Year 2 - Online Acquisition

A landing page corresponds to the page that the visitor will reach once she or he clicked on a link which forwarded her/him to your website. Landing page optimization can be a full course in itself as there are so many things to tackle.

The best piece of advice I can give you is to always have a checklist as there are many things you can optimize on those pages. About the different points you should have a look at:

• Headline.
• Sub-headline.
  
• CTA.
• Bullet points list.
• Have a special offer.
• Have pictures and videos.
  
• Above the fold.
• Include reviews.
• Use the right colors.
  
• Include your target within the page.
• One focus.
• Make a quick test.
• Is your company visible on the page?
• Is your sales pitch convincing enough?
• Avoid the possibilities to flee.
• Make forms short.
• Do you offer several ways to contact you?
• Legal and privacy terms.
• Certifications/references/trustful third parties.
• Prioritize what you have to show.
• Are you measuring what is happening on the page?
• What happen once the conversion is made?

Headline

Have a catchy and descriptive headline.

Sub-headline

If you cannot say it all within the main headline, then use a sub-headline to make it more descriptive.

CTA

CTA stands for Call To Action, so to say, it corresponds to what you expect your visitors to perform on your website. As a best practice, you need to have it above the fold as it is the action that you want your visitors to perform. It has to be clear and to use action verbs. A CTA has to describe what you will get. Is your CTA visible enough? To test that, just have a look at your computer from a 3-meter distance, if you still can see it that's fine. Does it use the right colors in order to stand out from the page.

Bullet points list

Few people want to read your sales talk, so make their life easier by using a bullet point lists showing the benefits or features of your product/service. Note that you should mainly focus on benefits rather than features.

Have a special offer

People want to feel exclusive, they made an effort, they find out your page, so make them exclusive. It can be a special offer which is just available for the next 7 days. It can be a discount. It can be the number of remaining items. It can be a trial period. So find it out. The best thing here is to give an idea in terms of money about this special offer, like -50% worth 1,000€ saved. Include also the number of remaining items or days left.

Have pictures and videos

If there is a thing that people will have a look at it is your videos and pictures. If you don't have them people will not feel in confidence by acquiring your product/service. You need to clearly show them what it look like and what are the benefits they will get out of it. Did you include a CTA at the end of your video?

Above the fold

Just a tiny thing, but all the necessary information your visitor has to know in order to take a decision needs to be located above the fold. If you are not sure about the screen resolution of your visitors, just look through your analytics solution.

Include reviews

Well, yes, of course people can cheat on those, but the full thing is about getting fully transparent reviews. Ask to the right people to clearly mention what they think about your product/service. You can use a third party player here in order to give more sense to them.

Use the right colors

This piece of advice will make more sense for people who do not have a website and are building a landing page exclusively for the offer they would like to promote. If that's the case use colors which are in harmony with your product/service. In terms of harmony it has to fit your company website in order for your leads to not have the feeling to land on the website of a hacker or something.

Include your target within your content

Speak to your persona, use the pictures which represent them. If your audience is composed of male from 20 to 35 years old then have pictures showing males of 20 to 35 years. Qualified people reading your content should have the feeling that they came to the right place.

One focus

Your landing page needs to be focus on only one offer and target.

Make a quick test

Show your page to someone who has no clue about it and hide this page after 10 seconds and ask your tester what she/he remember of the page. If she/he can remember the main important points, you win.

Is your company visible on the page?

Ok, you are selling something, but do we know who is behind? Is it clear by just reading the logo who you are and what you can deliver?

Is your sales pitch convincing enough?

Once more ask to someone to see if she/he is convinced by what you are offering. If not ask her/him what you should improve. Do you have something unique that others do not have (USP).

Avoid the possibilities to flee

You can tailor your page in order to give less chances to your audience to leave your website or have a look at another page like removing the top navigation menu.

Make forms short

If there are forms on your page, remove everything you don't need within it in order to make it as painless as possible.

Do you offer several ways to contact you?

You have to adapt to your audience, and high chances that it means offering all possible contact channels: phone, email, chat, snail mail, social networks. Yes, that's a lot of work, but that's how it works. You also need to ask yourself how you could improve the intent to contact you, think in terms of privacy policy, informing them about the hours at which they have more chances to reach you, give a name they can refer to.

Privacy and legal terms

A landing page can be isolated from your website, so you need to add links to your legal terms and privacy pages, do not forget those points.

Certifications/references

If you received special distinctions, if your products and services are used by well known customers, that's your opportunity to show them. Same thing if your products/services have been tested by a third party player who approve them.

Prioritize what you have to show

According to your audience, prioritize to show what matters to them.

Are you measuring what is happening on the page?

As landing page can be isolated from the rest of the website, sometimes we forget to track interactions on them. A landing page is a great place to perform A/B testing or qualitative/quantitative data analysis tools such as clickmap and session recording.

Catch the one trying to leave

You can always fire a pop-up window if you analyze that the mouse is getting out of the window, keep in mind that your lead is going to be lost so if you can grab an email here and there, it is always helpful. There are solutions out there such as wBounce.

What happen once the conversion is made and/or through the process?

If the process to convert is long, explain this process to your visitor, like step 1 out of 3. If you have too much to say, use drop down menu. There is always a lot of stress when someone is inserting its credit card information on the web, you know that, that's why you need to give as much guidance as possible to your user. Tell them about what is coming next (an email is waiting for you within your mailbox, now you can connect to your account and follow the progress of your package, if there is something wrong or if you have questions here is the person you can contact...)