Thursday, 16 July 2009
The 7 Deadly Sins of Landing Page Design
Google has posted an excellent webinar highlighting 7 of the most common mistakes marketers make with their online landing pages. I’ve embedded the webinar at the bottom of this post. But if you don’t have time to view it now (it’s over an hour long) I’ve highlighted the key insights below:
Why are landing pages important?
- Bad landing pages impact the effectiveness of your online marketing (one company highlighted in the webinar increased revenue by $48mil by improving their landing page)
- Visitors decide to stay or leave within 2-3 seconds of visiting your landing page
- Sometimes just changing a headline makes a huge difference (58% increase in conversion rate in one example given in the webinar)
- Changing design can make huge differences (84% ncrease in conversion rate in one example given in the webinar)
The 7 Sins
1. Unclear call to action
- What are you supposed to do on this page?
- Multiple graphics compete for attention
- Your call to action should be ‘obvious’
2. Too Many Choices
- Too many choices cause paralysis
- Get users closer to their goal
- Group choices into smaller categories
- Use visual shortcuts to reduce need to read
3. Asking for too much info
- Is this info necessary to complete transaction?
- Beware of info that has no value to clients (e.g. how did you hear about us)
- Collect additional data at a later date
- Short labels and unclutter form layout
4. Too much text
- You expect users to read all your text?
- Short attention span online
- Use inverted pyramid writing style
- Nobody cares about your text as much as you do
- Use short bullet lists
- Ruthlessly edit and shorten text (cross out every adjective/subjective claim)
- No ‘bs’ or marketing-speak
5. Not keeping your promises
- “This page is not what I expected”
- Disconnect from upstream ad promise/statement
- Promised information not on landing page
- Match user’s intent
6. Visual distractions
- Visual assaults annoying
- Gratuitous graphics unrelated to product/service
- Don’t compete with call to action
- Remove colourful page elements/animation
- Replace generic photos with relevant images
7. Lack of credibility & trust
- Why should I buy from you/trust you?
- Lack of endorsements
- No social proof/trust symbols
- Assurances presented too late
- Use client logos/brands/media coverage as ‘badges’
- Remove anxiety with generous policies and guarantees
The Webinar
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