As we prepare to say goodbye to 2021 and look ahead to the new year, most of us have already started scribbling down a list of resolutions. Your business resolutions might include gaining customers and acquiring new leads that increase sales. However, in order to accomplish these goals, there’s something you must move to the top of that resolution’s list. Optimizing your landing page — or landing pages — ensures that you achieve the highest possible conversion rate from the visitors who arrive at that page. Landing page optimization can help you lower your customer acquisition costs, acquire more customers and maximize the value of your ad spend.
What is a landing page?
A landing page is a standalone web page created specifically for a single goal or purpose such as a call-to-action. A visitor views a landing page after they click a link from an email or ad, or some other kind of marketing campaign.
What is landing page optimization?
Landing page optimization refers to the process of improving any elements on your landing page to increase conversions. Instead of redesigning the entire page based on subjective preference, you use data and anecdotal evidence from user activity. To aid you in your optimization, we’ve put together this guide to help you get your landing pages in top shape — just in time for the new year!
First, Find Your Weak Spots
As previously mentioned, landing page optimization is based on user activity data. How does one attain and analyze this data? There are several forms of analytics one can use to find out what one’s site visitors are drawn to. We broke down a list to help guide you through which analytics reports could inform you:
Heat Map: A visual overview of where your visitors are clicking. The brighter the area, the higher frequency in clicks; the darker the area, the lower its frequency. As a specific area of your page gets more clicks, the color on the heat map will change from cool-toned blues/greens to warm-toned yellows/reds.
Scroll Map: It shows where scrolling activity occurs on the page. If you see lots of white or cool colors on the map, people have either left the landing page or quickly scrolled past the section. Red, orange, and yellow areas indicate where people stopped and looked on the page.
Confetti Report: This report shows you where individual clicks have occurred. Click data is based on ad server logs from the ad exchange(s). Depending on the analytics provider, one can see the time, date, and even location of the individual click.
Overlay and List reports: The Overlay report shows the elements on your page that have received clicks, demonstrated with plus (+) markers. Red markers are elements that are more popular and have received more clicks than blue markers. One of the most effective uses of a List Report is to cross-reference with the Overlay Report for a better understanding of which elements correspond to specific markers.
Be Clear About Your Goals
When you first start planning your optimization redesign, think about how you want to welcome potential customers on the landing page. You want them to feel appreciated, inspired, informed, and excited.
Start by thinking about what your specific goal for a customer would be, and turn that goal into a headline…or an eye-catching button…or a video tutorial…Whatever will drive the viewer to your conversion. Some specific goals and matching calls-to-action could be:
- Subscribe to our newsletter
- Apply to our program
- Watch our video
Simplify and clean your landing pages of visual clutter. While it may sound counterintuitive to take away certain eye-catching graphics or colorful headers, remember that, unlike a webpage that encourages exploration and introduces the brand, a landing page has a specific focus and function that is supposed to encourage conversion from visitors to customers.
Make a purchase or engagement as easy for visitors as possible. The more they have to struggle with the process, the less likely they will go forward with the CTA (call-to-action).
For example, all important parts of your CTA should be above the scroll line. A scrolline, or digital fold, is the point at which the user must scroll to get more information. This means you can use a scroll map to easily identify the location of the average scroll line on different devices. So, you can still keep your CTA, important information, or engagement media front and center.
More importantly, keep CTA buttons simple and obvious. With different devices to anticipate while designing, keeping things short and sweet helps the design process while maintaining clarity.
Consistency is Key
While on-brand messaging is essential, visual consistency can see a huge increase in conversion rates. Again, think about the experience a user has when changing web pages.
If you place a Youtube ad that takes people to your landing page, the text, imagery, and other elements of your ad should be similarly reflected on the landing page. They should look aesthetically similar and contain the same information. Otherwise, your potential customer will be confused and your brand loses trust.
Maintaining consistency also has a byproduct of emphasizing or reinforcing your brand’s aesthetic or visual identity. Making sure advertisements visually derive from the brand’s web aesthetic further cements familiarity in branding colors, logos, and graphic elements.
Before launching any redesign, cross-reference your digital ads with their corresponding landing pages. Make sure visually or creatively they are too different from each other.
Our team at Agency 102 are experts in campaign creation, content strategy, and landing page optimization. Check out this case study of our collaboration with KLIK to see our work firsthand! Agency 102 works hard to make sure every detail is to our client’s liking. We take careful consideration and scrutiny for all our web launches. For a consultation, contact us here.
