A recent study by Marketing Sherpa reveals that there are small number of online marketers who can use landing pages to their maximum profits According to this study, around 44% of clicks for B2B web companies lead their visitor to the homepage, & not a targeted landing page. This is quite shocking !
The study further discloses that of all B2B companies that make use of landing pages, around 62% have six or less number of landing pages. Surprisingly enough, only half the percentage of all companies that utilize landing pages for conversion also test them to get better results.
Instead of giving excuses as to why you are not making the best use of landing pages, you should gear up to build them effectively with a view to increasing the rate of conversion exponentially. If you are ready, given below are a couple of useful dos and don’ts that you can abide by to get best results while building landing pages for more lead generation.
#1. Make Landing Pages Relevant to Search Query
Relevance is foremost when you are building a landing page to compel visitors to buy your product, complete an online form or download some useful material. Most of the online marketers fail to make a cut while optimizing the landing page content. The landing page content should efficiently match the search query or search term. Only those landing pages that respond directly to the user’s search query have maximum number of conversions.
#2. Don’t Use Excessive Content
Placing a heap of content on a landing page can quickly distract the user rather than working as a converting factor. As mentioned in point #1, it’s vital to ensure that the content on the landing page fits in completely with what the searcher is actually for. However, you should never make the mistake of using too much copy or content. After all, you are building a landing page, and not a website. All that you need to include in the content is a compelling offer, the value that it can provide and the action required to get the value. So, try to keep your message short and succinct while being relevant.
#3. Make the Value Proposition Absolutely Clear
Once the user is on your landing page, you have only a couple of seconds to show them the benefits (and convince). You can never expect the visitor to complete a desired action, unless you make the value proposition very clear. If your landing page doesn’t do a good job of revealing the benefits immediately, you’ll face the risk of losing or driving away the user.
#4. Don’t Include Navigation
Even today, there are lots of B2B companies or agencies that include navigation links on the landing pages. How can you ever forget the purpose that a landing page is built around? The main goal of landing pages is to convince the visitor to perform some specific action or task. No matter how attractive or well-designed your landing page looks, navigational links will pave the path for visitors to leave.
#5. Use Images to Please
Let me repeat: “We humans are visual creatures”. It’s in the human nature to get attracted towards things that have aesthetic beauty. Depending on what you offer or want to sell, you can include high quality relevant images to complement the textual content on the landing page. Be careful not use the wrong types or quality of images, as it can immediately ruin conversions.
#6. Don’t Include Several Calls-to-Action
Definitely, you are free to place multiple calls-to-action while building the landing page. The best recommendation, however, is to limit the number of call-to-action to just 1 or 2. Define your business goals prior to creating the landing page and decide about the most important action that you would like the user to complete. Using several calls-to-action is a good way to distract.
#7. Make Forms Simple
A lot of businesses make the mistake of making the online form too long in a bid to collect plenty of information from the user. Avoid such practices, as asking for too much details reduces the conversion rates. Allow the user to get started as quickly as possible. Once you have the basic (that you really require) information, you can dig out more during the lead nurturing process.
#8. Don’t Over-Test
Testing is one of the best practices that you can follow to optimize and build highly converting landing pages. However, you should not over-test the landing pages as it may lead you to confusion or frustration.
Do you want to add more dos and don’ts to this list? Please don’t hesitate to share them in comments.
