Landing page optimisation is one of the most important parts of web design. A landing page has a different purpose to a homepage. Usually, the first contact point for potential customers, a landing page should give visitors an idea of what a store sells and draw them in to explore further.
The main purpose of a landing page is to get people to take action, like ordering a sample product, download an ebook or make an enquiry.
It takes just 0.05 seconds for store visitors to form an opinion about a landing page. This is why it’s important to communicate value to your visitors as quickly as possible. If you don’t, then your bounce rate is going to be high and you won’t be selling many products.
Here are 10 ways to increase conversions on your landing pages:
Landing Page Optimisation: Write Clear and Relevant Content
One of the most crucial elements of a landing page that many miss out is content. To keep your audience engaged and exploring, you need to know what your visitors are looking for and provide that information quickly.
Questions you should be asking yourself when planning your landing page are:
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Does this site have what I’m looking for?
Survey your customers, find out what questions they want answering when they’re looking for certain products. Once you’ve conducted this research, you should use the language they use back on them. -
Is there enough information?
You should work towards a happy medium of just enough information for your potential customers. Too much and they won’t read, too little and they’ll just click off. -
How long will this take?
For potential customers, time is everything. When they’re in buying mode, they want to do it and do it fast! Using autofill forms, customer accounts can really speed up the time it takes to make a purchase. -
Can I trust this site?
THIS can be one of the biggest drawbacks for potential customers wanting to make a purchase. This means brand security, e.g. is the brand legitimate, how long have they been running? Also site security, ensuring you’re using recognised and trusted payment methods and that you have HTTPS installed. -
Is there a returns policy?
For clothing stores, this should be VERY high on your priority list to make visitors aware that you have a returns policy in place.
The best way to put together effective and creative content that works on your target audience is to use the exact language that your customers and using, searching and saying.
Landing Page Optimisation: Benefit Orientated CTAs
When you carry out a landing page optimisation audit, you should evaluate what you’re offering and use that in your CTAs (call to action).
We’re used to seeing buttons on the internet like ‘click here’ or ‘buy now’, this kind of copy is really vague and can put many visitors off. This is due to the visitors not knowing where the button leads or what the benefits are.
Aim to make CTA buttons more descriptive like; ‘get a free sample pack’ or ‘get your free quote’.
Landing Page Optimisation: Design
Design is going to massively depend on your brand and target audience. BUT, the first impression of a landing page is very important, so it’s vital that you use an eye-catching and engaging design.
A professional, well-finished design will give the impression that you’re a legitimate brand, that cares about its product and customers. With this in mind, it’s always good to hire a professional design and development agency who can help best communicate your brand, values and products through design.
It’s always recommended that you should test different designs and split test to see what your visitors prefer. On landing pages, avoid using features that take away from the main focus such as pop-ups, music, auto-playing video and so on.
BUT! There are some exceptions. Some brands like to defy the norm, go against the grain and really represent their brand in a way that speaks to their audience. Here’s our list of some of the most creative and unusual eCommerce designs.
Landing Page Optimisation: Content/Page Length
The length of your landing page content is relative to what you’re selling. Generally speaking, the more expensive your product is, the longer your content should be.
Short copy tends to perform better when the offer is free, cheap or more of an impulsive buy. Long copy works better with more expensive, premium products. Your copy should be longer because you should take more time to answer visitor questions, – like in point 1 – show testimonials and proof of your product.
Landing Page Optimisation: Benefit-orientated Headlines
Use your brand to your advantage when creating your landing page headlines. Do you have a tone of voice that you tend to use with your customers? Does your brand have a bit of a personality that you can reflect in your landing page headlines?
Try to avoid using basic headlines and focus on what the benefit is to your potential customers. Rather than ‘red shoes’ or ‘leather bag’.
Instead, focus on the person, how they’ll feel, the atmosphere or how your product will benefit your customers. Visitors want to know what’s in it for them.
Landing Page Optimisation: Short Forms with Limited Fields
A complicated, long checkout process is one of the quickest ways to lose potential customers just as they’re about to convert. Fewer people will go through the process if there are too many fields to fill out or if the process is too long.
Shoppers don’t want to spend all their time in the checkout process giving you all their personal details. Keep in mind that you can always gather more information at a later date.
Landing Page Optimisation: Page Load Times
You’ve got your copy right, your design looks amazing and you’ve shortened your forms, but your landing page still isn’t converting.
One of the key reasons why visitors drop off, bounce or don’t convert is due to slow page load times. The internet has made us want things at the tap of a screen, visitors don’t tend to wait around for pages to load.
Make sure you check page load times, ensure that all pages on your store load in less than 0-4 seconds, this is the optimum load time to increase conversions.
Landing Page Optimisation: Testimonials
Have you tried using testimonials on your landing page yet? If not, this is something you should really start to test on your landing pages.
We highly recommend using Yotpo. It allows merchants to display customer content at key conversion points across your store. Showing reviews at key points of conversion adds a level of social proof.
The review widget is customisable, allowing business owners to show off customer reviews whilst keeping their store looking fresh and on-brand.
Landing Page Optimisation: Exit Popups
Going so soon? A really great wait to pull visitors back when they’re just about to leave is with exit popups. When a visitor’s cursor starts to leave the screen or takes a certain action they will receive a popup where you can offer coupons or discounts to try and keep them on your store and make a purchase.
Landing Page Optimisation: Track and Split Test
Before and after you start CRO you should always make backups of your store, track and test. The best way to know what works and what doesn’t is to make changes and track with heat mapping as well as analytics. This will help you fully understand how visitors are using your website, what features they’re using, how long they’re spending on your landing pages and so much more.
