If you’re looking to improve your website’s conversion rate—and who isn’t?—one of the first things you should look at is your landing pages. Landing pages are of course key pages on your brand’s website for accomplishing important lead generation and sales goals. And there are several common landing page mistakes that keep people from completing those actions you want them to take.
And if your website simply isn’t converting at all, it’s likely that you’ve made at least some of these common landing page mistakes.
So, take a look at the landing pages you’ve built on your site. Review them to see if they reflect any of these issues. If they do, address them and you should soon see an improvement in your conversion rates.
Common Landing Page Mistakes to Avoid
- Landing pages aren’t dedicated to just one goal – Landing pages should focus on one—and only one—goal. Whether it’s to get people to subscribe to a newsletter, request a free quote, download an e-book, buy a particular product, or something else, the page should be all about that goal.
- Not aligning the goal to the stage of the buyer’s journey – Think about where people are on their buyer’s journey when they arrive at your landing page. For example, if this is the first time they’re interacting with your brand, you shouldn’t be trying to get them to make a purchase—especially a high consideration one. Or, if they’re researching options, use the landing page to connect them to important information about your brand that will help them reach a decision.
- Having distractions on the landing page – When we say the page should be dedicated to one goal, we mean that there should be nothing else there. No unrelated text or images. No other calls to action (CTAs). No mentions of other offers or actions the user can take. Don’t even include all your site’s primary navigation on a landing page. Give the user one clear path to conversion.
- Making people create an account to complete the CTA – It’s great to have registered users on your site. But if you force people to create an account (or even sign in if they don’t remember their login information), you lose lots of people at the point of conversion. If you do have user accounts, make sure your landing pages give people the easy option of completing the action as a guest, without signing in or making an account.
- Not focusing on benefits – Surely you’re familiar with the benefits-over-features mantra of sales. Well, it goes for landing pages, too. Make sure visitors quickly get a clear idea of how their lives will improve by completing the action on the landing page.
- Not giving users a clear idea what happens when they click – Your visitors should quickly understand exactly what to expect when they click on that CTA. And then that’s what they should get. But if they’re unsure of the purpose, or whether it’s the last step they have to take, they’ll be less likely to convert.
- Having long or complicated web forms – People don’t want to fill out long forms. Don’t make them. Stick to the most basic information you need. You can always collect more later, as you develop your relationship with the consumer.
