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Landing pages are the bread-and-butter of inbound marketing. But most landing pages are a burnt piece of toast. It’s easy to create landing pages, but creating landing pages that convert is much more of a challenge.
There are some basic mistakes that sabotage your landing pages before they ever have a chance to be successful. If your landing pages aren’t converting how you expected, one of these 5 mistakes may be the culprit.
1. Cluttered Design
When it comes to landing pages, less is more. It’s easy to fall into the trap of over-designing a landing page, but it’s important to strip away all the excess noise to streamline your visitors into action. A one-second delay in loading your site can lower conversions by 7% and multiple offers on one landing page can decrease conversions by up to 266%. All high-converting landing pages have the same basic elements:
- Headline
- Image or Video
- Benefits
- CTA or Form
Stick to these core elements and watch your conversions before you start adding more to your landing pages.
2. Weak Content
Language is arguably the most important element of your landing page, but often the most overlooked. Landing pages need to quickly communicate context and value to inspire action. Always make sure the content on your landing page is written with internet users in mind and make sure your headlines pop – you only have 8 seconds to make an impression. If you aren’t confident in your writing, we have some content tips that can help you craft killer headlines and page copy.
3. Unclear Calls-to-Action
At the end of the day, your landing page exists to make your visitors take an action. You won’t see as many actions if your visitors don’t know what to do. Your calls-to-action (aka the buttons on your page) need to be unambiguous. Instead of “learn more,” make your calls-to-action more relevant to what offer your landing page provides:
- Sign Up for a Free Trial
- Download the eBook
- Scan Your Website
Most readers will scan your landing page instead of reading in-depth, so the more obvious you can make your calls-to-action, the better.
4. Complicated Forms
Your forms and your calls-to-action work in tangent, which means your forms also need to be to-the-point. The average landing page has 11 form fields, but shortening your form fields from 11 to 4 can increase conversions by 120%. The less information your prospects have to surrender upfront, the more likely they are to fill out your form. Stick to the bare necessities – only the information you absolutely need to keep them moving through your sales process.
5. Ignoring the Buyer’s Journey
Landing pages are an important stepping stone in your buyer’s journey. It’s important to know what stage of the journey most people will be visiting your landing page and tailoring content accordingly. Do they already know who you are? Or are they searching their need/problem on Google and finding your landing page? The answer to those questions will influence every element of your landing page from imagery to messaging.
Now that you know what mistakes to look for, take the time to go through your landing pages and make sure you haven’t been sabotaging yourself. If you have, it’s not too late to fix it.
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