We talked yesterday about whether or not blogging is dead and, in the comments, there was a good discussion about the big scary ROI.
Some of the Spin Sucks community thinks the reason companies are abandoning blogs as quickly as they start them is because they haven’t figured out how to generate leads (and rightfully so).
Having specific landing pages tied to different pieces of content is a really effective way to track your leads and provide the sales team with a nice little pipeline.
While they’re not the end all, be all, they sure do help you track the people coming to your website or blog from both organic and paid search.
With that in mind, following are 10 ways to improve your landing page conversions.
- Keep it clean! I don’t mean no profanity or dirty pictures. I mean, it should be free of clutter. People should know exactly what you want them to do (subscribe, download, request information, etc.) without any other distractions.
- Be consistent. If there is a button to download or subscribe, show it in two or more places…and make it the exact, same button. Use the same language and don’t add anything extraneous.
- Keep it short. In fact, if you can get copy on your landing page that consists of phrases and bullet points, it’ll be much more effective. Because there is so much content on the web, people scan. Make it easy for them to get your point without having to read.
- Edit, edit, and edit again. Because you have very little copy, it must be perfect. People will not be forgiving if you have five words on the page and one of them is spelled wrong or has a typo or is grammatically incorrect. Make sure it’s perfect.
- Brand the page. Not to the point that it’s nauseating, but make sure your logo is on the page so people know who they’re visiting.
- Test, test, test. I read an article about a year ago that said we’re so used to seeing blue hyperlinks on web pages that it’s good to change it to red. Also move the call-to-action around on the page and see which placement people click on the most. You may need to change it three or four times before you find the exact, right spot for it.
- Drop the navigation. I know this goes against everything we believe about web pages, but you want people to come to your landing page and do something that generates a lead (or even a sale) for you. If you provide navigation, it gives them the opportunity to leave the landing page without doing what they came there to do in the first place.
- Vary the call-to-action. You should have a button and text hyperlinks in at least two (if not three) places on the page. For instance, let’s say you have a white paper you want people to download, in exchange for an email address. Create a button that says, “Download Now” and also text hyperlinks that say the same.
- Keep it simple. Don’t ask people to fill in all of their information. Decide what is most important to you. I have a friend who only cares about your email address, and he requires it be a company address. And a client only cares about the person’s name and their zip code. Decide what you really need and ask only for that information. Don’t ask people to fill in their name, company, email, address, phone, blood type, SSN, etc.
- Do something with the leads! This one kills me that it has to be said, but… the people who give you their information in exchange for something are a very warm lead. Please follow-up with them.
What else is important in improving landing page conversions?