What You Need To Know About Landing Page Optimization

Arshad Amin
13 min readMay 25, 2021

We all know what a good landing page can mean for a business. It’s the perfect marketing tool to entice new prospects and generate high-value leads that convert leads into paying customers. However, we’ve seen plenty of businesses having trouble converting or attracting leads with their specialized landing pages from our experience. We here at the Freelancers Hub specialize in providing top-notch digital growth solutions for businesses like creating high-performance landing pages that generate leads.

Due to our vast experience in delivering comprehensive growth solutions to businesses worldwide, we’ve come to know all there is to know about landing page optimization. However, if you are not familiar with what landing page optimization means, then let us tell you what it means and how it can help you grow. In the following passages, we will tell you what landing page optimization is all about and tell you how to optimize landing pages. So without further delay, let’s begin!

What Is Landing Page Optimization?

Simply put, landing page optimization is the process or techniques you follow to enhance and improve all the elements of your landing page to increase conversion and lead generation. The process refers to reimagining the landing page instead of creating the landing page from scratch. Now, your redesigning effort isn’t just limited to blindly making the changes you want.

Landing page optimization is a carefully thought out process that depends on data and anecdotal evidence. However, you should know that there is no perfect landing page, and creating a high-performing landing page is a constant effort where you analyze the data and observe your conversion rate and make changes along the way.

You will find the data for landing pages in Google Search Console and Facebook Pixel. Even with that being the case, your landing pages should be converting at least slightly, but if that’s not the case, then there are some common problems you can look at. And that’s what we will look at next. So let’s check out why your landing pages aren’t converting.

Why Are Your Landing Pages Not Converting?

Landing pages can fail to convert for a host of different reasons, and one of the most common problems is failing to understand what the audience wants. The basis of any good landing page can be determined by how well you can anticipate your audience’s desires, needs, and expectations. Failing to do that well will mean your landing page isn’t perfectly optimized. Along with this problem, there are other reasons why your landing page isn’t converting. So let’s check out what they are:

  • Unintuitive Page Design.
  • Poorly written headlines.
  • No correlation between ad copy and page content.
  • Unclear calls to actions (CTAs)
  • Distracting elements that muddle the landing page’s message.

So these are some of the common reasons why landing pages don’t perform as you want them to. However, each landing page can have different reasons, and the problems listed above might not even be the case. Failing to create a top-notch PPC campaign can also be the reason why your landing pages aren’t performing as well as you want. There are several benefits of an optimized PPC campaign that can take your conversion level to a whole new level so make sure you optimize your PPC efforts as well.

So now that you know the problems that can cause low conversion numbers, you may be wondering what a reasonable conversion rate for landing pages is. Well, there isn’t a fixed rate of conversion. However, we’ve seen landing pages that convert as high as 27.4% traffic. Now, that’s not to say this is the average number; from our experience, the average conversion rate is anywhere between 2 and 6 percent.

The better barometer for measuring a successful landing page is to make meaningful improvements each time. If you don’t see any growth from month to month, you must understand that the landing page isn’t optimized. Remember, there should always be a correlation between web traffic and your conversion rates. As your traffic grows, so should your conversion rates. However, if you are not seeing a rise in conversion rates even when your traffic numbers are soaring from month to month, then you may have a problem.

The landing page might not be optimized, and there could be a problem with the design, framework, imagery, or other qualities that the audience finds unappealing or untrustworthy. It can even be that the hook you are using to generate user interest isn’t resonating with your audience, or it might just be that the product or service you are selling isn’t desirable to them. However, you won’t understand the problem until you push the pages live and track the data, and for that, you need a comprehensive PPC campaign.

To run a campaign, you will first need to set up your Google Adword Account and make sure it is set up perfectly, so make sure you do that before you start gathering meaningful data. As you can see, the problems are aplenty, but before we talk about how to optimize your landing pages, let’s first talk about the other major factor, and that’s identifying major problems before trying to optimize the landing pages.

Identifying The Problems

Suppose you have any experience trying to optimize landing pages or have looked up how to optimize landing pages. In that case, the odds are you have come across some ineffective and unhelpful marketing strategies. We’ve had plenty of our partners tell us that they worked with marketers who changed everything even though they didn’t need to. Now, we are not saying anything bad about anyone, but from our point of view, we saw the problem clearly and maybe they didn’t, so they only knew something was wrong but didn’t know what.

There’s an old saying that goes like “throwing noodles against the wall to see which ones stick and which ones fall to the floor.” It means throwing a dart blindfolded and hoping for a bullseye, and we all know that it’s not the way you solve a problem. Identifying problems is the first step towards perfect landing page optimization, and heat maps can be an excellent starting point. It will let you know what the audience focuses on, mainly when on the landing page. You have to track your audience’s behavior if you want to optimize your landing pages and heat maps are just the start.

