Does your company offer information premiums online like white papers, case studies, or webinars?
If so, let’s take a very close look at landing pages, to see what works and what doesn’t, and to give you some tips that will boost your conversion rates.
When I say ‘landing page’ I’m talking about any web page where the primary goal is ‘conversion’. For B2B marketers, this usually means enticing visitors to take some sort of action, usually giving up some personal information like an email address in exchange for an information premium from your company
So after you spend time, energy and budget on campaigns that drive traffic to your online offering, who wants a landing page that fails to convert? It doesn’t make sense, yet landing B2B pages are often slapped together without much thought, and with complete disregard for what makes people take action.
10 Tips For Building a Landing Page That Works
Here’s a handful of essential tips you can put to work right now, to either improve your current landing pages, or start your next one off
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1. Beware the bail factor
From the second someone lands on your page, he is deciding whether or not he will bail. And for most, this decision is made within zero to eight seconds of landing. It’s a truly at-a-glance decision, so what your page looks like ‘above the fold’ is crucial. Make your best impression fast, by showing:
- a killer headline that instantly communicates relevance of your offer,
- a “productized” picture of your offering (e.g. if you’re offering a
- white paper, show a picture of the cover), and
- short, convincing copy that entices to take action or to scroll to read more, if applicable.
2. Don’t include the navigation bar from your company web site
Your landing page is not a page on your web site. It should not have a navigation menu. If you give your visitors navigation links, some will click them. Maybe they’ll poke around on your website for a while, but it’s unlikely any of them will return to your landing page.
If you’re thinking, “That’s not so bad, if they’re on our web site at least they’re learning about us,” then you’ve forgotten the goal of a landing page is conversion. And conversion must supersede any brand awareness goals, so the navigation bar has to go.
3. Meet expectations
The creative on your landing page must be consistent with your campaign. Anyone who arrives at a landing page and is confused by the design, colours or copy will immediately leave.
That means no one-size-fits all landing pages. You must create a new landing page for each campaign you run, with matching creative.
4. Clutter is a killer
Your designer may want to design the heck out of the landing page, by ‘filling in’ some of the empty white space with eye-catching graphics or blocks of colour. Or, YOU may be tempted to stick in a little snippet of copy somewhere, that drones on about your product’s features. Don’t.
Instead, be discriminating with your landing page design. If something has snuck on there that doesn’t directly contribute to the conversion process, it has to go, period.
5. Add caption copy to your ‘hero shot’
The hero shot is the image on your landing page that relates to your offer. (E.g. If you’re offering a white paper, an image of the cover page of the white paper is your hero shot). Eye-tracking tests on landing pages show that people love reading caption copy, so take advantage of this by making that copy powerful.
6. Use at least 10 pt font
This may seem an obvious point, but MOST web pages out there are too hard to read (only 17% of B2B sites provide legible text, according to research by Forrester). Make sure YOUR landing pages are among the few out there that are easy on the eye by using large font.
And never use reverse font (white text on a dark background) for your main copy.
7. Use bullets points whenever possible
Bullet points are more effective at driving conversion than paragraph-style copy. Although this sounds like another no-brainer, many landing pages are jammed with paragraphs.
8. Create a definite eye-path
You’re looking to hook the visitor with your headline and/or hero shot, and ultimately lead their eye toward your call to action (e.g. that big, brightly-coloured “Register Now!” button). How do you know if your landing page has a clear eye-path?
Get 10 people in the office to look at the page, and tell you where their eyes go. If you get a bunch of different answers, you’ve got work to do. (Two rules of thumb for creating an eye-path: Be sure to use a SINGLE copy layout for your main text, and locate hero shot images to the LEFT of the main copy.)
9. Make forms easy to fill out
Scrutinize your forms to make sure they're user friendly. Are required fields clearly marked? Are you asking for too much information? (Do you really need a prospect’s fax number?) Make sure your form begins above the fold, and is legible and intuitive. Some forms even feature a blinking cursor in the first field – a crafty little technique to entice the visitor to start filling in the form.
10. Showcase your privacy policy
Clearly display a link to your privacy policy, close to where you ask for an email address. Seeing a privacy policy link will boost your visitors’ confidence in your company and brand, and they’ll be less hesitant to give up information, even if they don’t click the privacy policy link (most won’t).
These 10 tips will get you off to a great start for boosting conversion on your landing pages.
