If you’re a small business owner, you might be thinking about creating a website if you don’t have one already. Websites are useful for a wide range of things, but the ones that work best usually undergo landing page optimisation.
But what does this mean? In short, an optimised landing page is tailored to the specific needs and purposes of the customer or user journey. There are plenty of things that go into landing page optimisation, and we’ll explore them below.
What is a landing page optimisation?
Your landing pages are the specific web pages that visitors will see when they first come to your site. Depending on your setup, visitors might have multiple ways of arriving at your website. This could be through online ads, through emails, social media posts or through search engines.
Ideally, the people who land on your site will complete an action or “convert”. Conversions can be anything from purchasing a product, signing up for a weekly newsletter, or simply requesting more information. It’s common for businesses to optimise their landing pages to not only persuade visitors to convert, but to make it easier for them to do so.
Why should you optimise your landing pages?
There are plenty of benefits to optimising your landing pages. Here are some key reasons to consider:
- Elevates your user experience. A smooth user experience is integral to every part of your website, but especially on landing pages. Optimise your landing page to make it as user-friendly as possible and visitors will find it easier to use your site.
- Encourages customers to convert. Convincing customers to convert isn’t always straightforward. But with a seamless conversion process, you can remove any barriers that might prevent customer action.
- Reduces your landing page bounce rate. When visitors land on a site that’s difficult to navigate, slow to load or simply just unexpected, there’s a chance they’ll leave, or bounce, seconds later. Over 50% of visitors leave a site if it takes more than 3 seconds to load, so think carefully about what visitors might expect.
- Pushes a specific offer or product. If you want to promote something specific to your audience, an optimised landing page provides you with an opportunity to do so. Just ensure the thing you promote corresponds with the link that led to your site.
Free landing page template ideas.
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10 landing page optimisation best practices.
When it comes to landing page optimisation, there isn’t a “one-size-fits-all” approach. How you optimise your landing page will be specific to you, your site and your pages. Your digital strategy, audience metrics, and products/services should inform the decisions you make. That said, there are some common optimisations that apply to a broad range of sites.
1. Get to know your users.
Before you start shaking things up, you’ll need to create a solid foundation. This typically involves getting to know your users. Who are they, and how did they end up on your site? Do they find it easy or difficult to complete their journey, and why? The more information you have about the people on your site, the more informed your decisions will be later down the line.
2. Make sure the landing page aligns with the intent.
Once you know why people are coming to your site, you can start to tweak your landing pages to meet their needs. Start by thinking about the wider journey – are they here because of an email link or an advert they saw on social media? Consider whether the landing page helps the visitor continue their journey or stops it.
3. Keep things consistent.
You should optimise your landing pages to keep them consistent with the rest of the site. From your homepage to your landing page, your site should be consistent and recognisable. Everything from the tone of voice to the colour scheme needs to match to provide a professional and smooth experience.
4. Prioritise your content above the fold.
It takes just seconds for users to decide whether they’re on the right web page. One of the easiest ways to convince them is to optimise your landing pages so that the content above the fold gives the best possible impression. Anything above the bottom of the screen when you first land on a web page is considered above the fold.
Use this space to introduce yourself or showcase the products you may have offered. It’s also good to include calls to action that allow visitors to move along the customer journey.
5. Focus on clear calls to action.
One of the best practices for optimising your landing page is to provide clarity on what the user can do next. This might mean rephrasing your calls to action (CTAs), introducing more of them throughout the page or adding a sticky CTA that stays with the user as they scroll up and down. Calls to action can work well on the top bar of your page, underneath individual sections on the page and at the very bottom.
6. Factor in other technical requirements.
While some of your web page optimisations will be cosmetic, your site might also benefit from technical or backend optimisations. These can range from things, such as the time it takes for a page to load, to the time it takes for your page to be responsive. Google provides a tool called Lighthouse that you can use to test the quality of your site against its benchmarks.
7. Include social proof signals.
Another way to optimise your landing page for conversions is to include social proof. Social proof is a psychological phenomenon where people are likely to act like those around them. In marketing, this works much the same way.
If visitors to your site can see that other customers have bought from you, and have received a good service, then they’re more likely to make the same decisions. This can be in the form of reviews, frequently bought together labels, or testimonials.
8. Optimise your landing page for search.
As discussed, there are many ways visitors can land on your site. One of the oldest and most common ways of finding a website is through search. How a search engine decides to show a website is something of a mystery, but keeping abreast of the latest search engine optimisation (SEO) guidelines is a useful way of staying ahead.
9. Prioritise a mobile-friendly design.
Most web users access websites through their phones, so much so that many web developers now prioritise a mobile-friendly approach when building a site. If your page isn’t tailored to mobile phone users, it’s never too late to optimise your landing page.
10. Continue to test and learn.
One of the best ways to boost your conversion rate is to continuously optimise your webpage. Try A/B testing to find the best solution from a range of options or create multiple pages to find the most effective CTA.