Your landing page conversion rates are lower than you wanted them to be. What is killing your leads? Could it be poor design of the page or usability problems? Even if you are using the best and the most up-to-date strategies, you can still make mistakes you don’t even know about. However, these mistakes can ruin the entire page conversion rate.
In this article, we will outline 4 top mistakes that kill your conversion rates, along with some examples of “how it is supposed to be”. Hopefully, this information will help you get rid of the gaps you have in your methods. So let’s get into it!
#1. Do not pay more attention to make your design good-looking, rather than useful
Well, do you really think that people will order your services and purchase goods just because your website is attractive? No. The first mistake that leads to low conversion rates is focusing on the page prettiness instead of making it user-friendly. Make sure that your design looks informative and answers these questions:
- What is this website about?
- Who is your user/customer?
- What makes it unique or at least good?
- What features and benefits are included?
If you need an example, check Andersson Wise Studio website. Simply browsing the main page and the headlines, you can understand that it is for people who are seeking for professional architects and designers for their building projects. The website gives useful and solid info that certainly can make potential buyers use this website.
To reach your goal, you need to make your website personalized and unique. To do that, you should first determine your target audience and realize:
- Who your buyers are;
- What problem he/she needs to solve;
- And what motivates your user.
The next step is to develop a clear message that combines your offer with the needs of your buyers. This message should include the words from your customer vocabulary. This will build clarity from the first glance at your website.
The last step is adding some details like customer testimonials, calls to action, type of images, etc.
#2. Do not offer too many options
When you offer too many options on your web pages, it can confuse your visitors. Even such details as social network share buttons can be distracting and, therefore, decrease the number of social shares and user activity.
It is natural for a user, who is forced to choose from too many options, to leave the website and avoid any actions at all. It is proved by the real world of marketing as well as numerous researchers – the limited number of choices works better on customers’ activity. When you locate sharing buttons or anything else, just ask yourself whether this button is really useful. If it is not, just forget about putting it on your website.
Look at Flippa. This is a website that allows you to buy and sell domains, apps and websites. There are three buttons on the top of the page – “Websites”, “Domains”, “Apps”. Perfect! When a user finds this website, he/she already knows what exactly he/she needs. Using Flippa leaves nothing to chance – a required user choice is simple and straightforward.
Here is an example with social shares. Epicurious is a recipe site with Pinterest, Instagram, Google+, and Facebook buttons. Users need them to share the information, but do they need a LinkedIn button there? Not really.
#3. You need a relevant heading to grab users’ attention
The best combination is a relevant image along with a heading that grabs users’ attention when they visit your page. If your heading is not clear or not informative enough, you will leave your potential clients confused and wondering what they are doing on this landing page. Mind that your heading is one of the first things your visitors notice, so don’t forget to include a call-to-action in it.
Here is a good example of a successful heading. Student Share is a resource for students to upload and download academic papers. The heading “Struggling with essay writing? Get inspired by browsing more than 1,000,000 academic papers!” explores the main message of this service. It is for students who have problems with their homework and they can easily solve these problems by browsing a great amount of professionally-composed papers there. Enough said! This is an example of a heading that motivates students to try this website to deal with their main problem – homework. This way, Student Share combines both description of an issue and the way one can solve it. Moreover, it produces a message from top to bottom.
Often marketers fail to deliver a social proof or customer feedbacks. When previous customers recommend your service, it makes your company more trustworthy and creates a good reputation. Nothing makes your potential customers so much comfortable as the company’s trustworthiness. No need to say that a strong reputation leads to a better conversion.
Reviews and testimonials should be real quotes from your customers. This will make your page seem friendlier by demonstrating the benefits of your product or service. Real testimonials can showcase the benefits of your service better than if you do that in the bullet-point list on your main page. Including specific testimonials with names and photos is effective. Reviews from well-known people or companies are even more efficient.
Check Wishpond’s website. There are testimonials right on their main page. They include quotes from Huffington Post and mention other well-known services and companies as their happy clients. These reviews show the value of their business and demonstrate that other people admire the services they get. This is a social proof that makes your customers feel more confident about using your website.
To sum it up
It is not that easy to avoid all mistakes that kill your site traffic. However, you can fix your website by getting rid of usability issues. Make your website demonstrate what you can do for your visitors and get ready to get more sales!
Feel free to leave your comments on conversion rate issues below!
Image: conversion rate words written by 3d hand over white background
