No beating around the bushes, just meaningful information in as few words as possible.
Note. Don’t get too cruel when removing extra words. Sometimes, a little explanation is required to help your visitors understand more about your offer. The goal is to strike a balance between brevity and verbosity.
Another thing that will help you get right to the point is removing distractions. If there is a navigation bar, multiple offers, or CTAs, chances are your visitors will get confused.
When you’re done creating your landing page, look at it for a while. Or get it reviewed by your peers. If most people aren’t naturally focussing where they should be, there are too many distractions.
Remove all the elements you can rationally until you’re left with 1 thing to focus on.
6. Use the space “above the fold” wisely.
Above the fold is the space that is visible to you the moment you land on a landing page, without scrolling.
To make the most of this space, add your primary message and call to action in this space. This way, your visitors will get the most valuable information right off the bat without scrolling.
What’s the purpose? If your visitors get to see the most valuable bit of your landing page immediately, it will:
Leave a good first impression.
Reduce bounce rate.
Improve engagement
And eventually, boost the conversion rate.
7. Use multiple CTAs in longer landing pages
If you have landing pages longer than average, make sure you include multiple CTAs at regular intervals.
Why?
Different users react to content differently.
Some may want to take action the moment they land, while others might want to read content before being convinced. If they see a call to action right when they decide to take action, they will be more likely to convert.
Take Netflix’s landing page for example:
You can see a CTA (above the fold) the moment you land on their website.
Once you scroll to the bottom, there’s another CTA just when the FAQs end:
8. All landing page elements should work in sync
The goal of every landing page element should be to support your core value proposition or business objective.
Say you’re promoting a digital marketing masterclass. And your landing page also has a popup that prompts visitors to subscribe to your newsletter on general freelancing tips. This is a classic example of elements not working in sync.
So, elements that don’t directly or indirectly promote your landing page’s objective don’t deserve to stay there.
9. Try different forms of media
Try out different media on your landing page, from plain text and images to high-definition videos.
Using videos in specific can boost conversions by up to 86%, says HubSpot. And for the right reasons. Visitors don’t have to read blocks of text or focus on static images when they can understand everything from a video.
Create conversion-friendly landing page forms
Yet another important component of a landing page is a landing page form, which helps you capture the lead information. You need to make sure that your landing page forms are conversion-friendly and invite users to enter their information.
Here’s how:
10. Remove unnecessary fields and add enough whitespace
What information do you actually need? Would the email and first name do the job? If so, remove every unnecessary field from your form. Unnecessary fields make your form longer, which becomes a task for your visitors.
In fact, NinjaForms reported a 25% drop in conversions after they added the 5th form field on a single landing page. When it comes to form fields, less is more.
You can experiment with the number of fields your audience would be comfortable to fill in.
In addition to removing unnecessary fields, make sure there’s enough white space around your form. The fields should be well-spaced, and the overall form should invite users to interact with it and not push them away.
11. Draw the visitors to the form and make the form readable
When creating your landing page lead gen form, make sure you use design elements that direct the visitors towards the form. Never assume that the visitors would know what their next step would be. Even if they do, you must do your due diligence by acting as their guide. How?
You can use direction cues like arrows, icons, or images of people looking at your lead gen form.
In addition to adding some directional cues, make the form more readable. How?
By making sure the field titles are clear and visible without having to squint.
Also, the form CTA should be enlarged to make it distinct.
Work on your landing page call-to-action
Whether you want your visitors to subscribe to your newsletter, purchase a product, or download a lead magnet, it can only happen when they click on a button i.e. CTA or call to action. Therefore, it’s only logical to work on and optimize your CTA. Here’s how:
12. Make the CTA copy crisp and clear
You must have seen those boring CTAs like “Click Here,” “Submit,” or “Subscribe.” While these types of CTAs seem to serve the purpose, they are pretty vague and unclear. They’re not telling what a visitor will get on the other site.
