We all have tried, at least once, creating a new landing page that is seemingly wrong, causing us headaches and bringing us a huge problem in our business. We think that we can just make multiple landing pages. In fact, 68% of the companies worldwide create numbers of landing pages yet only 13% of that percentage thinks they are doing it well; the rest are hesitant.
For instance, you are preparing to meet the scheduled deadline in launching your organization’s new campaign. You have been killing yourself in having many sleepless nights just to make sure that everything runs smoothly according to your plan. You really want to make sure that your product or service is ready to be sold to the targeted customers and prospects. You wait for your customer’s payment, traffic sources lined up trying to lead and locate your customers into your site and your whole staff is ready. Now, you create a new landing page, particularly a sales page that can engage customers, spark interest in your product or service, and initiate your first sales and your revenue as well. You go to publish your new sales page; you drive traffic to it and … nada. Nothing happens. And then you start to wonder and begin to ask questions like, “What happened?” “Why?” “Where did I go wrong?” and the most important question, “How can I fix this right away?”
The 8 Mistakes
Sometimes, this kind of failure can be caused by the product or service you are offering however, most of the time; it is caused by a problematic landing page. So, when your campaign fails, the first thing you should think about is your newly created landing page. The purpose of your landing pages is to drive potential customers to your sales funnel and this is why you should make sure that your landing page is optimized and ready for the customers.
This article will discuss about the eight common and biggest mistakes you might be doing. These eight mistakes are the ones that can be oftentimes observed in the field and that can really hurt your conversions. The following also provides some of the effective ways on how to fix the problems.
- Not optimized
You have to know that your customers might be impatient. They can be very busy and do not have time to wait for your landing page to load. Slow site can cause slow conversions. More than two seconds of waiting can cause your customers to leave your site.
How to Fix This:
You can consider using new markups to build your landing pages. Consider adopting for new ways and technology.
- A Problematic Headline
Everything starts with a headline. You headline is the very first thing that your customers and potential prospects see when they actually be placed in your landing page. Problems exist when your headline is ineffective in making your customers interested. And when your headline is not working at all, it is almost of impossible for your landing page to convert.
However, if the problem is really in your headline, you have to know that your headline is the quickest element you and your staff can fix. It is the very first thing you can easily change if your landing page is not working and not performing opposed to what expected.
So, the question then follows: How can you remake and re-craft you headline? The first step to do in creating a new headline is to figure out the most fitting reason/s why your previous headline was ineffective and not converting. After analyzing and rooting out the causes, you can now modify your new headline as necessary.
How to Fix Ineffective Headlines
To fix ineffective headlines, the following questions are needed to be asked:
- Does it concern your customers?
Does your headline worth it? You have to evaluate by anticipating further question like, if your potential customers and prospects see your headline on any social media site, would they care? Would they give their attention? Keep asking these questions and do not stop until you get to discover the most compelling reason for a customer to want and be interested with your offered product and service. The answers to this question can now be added to your new headline to attract targeted customers.
- Is it too idealistic?
Are you really sure that the claims and visions that you have put in your headline can really be materialized or realized? Are they possible or feasible? If so, you have to add more elements that would serve to be your proof for your credibility to make customers believe you. These elements can be testimonials, case studies, or other reliable sources.
- Is it nailed to your customer’s wants?
Does your headline offer a specific, relevant and not generalized benefit to your customers? One thing that you can do is to add numbers in your headline. For instance, you can add number of steps, time, or money saved by your solution, and more.
- Does it urge your customers to make and action?
It is advisable for you to put deadline in your headline and to encourage customers to act within a span of time. In this way, they will feel more obliged to give make an action. It is better than to try to wait for your customers in a very long period of time.
- Is it confusing and irrelevant?
Does your headline provide a clear message? Directing your customers in a very understandable instruction? Can someone who has just read your headline can grasp and understand your business’s offer in just one sight? If it does not, revise.
- Does it offer interesting product or service?
In answering this question, you also have to put consideration in your products and/or services. You have to give your customers a real, tangible benefit that they cannot get anywhere outside your business and matching your headline to your offered products and services is a must. If you cannot promise and provide that kind of value, you need to revise your offer.
- A Bad Call-to-Action
If the headline is the most important element to consider in landing pages and conversion, the second most important is the way how you call your customers to action.
It is solely your responsibility to tell your customers what they have to do on your landing page. Generally, this includes telling your customers to click the call-to-action button you provided and give them options such as: (A) join your email list or (B) purchase your product or service.
The problem of not telling your customers what to do is you cannot make any assumptions that your customers will do anything. You cannot expect average and disinterested customers to initiate any action and figure out the ways on their own. The very think that would more likely to happen is they will just exit your landing page, and this will surely hurt your conversions.
How to Fix Your Ways in Calling Action
Go through each of your landing pages. Ask question like, “are my call-to-action buttons easy to locate and are conspicuous enough for my customers? Does my copy clearly outline exactly what a person has to do in joining my list or purchase my product or service?
The No. 1 Solution
In wanting to have a greater conversions, you can try split testing on your button copy as and on the placement of your buttons. Once you now have a very clear call to action on your page, it is advisable for you to split testing your buttons copy and see which of call to action best interests and resonates with your audience and customers.
According to some valid sources, compare to other elements, testing button copy has more potential to increase your conversions. For instance, the Coyle Report recorded a 198% conversion-rate boost in previous year after a small change in their button copy. Their “YES! SEND ME” won out by 198% in the split test.
Here are the few possible split tests that you can have if you want to try your own call-to-action copy:
- Point of view from first person to second person.
For example: from “I want the course” to “Get the course.”
- Focus on the result vs. intended action.
