Placement of the primary call to action on a landing page is of primary importance to the success of the conversion rate of that particular URL. A well-crafted landing page is designed to attract attention swiftly and maintain the interest of the reader.
Your audience’s time is extremely valuable so if the first impression that your landing page communicates is “timewaster,” your prospects will click away at the speed of light. A recent landing page study by Silverpop entitled “8 Seconds to Capture Attention” explored the best practices in the design and implementation of landing pages to maximize results.
Short & Logical
As in every other marketing and promotional content, short copy that makes an impact on the reader is by far the preferred approach to building effective landing pages. Letting your copy become overly verbose will detract from the desired outcome of moving the prospect swiftly and cleanly along your conversion path. The content also needs to be immediately relevant to the product or service being promoted as well as representing a natural outgrowth of the original call to action which brought the customer to the landing page in the first place.
Generic landing pages are a serious faux-pas, as each one should refer in content, style, colors, and layout to the types utilized in the originating presentation. Creating a logical progression from call to action to landing page will keep your customer from becoming confused and escaping your funnel.
Layout is Critical
The study found that the most popular landing page layout was a single column, with 36% of all successful landing pages applying that design. 2 columns was the choice of 14% while 3 columns were only integrated by 1% of all landing pages. Laying out the landing page in a box or postcard format is also extremely popular with 25% of all pages being set up with boxes and 22% in postcards.
When the layout is analyzed broken down between B2B and B2C, significant variances are found. Fully 50% of all B2B landing pages are set up in boxes, as compared to only 15% of the B2C layouts. Postcards are more common on B2C landing pages, with 26% of the total as compared to just 14% in the B2B. 1 column layouts were used in 25% of the B2B as compared to 40% of the B2C, and 2 columns constituted 8% of the total landing page designs in the B2B sphere but double that for a total of 16% in the B2C pages.
Minimize the Number of Links
Fully 49% of all landing pages both in the B2B and B2C arena contained just one link, as it seems that this preference is incorporated into landing pages in order to keep the message clear and the desired action obvious. The placement of multiple links can be seen to dilute the essential impact, as 12% utilize 2 links, 13% have 3 links, and 7% feature 4 links. Surprisingly a total of 19% of all landing pages have 5 or more links which would instinctively seem counter-intuitive.
Keep Above the Fold
Nearly nine out of every ten landing pages for major brands set up their primary converting call to action above the fold. This layout is in contrast to the landing pages often used by ebook and other downloadable product providers, which tend to be several thousand pixels tall with the call to action and conversion link placed right at the very bottom.
Some of the longer landing pages have managed to integrate a popup box which scrolls down with the reader, but this approach is perilous as many users have their browsers set by preference or default to not view popups. About 10% of all the landing pages are designed to display the call to action conversion link both at the top and the bottom of the page, an approach which is advisable when it is not possible to edit the verbiage down to more manageable non-scrolling levels.
Landing pages are the hub of your online sales process, so adhering to proven best practices can keep your conversion rates humming!
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Applying Landing Page Best Practices to Boost Conversions
