Whether it’s PPC marketing, email marketing, affiliate marketing or natural search driving traffic to your website, your landing page is critical to the campaign performance - and it’s your big opportunity to engage with a potential customer.

So why do so many sites get it so wrong, and what are the most important things to remember?

What’s wrong with my landing page you ask?

Well firstly, you have to realise everyone uses the internet differently - so don’t try to pigeon hole all users in the same place.  Some users scan a whole page within a few seconds of landing on a site, while others focus on a block of text and read carefully - it all depends on the visitor.

With this in mind there are 6 things worth considering to ensure your landing page is optimised to its full potential:

1. Think Fast - Make sure the landing page loads quickly.

Broadband connections are growing incredibly fast, and according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), 56% of homes now have broadband access.

However, there are still approximately 9% of internet users who have a dial up connection.  So if your load time is more than 5 - 8 seconds, you could be alienating 9% of your potential customers, who are likely to abandon the page before it has finished loading.

2. Grab their attention - Create a snappy headline and a short blurb.

The headline is the fastest way to help a new visitor find out what the page is all about, so make it clear and keep it focused!

According to eye tracking studies “On average, a headline has less than a second of a site visitor’s attention.  For headlines — especially longer ones — it would appear that the first couple of words need to be real attention-grabbers if you want to capture eyes.” (Source: Eyetrack III)

Further eye track studies have demonstrated that including a blurb as well as a headline improves the length of time the user spends on the page.

“Test subjects spent 70 seconds on average viewing the blurbs homepage, and only 51 seconds with the headlines-only page.” (Source: Eyetrack III)

If you study these heat maps above you can also see that more people browsed down the entire page of headlines, and saw more story links when there were blurbs, compared to when there were no-blurbs and, viewing was concentrated mostly on the top list of headlines.

3. Give your content room to breathe - Don’t underestimate the value of whitespace.

If you want to encourage your visitors to read your copy and engage with your message, don‘t put too much information on the landing page.  An overcrowded landing page will just drive visitors straight away.  Improve your pages reading comprehension by giving your copy plenty of space and breaking up the paragraphs.

4. Guide the user along - Make the navigation clear and systematic.

Provide a logical sequence through the navigation - remember you want to make the user journey as easy as possible for them, in order to encourage them to purchase or sign up.

Free tracking tools like Google Analytics are really useful for analysing your visitors’ journeys.
If your visitors aren’t completing a purchase or a signup - why is that?

Use a funnel report to look at each stage of the booking or registration - It allows you to identify what stages your visitors are dropping off and helps you to focus your efforts to address that. It may be that you there’s a problem recognising post codes for some users which is preventing the transaction from being completed.

5. Show off your product - Put your best images forward.

Images can dramatically reduce or increase your conversion rates, so it’s important to choose wisely.  Think about the action you want the visitor to make - if the objective is to sell, then an image is essential! After all it does speak a thousand words.

Multiple images that show a product at different angles add greater value than a single image.  Laptops Direct is a great example of how to show off your product (see image >>).

The most important thing to remember is use images that clearly portray the biggest benefits of your product or service - but only include an image if it builds relevancy.  Including arty pictures just for the design element takes up valuable space and is likely to distract your visitors’ attention.

6. Persuade them to buy or enquire - Make sure you’ve got multiple calls to action.

Firstly if you haven’t got any, get them on your site - there’s nothing more frustrating than a hidden or even worse, non-existent phone number or email address!

Secondly make them clear, make them bold, and make sure they’re visible on every page of the site.  The big red button rule is a commonly used; however it’s not the only option that’s going to work for your site.  As long as the call to action is distinctive, obvious and communicates the benefits of clicking on the link - then it will get the clicks. But remember - test various different styles to insure it works for your site!

Take the Firefox download call to action icon below for example. It’s not a traditional shaped button, and it’s not red - but it still stands out and communicates the benefits of clicking on the link!

Eye tracking studies support different positions for call to action links but they’re of course subject to participant bias.  Participants are likely to have used the internet before and therefore if they’re familiar with seeing things in certain positions - that’s where they’re going to look first!

With this in mind it is common sense to place call to actions at the top, middle and bottom of you page - that way the user can click on the link whenever they’re ready.

Your conversions can be improved further by including call to actions within copy of the site as hyperlinks, or by adding relevant call to actions at the end of a paragraph.

The Berkeley Homes Microsite below shows a good example of how multiple call to action links can be integrated subtlety on a site.

In summary
There are lots of different reasons why your landing page may be failing you - and these are just a few points worth considering.

Nowadays most internet users attitudes are: “give it to me quick or I’m out of here” so you haven’t got room for waffle on the page - keep a tight rein on your content, make sure it’s relevant and don’t ruin it with cramped or garish designs!