Example: you can try changing your call to action copy from “Watch the video” to “Click here.”
- From Caps Lock to Non Caps Lock.
Example: from “YES! SEND ME THIS EBOOK” to “Yes! Send Me This E-book.”
- Free vs. Download.
Example: you can have “Download the Report” instead of having “Free Report Access Here.”
- The Urgency Angle.
Example: instead of having “Get This Now”, you can try “Get This Before Midnight.”
After these, you can now try testing and see what you find out.
- Complicated and Annoying Forms
One of the reasons of a problematic conversion is a complicated form. Customers get too confused in filling their information in your form. If you want to get information for them, create form as simple as possible.
Other problem with regards to your form is that it might be creating too much disturbance and annoyance to your customers. Asking too much information from your customers can be generally seen with lead generation pages. Oftentimes, when you are trying to have a lead, the thing that you need at first is a way to contact that person. Thus, enterprises and organizations are expected to create forms for customers. Yet most of the pages force audience and prospects to provide and fill their personal information such as their name, contact information, age, address, business size, location and more, without further background research if the prospects really want to establish a connection with the business or not. You have to know that even if you are offering something valuable, some customers just do not care.
How to Fix it:
Firstly, create a very simple form so that customers can fill their information quickly. Secondly, only ask for your potential customer’s email on your initial lead generation page. You can also ask for their first name and email at most, if you are planning to personalize your emails.
Pro Tip:
If your business really needs additional information from your customers in order to follow-up with your leads, you have to consider asking for this information after your initial lead page. You do not want to piss off your customers by being so obnoxious and obvious. If you are engaging in email automation, it’s important to get demographic information to optimize your email segmentation.
- Too Much Information
Giving too much and probably irrelevant information is one of the things that annoy your customers and one of the annoying mistakes you can make on your lading pages. Your lading page should only contain the copy you need for you to entice customers to join your list or purchase your products.
For a general lead page, the “bare minimum” could be your headline and a call-to-action button. On the other hand, for a sales page, this might be as simple as a video and u button to purchase your product. The only way to find out is to start testing long copy vs. short copy for your own audience sees as “too much information.” It also depends on you to test in figuring out what’s the “bare minimum copy” for your customers.
How to Fix it:
If you are starting to think that you are already asking too much information from your customers, run a split test against a landing page with 50% fewer elements and see the results.
No Demographics
Your ideal customer might think, upon seeing your landing page, “No, this is not for me. It feels like they do not really get what I want.” This gets more difficult because you do not get to hear that message. You will never know. And the customer will just exit your landing page and eventually, you will see the lack of their engagement show up in your numbers.
Of course, you do not want that to happen. You want your ideal customers to look, explore your page and think: “Yes, they get it. They really know what I am looking for.”
How to fix it:
It is exactly understanding who your ideal customer is and who is he: His preferences, interests, needs and wants. You then have to keep testing until you can find the offer that your ideal customer cannot resist.
Here are a few ways to understand who your ideal customer is:
- Interact and connect your Ideal Customer online.
One way to do this is to join Facebook and other social media communities where your ideal customers spend time. Take note of the forums where they hang out and the problems they are talking about.
- Find out how your ideal customer speaks
You got to look at their support emails, blog post comments, forum postings, Facebook messages, Twitter feeds – and start getting used to how your ideal customers speaks. You also have to give importance to what kind of language they are using.
- Start with the words and phrases you have gained
You have to make a list. This can be words, phrases and/or any ideas that come from your ideal customer’s blog comments, forum posts, support emails. Facebook posts, etc. After having these, you can now start using those in your copy.
Note: Your goal is to get your customer to look at your landing page and to make them say: “Yes! That is definitely me! They are talking to me!” How to do this? You just have to figure out who they are, and speak to them in the language that inspires them to take action.
- Mobile Incompatibility
Because mobile traffic accounts are almost more than the third of all pages served around the globe, every landing should be compatible with mobile devices and 100% responsive. However, not all marketers are able to provide this.
The problem with your pages that cannot be loaded with mobile devices is you will more likely missing out on significant numbers of leads and sales.
How to fix this:
When publishing a new landing page, there is a need to immediately check the following: 1) all the integrations work, and 2) if the new page looks and behaves nicely on a mobile devices and tablets, the way it does in a computer device. It these are not meet, there is a possibility that you will lose conversions.
- Ugly Landing Page Design
There are many possible problems that you may encounter on your landing page design, which can also damage your conversions.
The following are the biggest design flaws you might be doing:
- Too many designs
If there are many things that are going on, your customers might get overwhelmed and distracted from your overall message. This can because customers exit your page.
- Mismatching of images and copy
For instance, you are creating a landing page about a new wine guide, your background images should be related to wines. Anything else would confuse your audience.
- Design doesn’t lead customers to target place
A perfect landing page that optimized for conversions nails eyes to the most important elements on the page, like the call-to-action button. You have to re-create if you think your pages elements point away from the call-to-action.
- Hidden call-to-action buttons
You have to make sure that your customers will directly see your call-to-action buttons. Placing your first call-to-action button above the fold and another at the bottom of the page is the ideal thing to do.
- Brand inconsistency
Landing page designs must always coincide to whatever media ads and social media posts are driving traffic to the page. If not, visitors might wonder and question whether they have landed in the right place, or worse, they might flag your ads.
- Bad choice of color
Choosing an appropriate color scheme that can surely work with your brand and can draw attention to the most important parts of your landing page is also important. For instance, your call-to-action buttons should ideally be the same unique color to attract attention from the rest of your page.
How to fix this?
Run down the list and evaluate your page critically. Or, you can ask a friend or colleague to look at your design with fresh eyes.
