Why You are Frustrated with Your Landing Pages
One of my favorite online videos of all time imagines how Microsoft might have re-designed the original iPod packaging. The comments on YouTube indicate that this was actually made by Microsoft to illustrate the problem with Microsoft’s policies.
Landing Pages go through the same process and end up completely missing their intended purpose.
Done right, they keep the promise made by an ad, email or link.
Done right, they single-mindedly get visitors to take action.
Done right, they make the effective cost of your advertising shrink.
Done right, they focus on an offer and not the company that produced them.
However, many of them don’t deliver. It’s frustrating and maddening.
There is hope.
Our friends at Unbounce, the landing page Kings, have asked me and fellow Conversion Scientist Joel Harvey to explain how to get to “Done right.”
in our presentation The Chemistry of the Landing Page, we show you how to build a landing page backward and are going to critique a number of pages live online.
Several brave souls allowed us to critique their site as a part of the presentation. Watch now as submissions close on Thursday.
This is my presentation setup. Click to enlarge.There is a recipe for landing pages that will work for you over and over. It involves a finite number of elements.
- A specific actionable Offer.
- A Form or button that gives the visitor a way to take action.
- Something that builds Trust.
- Proof that you are credible.
- A picture of the product or service. Yes, I said a picture of the service.
- Design that guides the eye to the important elements and makes the page easy to consume.
However, the most important feature of a landing page is a whole lot of nothing – nothing that isn’t supporting the offer, enabling action, building trust, providing proof or showing the offer.
Anything else is creating Abandonment.
We’ll talk about the problem of Abandonment and how your landing pages are giving visitors unnecessary opportunities to flee.
Ample Schadenfreude
We pick a few pages submitted by brave viewers for a live critique, applying the landing page formula.
This is not to be missed.
We have a lot of fun with these critiques and you will too. It’s perhaps the best way to get good at constructing landing pages.
Here’s a freebie just for reading
Here’s an example of how easy it is to apply landing page chemistry to the question, “Should we put social media icons on our landing pages?”
Is the primary page offer to like, friend or follow? Do the icons build trust or credibility? Do they create an opportunity for visitors to delay their action or abandon the page altogether?
For most landing pages, social media icons are a bad idea. They make visitors delay taking action and really don’t support the offer with trust or proof.
Save social media icons for the “Thank you” page.
Watch the complete presentation.
Expertise: conversion rate optimization, AB testing, marketing strategy, digital marketing, analytics, landing page design, computer programming, entrepreneurship
Speaking: IBM, Inbound, LeadsCon, Content Marketing World, Affiliate Summit, and more
Books and Training: Your Conversion Creation Equation, Video CRO, Marketing Videos that Convert, CRO Best Practices
As Seen On: ClickZ, Search Engine Land, Marketing Land, Conversion Sciences Blog, Intended Consequences podcast
Education: Texas A&M University, BS Computer Science and Management
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Great information…thanks for taking the time to post.