Use better and more clear CTA variations like “Get your Free Copy” if you’re offering an e-book. Or if you’re offering a trial, say “Enjoy your Free Trial.” The goal is to add clarity and help the visitor visualize what they’ll get once they click the CTA.
Is making a CTA clearer even worth the effort? Of course. Data says that a clear CTA can boost conversion rates by up to 161%. You can skip this step if a 161% increase in conversions doesn’t sound lucrative enough.
13. Click baits don’t work in the long run
If your CTA says something is available for free, it should be.
Say you’re offering a free lead magnet (a checklist of the best CRO practices.) Upon submitting their information, a visitor must be able to download the lead magnet or receive it on their email.
If you’re asking them to submit more information, pay, or do anything else besides offering them what they clicked for, it’s unethical.
You may get a lead for your database, but it won’t likely convert. Also, they might tell others about your unethical means of capturing user data.
14. Don’t sound fishy
Try to avoid using words like “awesome,” “amazing,” “make money,” etc. These words make you sound like you’re trying too hard to sell.
Also, when choosing a text for your opt-outs, don’t try to use CTAs like “No, I don’t want to lose customers” to close the popups.
15. Place your CTA carefully
Don’t try to fit your CTA in a cramped up place, just like a jigsaw puzzle. There should be ample space around the CTA, so it’s visible clearly. Also, try using contrasting colors for your CTA in comparison to the elements surrounding it. This will help your CTA pop.
In addition, make sure your CTA is placed above the fold. This reduces the friction and allows the users to act immediately. Also, spread CTAs across the page if you have a longer landing page.
16. Supportive (but less dominant) CTAs
Some customers need a little push to make the final decision, i.e. making the purchase. And that little push could be:
A brochure explaining the use of a product (if you’re selling a product)
The contact number of your support team (if you’re selling a SaaS tool)
These additional CTAs give your visitors a safety net and the assurance they need to make that final decision.
P.S. Make sure the additional CTA is less dominant than the primary one. You’d not want both the primary and additional CTA competing for attention.
Don’t ignore landing page SEO
For a long time, marketers have considered landing pages as a short-term marketing tool that loses its worth after the campaign ends. However, this stops them from making the most of the organic search traffic.
If you’re planning a long-term marketing campaign (lead gen or an e-book promotion), you shouldn’t ignore SEO. This will help you drive organic traffic in addition to the paid traffic, increasing the overall conversions.
Every page of your website that visitors find via organic search is essentially a landing page. So, why not optimize your actual landing pages for SEO and maximize the conversion potential?
Here’s how you can optimize your landing page for SEO:
17. Tweak your headlines and add internal links
Try adding text headlines instead of having them inside images. Assigning an H1 tag to your headline lets Google’s web crawlers understand what the page is about.
If you want organic traffic, you need to add internal links to and from your landing page. This will help you rank higher and thus drive more traffic.
P.S. Adding text headlines instead of embedding them in images can slightly hurt the visual quality of your landing page. This is recommended only if you want to attract organic traffic.
18. Write a long-form copy and get backlinks
While it’s recommended to be as brief as possible when it comes to landing pages, a little explanation won’t hurt. This will allow you to accommodate more keywords in your copy and increase the chances of ranking in the Google SERPs.
Provide a valuable resource on your landing page like a whitepaper, an e-book, or a checklist. This will help you generate backlinks and thus attract even more organic visitors to your landing page.
Do some final checks on your landing page (before publishing)
When you have your landing page ready, you might be tempted to publish it and make it live. But hold your horses and do some final checks before your landing page hits the market. This will help you close gaps that you might have missed.
Here’s how:
19. Create a checklist
Create a checklist of all the items you wanted to see on your landing page when you started. Keep checking the items one by one and make the necessary changes wherever required.
Whatever you do, make sure to:
Remember (and avoid) past campaign mistakes: Analyze the reports of your previous campaigns and identify the mistakes that impacted your landing page’s performance. And make sure you do not commit the same mistakes again.
