The Do’s and Don’ts for Designing Landing Pages that Convert – PART II
Last week, Bones told you about the importance of keeping things simple and including a call to action.
[guest post by Kate Bones]
Today, you’ll hear about other important tactics to help improve the visibility of your landing page.
DO narrow your focus
Keep your landing page simple. Don’t offer too many choices – it only makes it harder for visitors to make the decision. Landing pages are built on that buying signal visitors get when clicking on your ad – maintain it and offer a short way to take action.
The longer you render the process, the lower the conversion rate of the landing page will be. Limit design elements and textual information. If you include a form, do it at the bare minimum – research shows that the more fields users encounter, the lees likely they are to fill them.
DON’T include navigation
It’s not worth to distract users with your navigation bars. Make sure to keep your landing page simple by removing headers and footers that could take your visitors elsewhere. You don’t want them to get interested in something else and abandon your landing page.
DO come up with an effective headline
Copy is important on landing pages. You don’t want to write too much, but just enough to convince visitors to take action. At the same time, you shouldn’t distract them with details about brand philosophy or product features. That’s why you should invest time (and money!) in the headline for your landing page.
The first thing most visitors think about when clicking on your ad is “What is that company about?”. You need to answer this question in your headline. Moreover, you should also clarify what users can get in exchange for taking action. Explain the action as well, but be clever and fun about it. Don’t write a simple “Fill out this form to receive a free sample of our product”. Reflect the character of your brand and make sure that your headline stands out visually on the page.
DON’T include too much content
You don’t want to create a landing page that takes lots of time to make sense of. Your messages should be short and on-point. Leave explanatory content in a different place and link to it on your landing page – surely some visitors will appreciate additional information. But you don’t want to distract them from the task at hand – taking action. So, use simple graphic design and minimize the amount of textual content. Less is more should be your guiding principles here.
DO optimize it for mobile
This is a key point many brands simply forget about. When creating a landing page design for your business, make sure to include a mobile version as well. If you delve into analytics you’ll see how many leads access your website through portable devices.
You can assume that a similar or higher number will access your landing page, so instead of offering them poor mobile experience, optimize it and make it easy to navigate. If your page doesn’t make sense to them at a first glance, visitors aren’t likely to stick around long enough to even get to your CTA.
Designing a landing page that converts is easily within your reach. Follow these tips and you’ll be on your way to creating a page that brings in lots of new prospects and helps you close more deals than ever.
** About the author: Kate Bones is an experienced social media manager at checkdirector.co.uk platform. In her free time, she enjoys blogging and sharing her knowledge and expertise with other professionals on the web.
