3 Simple Techniques to Clear the Path to Landing Page Conversions
August 16th, 2013 by
Getting conversions should be the first thing in your mind as you write your website landing page. If you want a high percentage of your visitors to convert, you need to make the desired action prominent and clear from the beginning, and you need to provide the visitor with a clear path toward the conversion goal. No distractions.
The conversion actions will be simple:
- Fill out the form
- Call for a consultation
- Sign up (newsletters, email subscriptions, etc.)
- Download (product info, white papers, etc.)
- Click or Like a social account
- Open a live chat with a support representative
You’re going to explicitly tell them to complete one of these tasks in your call to action at the very end, but you need to accomplish a couple things before they will take that leap.
In most cases, you’re going to have to answer three basic questions the visitor is likely to have in his or her mind:
- Do you have what I want?
- Why should I get it from you?
- Can I trust you to provide me with the experience I want
This is where creativity comes in. There are some basic, repeatable techniques you should consider using as you try to answer these questions, but how to execute and prioritize your answers is a decision you have to make.
Techniques
Recognizing Needs and Motivations
“Cosmetic surgery can help change how you feel about yourself by changing how you look.”
Someone clicking on a paid ad for cosmetic surgery clearly dislikes something about their appearance. However, changing their face, neck, breasts, or whatever, is not the end goal. They want to FEEL better about the way they look. If they can’t trust surgery to provide them with that, they will go elsewhere. This quote addresses that underlying motivation, and it should leave the reader feeling like they have come to the right place.
Alleviating Fears
“We understand that making a decision to undergo a nose surgery can be life-changing. Therefore, we are dedicated to obtaining beautiful, natural and elegant results catered to the needs of each individual.”
A visitor is much more likely to fill out a form or call for a consultation if some of their basic fears have been addressed and dispelled in the landing page pitch. Obviously, surgery is a big undertaking with plenty of risks. This quote confidently says, “we agree, this is a big deal, but we have the skill to get you through it.”
You also can calm fears and build trust by mentioning awards, years of experience, certifications, professional society memberships, media appearances, success milestones, and more.
Everyone Else is Doing It…
“Teletrac’s Fleet Director is a proven platform that is already trusted by more than 20,000 fleets of all sizes, including 200,000 vehicles across 75 countries.”
Sending people the message that their colleagues/neighbors/friends are already using and enjoying a service or product is a powerful motivator. You won’t always get a chance to back your statement with objective numbers, but it will go a long way if you can make an effort to activate a reader’s desire to conform.
Final Thoughts
Don’t agonize over every sentence. Each thought, each word matters in a landing page pitch, but you don’t have to question every instinct you have. If you employ some of the techniques listed above, you can have more freedom to go with what your gut tells you as you fill in the rest of your landing page. Some sentences that previously might have read as filler material are now working in support of your effort to win trust and guide someone toward an action because you have set them up properly.
Before you submit your work, you should take a final look at it. Use four simple tips to make sure your pitch looks good and has the maximum opportunity to convince visitors to act.
The self-edit checklist:
- Break up any big chunks of text and make sure there is plenty of whitespace on the page
- If you don’t already have a bulleted list, make one
- Organize information and add subheads so visitors can easily scan and find the information that’s most relevant to them
- Make sure your call to action is simple and clear
If you use the techniques above to answer your visitors’ basic questions, and you always perform the self-edit checklist before your content goes live, you can put out quality landing pages that get results. I promise this will help raise your quality score and get more conversions.
