Your marketing campaign is only as successful as your landing page is. While many may deter you with countless metrics to track, there is only one that needs your complete attention.
And that is the landing page conversion rate.
However, improving this metric is not the easiest job in the world. If it was, there wouldn’t be any bad landing pages and marketers would be the richest people on earth.
If you’d rather make the latter a possibility, stick around because we’ll be sharing 11 tried and tested strategies for improving landing page conversion rates.
What is a Landing Page Conversion Rate?
The landing page conversion rate measures the number of people who complete a call to action on your website’s landing page as opposed to the total number of visitors.
This call to action can be anything you want it to be – a purchase, newsletter sign-up, or an eBook download.
A high conversion rate suggests that your landing page is successful in persuading visitors to perform a desired action. On the other hand, a lower rate signals issues in your landing page message and design.
But how does one calculate landing page conversion rates? Let’s find out.
How is the Landing Page Conversion Rate Calculated?
The landing page conversion rate can be calculated using the below formula:
Landing page conversion rate = (Total number of conversions / Total number of visitors) * 100%
This metric can be calculated for different periods depending on when performance is reported in your company, say on a monthly or quarterly basis.
Fortunately, you don’t need to do the actual math the next time you need to monitor this metric – your website analytics tool should do this automatically.
Calculating just the conversion rate of your landing page isn’t enough; you need to compare it to industry benchmarks to conclude whether you’re on the right path or need to correct your way.
What’s a Good Landing Page Conversion Rate?
A good landing page conversion rate is between 21% and 50%. This is what the majority of the 50+ marketers we surveyed reported.
Now, before you start rushing to optimize landing pages for conversions, just know that a good conversion rate is subjective. It depends on numerous factors, some of which are seasonality, target audience, and competitive landscape.
Perhaps, the most important determinant here is the industry your company belongs to. E-commerce companies often have better conversion rates because the purchasing process is straightforward, and most visitors are ready to buy.
Contrarily, real estate websites usually experience a lower landing page conversion rate because of how high the value of the transaction is.
Your best bet is to monitor the average landing page conversion rate of your industry and then strive for a better one. For this, there is no better place than Databox Benchmark Groups, which provides exclusive access to crucial metrics of companies similar to yours.
Why Your Landing Pages Might Not Be Converting Enough
If your landing page conversion rate is far below the industry standard, it’s time to return to the drawing board. But before you start optimizing a landing page for conversions, you need to understand the source of the problem.
If your landing page is not converting enough, it’s probably because of:
# Poor above-the-fold section: The top section is the first thing visitors see on your landing page. If it is cluttered, overwhelming, or simply unattractive, visitors may be less inclined to explore the rest of the landing page.
# Multiple call-to-action buttons: Having different kinds of CTA buttons might confuse visitors regarding which action to perform first. It’s better to have a single call to action button and place it on multiple occasions for longer landing pages.
# Irresponsive landing page design: Don’t underestimate the number of people accessing landing pages from their mobile devices. If the design isn’t responsive or mobile-friendly, nothing will motivate your prospects to leave faster.
# Slow loading times: If your landing page takes too long to load, your potential customers might become impatient and leave before taking action. Once you’ve lost their attention when they were willing to give it, it’s nearly impossible to win it back.
# Bad copywriting: Poor copy isn’t just about grammatical errors and lengthy sentences. If the copy fails to resonate with your target audience’s pain points, it will struggle to convince them to take action
11 Ways to Improve Landing Page Conversion Rates
What are some strategies that increase landing page conversion rates? This is what we asked the marketers we surveyed and trust me, you’d want to stick around for them.
Let’s have a look at the below strategies in detail:
1) Research what’s not working on your landing page
Guesswork rarely works when optimizing an important metric like the landing page conversion rate. Even if you have a hunch about the culprit, you’re better off conducting a root cause analysis before brainstorming techniques to increase conversion rates.
