Landing pages are the web-front door to your marketing efforts. They are where your prospects either decide to trust your brand or click away forever. Yet, most marketers unintentionally sabotage their conversion rates by making fundamental mistakes that drive potential customers running in the direction of their competition.
Research suggests that the general industry-wide average landing page conversion rate is approximately 2.35%. The industry leaders’ conversion rates are at least 11.45%. What makes the winners different? They avoid these three costly mistakes plaguing most marketing efforts.
1. Terrible Headlines That Fail to Provide Value
Your headline is the first thing visitors will see, and you have around eight seconds to get their attention. Most marketers create headlines that are clever-sounding but don’t provide specific value. Clichés like “Welcome to Our Platform” or “The Best Solution for Your Business” don’t inform visitors what precisely they will receive.
Good headlines speak to your target audience’s pain points and hopes in plain language. Your company or product benefits are not what good headlines speak to, but rather the change your solution brings. Compare “Our Advanced Marketing Software” with “Double Your Lead Generation in 30 Days.” The second headline gets your reader’s attention because it speaks directly to a quantifiable, particular performance improvement marketing professionals can understand.
Your value proposition should be directly apparent in the first few words. Visitors should not have to scroll, click, or guess what you are offering. The most effective landing pages employ great headlines accompanied by supporting sub-headlines that further reinforce the principal message and establish credibility with accurate facts or social proof.
2. Neglecting Mobile User Experience
Mobile traffic accounts for more than half of all web traffic, but millions of landing pages still prioritize desktop design over mobile usability. This neglect is costing companies serious cash, as mobile visitors bounce from poorly optimized pages in droves.
Mobile optimization with King Kong does far more than making sure text can be read on smaller screens. Load time is even more critical on mobile, where users expect pages to load in three seconds or less. Images that are perfect on desktop slow down mobile load times, creating friction that drives prospects away before they have an opportunity to convert.
Touch-friendly form and navigation design is just as crucial. Buttons need to be sufficiently spaced apart, so they are not accidentally tapped, and forms need to limit fields. The average marketer has no idea how frustrating it is to complete lengthy forms on mobile. Streamlining your mobile user conversion process will sometimes mean completely redesigning your entire process for gathering information.
3. Avoiding A/B Testing for Ongoing Improvement
The biggest mistake those marketers make is assuming they know what will succeed and not testing that assumption. Even experienced professionals are frequently mistaken about what headlines, images, or button invitations will attract the highest rates of conversion.
A/B testing takes guesswork out of optimization by letting actual user behavior determine the winner. Small changes often have remarkably large effects on conversion rates. Simply modifying “Get Started” to “Claim Your Free Trial” might seem insignificant, but it could increase conversions by 20% or more.
Good testing requires patience and statistical significance. Tests with low traffic or tests that are executed for a few days are inconclusive. Great marketers test all the time, so every landing page is a living, breathing document that evolves over time based on real-world results instead of opinions or best practices in the industry.
Revamp Your Landing Pages Today
These three mistakes sabotage more marketing efforts than anything else. The good news is that they’re completely avoidable when you apply the right technique. Start by checking out your current landing pages on these points: Does your headline immediately show clear value? Do your pages perform flawlessly on smartphones? Are you trying variations to get maximum performance?
Correct these underlying issues, and you’ll be among the marketers with conversion rates significantly higher than industry norms.
