Looking to boost conversions on your website? Remember these 3 words: DESIGN! DESIGN!! DESIGN!!!. According to research from Stanford University, 46.1% of people say a website’s design is the top criteria for deciding if a company is credible or not. So, it’s extremely important that your design looks professional.
Landing pages are created with the intent of converting site visitors into sales. Your conversion rate is the percentage of visitors to your website that complete a desired goal (a conversion) out of the total number of visitors. A high conversion rate is indicative of successful marketing and web design.
Here are 5 easy ways you can increase your landing page conversions:
- Design for Usability: Usability is the degree to which a software can be used by specified consumers to achieve quantified objectives with effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in a quantified context of use. Websites should be designed so that the average user (ideally, the below-average user) can find what they’re looking for or accomplish what they want without too much thought or work and without making too many wrong clicks. Increase usability to reduce barriers to conversion.
- Generate User Reviews of the Product/Service: Any Amazon customer or seller would tell you that reviews are the life-blood of any business in this digital age. Even non-Amazon customers sometimes log in just to read reviews of a product they want to buy in a brick-and-mortar store. Personally, I seldom buy any product that has no reviews from its customers. No matter how famous and trust-worthy the brand name, I feel safer shopping online knowing the consumer-experience of other customers. So, if and when possible, harp on encouraging verified customers to leave product reviews.
- Conversion-Centered Design: There are 7 principles guiding conversion-centered design – Attention, Context, Clarity, Congruence, Credibility, Closing, and Continuance.
- Attention: 1) What is the action you want potential customers to take? 2) Does everything on the page point to this action? 3) Is there a single call to action that attracts users’ attention?
- Context: Here, you have to reassure your visitors that clicking you page was a good choice by creating a strong link between the pre-click (source of the campaign) and post-click (landing page) experience. Ask: Where are site visitors coming from? Does the message and content of the homepage match the expectations of customers?
- Clarity: Write a copy that communicates the value proposition of the campaign quickly and effectively. Ask: – Is it clear from a quick scan of the webpage what the webpage is about? Does the user know what will happen once he or she clicks a link?
- Congruence: Align every aspect of your landing page with the campaign goal. Ask: Do all the words on the landing page encourage the conversion or do some words distract potential customers from the desired behavior?
- Credibility: Trust symbols (any symbol, icon, image, or small statement communication to the user that the site is legitimate) inspire confidence in the visitor. Also, “real photographs” are more trustworthy than stock photos. Ask: Do potential customers have ample reason to believe you can deliver on your promises?
- Closing: Use positive messaging close to the desired click region. Negatively-valenced words can sometimes inhibit clicking.
- Continuance: This can be used to get a second conversion and create a post-conversion experience.
4. Add a Visual or Video to Your Landing Page: Informative videos help visitors in making well-informed decisions on your landing page. Research shows that landing pages with a short video can increase conversions by up to 80%. Videos can also increase the amount of time spent by a visitor on your landing page.
5. Create Effective Visual Hierarchies: More important things should be larger and higher up on the page, and similar items should be groups together. Break pages up into clearly defined areas helping different users with different actions identify the specific area of the site first.
Finally, a landing page is most likely to convert if it provides clear answers to these three questions with information easily found above the fold (the portion of the website that can be seen without having to scroll down).
- What are you offering?
- Why should I pick you?
- What do you want me to do next?
References:
- Roger, Erra. 7 Easy Ways to Increase Landing Page Conversions. EZ.
https://ez.no/Blog/7-Easy-Ways-to-Increase-Landing-Page-Conversions
- “The 7 Principles of Conversion Centered Design.” Stukent, Stukent.com, https://www.stukent.com/expert-sessions/the-7-principles-of-conversion-centered-design/
- Wikipedia. Conversion Marketing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_marketing#Conversion_rate
- Conversion Rate: What Is a Conversion Rate? WordStream. https://www.wordstream.com/conversion-rate
- MRKT 484 Ryan on Testing Landing Pages. OSU MediaSpace, Oregon State University, https://media.oregonstate.edu/media/t/0_j1xoorhb
- Leist, Rachel. “How to Write a Blog Post: A Step-by-Step Guide [ Free Blog Post Templates].” HubSpot Blog, 6 May 2019, https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/how-to-start-a-blog#sm.00007ssv1q6ovdkcq1p1c0jjakt6m