To get an even more complete picture of what’s going on, you will need to analyze and utilize the data from scroll maps, confetti maps, overlay reports, and list reports. When you look at the scroll report, if you see a lot of white or blue, then it means people have either left the page or scrolled quickly past that section. However, if there’s plenty of red, orange, and yellow, then it means people stopped and looked at the sections and read what’s written.

The confetti report will tell you where the individual clicks happened on the page. While the list and overlay report shows you the click percentages on various page elements and individual numerical data, respectively. So now that you know how to identify the problem, we can start talking about what you can do to optimize the landing page, so without further ado, let’s begin!

How To Optimize Landing Pages?

If you want to improve your conversion rates, then the need for strong, highly accurate data is imperative, but that’s not all you need to integrate the best optimization practices to the impact. The process begins when you start designing the page and ends only when it has finished its purpose. It takes painstaking attention to detail, constant monitoring, and regular tweaks if you want it to be perfectly optimized.

The perfect landing page appeals to your target audience, compels them to act, and meets their expectations. Now that’s all fine and dandy, but given that your landing pages are a part of your website, you also need the best content management solution that provides the best platform for the content. So make sure the CMS you have elevates your business. Now that you know you need to check your CMS, we can get to the optimization tips for your landing pages. So without further delay, let’s talk about what you came here for!

Clarity On What You Offer

We’ve all heard the phrase that “good marketing makes the company seem smart whereas great marketing makes the customer feel smart.” This is especially true when it comes to landing page optimization. Whenever you are optimizing landing pages, the first thing you need to think about is ensuring that whenever your audience visits the page, they experience positive emotions.

The cornerstone of every landing page optimization effort is ensuring the people visiting the page feel smart, appreciated, inspired, and excited. Along with that, you have to make sure you understand the customer’s specific goal and turn that goal into a headline. Using power words like “empowering” works like a charm, so make sure you do your research and create a clear offer on the landing page.

Simplifying The Landing Page

Now, this optimization technique might seem counterintuitive to you, but it’s really not. Let us clarify. The landing page has a single purpose, and that’s to generate leads or customers. Simplifying the landing page means you rid of the visual clutter and help the audience keep their eye on the prize, and that’s your call to action or CTA button.

One of the best examples of an optimized landing page is Dropbox. Their landing pages tend only to have a few elements, and the company expresses everything within a few words and pleasing but subtle visuals. What we love about Dropbox landing pages is that it’s ideally designed to keep your focus on the CTA.

Utilizing Color Contrasts

Colors are an essential factor when optimizing landing pages. The best landing pages out there utilize color contrasts to drive home clarity. When using contrasts for your landing page, make sure you highlight the CTA or “Join Now” button. The background should have a textured color that makes the content pop out, especially the CTA and headlines. Another thing to remember is to design in a way so that you can use negative spaces to keep the audience’s focus on the content.

Important Information Should Be Above Fold

The term “above fold” comes from how newspaper stories are arranged. “Above fold” means the juiciest stories are always on the first page above the traditional newspaper fold so customers would see the headlines and entice them to buy the paper. The same principle goes for landing page optimization. To find the digital fold for each device, you can use a scroll map and then optimize all the pertinent information above the fold so that people are enticed to know more. Make sure your headlines are brief and catchy while placing the CTA front and center.

Scarcity Techniques Work Wonders

Scarcity techniques have been a tool used by marketers ever since marketing was created. You already know that the most common marketing phrases are “limited time” and “limited quantities.” There’s a reason for these phrases being widely used, and that’s because scarcity drives immediate action. Your landing page visitors will be enticed to act now to not miss out on the opportunity later on.

Showcasing that only a few products are left or activating a limited-time discount, or offering a once-in-a-lifetime live webinar. These scarcity techniques work wonders when it comes to generating leads and increasing your conversion numbers. You can also use something like a countdown timer that can add a visual element to scarcity to drive home the importance of acting right now. So if you are looking to optimize landing pages, then integrating scarcity techniques is one of the best things you can do.

CTAs Should Be Clear & Straightforward

We can’t stress enough the importance of making your CTAs and other content simple so that your visitors don’t get stressed or confused trying to understand your offer. Your offer should be clear, concise, and obvious. Always avoid fancy language or complex proposals. Use phrases like:

  • Join to Download
  • Join Now
  • Pick Up Here
  • Buy Now

As you can see, these phrases are simple, but their effectiveness when it comes to conversion rates is unparalleled. So whenever you are optimizing landing pages, make sure you keep your CTAs simple and straightforward.

Add Contact Information

Your landing page will see a boost in conversion rates whenever you provide a wide variety of contact information on the page. Things like phone numbers, live chat, email addresses, or a contact form are vital if you want to see high conversion rates from your landing pages. If you have a dedicated help center, then you should showcase that as well. It will let the audience know where they can find contact information, answers to frequently asked questions, and tutorials. Whenever you look at landing page optimization examples, you will see that each page emphasizes contact information, so don’t ignore it for yourself.

