With a strong social media and content strategy in place, getting visitors to a page can be simple. The tough part comes after that, when you want to subtly direct someone to perform a very specific action on that page.
A landing page is all about one thing: conversions. The goal is to design a layout with the right copy and imagery to persuade someone to give you something (usually an email address). That is easier said than done, especially when we visit thousands of web pages each day and become immune to clever marketing.
While you could spend hours reading about the must-have elements for the perfect landing page, there are a handful of simple, common mistakes that, if fixed, can have a powerful effect on your conversions.
[bctt tweet “”A #LandingPage has one purpose: to convert.” -@ShaunNestor”]
Here are the top five landing page mistakes that you need to avoid:
1. Too many CTAs
Everything on your landing page should persuade visitors to complete one very specific action. If you want to increase email subscriptions to your blog, then every graphic, button, and piece of copy should support that message.
It may be tempting to give visitors another option in case they don’t want to leave their email address, but this will only hurt your overall conversions. It’s better to have a very strong call to action and have people exit your landing page than dilute your message with a bunch of other buttons.
2. Hiding the Goods
Yes, a successful landing page is designed to spark curiosity and entice visitors to give something (like an email address) to get an offer in return (a free trial, a downloadable e-book, a spot at a webinar). But, you can’t keep your offer a mystery forever! You’re not giving your offer away for free if you show visitors a preview on your landing page.
If you are hosting a webinar, film a quick, 15-second preview and post that on the landing page. This will prove the value of your offer and ultimately motivate visitors to get the full thing.
3. Asking for Too Much
Do you really need to know someone’s phone number? Or which state he or she lives in? If you ask for too much information on your landing page, you’ll only scare visitors away.
Make sure you ask for the bare minimum. Really, the most important thing is an email address. All the extra stuff falls into the nice-to-have category. Just like with your CTA, be very specific about what you want to get from your visitors. Focus on one to three things (email address, name, and industry, for example), and make your form short and sweet.
4. Including a Navigation Menu
You shouldn’t think about your landing page like just another page on your website. The standard web page rules do not apply. For example, your main navigation menu should not be visible on a landing page. Although it logically makes sense to allow visitors to browse your website, you don’t want to take away from the strong landing page you’ve created.
Think about how a visitors arrive at your landing page. They click a link on social media, in an email, or in a Google search result. They have an idea of what the landing page is about, and decide to visit it to learn more about that specific thing or complete that certain task. It’s your job to make that as easy as possible for them, which often means narrowing down the options.
5. Ignoring the “Thank You” Page
We’re so focused on optimizing the landing page and getting email addresses from visitors that we sometimes completely forget about what happens after the conversion. If you’re simply throwing together a thank you or confirmation page, you’re missing out on a great opportunity for another CTA.
Remember how we talked about only having one CTA on your landing page? Well, if you originally had multiple, you can now add one of those multiple CTAs to your thank you page. The secondary CTA on your thank you page should not be as strong, but you can still promote other ways to connect and engage for visitors. For example, you could prompt visitors to subscribe to your blog or follow you on social media, or you could add links to your most popular blog posts or post a video.
Take Action!
Creating the perfect landing page is an art and a science. Avoiding these simple mistakes builds a good foundation, but the only way you’ll really learn what works and doesn’t work is by testing. Something as small as changing the color of your CTA button can have a huge impact on conversions.
We cover landing pages and call-to-action extensively in our guide to getting started with online marketing. Check it out today and start converting more website visitors to paying customers.