Don’t make these 5 landing page mistakes

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May 27, 2016 / by
Don’t make these 5 landing page mistakes

When you send large amounts of traffic to a particular page with the objective of creating a conversion, it’s essential that the page is optimised for that purpose. Otherwise you’re simply leaving money on the table.

Taking the time to do content marketing, send out newsletters, expand brand awareness on social media and connect with your audience is all worthwhile, but your efforts can quickly be undermined if your landing page is sloppy and unfocused. Here are some of the most diabolical mistakes you can make when creating a landing page.

1 – Suspicious looking testimonials

In the moment that your audience are preparing to part with their money, the last thing you want to do is give them any indicators of distrustfulness. This is why the testimonials on your landing page should be well written, contextually relevant and attributed to real human beings. Ideally, you should include a hyperlink to the individual’s personal site or social media profile so that new customers can check them out for validity. A suspicious looking testimonial will kill your chances of generating conversions. Some people think it’s okay to include testimonials without even a name or headshot to accompany them! This is a really bad idea if you want to maintain trust with your audience.

2 – Your copy is full of hyperbole

It’s great to give a positive spin on your product and drive home the ways in which it will benefit your customer. However, if you’re tempted to take it a step too far and make exaggerated claims or grandiose statements, this is not only unethical, it will also likely backfire. In the age of mass media, all adults have spent years being bombarded by marketing and advertising. Consumers in 2016 are very savvy at differentiating legitimate sales copy from hyperbole intended to swindle people out of their money, so avoid the latter at all costs.

3 – Uncompressed images

According to a study by Microsoft, the average human now has a shorter attention span than a goldfish. One surefire way to get people to bounce from your landing page before taking in the content is by incorporating large, uncompressed images which are slow to load. Fortunately, there are simple tools such as smush.it which you can use to make your file sizes as small as possible without losing any quality.

4 – Your call-to-action (CTA) is weak

If you don’t make it clear to your audience what action you want them to take, they’re unlikely to take any action! First, if your audience can’t immediately find your CTA, you’re in trouble. A good CTA button or form should work within the aesthetic context of your site design, but it should also stand out. You may wish to use a contrasting colour scheme in order to draw attention to the CTA. Also, it’s important that your CTA is extremely succinct and clear, so people know exactly what is expected of them and what will happen if they click.

Scott Martin, writing for Crazy Egg, states that most CTA buttons are positioned on the right side of a page, for pretty obvious reasons:

“Why the right hand side of the page? Numerous studies have shown that people who read English and other romance languages read… get this… from left to right.”

5 – Relying on your video to do the work

The benefits of using a video on your landing page have been well documented. Evidence from eyeviewdigital.com suggests that a compelling video can boost conversions by a whopping 80%. While a video might be the star attraction on a landing page, this doesn’t mean you can simply neglect your CTA, sales copy, page design and testimonials. A tasty sauce can certainly improve a meal, but it’s probably not going to be very delicious by itself.

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