As part of a digital marketing strategy to increase sales, designing lead generation website landing pages can be one of the most effective and cost-efficient marketing tools for today’s online businesses. In fact, WordStream reports that the average landing page conversion rate across all industries is a whopping 9.7%. That said, without the allocation of proper resources, internal testing and overall online business acumen, many online retailers create landing pages that fail to attract the leads they desire, and in some cases, can even serve as impediments to business and brand growth.
In short, businesses online can often be their own worst enemies. Companies often create internal processes and procedures that are not customer-centric, or their website may be dated in content and design. That negatively impacts the effectiveness of any targeted marketing campaigns, at the very least. Below are some of the most common mistakes or errors businesses make online with landing pages.
1. Slow Loading Times: Few things hurt a business website more than when its pages, or in this case, its landing pages load slowly and cause unnecessary user frustration. It bears repeating that most users will leave any website that takes more than 7 seconds to load completely. A poor user-experience on any page of a website (or the firm’s lead generation landing page) can also negatively impact its search rankings. The use of extremely large images and superfluous content are often causes for slow loading times.
2. Cluttered and Confusing Page Formats: Often with design of any sort, simplicity is key, and nowhere is this more important than on a website landing page. You don’t have a lot of time to capture the attention of a new visitor. Businesses that attempt to cram as many CTA buttons or product offerings on their landing pages only muddle the effectiveness of their targeted marketing strategies while increasing user frustration. Limiting landing page messaging to a single targeted purpose or utilizing a single form or CTA tends to increase user attention and focus. Offering users fewer options actually reduces user frustration. In addition, the use of selective imagery and color schemes can direct eye movement toward the information they seek more easily, promoting conversion online.
3. Requesting Too Much Information From the User: As mentioned, businesses have about 7 seconds or less to secure the attention and focus of an online visitor before they move on to the next shiny object. For those landing pages requesting user information, again, less is more. Online users are typically willing to provide their first name and email address to receive the offering because, at the very least, they’ve provided only the most basic forms of personal information. Pressuring users to provide personal contact information that they deem unnecessary or intrusive negatively impacts user-experiences and lead generation rates.
4. The Landing Page Breeds Distrust: Poorly designed website landing pages tend to negatively impact user brand impressions. Ditch the extraneous visual and written content the next time you plan a landing page design. Get down to brass tacks and make the case as to why your offer, product or service is a great value. Use customer testimonials and reviews, along with accompanying case studies (if you have them) to help convince visitors of the value your brand brings. Build trust with your content and design, and you’ll see conversion rates soar.
5. Broken Landing Page Links: Landing pages with broken links or CTA buttons are killers for online marketing campaigns. 404 errors imply ineffective planning and internal testing, if not a general sense of neglect and ineptitude. Nearly 90% of online users are less likely to revisit a site if they’ve encountered a negative or frustrating user-experience.
6. Failing to Optimize the Landing Page’s Mobile Version: Mobile devices have proven to be the vehicle of choice for today’s online consumer. Therefore, businesses online must ensure that their landing pages are optimized for accurate and effective targeted marketing across all platforms, particularly mobile. Here again, simplicity prevails. Mobile landing page headlines should ideally be limited to 5 words or less in length. Content and imagery use should be balanced with white space, and CTA button(s) should incorporate optimized design and/or color elements to focus user eye movement in a compact mobile environment.
Avoiding these and other common design mistakes while designing your business’ website landing pages will improve lead generation rates, increase sales numbers and optimize the user-experience for your visitors online.
If you’d like to learn more about how landing pages can help your bottom line, call Proctor Digital at 773.664.5819. We love to help catapult businesses above the fray in today’s digital marketing landscape.