I recently co-hosted a webinar for WordStream clients detailing landing page optimization best practices. Prior to the webinar, we gave our clients the opportunity to submit landing page examples for the chance to be audited during the webinar. The lucky winner was McEwan Fraser Legal, a Scottish firm that specializes in the residential property market, dealing with owner occupiers and property investors.
The Landing Page Audit
Here is the landing page submitted for our audit:
The Good
There are a few items from this landing page that I think are great.
It has a form
I love the fact that they have a form available directly on the page without creating extra steps for visitors. We live in such a busy world that many people will not fill out a form if they feel it requires any sort of time commitment or involves any sort of risk.
If you are optimizing for conversions, you should make it as easy as possible and avoid creating any barriers to converting. Having a form on the page makes it clear to a searcher exactly what they need to commit to and involves no extra steps.
It shows visitors what to do
Another great tip that this page has leveraged is that it uses an arrow and call to action to direct a reader's attention to the form.
Arrows are a great visual cue to increase conversion rates, but it is important that the arrow doesn't come across as "spammy." This is a simple way to draw attention to an action you want your visitors to complete. It creates a flow and makes the form more inviting.
Contains interactive content
Just above the form you will notice this page has some interactive content available. This is additional content that is optional for a user. A best practice with landing pages is to keep it simple and clear. A video is a great way to add additional information without overloading visitors with content.
If you do choose to add videos to your landing page, make sure you have other content available. Images and videos are not crawlable by Google's bots so you will need to have written content available to users, otherwise you risk Google disapproving your ads or even an account suspension.
Other ways to convert
Finally, having phone numbers and social media buttons available is a big plus for me. Again it makes it clear to visitors that they are available for a conversation. Having visitors call your company gives you or whoever answers your phone calls the opportunity to immediately capture lead information or close a sale.
I've highlighted the points above in the image below:
The Bad
I titled this section "the bad" but I think that's a little too harsh. I don't think this landing page is in terrible shape to begin with but it definitely has room for improvement. A couple points that should be focused on are as follows:
It is too busy
My biggest complaint with the page is that it feels busy.
When advertising through PPC we have the luxury of knowing how visitors got to our page and what they were searching for prior to visiting. Use that to your advantage by giving the searcher exactly what they are looking for.
Take the product they were looking for and present them with a list of relevant benefits and attributes. Chances are you are not the only company that offers what they want. By presenting a list of attributes and benefits you can illustrate how you stand out and why they should go with you instead of the countless other options available.
It is too long
To read all the content on this page requires visitors to scroll. Again, remember that visitors are very busy so try to keep the most important information – if not all the information – above the fold.
My Vision for This Landing Page
After breaking down what I liked about the page and what could be improved, I used a photo editing tool to mock up what I think the page should look like. I tried to simplify the page without losing important information and keeping the areas I liked. Here is what I came up with:
Left to Right
The first difference you will notice about the page is that I shifted the form and the interactive content over to the right hand side of the page. I did this because the page is written in English. Anyone who primarily speaks English or any other Latin derived language has been taught that you read from left to right. This means their eyes are immediately drawn to the left side of the page.
With that in mind I moved their positioning statement and benefits to the left and their form and video to the right hand side. This change will promote their visitors to read the content before being presented with a form to fill out.
Less clutter
You will also notice that I reduced the amount of content and images to give the page a clean feel that does not require any scrolling.
After the Landing Page Audit: Additional Testing
Any seasoned landing page pro out there knows that a page can look pretty but still convert like garbage. I can sit here and make suggestions on how you can improve your landing pages, but it comes down to testing to determine if those changes actually improve the metric you are looking to improve: conversions. I would recommend testing this page against a similar page with slightly adjusted content because you will never know what works best until you try.
Areas this business can continue to test include:
- Different calls to action
- Replacing their video with other videos or images
- Different versions of the form – try making it shorter or even longer!
- Changing headlines, positioning statements
- Bullet variations
When it comes down to it there is always room for improvement for any digital marketing. If you have the resources to test your pages, I would highly recommend giving it a shot. It's one of the easiest ways to squeeze more conversions out of the traffic you're already getting.
Want to See Your Landing Page Audited?
Please share your thoughts below or send us a page you would like us to feature in a future post.
This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.
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