May 21, 2021

An effective landing page acts as a shop window. If you place enough enticing web copy on the page that matches your brand’s voice, aesthetic, and message, it will generate leads and bring in a profit.

If your landing page is weak, users will walk away without taking any action on what you have placed in front of them.

A weak landing page is bad for search engine optimization and it’s also bad for sales and growth. 

To understand the difference between a strong and weak landing page, you have to understand what invites your users to leave.

1. Complicated Opt-in Forms

We are protective of our email addresses.  We don’t want to give them away just to become spammed over and over again. If your landing page opt-in form asks your audience to fill out too much information, has too many questions, or is too complicated, it will cause them to bounce.

Why?

People get bored easily and become suspicious if too many questions are asked. 

Keep your opt-in forms simple, asking only for the first name, email address, and possibly their website. 

Your audience’s time is precious and the information they will release, at first, will be little to none. 

Once you have their email address, you can build trust over time as you learn more about them as a customer.

2. Overwhelming Them with Offers

While making offers on your landing page is good, as this is what funnels your audience in from being leads to being paying customers, too many offers is a bad thing. You don’t want to create unnecessary distractions or cause your audience to become overwhelmed by choice. 

When faced with more than one option, it is often easier to walk away than it is to decide between them. 

Your landing page must have one focused goal, to convert your audience. To do this, you must be clear on what you want your audience to do, so don’t give them multiple offers to click on. Your goal is simple: have them fill out the form, collect their gift, and enjoy the value it adds to their life.

3. Weak Headlines

The headline of your landing page is the first thing your audience sees when they arrive on the page. A powerful headline is going to make your audience believe that their lives will be positively altered in some way by clicking through your landing page.

Strong headlines will sell as long as they are persuasive enough to convince your audience to act. 

How to craft a powerful headline?

1. Use verifiable numbers in your headline to quantify your results.
2. Use social proof or testimonials to catch your audience’s attention.

When you use these two tactics, not only do you become more credible, but you add value to the headline that makes your audience click through. You want to outline the problem, solve it, and show proof of your success. 

4. Call to Action Prompts That Lack Imagination

One of the major issues with call-to-actions is that they often lack imagination and are generic in the wording. You will see common instances of “click here now” and “sign up free” and while these can convert, they do not add value to the landing page.

When someone reads from your headline down, they are already interested in what you are offering, so why not add in a call to action that actually speaks to them?

You want to craft a persuasive call-to-action that engages your audience and reminds them why they clicked onto your landing page in the first place. 

5. Unfriendly to Mobile Devices

A responsive design is needed as 3 billion people have access to smartphones [1].

This means that a large portion of the world is using their smartphones to browse the internet or shop online, and if they are landing on a poorly optimized webpage, they are likely going to bounce.

You will miss out on conversions and a ton of sales as a result. 

A responsive design that is mobile-friendly will ensure that your landing page does not look like a disorganized mess. 

6. No Trust

If your audience does not trust you, they aren’t going to subscribe. No one wants to get a phone call, an email, or a newsletter from a company that they know nothing about or have no rapport with. 

You get conversions by having your audience trust you, but to do this, you need to build credibility.

One way of doing this is to include social proof on your landing page in the form of testimonials.

When new prospects see testimonials, this builds their confidence in you and puts their mind at ease.  Other ways of building credibility are through a money-back guarantee, a privacy policy, and no credit card needed to opt-in.

If you can develop your landing pages correctly, users will be more engaged. If all other things are equal, this means your profits go up. If you have any questions on landing page design or want us to evaluate your landing page, give us a call today or fill out our contact form.