Regarding this Alex Birkett of Omniscient Digital Notes suggests carrying out a “generic, repeatable conversion research audit.
2) Understand user behavior
Another way through which you can identify potential issues is by understanding how visitors behave on the landing page and how they interact with its different elements. Doing so will help you identify where they spend most of their time, face friction, and engage in rage-clicking.
So, for instance, you may notice that visitors start filling in your contact form but leave without completing it because of too many form fields. With this information, you can either remove unnecessary fields or make some optional.
3) Always deliver value
Truth be told, you won’t be creating just one landing page. You’ll need different landing pages for your multiple use cases, the industries you cater to, as well the diverse buyer personas you have. One thing that may suffer when creating such a high volume of landing pages is the value they offer.
Nili Zaharony of Penguin Strategies describes this better, “It’s easy to go on autopilot when creating landing pages.”
4) Write headlines that play to emotion
Headlines are important, no doubt. Yet, some read like a narcissist’s autobiography – they just endlessly mention the product’s features without regard for the visitor and their emotions.
Only those headlines contribute to increasing landing page conversion rates that solve customer pain points and evoke strong emotions in them. These can be emotions of happiness, nostalgia, safety, and sometimes, even fear.
5) Make your landing page copy flow
No matter the number of visuals on your landing page, it is the copy that builds credibility, promotes your product, and, ultimately, converts your prospects.
Ollie Smith of ExpertSure thinks the same, “In my experience, one of the most effective ways to improve your landing page conversion is to craft a compelling flow of text. You need your landing page copy to be convincing, to get the point across, and to be genuine.”
6) Include relevant videos
While copy has the power to convert, that doesn’t mean you can compromise on the visual design. Videos, specifically, help grab the visitor’s attention, visually provide more information, and encourage engagement.
There are so many ways you can go about it – add a product demo video, a customer testimonial video, or an animated one.
7) Drive prequalified traffic through ads
Landing pages are not made in isolation. They are paired with marketing campaigns that capture interest and redirect them to the landing page, which then works toward converting leads.
Hence, it makes total sense that you filter out the people beforehand and only redirect those prospects with an actual probability of conversions.
8) Monitor on-site behavior
Understanding what your visitors are doing on your landing page before they convert is crucial for increasing the conversion rate later on. This way, you can identify any rage clicks or unnecessary steps that confuse visitors.
There are many ways you can monitor on-site behaviour – path analysis, heat maps, and session replays are my top picks.
9) Reference Google Ads data
Personalizing the experiences for landing page visitors is something we’ve concluded is important so far. However, this doesn’t mean you only need to look into the information they share themselves through contact forms. You can refer to your Google Ads data for creating tailored experiences.
Your Google Ads data is like a goldmine – check for keywords, device types, countries, and so much more. Lindsey Broussard of Online Optimism uses something similar, “Check in on QS frequently to make sure that the correct keywords are used.”
10) Introduce live chat on your landing page
Having a live chat on your landing page does more than just increase the work of your customer support team. It builds trust and credibility, helps reduce customer ambiguities, and collects crucial feedback regarding where visitors face friction.
Pair this with a resource centre and you’ll be able to provide proactive support in case your customer support agents are unavailable.
11) Optimize your landing page for mobile
It is 2024 and marketers still ignore the importance of creating mobile responsive designs. Even if your brand is B2B, there will still be a sizable portion of your target audience accessing your content on their mobile devices.
It’s not even complicated to create mobile-friendly landing pages. Most website builders come with predesigned templates that offer a responsive design for different devices.
Final Words
I’m sure you’ve picked up a few strategies to improve your landing page conversion rate. But remember, the job isn’t done yet – you still need to monitor the conversion rate frequently and tweak your strategy if needed.
There are a couple of ways to go about it. You can use Google Analytics to monitor and report on performance. But applying different filters, jotting down the information on spreadsheets, and then creating visual graphs is no less than a hassle.
