These days, too many companies simply send traffic directly to their context-less home page from ads, social media, etc…
The result?
A ton of wasted ad spend, mediocre conversion rates, and lost opportunities.
Whether for ads, product promotions, content offerings, or any other purpose, the right landing page can make a huge difference for your conversion rate.
For that purpose, we’ve listed out 21 conversion-focused landing page tests that we like to run for our clients. These tests are smart approaches at figuring out exactly what type of landing page works best for a specific product, service, or ad you’re trying to get people to convert on.
Try these landing page tests, starting with…
Long landing pages might convert well for some products or businesses, such as more complex B2B SaaS products, whereas shorter pages might convert better for others. Testing long vs. short is an important way to discover how much information you should be serving your visitors.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Making the landing page shorter by removing unnecessary elements and keeping as much as possible "above-the-fold" can increase conversion rate. Brevity is less distracting, and therefore leverages impulse behavior.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
A longer, more scrollable landing page might end up giving visitors more of a reason to convert. Short landing pages give less information by design, so a longer page will let you better space out and elaborate on your product copy. Test a longer landing page against a shorter one to see which works best.
Where you position your CTA button or registration form on your landing page can make a big difference for how you position creative and copy around it. Centering is usually a best practice, but longer forms can be offset on one or another side. It’s worth testing each approach to see which gets the most conversions.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Putting a large call to action button in the center of your page can increase activation. The positioning will immediately draw attention to the CTA when someone lands on your page. Make sure the CTA stands out distinctly away from dense copy or complex images.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Place your call to action form or button on the right side of your landing page to increase activation. Focusing on the right side of your landing page rather than the center, especially when the form remains visible while scrolling down the page, keeps registration forms and CTA buttons above the fold and easily accessible for visitors. This reduces friction between reading your marketing copy and signing up for a demo or free account.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Try placing your call to action on the left side of the landing page to increase activation. This will keep the CTA above the fold for all screen sizes and catch the attention of visitors. It makes the CTA more prominent and easily accessible, potentially resulting in a higher likelihood of conversion.
Using your landing pages to make appeals that touch on your visitors’ emotions is critical to making them more interested in your product. From comparing yourself favorably against competitors to talking about the benefits of your product, you have a ton of options for how you want to position your product to best appeal to emotions.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
There are usually people searching for ‘competitor alternative’ or ‘product vs competitor’ – these are incredibly high value searches because these users are actively searching for a solution. Create a page full of content comparing the relative advantages of your product over that solution. As well as helping you rank on the more niche ‘you vs competitor’ search terms, you may find you start ranking on the competitor’s search terms also.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Your landing page offer should be appealing to your visitors. If the offer isn’t totally clear, try adding some explanation of the benefits of this offer.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Landing a potential customer on a landing page offering deals attached to time can create an urgency that can ultimately be a profitable way to improve conversion.
A specific product-focused landing page is much more beneficial for conversion rate optimization than simply funneling all traffic to your homepage. Yes, your homepage may be amazing, but you’re probably talking about multiple competing products at once. Focus on a single offering – whether it’s content, a free trial, an app, etc… – to keep your visitors focused on your actual conversion goal.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Offering a free trial of your product can be a smoother entry and more enticing offer than scheduling a demo. Try offering a free trial, and guiding those users into a paid account.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Design a landing page specifically promoting your app – Especially useful when there are 2 apps on both the App Store and the Play Store.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Landing a potential customer on a “beginner’s” guide content piece may be a less forceful but ultimately more profitable way to improve conversion.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Putting content behind a gate – email capture, social sharing, lead gen form – is a great way to entice visitors to leave their contact information. Create a separate landing page for high value content and gate it behind some form of wall. Try giving away a description or excerpt of the content for free in the landing page to further drive interest.
Nothing’s worse for a visitor to your site than confusion. If someone clicks on an ad for your mobile app but lands on your homepage, they’re immediately barraged with the wrong information and CTAs. They came to you with the intent to find out about your app. So give them a personalized page for that app. Here are a few different tests you can try along that vein:
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Increase conversion rate by sending traffic to a specific landing page that matches the ad messaging/creative. There are very few instances when you should send someone to your homepage, generally you want people to take an action and homepages are full of distractions, AND they have too many variables that won’t match your ad copy/creative. Best practice is always to match the ads messaging/creative with the landing pages messaging/creative: this increases the relevancy and the quality score of the ad, which often increases CVR while decreasing CPC. Win-win!
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
When a user shares your app with a friend, try creating a personalized landing page for that friend. This can include a social profile of the person who referred them, a special promo code, or some other incentive to sign up. This can greatly increase your chance to activate that new user and get them to sign up.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Increase conversion by sending traffic to a more relevant page. Engagement rises when landing page content more directly matches ad content. A page that’s more personalized for the audience that you’re driving to it is more likely to relate to the call to action and the message you’re trying to convey. Rather than directing to your landing page, for example, link to a contextual page based on the ad copy. I.e. webinar ad leads to webinar signup page.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Try isolating by device (mobile vs desktop) if the data shows that one device is outperforming the other. This will allow you to invest more into the more efficient device, and spend less on the underperformer, thereby maximizing the efficiency of the campaign.
Having the right visual structure to your page makes a big difference in attracting visitors to click on your CTAs. From giving them the right amount of information with a combination of copy and imagery to using video backgrounds to immediately get them engaged, test creating compelling visual landing pages to get your visitors to convert at a higher rate:
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Incorporating / adjusting a landing page’s design to showcase a video (~1 minute at most) can increase conversion with minimal content. This approach maintains focus on two elements: the video itself and the form submission. No other information or copy gets in the way of your visitors and the CTA.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Add more visuals to your landing page in order to maintain user interest. Display your products with high quality images and photos rather than just letting marketing copy do the talking. A visual approach is more appealing to visitors who want to understand what a product looks like and how it functions. Combine short, impactful copy with images and photos on your landing page to increase conversion.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Use surveys of your current customers to determine what your landing page copy should be. Ask customers what words and phrases they would use to describe your product. You can either adapt the answers into your own versions or directly insert them as social proof quotes in your landing page.
You can easily generate pages with some quick, intuitive services. If you need to put up a quick landing page with little to no work, check these out:
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Your Email Service Provider (ESP) often provides a signup page for your email list. Rather than investing the resource to build a whole landing page on your own, why not just use their mechanism first? That way with a simple hyperlink you can test whether people actually want to sign up to a list before you commit too much resource to it.
This tactic doesn’t require media budget
Using Welcome Mat’s ‘Instant Landing Page’ feature you can lock the signup page in place so users can’t scroll down without signing up. A full screen minimalist landing page like this works wonders for activation rates. In some cases we’ve seen 10%-30% conversion to email signup! Be sure to test different variations of design and copy as it can make a big difference to performance. If you find this too intrusive for the first visit, it can still be very effective if shown on visit 2 or on the 2nd page visited.
Those were some smart testing approaches to creating conversion-oriented landing pages. Use tools like Unbounce to make the process of creating and publishing new landing pages a breeze. Then, instead of funneling ad traffic to your homepage, try funneling them to landing pages that are specific to your ad. Chances are you’ll see a big boost in conversions.
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