Even if you have a functioning website, it's still important to create effective landing pages. They allow you to test assumptions and ideas in a focused and isolated manner, enabling you to quickly iterate and make improvements.
With that in mind, here are some tips to help you stay focused and achieve success with your landing pages:
1. Ground 0
Starting a landing page from scratch is recommended, especially when testing something entirely new. Doing so keeps your mindset open and allows for easier pivoting away from current constraints.
However, if the change or assumption is less radical, starting with your best-performing templates can be effective.
Alternatively, if you're feeling overwhelmed or uncertain about where to begin, you can consider using your top competitor's layout & components as a starting point. While this may not be the best practice, it can save you time and give you an initial structure to work with, as it is highly likely that your competitor has already tested some of the elements.
2. Clear Focus
It's important to avoid creating a cluttered landing page with an excessive amount of content. Testing too many elements simultaneously will only slow down learning and the overall optimisation process. Instead, it's better to focus on testing one or a few elements at a time. Remember, in landing pages, less is more.
3. Trust Elements
Including reviews, media logos (such as "featured in" or "as seen on"), awards, and certifications on your landing page can be incredibly valuable in building trust with your audience. While using services like Trustpilot can be time-consuming and expensive, customer reviews can have a significant impact on your conversion rates, particularly if you're selling products that aren't frequently purchased.
It's important not to go overboard with reviews. Consumers want to get an accurate understanding of your product, so they may pay closer attention to the best and worst reviews, looking for patterns that may raise concerns. Balancing positive and negative reviews can be a critical factor in improving your conversion rates.
4. Value proposition and features
To effectively engage and convert users, it's essential to focus on their needs and goals rather than solely on the features of your product or service. This is where the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) framework comes in handy. The JTBD framework centers around the idea that consumers "hire" products or services to get a job done, rather than simply buying a specific product or service. By understanding the job that the user is trying to accomplish, you can better communicate with them in their own language and frame your product or service in a way that aligns with their goals and desires.
It's also important to consider the user's habits and inertia. Consumers are often reluctant to change their behaviour, so it's critical to understand their existing habits and motivations to create a product or service that they're more likely to adopt. By keeping these factors in mind and using the JTBD framework, you can develop a better understanding of your user's needs and craft a more effective message that resonates with them. Overall, focusing on the user's needs, goals, and habits, and communicating in their own language, is crucial for building effective landing pages and driving conversions.
5. Presentation & Language
The presentation and language used on your landing page can make or break its performance. While a visually appealing design is essential, the language you use to communicate with your audience is even more critical.
By using the customer's language wherever possible and incorporating it into your messaging, you can create a more personal connection with your audience. This technique allows you to speak directly to your audience's pain points and demonstrate how your product or service can solve their problems.
6. CTAs (Call-To-Action)
While it's tempting to include as many CTAs as possible, research shows that having between three to five CTAs on a landing page is optimal. This approach provides enough opportunities for the user to take action without overwhelming them with too many choices.
It's also essential to consider the placement of your CTAs. Placing them above the fold, i.e., the area visible without having to scroll down, can increase their visibility and encourage more clicks.
By having 3 to 5 consistent CTAs with varying text and messages, you can create clear calls-to-action that encourage user engagement and conversion.
7. Hide from social media & search engines.
In the early stages of creating a new landing page, it's often advisable to hide it from search engines. While it's possible that some traffic may come from organic search, the primary focus should be on testing and refining the page's design and messaging.
Furthermore, it's common to run several iterations of a landing page before finding a version that performs optimally. By hiding the page from search engines, you can avoid having these early, potentially suboptimal versions show up in search results and potentially harm your brand's reputation or credibility.
Once you've developed a version of the landing page that's performing well and achieving your desired goals, then it's time to optimize it for search engines and make it visible to a wider audience. In the meantime, focus on testing, iterating, and refining your landing page until it's ready to shine in the spotlight.
8. Minimum viable comms plan
While it's important to focus on testing and refining your landing page, it's also important to remember that your visitors are real people who may not be aware of the testing process you're undergoing.
To make the experience more user-friendly, consider creating a basic communication plan that includes things like automated responses, progress updates, and thoughtful thank-you messages. These elements can help to create a more personal and engaging experience for users, even as you work behind the scenes to refine your landing page.
While your communication plan doesn't have to be perfect, it should be sufficient to meet the needs of your visitors and help to foster a sense of connection and engagement with your brand. With a little effort and attention to detail, you can create a landing page testing process that's both effective and user-friendly.
9. Comprehension tests
As you prepare to test your landing page, it's important to recognise that your familiarity with the page may cloud your judgment and prevent you from spotting potential issues or areas for improvement. That's where comprehension tests can come in handy.
By seeking out independent opinions from non-biased individuals (preferably people you don't know), you can gain valuable insight into how others perceive your landing page and what messages or elements may be unclear or confusing. This can help to further de-risk your efforts before going live and ensure that your page is as effective as possible.
While conducting comprehension tests may seem daunting, there are a variety of external resources available that can help you connect with potential testers. Ideally, you'll want to gather feedback from at least 5-10 respondents to ensure that you have a diverse range of opinions and perspectives to draw from.
10. Simplify & GO live.
Are you ready to rumble, or are you still tangled in a web of unnecessary complexity? Take a deep breath and simplify one more time, my friend. It's time to go through steps 1-8 at lightning speed.
Remember, the key to a successful landing page is to trim the fat. Don't let bulky content weigh you down. Cut it out like a bad habit and get ready to go live!
Good luck!
P.S. I'm running out of patience too, so let's get this show on the road!
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