5 Ways to Improve Your Landing Page

Landing Pages are one of those web page types that can become the real workhorse of your online advertising efforts.  Here’s just a few easy ways to increase conversion rates of your landing pages so this workhorse becomes the star of the show.

1. Test, Test, Test – 3 Keys to Success

Before we get into the really juicy stuff, I want to remind you to test your landing pages–and test often.

It’s as easy as identifying testing goals.  Then coming up with two identical landing pages and changing just one thing about them—preferably the call-to-action.  This split-cell test (or A/B Test) is a statistically valid way of testing a change in your strategy and knowing (not guessing) how much better (or worse) it works.

2. Add ToolTips to Form Fields

Every fill out a form yourself and wonder, “Why do they need to know that about me?!”  Research has shown (and our gut feeling says they’re right) that privacy online is more critical to users than ever before.  Allowing landing page visitors to roll-over a “?” icon to display a small ToolTip explaining why they are being asked that question and how that information is going to be used will drastically increase conversion rates.

If you need a little technical help with ToolTips, consult the Codex.  There’s a post in there all about ToolTips.  Feel free to steal.

3. Less is Definitely More

For God’s sake, keep any lead forms minimal.  Ask yourself what information is really critical and what is ‘nice to know’.  Eliminate any field that is not critical.

As a rule of thumb, JDM Digital recommends keeping your form fields down to 5 questions: First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Phone Number, and one qualification question such as a Title/Role drop-down.

4. Helpful Validation

Try to get away from the old JavaScript error window when the user doesn’t complete all required fields.  Instead, get creative.  Allow users to complete their phone number or email–not both.  Also, having fields throwing an error highlighted is handy.  Finally, pay close attention to your validation error messages.  “Missing Fields” is not a very helpful error message.  Instead, use something like, “Please enter a valid company email” or “Please enter your 10-digit phone number.”

5. Get Above the Fold

Try to put your call to action well-above the fold.  Also, try to keep your form either on the top-right or only partially below the fold.

If you have any ideas or questions, feel free to comment them below.