Four landing page mistakes that kill conversion rates
Whether you’re new to landing page development or a seasoned pro, there’s always room to grow your skills as a marketer. Here are some common mistakes people make with landing pages that could be killing conversions:
TMI! Online visitors have short attention spans. If they’re already sold on your product or service before arriving on your landing page to sign up, then you don’t need paragraphs of copy to persuade them any further. If they’re not already sold, then why would they want to waste 10-15 minutes reading through blocks of text to figure out what your offer is? This is why TMI — too much information — is problematic for landing pages. It drives people away!
To avoid including too much information on your own landing page, be ruthless with your copyediting. If any sentence doesn’t contribute to customer perceptions about your offer (what’s in it for me?) then consider cutting it. You don’t need your company’s history, an “about me” section and hyper-specific details about the product. Just focus on your offer and develop your copywriting strategy around this offer.
Selling the Features, Not the Benefits. One of the biggest mistakes marketers make is emphasizing the awesome features of a product or service. This might sound like a great idea to let visitors know exactly what they’re getting, but it’s important to remember that people buy for the benefits they’ll get from owning a product or trying a service. This means you need to sell the benefits, not just the features.
If you’re offering consulting services for small business owners, for example, don’t clog your landing page with endless bullet points about your experience, the different packages you offer, and pricing. Instead, focus on what potential customers will get out of a consultation with you. Will they walk away enlightened about efficient business management strategies? Will they be able to reduce business operation costs with your advice? In other words, make sure your copy emphasizes the destination (benefits) instead of the journey (features that produce benefits).
Poor Image Choices. You’ve probably visited a landing page or two that had terrible images (too bright, too fuzzy, unrelated to the product/service, etc.). Images certainly help sell the benefits of a product/service, but not if they’re low quality and/or irrelevant to your offer.
Be sure to select the right colors for your background, text, and lead magnet button. The use of red can be a bad idea (people unconsciously associate it with stop signs), but blue and green tend to perform well compared with other colors. Finally, remember to minimize the amount of blank white space on the page, but don’t push everything so close together that it feels crammed in a tight space. Aim for a natural look that isn’t difficult to read (16 point font minimum) and avoids loud colors that come across as too sales-y.
Unclear Call-to-Action. This is perhaps the worst mistake of all when it comes to landing pages because even if your copy is flawless, images are top-notch and the benefits of your product/service are crystal clear, visitors won’t convert into customers if they’re not sure what to do next. Some mistakes you might be making with your call-to-action include: having more than one action you’re asking the customer to do, placing your lead magnet button at the bottom of the page and forcing people to fill out multiple form fields.
