Optimizing Your Landing Page With 5 Best Practices

What better way to kick off the new year than improving outdated landing pages? Before we get into the nitty gritty of optimization, what is a landing page? Let's be very clear. A landing page is not your homepage, "Contact Us," or "About Us" page.  

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a standalone page that users visit after clicking on your ad. There are two types of landing pages: lead capture (or generation) and click-through. We will focus on the most common landing page, lead capture, used by 68% of B2B businesses. Lead capture pages are leveraged to collect a user's contact information via a lead form and are best for building your email list. All great landing pages successfully convert website visitors into leads, all while delivering an enjoyable user experience.

When it comes to optimizing, there's no need to redesign the entire page. Instead, use website testing tools to identify elements needing improvement through data and metrics. To understand the performance of your landing page, we recommend tracking pageviews, average time on page, bounce rate, and visitor-to-lead ratio. Now let's get into the five best practices to improve your landing page. 

1. Understand your audience 

Understanding your audience’s pain points and needs will allow you to create headlines, copy, and calls-to-action (CTA) that effectively motivate website visitors to take action. Gain better insight into your audience by conducting surveys or interviews with questions such as “why did you decide to buy our product or service?” and “did you consider alternatives to our product or services? Why is that?”

2. Embrace simplicity

The main goal of a landing page is to clearly lead visitors to the CTA, it shouldn’t be a guessing game. Visual clutter on landing pages disrupts the user experience, causing confusion and a lack of trust. However, having a simple landing page does not mean excluding important information. Must-have landing page elements such as a clear headline, value proposition, clear CTA, and an optimization form are essential to not only establishing trust and converting users but also for SEO purposes. 

3. Craft concise and unmistakable CTAs  

It's nearly impossible to capture leads without CTAs, the most crucial element on your landing page. There should be one CTA on your landing page that coincides with your offer and value proposition. If you're offering a webinar for users to register for, the CTA should say "Register Now." Below is a landing page with a distinct and straight-forward CTA. 

4. Limit the fields within your form

Are you more likely to fill out a form with three to four fields or six to eight fields? Hubspot's 2021 study found more fields yield lower conversions. Forms using three to five fields experience 25% and 20% conversion rates. On the contrary, forms using six to ten fields experienced 16% and 14% conversion rates. Limit the fields within a form to ask solely for information needed based on the value of your offer. 

5. Utilize testimonials to increase conversions

It's more effective to show a visitor how great you are instead of telling them. Credible testimonials increase buying intent by more than 92% as most users want to see "proof" that a product or service delivers on promises made. The most effective testimonials require the customer's name, a quote, and an image such as a headshot. 

Start the year off strong and don't fall victim to the most common landing page mistakes: poor design and copy, inconsistent CTAs, asking for too much information, and failing to clearly explain the offer. Following the five best optimization practices will allow your landing pages to gather deeper insights into prospects and easily generate leads.