Try Finding The Right Headlines & Copy

You may think that since the world is image- and video-focused, the need for text isn’t there, and that’s not true at all. Every high-performance landing page has text that resonates with the audience, and you should too. Make sure you test out different headlines and change up the body copy to see how the various elements perform. It will help you find the right headline and copy for your landing page.

Be Consistent In Your Message

Being consistent on your on-brand messaging is marketing 101, and it’s the perfect landing page optimization technique. You have to make sure that there is visual consistency as well as messaging consistency. To make this landing page optimization technique effective, you have to make sure the text, imagery, and all other elements on the page are reflected in the ad. Often we see that potential customers will be confused or irritated if the page and the ad don’t have similar visuals or present the same offer, and it will hurt your brand.

Integrate Customer Testimonials

With online shopping, people need social proof, and any good business will most definitely be in a frenzy to showcase who bought their products and what they had to say about their product or service. Adding testimonials is a sure-fire way to optimize landing pages, and it builds trust while enticing customers to engage with the page. Every sort of testimonial works in this scenario. However, video testimonials have been known to generate the most conversions. Now, if that’s not possible, quotes work just as well, and you can use comments and reviews from other channels as long as you use the customer’s full name — and ideally a headshot.

Tweak The Form Lengths

Now, many different marketers will tell you that you shouldn’t ask your audience anything more than just their email. While it’s not entirely true. Audiences prefer a longer form for expensive customizable products or services because they can put in what they need in a bit more detail.

Now you may see fewer leads. However, it’s not more leads you want. You need more qualified leads who are more likely to convert. For example, with Freelancers Hub, we employ a highly customizable longer get a quote form that allows our audience to select the service, budget, and expectations from the service.

Ensure Complete Search Engine Optimization

You have to make sure your landing pages are perfectly optimized to come up via organic search. If your home page is one of your landing pages, then you have to make sure it’s at least optimized to come up when your company’s name is searched. SEO is a cornerstone of digital marketing, and if you want growth, then your landing pages should also be search engine optimized.

For that to happen, you need to optimize the pages with industry-related keywords to come up on search engines when someone searches the term. To find keywords, you can use Google’s free keyword planner tool, and there are other paid keyword tools as well like SEMRUSH that offer a wide variety of features as well. Once you have your keyword list, you will then have to integrate them into the headlines, body text, image alt text, and any other place possible.

Try Integrating An Exit Popup

So an exit popup is something that pops up whenever a visitor is leaving your landing page. It gives you great conversion opportunities, and it’s much less intrusive than bombarding the visitor with a popup the minute they land on the page or when they are exploring the page. It’s a fantastic landing page optimization tool that can be highly effective if you are trying to increase your conversion rates.

Your exit popup should have compelling visual imagery, a strong headline, and CTA text that will entice clicks. Incentivizing the popup with a special discount or some other offer is another great way to generate leads. You can use plenty of tools to create one, and you should create a separate popup for each page, and you should test different types of popups to find which ones work best. It will also give you valuable insights into what your audience likes.

A/B Test Everything

The final landing page optimization trick we are going to talk about is A/B testing. In the passages above, we’ve spoken heavily about you need to try out and test different ways to find what works best for your landing page. You have to keep testing out new ideas and other variants of the page with different elements.

Collect the data from the test, compare each, and you will land on what works best for you. However, remember that nothing is set in stone and what’s good can always be better, so you should never become complacent in your testing. As time goes by and your audience grows, you too will need to evolve, as do your landing pages. So make sure you know all about A/B testing and don’t stop testing. Ever.

Work With Experienced Landing Page Optimizers

So there you go, that’s all you need to know about landing page optimization. Hopefully, by now, you know how to optimize landing pages. However, if you don’t, then please contact us and schedule a free 30-minute consultation with an expert. We are dedicated to providing you with all you need to grow your brand.

Our mission here at the Freelancers Hub is always to give value to our audience, and it’s not only about money. That’s one of the reasons why we cover the latest developments, create guides, and provide simple tips and tricks that will help you grow on your own. So if you want to know what’s going on in the digital world, then please check the Freelancers Hub Blog.

And with that being said, that’s about all we have for you today. Let us know in the comments below what problems you’ve faced with your landing pages, and we will get back to you with an answer. Also, hit us up on our socials and send in your thoughts and suggestions to know how we can improve ourselves to better cater to your needs. We love to hear your feedback, so please do send them in. So that’s it for now, we will come back with something new for you soon. Until then, see ya!

Originally Posted In: https://freelancers-hub.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-landing-page-optimization/

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Arshad Amin

Freelance Writer | Entrepreneur | Digital Marketer