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Developing an Effective Landing Page for Improved Conversion Rates

Jul 15, 2023 | TIPS & TOOLS

Did you know that developing an effective landing page is crucial for achieving improved conversion rates? It’s true! Unlike regular web pages, landing pages have a specific purpose: to encourage visitors to complete a particular goal. And the fact is, whether you’re in the eCommerce industry or are a B2B SaaS company, your landing page’s goal may vary. Common examples of such goals include adding a product to the cart, signing up for a free trial, or viewing a product demonstration.

However, regardless of the goal, there are proven strategies to test and enhance conversion rates throughout your sales and marketing funnel. Want to learn more? Keep reading, as we’ll discuss everything you need to know about developing an effective landing page for improved conversion rates.

Understanding Landing Page Conversion Rates

So, what is a landing page conversion rate? Landing page conversion rates measure the percentage of visitors who successfully convert into qualified leads by completing your page’s desired goal. With this, it’s essential to acknowledge that not every visitor will take the desired action. In fact, some may bounce immediately, while others might read your content and then choose to leave or explore another page.

For example, consider a landing page designed to convert visitors from an email marketing campaign into purchasing a product or service. By tracking the landing page conversion rate, you gain a quantitative measurement of how well your page aligns with visitors’ needs and interests. This analysis allows you to identify areas for improvement and assess the impact of any changes made on the conversion rate.

Why is this important? Well, according to WordStream, the average landing page conversion rate is around 2.35%. However, the top 25% of landing pages in their study converted at a rate of 5.31% or higher. Thus, indicating that some pages can achieve even higher conversion rates if improvements are made.

Simple Ways to Improve Landing Page Conversion Rates

Yet, the bottom line is that boosting conversion rates and building high-converting landing pages requires consistent optimization. To make this process easier for you, here are eight simple strategies that are proven effective:
#1. Improve Your Page Load Speed

First and foremost, website loading speed plays a crucial role in user experience, with even a 1-second delay in page load time potentially leading to a 7% reduction in conversions. There are several factors that can slow down landing pages, but oversized images are a common culprit. To put this into perspective, one analysis of 18,639 landing pages revealed those without oversized images had a higher average conversion rate of 11.4%, in contrast to the 9.8% for pages with giant images.

#2. Focus on One Call to Action (CTA)

Next, each landing page should have one clear and direct call-to-action that guides visitors on what to do next. It’s been found that multiple competing CTAs create confusion and result in fewer leads. Research has demonstrated that landing pages with just a single link achieve a notably higher average conversion rate of 13.5%, compared to the 11.9% seen on pages that contain between two and four links. And when the number of links exceeds five, conversions drop even further to 10.5%.

#3. Provide Authentic Proof of Value
When making significant purchase decisions, people tend to seek validation from their peers. Therefore, social proof plays a pivotal role in influencing visitors’ decisions. To showcase social proof on your landing page, include customer testimonials, case studies, and social sharing buttons.
#4. Enhance Visual Appeal

Most visitors decide within a few seconds whether to stay on a page or leave. Hence, it’s essential to make your landing pages visually attractive to captivate their attention. One great way to do this is by incorporating multimedia elements, such as videos, which can increase conversions by a significant 86%. However, ensure that your design remains simple and clean, as an overload of distracting elements can deter visitors.

#5. Optimize for Mobile Devices

Mobile users now spend more than double the time on the internet compared to desktop users. Thus, if your landing pages are not fine-tuned for mobile users, you risk bypassing a significant segment of potential visitors.

Reinforcing this, research points towards mobile-optimized landing pages scoring an average conversion rate of around 11.7%, which is a significant improvement over the 10.7% conversion rate observed on landing pages designed solely for desktop usage.

Apart from making your landing pages responsive, consider the differences in user behavior on mobile and desktop devices. Streamline mobile pages, use shorter forms, and provide easy-to-complete sign-up options tailored to mobile users’ preferences.

#6. Minimize Text on Your Landing Page

Most web users tend to scan pages rather than read them in their entirety. In other words, landing pages with excessive word counts generally experience lower conversion rates. Consider these statistics: landing pages with less copy achieve an average conversion rate of 14%, while those with excessive copy yield only 11%.

Moreover, in the business services sector, landing pages with fewer than 100 words convert 50% more compared to pages with over 500 words. So, it’s advisable to reduce word count and include only essential information in your copy and break up large blocks of text with bullets, headers, and spacing to enhance readability.

#7. Tailor Your Message to Your Target Audience
Modern buyers demand highly personalized and specific messaging that speaks to their needs and preferences. And even with an appealing landing page design, if it doesn’t resonate with your audience, it won’t achieve high conversion rates.

Consider creating dedicated landing pages for each campaign, buyer persona, or channel, as this will allow you to customize content accordingly. For example, if you’re selling a leading CRM platform to both sales representatives and marketers, use separate landing pages for each audience. Use each page to address their unique pain points, highlight relevant features, and emphasize the benefits that matter most to them.

#8. Continuously Test Your Landing Pages

Every small detail on your landing pages can impact conversion rates. Therefore, frequent testing is crucial to identify what works best and what needs improvement. Here’s a compelling point to consider: companies that ramp up their testing efforts by an average of 50% and employ approximately 47% more optimization techniques generally experience a significant uptick in their conversion rates.

And, in this case, the more the better. It’s been found that businesses utilizing nine or more optimization methods are more likely to see improvements and increased satisfaction with conversion rates. So, implement as many of these strategies as possible, and you’ll see significant changes in your conversion rate.

Take Action Now: Develop an Effective Landing Page for Improved Conversion Rates

At the end of the day, boosting your landing page conversion rates boils down to several key areas: speedy load times, a clear call-to-action, legitimate social proof, engaging visuals, mobile-friendliness, minimal text, specific messaging, and ongoing testing. By adopting these tactics and keeping an eye on the resultant changes, you can elevate your landing page’s efficacy and see your conversion rates rise. But remember, the smallest of tweaks can produce impressive results, so never stop fine-tuning your strategy in pursuit of that perfect landing page!

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Post Contributors

Jaclyn Hawtin

Jaclyn Hawtin

Director of Technology

Over a decade of experience in product management, devops, startups, and agile methodologies. Track record of simplifying complex technical processes for cross-functional teams. Proficient in user centered design, UX, IX, UI, IA, user research and data analytics for responsive web, mobile and tablet applications. Incredibly adaptable, fluent with both people and machines.

Mani O'Brien

Mani O'Brien

Director of Marketing

Mani is a senior marketing manager with roots in storytelling. She nerds out on everything data, technology, human behavior and design. Chat with her about UX/UI, marketing funnels, conversion and goal tracking, marketing experimentation and astrology (she’s a Virgo Sun, Aries Rising).

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