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7 Vital Rules of Landing Page Optimization

Apr 23, 2012
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As a marketing analytics company (and a company that depends on getting web leads ourselves) we’ve experimented with our own landing pages and have tracked the effectiveness of landing pages for other companies. And along the way we’ve learned a few things.

There are seven vital rules to landing page optimization that can increase your conversion rates. Here they are:

  1. Goal – When you create a landing page what is your goal? Do you want people to download a white paper, schedule a demo, or call you on the phone? This goal should be clearly defined and everything on that landing page should work to accomplish that goal.
  2. Headline – The headline of your landing page needs to be short and precise. That is all.
  3. Concise Copy – There is a rule that journalists use that marketers should also apply. The rule is this:  use the fewest words necessary to get your point across.
  4. Call-to-Action – What do you want a visitor to do on your landing page? This call-to-action should be crystal clear.
  5. Provide Options – You don’t want to necessarily mandate that your visitors fill out a form. Give them options. Place your phone number in prominent locations on the landing page so they can call you, if they prefer.
  6. Rigorous Testing – You should A/B test every element of your landing pages. Place phone numbers in difference locations. Change and tweak specific form fields. Change content and headlines. Test and refine.
  7. Provide ‘Retreat’ Offers – If someone doesn’t want to sign up for a demo on your landing page, for example, give them the option to download a white paper when they leave.

Do You Know Your “Actual,” Landing Page Conversion Rate?

Most marketers know what percentage of visitors to their landing page are converting. They probably know this number off the top of their head. But what if that conversion rate isn’t “complete”?

In order to calculate the “actual” conversion rate of a landing page, you also need to know the number of people that call you from the landing page. An actual conversion rate also includes the number of people who call you from that landing page. If you are not using call tracking on landing pages, you are not gathering as many leads as you could. You are failing to track every metric you could, and your conversion rate is inaccurate.

Changes You Can Implement Now

Now that you know what you look for, compare your current or new landing pages to these seven vital rules. How often are you hitting all seven? Add to that measuring your “actual” conversion rate and you’ve got some great places to start improving the effectiveness of your landing pages.

About Jason Wells

Jason Wells is the CEO of ContactPoint. Their flagship product, LogMyCalls, provides inexpensive tools for businesses seeking to optimize marketing, lead quality and minimize lost leads. These tools—phone call tracking, call recording, mobile marketing automation and call performance scoring—allow businesses to determine which advertising methods are effective and improve their ability to secure business over the phone. Prior to leading ContactPoint, Jason was Senior VP for Sony Pictures Television where he led the creation and international expansion of the mobile business line from London. For more information, visit www.logmycalls.com or call 866-811-8880.

Filed under: Online Marketing
  • Mallen

    Great article Jason!

  • http://www.weboutsourcing-gateway.com/ Web Outsourcing Gateway

    I don’t have a landing page on my website right now, but I might consider this 7 vital rules of landing page

  • http://buildachurchwebsite.com/ christian web design

     Really like this article… there are some good points to be noticed,,,,,
    thanks for sharing…..

  • http://www.brickmarketing.com/ Nick Stamoulis

    Each landing page should only have one goal.  If you want a visitor to take multiple actions, it will be confusing for them.  The path to whatever conversion you want should be clearly defined and easy for the visitor.  

  • http://pg.webring.com/members/blog/timewarnerinternetdeals/ Rita Dawson

    Great post! The 4th point is really good. Many people forget the Call to action as they optimize the page. Actually if they forget then there is no need to even optimize the page. Nice that you have mentioned it. 

  • http://attuverse.devhub.com/blog/860552-ultimate-entertainment-with-att-uverse/ Sharon Thomas

    The points that you have mentioned in the article for optimizing the landing page is wonderful.You article has enlightened me on the subject, “Landing page conversion rate”. Thanks for the informative post.

  • http://www.a3logics.com/Microsoft-Solutions/dynamic-CRM dynamics crm

    These are really important points to be considered. Thanks for this.

  • http://time-warner-internet-connection.webs.com/ CWatson

    That’s a great
    advice. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I would definitely like to
    implement some of your points when I start doing landing page optimization.
    Thanks. Keep posting more SEO related tips. Cheers!
     

  • http://verizon-fios.spruz.com/pt/Verizon-FiOS--Entertainment-In-Your-Hands.6-14-2012/blog.htm Mark_Ben

    Hey this is a great technique for land paging optimization. I wasn’t aware of it. Surely I am going to follow it in the future. 

  • http://www.poweredbysearch.com/ Marc Nashaat

    This is great advice. Some of the points are common knowledge and widely practiced. Others should also be common knowledge but are unfortunately not practiced as frequently. In this case I’m talking about A/B  / Multivariate testing.

    A big problem here is that many marketers don’t have enough data to test with (or enough time for that matter) but even if this means setting up test trials with personnas matching  their campaign audience, testing different landing pages is CRUCIAL to a successful campaign and high conversion.