- Improve Your Headline: Your landing page’s headline will likely be the first thing that catches visitors’ eyes when they land on your page. Is it interesting and compelling enough to keep them there long enough to even read the offer’s description? Not only should the headline be eye-catching, but it should also accurately sum up the content of the offer the visitor will receive. Be catchy, clear, and concise, not boring and vague.
- Align Your Image With the Offer: Every landing page should include an image. More importantly, it should be indicative of what the visitor will receive when he or she completes the form. Offering an ebook? Include an image of the ebook’s cover. Trying to get people to register for a webinar? Add an image of the title slide. Attempting to motivate prospects into a free trial of your software? Include a screenshot of the dashboard or a specific tool in the software.
- Shorten Your Copy: Remember: a landing page is not a blog article. There’s no need to get into a detailed description of the offer and why the visitor needs it. Your landing page visitor wants to quickly learn what the offer is, what they’ll get out of it, and why it’s worth completing the form and providing their information. Answer these questions as simply and with the most enticing language as possible, but avoid paragraph after paragraph of text. Instead, demonstrate the value prop and break up copy with bullet points and shortened blocks of text.
- Shorten (or Lengthen) Your Form: Whether you shorten or lengthen your forms to capture more or less information about your prospects all depends on your business goals and the status of your current lead generation efforts. Are your lead generation problems about the need for more leads? Consider eliminating a few form fields to encourage more people to complete your form. Or maybe you’re noticing a deficiency not in the quantity but rather the quality of leads you’re generating. If this is the case, you might consider adding more fields to your form so you can capture more information about prospects that will help you qualify them.
- Include Social Sharing Buttons: Don’t forget some low-hanging fruit that can easily help spread your landing page to new potential prospects. One piece of this low-hanging fruit is social media sharing buttons, which can easily be added to your landing pages. This will enable visitors to effortlessly spread your content to their connections beyond your direct network, expanding the reach of your landing page.
- Demonstrate Value: We hinted at this in number 3, but it’s definitely worth its own point. Let’s face it: people hate completing forms, especially when it means providing their personal information. The best way to make a person feel like a form is worth completing is by demonstrating the value of your particular offer. Visitors need to be convinced that the offer is valuable enough to them to fill out the form. Make sure your page clearly explains the value of the offer by explicitly explaining the benefits of downloading your ebook, signing up for a free trial, or attending your webinar.
- Make Your Call-to-Action (CTA) Compelling: Is your landing page clear about what your visitors must do to receive your offer? Whether your CTA is ‘download,’ ‘register,’ or ‘sign up,’ make it obvious, actionable, and stand out. Also, avoid vague terms and tie the CTA you use to the specific offer. So if your visitors will receive an ebook, use ‘download,’ not ‘submit.’
- Remove Multiple CTAs: Does your landing page include more than one CTA? Get rid of them immediately. Your landing page should be focused on just one offer with one call-to-action. Including more than one will confuse readers and increase your page’s bounce rate, meaning your visitors will abandon your page before they’ve even completed the form.
