Landing pages…the final frontier. This is the place where everyone who clicks on your Facebook ad arrives, and they all have some kind of expectations. Whether your landing page confirms these expectations or not makes the difference between great conversion and a big flop.
The question is, how can you answer the various expectations of so many people? How can you create a landing page which looks great, communicates a powerful call to action and makes it easy for people to subscribe or follow through without getting distracted or confused?
There is one simple answer to this: A/B testing. Everyone does A/B testing, even the mighty Google. For their search algorithm alone they performed 7,000 different tests. Thankfully, in the case of landing pages, only 6 important aspects need to be tested:
1. Copy
How much text should be on your page? How long should the headline be? Should you include a subtitle? All these aspects pertaining to copy must be tested. Maybe you have a catchy headline, but the rest of the copy doesn’t reinforce it properly. Or maybe you have too much copy and people get distracted.
Split testing your copy will not necessarily make you change your copy completely, just refine its formatting and placement. In fact, statistics prove that only an eighth of A/B test results lead to major changes made to a landing page.
2. The ‘Sign Up’ Button
Nearly every visitor has a commitment issue with the ‘Sign up’ button. Therefore this button must be the star of the page. It must scream “Click me!” like a potion in Alice in Wonderland. However, in many cases it is either too small, or has a bad colour contrast, and people do not feel an impulse to click on it. Try different sizes, colours, and positions to find the perfect design and location for your ‘Sign up’ button.
3. Video or Photo?
Videos on landing pages look great, but they may distract the attention from your copy if you have truly important things to say. You should do a split test between a video and a photo to see whether a photo with text superimposed is a more successful way of getting great conversion rates. This method is very effective for many purposes because it blends the visual factor with the catchy copy, creating a truly powerful message.
4. Secure Email Seal or Not?
Although it seems tempting to place a SSL seal on your landing page to reassure your leads that their emails are safe after the sign-up, it may not be such a good idea after all. When people see a secure surfing seal or certificate, they assume that there is an online payment involved somewhere along the way. This will certainly deter a lot of potential leads from attempting the subscription process, especially if your landing page promises a freebie.
5. Sign-Up Form
Sign-up forms can be tricky business. You want to get as much information from people without invading too much of their privacy. And you also need a simple and clear design. A small change in colour, or the number of fields might be a game changer. MarketingExperiments found that reducing the number of fields from 13 to 3 drove an 816% growth in subscriptions. So keep testing until you find your ultimate conversion sweet spot.
6. Page Elements
The landing page must have one clear purpose: get people to follow your call to action and increase your conversion rate. While it is tempting to use amazingly witty copy, a great design with full of photos or videos, when it comes to landing pages, less is more. Do not clutter the page with too many elements. Do not include your standard website navigating menu. You don’t want to give your leads the chance to navigate away from your landing page.
After going through the nitty-gritty with these elements, your page should be ready to increase your conversion sky high.