Are visitors making it to your landing page only to leave and not take action?

Landing pages are one of the most critical components of both online and offline marketing. It serves as a tool to guide your business prospects to the next phase in the buying cycle. Landing pages serve a single purpose with a single message with the goal of driving the prospect to action.

One of the biggest mistakes small businesses make when crafting landing pages is including too much information. Your product or service may offer several benefits, but a landing page is not the place to share about all of them. Instead of adding additional copy to the landing page, construct the landing page in such a way that it includes links to information that enhances or supports the key message.  

It’s also important to optimize your landing page.  Read on to learn about five key areas of optimization.

#1 Provide valuable information: Increase links to your landing page by offering a valuable download or other information.  If you give something valuable away, you are more likely to earn inbound links to your page.

#2 Optimize the Call-to-Action:  The call-to-action shares exactly what you want the prospect to do when they arrive at your page and review the information. It should be positioned above the fold and prominently displayed for easy engagement. Make sure your call-to-action is clear. If you are offering a free download, the call-to-action should read “free download,” not “submit” or “go”, or “click here.”

#3 Use keywords in product descriptions: Whether you offer a product or service, it is important to show what you offer in context use descriptions that include your industry keywords. The landing page may include a video, testimonials, or images, but it is important to show members of your target audience doing business with you. Video is the best way to demonstrate the value of your product or service. A study by EyeView Visual revealed that video has been shown to produce a conversion rate of up to 80 percent.

#4 Build trust to increase links and shares: Landing pages are a tool for building trust with the audience. Pages that include a product guarantee, or free trial, or discount receive higher conversion than those that do not. By including an offer, your business is stating that you are willing to take some risk with the transaction too. For more trust-building tactics read this article in webgeekly.com.

#5 Reduce the available options:  Keep your content simple and short. Offer only one message and action to help draw the attention of the viewers directly to action area. Getting to the final landing page content will take several revisions. The pages with the highest conversion rates present copy that is succinct and short, includes use of bullets and lists for key benefits, shares why your business is the one to choose, and paints a clear picture of the primary message using the least amount of space possible.