How to Optimize Your Landing Pages for More Conversions

Picture this scenario. You spend time and resources on all things digital marketing; SEO, PPC, social media, what have you. Your content marketing strategy is robust, and it should fuel some mighty efficient customer journeys. Your marketing tools are in order. In brief, your proverbial digital marketing ducks seem to be in a row. Except it doesn’t translate into revenue. What gives? There are, of course, ample possible answers to this riddle, including shortcomings in any and all of the above. However, underperforming landing pages are very often a prime suspect – and often an overlooked one, at that. If that scenario hits anywhere close to home, this article is here to help. As the title promises, we’ll delve into how to optimize your landing pages for more conversions in due depth.

So, let’s begin!

But first, let’s briefly define landing page optimization to solidify the following suggestions.

Landing page optimization, often abbreviated as LPO, is a series of practices that intends to, well, optimize landing pages. Unlike many more vague or expansive terms, LPO states its exact intent right in its name.

To do so, it spans across all landing page elements that inform final conversion rates. Readability, visual appeal, trust signals, offer clarity – you name it. Everything that might inform that crucial first impression, LPO seeks to optimize to ensure success.

That said, this process is by no means confined to landing pages alone. Your landing pages don’t exist in a vacuum, after all; they directly drive specific campaigns. They seek to populate your lists, drive traffic to your website, and ultimately secure conversions.

So, before you get started, you might want to lay some robust foundations. In brief, consider the three key steps that follow.

#1 Examine your current landing pages

First, examine your existing landing pages to identify potential issues and acquire insights. Where do your audiences click more? Which tones and visual choices seem to best resonate with them? What makes successful ones tick and underwhelming ones fail?

#2 Track your online visitors’ behavior

Speaking of insights, what better way to optimize your landing pages for more conversions than through audience data? Implement analytics tools of your choosing, from Google Analytics to heat maps, to best pinpoint what works.

#3 Personalize your website

Finally, put those insights to use and craft a customized experience for your visitors. Personalized content and recommendations can do much more than help with lead nurturing. In our context, they can also work wonders toward presenting them with ideal landing pages when it matters.

Now, let’s get specific. What exactly can you optimize on your landing pages?

Well, everything. That’s precisely why you need insights and data to focus your efforts; there’s no one-size-fits-all. Your audiences’ actions and inactions will determine what you need to improve.

So, consider the following LPO practices with your own needs in mind.

#1 Polish your copy

A snappy headline will attract your audiences’ attention better than most elements. Conversely, nothing will drive them away faster than vague, jargon-filled walls of text. In this regard, copy is king.

Optimizing copy is a tricky subject to tackle because audiences differ so much. What works for one business may sabotage another. So here you may begin with universally applicable, tried-and-tested qualities like:

• Brevity - keep it as brief as possible. What are you offering, and how does it solve your audiences’ problems?
• Clarity - make your offer as straightforward as possible. What exactly should your audiences expect after clicking your CTA?
• Readability - keep your copy highly readable. Give lines space to breathe, and avoid jargon unless your audiences love it.

#2 Perfect your design

A picture is worth a thousand words, however. Design enhancements will help optimize your landing pages for more conversions better than most LPO practices.

Landing page design should frame your copy and allow the viewer to digest your offerings immediately. It should let them focus on key elements and not distract them, all while a highly readable copy entices them.

To ensure these qualities, you may:

• Choose colors that don’t bleed into one another, keep your copy readable, and let your CTA pop out.
• Eliminate all visual distractions and unnecessary secondary elements like stock photos.
• Use white space to let your copy breathe.
• Use directional cues, such as arrows, shapes, and pictures of humans pointing or looking at your CTA’s direction.
• Keep your most valuable information above the fold.

#3 Refine your CTAs

Having mentioned CTAs manifold by now, those vital buttons are your literal calls to action. They spell out the exact actions you want your audiences to take, so they need to be perfect.

There are many ways to refine your CTAs, and some will again depend on your audience. Still, you may begin to optimize your landing pages for more conversions with the following:

• Color, shape, and readability - as above, ensure your CTAs’ design catches the eye and ensures readability.
• Placement - place your CTAs as high as possible and away from all visual distractions. As you do, consider your offer’s complexity, as Joshua Turk suggests.
• Quantity - limit the number of CTAs on each landing page down to the absolute minimum to ensure predictable outcomes.
• Value - have your CTA copy frame your offer in terms of undeniable importance for your audiences.
• Tone - skip subtlety and implicit suggestions, and go for strong action verbs to encourage engagement.
• Urgency - incite urgency through copy and countdown timers. Research finds that suggesting exclusivity and urgency still works wonders.

#4 Leverage social proof

Next, all such enhancements aside, you still need your audiences to trust you. Modern buyers are very wary of sales-y language and quite cautious with their interactions with marketing material.

Just as you likely already do with your website, you may leverage social proof for your landing pages too. Research finds it works exceptionally well, and it’s very easy to put to use.

Simply grab quotes, reviews, testimonials, and any other social proof applicable to your products or services. Use those to address undecided prospects, and mind the following as you do:

• Placement - insert social proof where your design allows for instant visibility, but don’t let it overshadow your CTA.
• Brevity - use brief, snappy quotes to avoid visual clutter, and offer links if you want to present more extensive testimonials.
• Visual appeal - use popping visuals to let it stand out, and ideally use headshots to humanize them further.

#5 Ensure fast loading speeds and optimize for mobile

Finally, what better way to optimize your landing pages for more conversions than to ensure blazing-fast speeds across devices? Google research has been suggesting this for years, and they themselves suggest so in their support article on the subject.

To ensure both fast speeds and excellent mobile experiences, you may:

• Eliminate all clutter - removing all unnecessary elements also has the distinct benefit of faster loading speeds.
• Adopt a mobile-first design philosophy - design simplicity will benefit desktop and mobile users alike.
• Opt for AMP versions of your landing pages - their perceived loading times are excellent.
• Adjust your copy for voice search - reflect the conversational tone that mobile users who voice search use for better rankings.
• Monitor your landing pages for mobile-friendliness - Google’s PageSpeed tools are an excellent asset for this necessary practice.

To conclude, those are the five key ways in which you may optimize your landing pages for more conversions. Despite their different focus areas, they all serve the same ultimate goal; to ensure readability, clarity, trust, and visual appeal. Of course, while all of these offer universal value, you should always proceed with your own analytics in mind. Consult your analytics tools to determine what does and doesn’t click with your audiences. Run consistent, thorough A/B tests to inform your course and focus on one element at a time. Remember, your goal is always to entice your unique audiences to convert – and nobody else’s. Except your competitors’, of course. Those you will need to outdo. Hopefully, this article will help you do so.