A Converting Landing Page Built on Solid Foundations

Conversion Rate Optimisation has become one of the more scientific online marketing practices. And for good reason. After all, paid search is too big an expense to just waste the conversion opportunity when someone arrives on your landing page.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, conversion optimisation is the practice of tweaking and enhancing user experiences on landing pages in ways that promote conversions. It involves visually simple or psychologically subtle changes, and then testing the results.

Below, we discuss some of the fundamental components that make or break a landing page and what kind of elements you should be testing.

Header and sub-Header

The headline of your landing page is the first intellectual thing a visitor will deduce from it. As such, it should be directly to the point and succinctly explain the purpose and benefits of your offering. Resist the urge to approach it from an ad copy perspective by making it catchy or funny. These have a significantly smaller success rate.

The sub-header should go on to further elaborate on the headline and introduce important benefits that couldn’t fit in the header

Intro Paragraph

This is where the full extent of your marketing message will rest. The people who read this have read the headline and sub-headline and have been compelled to read further. So you have their interest, just be sure to include all your benefits, your differentiation approach and any information that is important to the offering.

Resist the urge to make it very long and comprehensive. You don’t have to cover all the bases, just the ones that really matter to potential clients. Keep it between 100-250 words and consider bullet-points over a straight paragraph.

Image

This element is almost completely an emotional reaction. It should get the visitor to empathise with it, and by extension brand, rather than an illustration of value. It’s been shown in research that pictures of people having positive reactions that are generally thematically related to the product do better than exciting product pictures.

Proof

This involves any aspect that can lend your brand or product credibility. For example:

* Social boxes indicating the number of followers, likes and +1’s your business pages have
* Client testimonials and blog quotes
* Links to articles praising your product or brand

The effectiveness of proof and social proof have been debated. A good thing to remember is that the bigger the brand concretely associated with your, the more credibly the proof lends. It’s a good idea to avoid listing the number of social followers you have if the number is too small though. Otherwise it’ll have the reverse effect.

Call to Action

If your headline gets your foot in the door, then your call-to-action gets the ink on the paper, conversion-wise at least. The call-to-action includes the lead form and the submit button.

The form should always be simple and have as few fields as possible. The greater thr number of fields, the smaller the chance of conversion. As for the submit button, it depends on what industry you’re in and would require some trial and error. But in terms of split-testing, this is the easiest element to perform it on.

What to and What Not to Test

When split-testing, these are the 3 most important and influential elements, in order:

* Header and sub-Header
* Image
* Call to Action

Don’t bother testing very subtle aspects like the font or background colour. Although these do have an effect, the difference would be too small to warrant the cost of testing. And often, it could be a case of plugging leaks in a sunken ship.