How To Fix Your Landing Page – To Get More Results for Less Money
My first 10 landing pages were a disaster and cost me a fortune in marketing campaigns that didn’t deliver. Luckily, after designing and writing copy for hundreds of landing pages in dozens of Industries I’ve learnt how to avoid the amature mistakes I made in those early days. Through painful trial and error I’ve learnt what converts and what hurts.
A strong landing page is the difference between successful and unsuccessful marketing campaigns. A great page will reduce your cost per lead, deliver better leads into the business, and make all of your marketing efforts more efficient and more productive. A bad page will make you think your business is doomed to failure or that online marketing doesn’t work. Neither of which is true!
If you’re getting lots of traffic, but less than 5% of it is opting in to your offer or signing up to your deal, then your landing page is letting you down and this post is going to show you how to start fixing it.
Ready for some truth grasshopper?
1. Your Headline is Weak
Your headline is the only thing on the page that’s almost guaranteed to be read. If you’re not dazzling visitors with value and compelling them to keep on reading in the first 5 words, your landing page is already headed for trouble.
One of the best tactics for creating powerful headlines is to ask a question instead of making a statement.
Bad: 20% off Teeth Whitening Treatments
Good: Get 20% Off Your Teeth Whitening Treatment
Great: Want To Save 20% Off Your Teeth Whitening Treatment?
This is a super basic example of how you can take a simple offer and make it far more compelling by asking a question instead of making a statement.
2. You’re Selling Features Instead Of Benefits
Considering how much sales training there is in the world, it still surprises me to see how many people have a list of features without explaining or including the benefit.
The best way to fix this problem is to ask the question “So What” when you wirte a sentence.
Remember that in business, money only ever changes hands when someone’s problems are being solved. The problem that your product solves is the benefit the customer gets when they buy it.
Consider the following sentence…
AVERAGE
“Our amazing ride-on lawn mower has white leather seats, unique foot operated accelerator, huge 12 inch blades and runs off the energy of the Sun!”
VS
AWESOME:
“Our amazing ride-on lawn mower has white leather seats so they don’t overheat in the hot summer sun. The unique accelerator under your right foot means you’re now free to relax your arms while you mow the lawn in comfort. The huge 12 inch blades mean each pass of the mower cuts more turf than a traditional mower, so you can finish cutting grass sooner and get back to the real work of relaxing by the pool on Sunday. Add to this, our amazing solar panels mean you never have to spend another dollar on patrol again! Why wouldn’t you join the mowing revolution today?”
Forgive my ridiculous example, but I think you get the idea. What does your feature do for the customer? why should they care? what does it mean to their day to day life?
By focusing on what your customer gets rather than what your product does, you help the reader of your copy create a mental picture about what owning or using your product is like.
3. Your Copy Is Me, Me, Me, Us and We !
“We’ve been in business for 25 years!”
“Our lawyers are the best!”
“The Whatever Business Bureau awarded us” Best business” for 3 years straight”
Yawn bloody yawn yawn! Nobody cares… Until a visitor to your landing page is 100% sure you’re going to solve their problems and make their life better, they simply don’t care who you are, what you do, or why you’re special. Facts and data are no replacement for emotion.
Your customer needs to feel like you first understand them, then that you understand their problems and most importantly that you have the solution they’re looking for. If you haven’t first shown empathy and made your customer felt heard, then talking about yourself and how great your offer is will come off as desperate. You’ll just sound like every other person that’s competing for their business.
That’s no way to stand out, that’s no way to compel action on your landing page! Stop being like everyone else. Open a personal dialogue with your copy and befriend your customer.
Remember! No matter what you’re selling, your customer is a person first and professional second. Be personal. Be real and authentic. Your conversion rate will thank you.
4. There’s too Much Going On
In test, after test, after test; super simple landing pages with minimal graphics and words on the page outperform their fancy counterparts. Pages that have animations, sliders or too many images lead to distraction and overwhelm.
“Attention ratio” measures the number of page elements competing for attention versus the actual action you want someone to take. if you have multiple options and images that lead away from the single goal of your page, then the visitor is likely to get stuck in indecision and leave to find a more simple solution to their problem.
By eliminating options and narrowing focus into a single action you’re much more likely to see that action carried out. Get rid of the choices, Get rid of your footer menu, only have one or two images on the page. When you forget about fancy designs and looking pretty, you focus your efforts and your customers attention on the words that are going to lead them to the action you desire.
5. Your Form Is Too Long
If you only need the name and phone number then that’s all you should ask for. If you’re planning an email follow-up sequence then you can get away with only asking for an email address.
Your form should be quick and ridiculously easy to fill out. As a rule of thumb, every extra field you add will mean less conversions. The only argument against this basic principle is lead quality. If you’re willing to forego getting lots of leads for getting high quality leads, then adding extra fields to your forms can sometimes be a good qualifier for finding more motivated buyers.
Call To Arms !
These five things can go a long way to improve the conversion rate of your landing page. If you’re struggling to get the conversions you need to make your marketing campaigns a success then take a step back. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Keep on asking the question “so what” as you write. Your copy and buyers will thank you.
If you’re still struggling to get those opt-ins you might need professional help. A small investment in coaching, professional copywriting and landing page creation can make a huge difference to the final returns you get from your website traffic.
Buying traffic and not converting it properly is painful and disheartening, not to mention expensive.
Get your landing page right and reap the rewards from your efforts.