User Guide to Landing Page Optimization and Design

February 13, 2016

A landing page is the page which a visitor lands on your website. It is important to optimize your landing pages to facilitate the user journey through your website. You want to push visitors through your website to reach a certain conversion.

Many marketers only consider landing pages for paid advertising however there are many pages on your website that visitors land on. This blog looks into the process of landing page optimization and the elements you need to consider for your landing pages.

Where to start?

With Google serving the most relevant page on your website to visitors, people landing on your website are landing on product pages, contact us pages, blog posts and so on. It is important to review your top landing pages for your business to prioritize and plan to optimize those pages.

Landing Page Elements

There are certain elements of landing pages that you need to communicate effectively with your users. Ensure you have the following elements:

Headline - The headline's goal is to capture the attention of visitors and communicate quickly the purpose of the page.The Hero Image - The hero image is the image is the main image for the page, usually placed above the fold. The image should work with the headline to reinforce the goal of the page and draw visitors into the page.

Form or Call to Action - The type of landing page you have will determine whether it needs a form to collect data (such as a contact form) or a strong call to action to encourage a certain action on your website (button to download a whitepaper)Testimonials and endorsements - By including these elements, you develop trust and confidence in your brand as well as validation. Include quotes about your business from news stories or previous customers.

How Much Copy Should be on Your Landing Pages

It is important for the text on your landing page to be as consistent as possible to capture the attention of visitors within the first 5 seconds on the page. If it takes longer than this, you will lose their interest and they will go elsewhere. So regardless of whether your landing page has 5 or 50 sentence, the first two to three sentences are the most important.

Once you have the interest of your visitor, it then depends entirely on the product or purpose of the page. A general rule of thumb is that long form landing pages can be very impactful for products and/or services that are complicated. Longer landing pages are also great for newer products that are difficult to understand or require some trust built with the visitors.

Shorter landing pages are ideal for products and or services that are easy to understand or have an existing strong brand that doesn't require that users develop trust.

Things to Avoid

Don't bury your conversion. If you are driving users towards the page for a reason, make sure they can find it easily, whether it is click to call button or form. It is sometimes a good idea to A/B test a conversion button to see which placement drives the most completions.Don't try to do too much. A landing page should have a purpose but not too many of them. Make sure you don't overwhelm visitors with too many actions and choices.

Understand your user and understand their experience with your landing page. What they experience may be completely different from what you are intending to offer. Test and measure as much interaction with the page that makes sense and gives you valuable action items to work with.

Do you have tricks or rules that you work with to build out landing pages? Share them with us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

Looking for a user experience agency in Dubai or Miami? Call us and set up a free consultation.

Written by
Alexander Rauser
Alexander Rauser

CEO

Alexander Rauser is the author of Boardroom Guide to Digital Accountability and Digital Strategy: A Guide to Digital Business Transformation, and creator of the DSX Program, a digital strategy and transformation program for Enterprises.

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