Landing pages are one of the most powerful tools in the PPC marketer’s arsenal, with the right strategy and messaging you can see improvements to a campaigns performance instantly.
So how do you ensure that the new landing page you are introducing is going to have the best possible chance of achieving these improvements? Here a few tips to make sure your landing pages are off to a great start!
Does the page load fast?
Having a landing page that takes more than a second to start showing content is going to hamper its performance heavily. If you landing page is not delivering at least the above the fold content within the first three seconds you abandoment rate will start to climb from 25% at three seconds increasing exponetially every additional second.
Does the main message reflect the Ad copy?
Consistency with messaging is vitally important to keep your users on your pages, if a user is attracted to a message in your ads they must be able to see the same message or a continuation of it on the landing page, if they don’t, chances are they will abandon the page.
Does the page try to do too much?
It’s important that landing pages are clear and concise; the purpose of a the landing page is not to highlight all your services and offers but to direct people to a specific relevant page from advertising. Landing pages work best if they have a single purpose, they are used as the destination for advertisements so the visitors to a landing page are expecting to find information relating exactly to the adverts message and promises.
Can you scan the page quickly?
If you are dealing with a complex service based offering it can be easy to get lost in the detail. I have watched hundreds, if not thousands of web visit recordings and lot of people rapidly scroll/scan through information, only to come back to it after they have taken in the entire page. Users do not read pages, they scan!
Make sure you use good headings, bold and underlines where appropriate, good line height and short, concise sentence structure.
Does the page contain trust elements?
Trust is key to conversions, demonstrating trust for a brand can be a long and complex process, but adding trust elements into a landing page is easy. Consider adding logos of some of the more prominent clients, methods of payment, physical addresses and of course lots of testimonials.
Is the lead collection process simple?
Form design can make or break a landing page and this key part of any landing page needs to be carefully checked to ensure it is as easy as possible for your users to provide their key information. Some key things to consider is the amount of fields you put in a form and the forms placement within the landing page.
Does the page provide a good experience on mobile devices?
Nothing is more frustrating than trying to use a web-page on your mobile phone that is hard to use or simply doesn’t work. Going back to point 1, your landing page needs to load fast and present the information in a clearly structured format.
Key points to check are that click to call functions work properly, swipe functionality works, forms are easy to fill in and ‘tap’ targets are appropriately sized for fingers.
Is the spelling and grammar correct?
It’s an obvious one, but should always be on any checklist prior to publishing content online, and get multiple people to check as regardless of how often you’ve read something you are simply blind to an error.
Have you installed tracking?
Regardless of the scale of your project it is vitally important to install tracking on your landing page that will let you know both the pages performance and help you discover ways to improve it.
Example tracking services:
- Pageview and attribution – Google Analytics / Google AdWords
- Heatmaps, session recording and eye tracking – Crazyegg / Hotjar
- Split & Multivariate Testing – Optimizely / Visual Website Optimizer
Have you conducted a user test?
Regardless of how great you think your new landing page strategy is prior to launching it, get someone who has no relationship or knowledge of the product/service to load the page and perform the desired action. By watching someone else use a page you can gain a lot of insight and observe key problems first hand. There are professional services out there that you can outsource this process for as little as $5 per real user test that I believe are extremely beneficial in helping iron out any undiscovered user experience issues.
Additional Resources
There is a lot of information published online on landing page best practices and tips on how to design and layout your landing page for success – These articles are a great start:
- https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/33927/11-Simple-But-Critical-Tips-for-Creating-Better-Landing-Pages.aspx
- https://blog.crazyegg.com/2014/10/07/landing-page-essentials/
- https://blog.kissmetrics.com/c-o-n-v-e-r-t-s/
- https://moz.com/blog/most-entertaining-guide-to-landing-page-optimization
- https://unbounce.com/101-landing-page-optimization-tips/
Landing Page Services
Click Click Media produce custom CMS landing pages that are unique to our clients brand and built using both our digital marketing team’s expertise and our web department’s quality assurances. If you would like some information about our methods and prices please get in touch! In addition to landing pages, our Adwords consultants work hand in hand to ensure your page ticks all the boxes when it comes to driving leads!