8 Practical Tips + Strategies to Improve Landing Page Conversion Rates

Landing pages. Love 'em or hate 'em, we all know they're critical to any solid content marketing campaign. This holds especially true when it comes to conversions. That said, if you feel your landing pages could be doing more for your conversion rate, you may be right. Try some of the following eight tactics to kick your landing pages into high gear and get them producing the conversions you know they're capable of!

1) Headlines, headlines, headlines

Consider this—According to copyblogger, only 20% of readers read beyond the headline. Look at that number again. 20%. That's it. That means if you want to grab the attention of the vast majority of your page visitors, you need to write headlines that capture and captivate, them. Try one of these tips:

• Directly address a pain point

• Be clear and concise

• Don't use buzzy industry or SEO keywords

• Make a claim, then follow it up
  
  

2) Content consistency matters, so be consistent with your content

If you follow tip #1 and write attention-grabbing headlines for your landing pages, follow it up with the facts and figures that support your claim.

Your headline said your company has 15,000 happy clients, so if your content says you have 13,000 clients, your customers-in-waiting have just lost faith in you and are clicking over to your competitor's site.

This consistency needs to extend to all aspects of your campaign that tie into the landing page as well. The text in your social media ads, your CTA buttons, and any other links that connect folks to this landing page need to match up.

Spend the time now making sure your links all point to the appropriate landing page, as well. Nothing kills conversion rates quite like linking through and finding yourself on the company home page with no clue what happened to the ebook you were looking for!

3) Keep the best stuff above the fold

Well, above the scroll? OK, so maybe I'm dating myself because I know what ‘above the fold' means. The point is, to be sure visitors to your landing pages can get all the relevant information they need to make an informed decision to click that CTA without having to scroll.

If you keep the headline, the punchline, and the CTA on screen, no matter how distracted your reader is, they can get the whitepaper they came looking for, and you can get the contact information you need to add them to your mailing list.

4) Be direct

As long as we're discussing not wasting your customer's time, don't fluff up your landing page with useless, well, fluff.

Use this page to address how your product attacks a pain point you know your customers feel. Tell them clearly how the ebook they can get, for free, by clicking the button over there on the sidebar will start them down the road to eliminating that pain point. If you can convince someone that you and your widget will solve their problem, they're that much more likely to convert.

5) Keep it clutter free

And that includes links to the rest of your website. Yes, I know. "I thought we wanted to keep visitors on our site?" You are keeping them on your site, just not with many links that'll take them everywhere. Landing pages are about one thing and one thing alone—conversions.

When someone clicks a link in a social media post, they're looking for something. They want help with the problem your link told them you would address. When they get to your landing page, all they should see is how you will address that problem and a button to click to get more information.

Relevant content and a CTA: that's the extent of what your landing page should be showing them. Keeping visitors on your site will fall to your in-line thank you message once they fill out the contact form. That's where you put links to other relevant content, and that's how you keep them browsing your site.

6) Contact capture form optimization

Fancy way of saying, “don't ask for too much." You don't need the names of the requester's pet hamster when they were 6. Nor do you need them to swear an oath on your white paper that they really and genuinely want to receive more information on your newly redesigned widgets. You need consent to contact and a means by which to do so.

Keep. It. Simple. This rule applies to so many areas of life, no less so your capture forms. If, for whatever reason, you do need 12 pieces of information, break it up. Ask for two pieces at a time, and show a progress bar at the top so the customer-to-be knows where they stand. This reassures them that you understand how valuable their time is and that you'll only need a few more moments of that precious time, and you'll send them on their way.

7) Prove it by being transparent

There's power in backing up your claims. And there's power in having others back them up for you. There are several ways you can do this without adding clutter to your landing pages:  

• Provide a prominent link to your privacy policy. Most people will never click on it, but it's another way of showing prospective customers that you're above board. This increases the inherent trust they'll feel toward you, your company, and your product.

• Include a slider at the bottom of your landing pages that displays customer testimonials. This gives your new customers social proof that your claims are valid and your service is as good as you say.
  
  

8) Run A/B tests

Certain aspects of a landing page can attract or repel visitors. The easiest way to determine if your conversion rate could be better is to A/B test some of these aspects.

• Run two versions of your headline. See which leads to more conversions.

• Run two colors of your CTA button.

• Run two differently shaped CTA buttons.

• Try different text on that CTA; "Click here for your free case study" vs. “Get your Free case study" can make a difference.

It’s important to remember only to change one aspect for each test. If you change everything simultaneously, you cannot determine which change led to the jump in conversions.

By following these eight tips, you'll see significant improvements in the conversion rate for your landing pages. And by collecting the metrics from the A/B tests in tip #8, you'll know exactly which tips paid off so you can keep your numbers up going forward!