Remember (and repeat) past campaign successes: if some things went sideways with your previous campaigns, some things must have worked well. Make sure to learn from those things and implement them in your landing page.
20. Review your landing page and ask for feedback from as many people as you can
Review your landing page for typos, grammatical errors, and other issues that could hurt the user experience and potentially impact your conversion rate. Even better, if you have a dedicated resource that can perform QA on your landing pages.
It’s natural to not notice mistakes or errors when you have seen/reviewed your landing page multiple times. So, release your landing page within your organization both online and offline and ask for feedback from both marketers and non-marketers.
This will give you a chance to identify more opportunities to boost your landing page’s performance that you might have missed.
Track the performance
Tracking the performance of your marketing campaign is essential. Otherwise, how would you know if your landing page performed the way you expected?
Here’s what you need to do:
Use the right tools to track the right KPIs
Leverage tools like Google Analytics and Kissmetrics to track and analyze data. These tools are easy to integrate and can help you continuously monitor a range of important landing page metrics and KPIs.
Make sure you’re tracking the KPIs and metrics that align with your larger objective. While the metrics you track vary with your campaign objective, some fundamental KPIs include conversion rate, cart abandonment rate, bounce rate, etc.
Be transparent and don’t rely much on industry averages
Make sure to regularly share the reports with your team. Whether it's a failure or success, your team must be aware of it. Success can motivate them, and failures can help them identify more opportunities to grow.
Also, don’t rely much on industry averages. As the name suggests, they represent average figures, which may or may not be relevant to your business. After all, every business has its own needs and challenges, right?
Don’t forget about qualitative data
In addition to tracking quantitative data, make sure to track qualitative data as it will help you understand user behavior. And user behavior in turn helps you determine the WHY as discussed in the first landing page optimization tip.
To track qualitative data, you can use screen recordings, scroll maps, click maps, move maps, and feedback widgets.
Landing Page Optimization Examples
Here are some landing page optimization examples that’ll help you understand the impact of landing page optimization
1. Going: A Travel Discount Company
Going has two primary methods of offering services to its customers: a free plan and a two-week trial of the premium plan. And their landing page CTA asked the users to “Sign up for Free”.
However, the company thought they might get more conversions if the potential customers could directly experience the benefits of their premium plan.
To test their theory, Going conducted A/B tests and tested different variations of their landing page CTA: “SIGN UP FOR FREE” against “TRIAL FOR FREE.”
And their theory proved right as in the A/B test, the “TRIAL FOR FREE” variation helped them achieve a 104% increase in their month-on-month trial rate.
See? A change that seems so small can drive such a huge change.
2. Love Child Organics: Offers Clean and Organic Food Products for Babies and Children
Nature’s Path (formerly Love Child Organics) was experiencing high customer acquisition costs of $2 per customer and a conversion rate of 43% on their coupon offer landing page.
They performed A/B tests to compare different variations. To be precise, the company experimented with different images (image of a toddler vs image of a baby (original). In addition, they refined their targeting strategies to align with the preferences and behavior of their audiences.
Guess what? Within 8 months, they noticed a jump in conversion rate from 43% to 69%. Also, their cost per acquisition decreased from $2 to $1.30. This shows how landing page optimization can directly impact conversions.
Wrapping Up
No matter how perfect you think your landing page is, there will always be some scope for improvement. So, keep identifying opportunities to improve, make optimizations, measure the performance, and repeat.
If you wish to run the extra mile and get an edge over your competitors, refer to these (in-depth) chapters we created on landing pages:
Top 13 AI Landing Page Builders: to help you compare and find a reliable AI landing page builder to maximize productivity.
Landing Page Best Practices: to make sure you don’t miss out on any bet practice and publish successful landing pages on the first attempt.
15 Conversion-Killer Landing Page Mistakes: to help you identify and avoid common mistakes marketers make.
