8-Step Landing Page Optimization Guide

Landing pages are simply the best way to find success when trying to convert an audience into valuable leads. Through the use of a landing page, you can swing the interest of users and conversions in your direction by creating targeted ad copy that relates with your audience, grabs their interest and makes them want to convert. No longer should online marketers be sending traffic directly to an advertiser’s landing page, as they can now easily create pre-landers that not only increase the quality of each lead, but also increases the conversion rates on the final lead generation page as well.

Whether you are advertising to cold generic traffic or a tight demographic audience, a landing page can make the world of a difference in your campaign success. However, creating a unique landing page for each of your audiences, simply isn’t enough — you also need to know how to create content that converts, while also building out your landing page to minimize distractions and increase conversions.

How to Increase Landing Page Conversion in 8 Simple Steps

Not all landing pages are created equal — some are good, bad or even terrible! In this guide we are going to take a look at the many different ways you can remove distractions and increase conversions on your landing page. Each of the steps below are dead-simple, but still over looked and forgotten by many affiliate marketers. Implement each of them into your existing and new landing pages to see maximum results.

Special thanks to AdsBridge for their infographic (featured below), as it was the basis for this write up and landing page optimization guide. You can see my full review on AdsBridge here — which allows anyone to create amazing landing pages and full tracking capabilities through one solid platform. Also, click here for an special discount code to join their site.

1. Have a Clear Call to Action 

Just about any time you’re doing anything with marketing, you want to have a clear call to action. This is especially true when it comes to landing pages. Your call to action is what tells users what you want them to do, and it needs to be clear, concise, and very prevalent on the page. Keeping it “above the fold” and making sure users see it right away is crucial to get conversions.

2. Less Text Is More 

You don’t want so little text that you don’t get your point across, but you don’t want to have so much on the page that your purpose gets muddled and your call to action gets lost. If you have too much text, it will be too much work for a lot of visitors, and they’ll just end up clicking away.

Whether it’s a landing page or ad copy for a pop under media buy, visuals work a thousand times faster than text. Test your text ad copy versus image based ad copy.

3. Keep the Page Clean 

Just like you don’t want the text to be overwhelming, you definitely don’t want your landing page to look cluttered, disorganized, or chaotic. If you have too many things to look at, or nothing seems to be in order, people won’t know where to look or what to focus on. If it’s really bad, it can look like a spam site destined to give users a virus. Either way, if your landing page isn’t organized, it’s likely that users will click away instead of converting.

Wix has a dead simple landing page. The headline is clear “Create a Free Landing Page” and the only option is to “Start Now!”.

4. Pick the Right Images

Pictures tell a thousand words, and this is especially true when it comes to landing pages. You don’t want too many images, but choosing a few high quality, visually appealing, and relevant images can help drive your point home and keep users interested.

One of the best industries to learn from in regards to how to get people to take action, is the dating industry! Check out these dating landing pages and their use of picking the right images while also having simple call to actions.

5. Bullet Points Work

Part of this goes back to the simplicity of text and organization. When you’ve got a list of features and benefits, putting them in easy-to-see, fast-to-read format draws the users’ eyes right to it and simplifies it. Aside from your call to action, these features and benefits are some of the most important things you want users to see on your landing page, so bullet points work.

In this health offer, the call to action is clear… “Do you suffer from” any of the bullet points?… then complete this form now. Also check out all of the other optimization throughout the page.

6. Use Contrasting Colors

Using contrasting (but complimentary) colors is an age-old trick artists and marketers alike have perfected to create a visually appealing page and to draw the eye where you most want it to be. Featuring your call to action, for example, in a contrasting color can help it stand out.

Simple sizing and color changes resulted in a 78% increase in conversions for Justin, as shown in the image below.

7. Create a Sense of Urgency

One of the best ways to get people to take action is to create a sense of urgency—this keeps visitors from dismissing your offer as one to come back to later (which they almost never will). You can create a sense of urgency by offering something that won’t last, using phrases like “limited supply,” “only two days left,” or “while supplies last.”

This landing page from the AdsBridge template gallery features a countdown clock, which has proven to be extremely effective when trying to get users to take action immediately.

8. Remove Distractions and Navigation

As important as you might think your logo, navigation and footer area is to the overall professionalism and experience to your site, it might actually be killing your landing page conversions. Keep these areas in tack on your main site, but remove them on your landing pages along with any other unnecessary distractions.

Medical Hair Restoration was able to improve their landing page by removing all of the clutter and sending the user right to a registration form. You can see the before and after pictures below.

The Importance of Split Testing on Landing Pages

Throwing up a generic landing page is great, but the secret to finding success with landing pages is the ability to make changes and split test your results along the way. When it comes to split testing… anything goes. Loading time, graphics, video, mobile optimization, call-to-actions, price points, ad copy and site navigation are some of the most commonly split tested areas on landing pages.

While a 1-3% increase in conversions might not sound like a lot at first, it could be the difference in thousands of dollars over the life of your ad campaign. Here’s an example.

Landing Page 1:
1,000 visits per day converting at 15% is 150 leads per day
Over the course of 30 days, 4,500 leads are delivered
Over the course of a year, 54,750 leads are delivered

Landing Page 2:
1,000 visits per day converting at 17% is 170 leads per day
Over the course of 30 days, 5,100 leads are delivered
Over the course of a year, 62,050 leads are delivered

As you can see… in this example a small 2% difference in landing page conversions can add up to an extra 600 leads per month and more than 7,000 leads over the course of a year. No matter if the value of those leads are worth a dollar or $10 each, it’s well worth your time and effort to split test your landing pages to increase ROI.

Many new affiliates struggle with the basics of landing pages creation. When it comes to split testing and conversion tracking, it’s quite overwhelming to take it all in. One of the reasons why AdsBridge has seen so much success in the industry, is that they’ve been able to combine the two together into one powerful platform. Right when you create a landing page in their editor, you can then sync it up and track all results within their platform as well.

Landing Page Optimization Infographic

In addition to the list of best landing page optimization practices and the importance of split testing your landing page, AdsBridge also created the “Advanced Landing Page Optimization” infographic below. Scan through the infographic below and see what areas there might be improvement for in your existing ad copy and landing pages.

Landing pages take a lot of time, skill, and knowledge to make, especially when you want them to have high conversion rates. With the tools and features built into the AdsBridge platform, it’s never been easier to create high quality landing pages, while also having the ability to split test and track conversions at the same time.

Summary

Creating a high converting landing page ultimately comes down to keeping your page simple and organized, and knowing how to draw the visitors’ attention to where you most want it to go.

Keep in mind that for certain types of landing pages there may be extra restrictions you have to follow. For example, landing pages used for Google Adwords and have their own set of restrictions that must be followed carefully.

No matter what type of landing page you are creating or the audience you are targeting, by implementing these best practices into your design you are sure to see higher engagement and conversion rates across the board.

To start creating effective landing pages, with the ability to split test and track performance on all levels, click here to create an account with AdsBridge.