What are you using your website for? Websites can serve a variety of purposes in relation to how your customers use them. They can inform and give customers a way to contact you or purchase something from you. Because websites are such an important link between your business and your customers, you want to make sure that not only is their experience good, but that they are led to perform the actions you want them to perform. Simply put, you want your customers to convert once they land on your website.
In a previous blog, I reviewed where conversions came from in relation to your marketing efforts. But that blog focused mainly on getting people to your website, not what they do once they get to your website. A good marketing effort could double the traffic to your site, but if your site isn’t optimized to get people to convert, all of that effort could have very little payoff. Today let’s talk about how to make sure your landing pages are helping your customers take action.
Simplify
Oftentimes people want to make sure landing pages include this and that and the other thing, and fail to realize how their customers will view the final product: as messy and confusing. Make sure your main navigation hasn’t been weighed down by too many items and calls-to-action. What is important to be in your menus? What can be a drop down? What can be displayed elsewhere?
The same goes for the overall page layout. Things like sidebars filled with everything from multiple more menus to the weather can distract people from the main purpose of the page. Focus on what you want people to see, and then how you want them to act. Remove everything else.
Be Purpose-Driven
One the other end of the spectrum, make sure you don’t just fill the page with forms, buttons, and other calls-to-action. You do need to have content, and it needs to be clear and thought through. What if this is the first page someone has ever seen of your site? Will they have any idea of what’s going on?
Videos are a great way of including relevant information without taking up page space that customers might just glaze over and scroll past anyway. Text is important, but it should be easy to read, and include headings that people can skim over but still get the key points.
Landing pages should have a few clear and well-placed calls-to-action included, but once again, make sure they have a purpose. For example, if you want to get more people to read your blogs and subscribe to your newsletter, it would be relevant to have a link to your blog page, which should hopefully have a place to subscribe to your newsletter as well. If you’re trying to get people to contact you, you probably don’t need a button to direct people to your blog page. If they want to find it through the main navigation on their own, great, otherwise does it really have anything to do with the purpose of the page?
Keep Your Audience in Mind
When it comes to optimizing landing pages, there are lots of people with “advice” to give. “Include a CTA immediately!”, “Keep the content brief!” and even “Skip your main navigation” are all pieces of advice I have read and seen in action. However, not every piece of advice you read may be good for your site or your customers. If you are planning people’s retirement, an immediate call-to-action and very little text may not inspire the confidence they need to convert. If you remove all navigation, your site may seem spammy and turn people away. In the end, remember that your customers are people, not statistics, and while general statistics are helpful, knowing your own customer base will always be the most relevant information to make your decision from.
Regardless of industry, we recommend keeping your message clear and relevant as the most important implementation you can do to your landing pages (well, other than making sure they load and work in the first place). If you’re trying to increase your conversions, consider refocusing your web pages, both what they say and how they appear. At Kolbeco, this is part of what we do. Whether you are looking to build new landing pages, to optimize current pages for conversions, or don’t know where to start, let us help!
