How to Improve Landing Page Usability: 7 Tips to Sell More
Content:
- What is a landing page (Landing Page)
- What are the reasons why users leave a landing page?
- How to Improve Landing Page Usability: 7 Tips Examples of good and bad design of a landing page with a photo
- Conclusions
A landing (Landing page) is a separate landing page, which should effectively convert the user into a lead. Since we’re talking about a selling landing page, not an informational one, its overall purpose is to sell or motivate the customer to place an order. The latter option is usually applicable for products or services in the high price segment, when the customer needs time to make a purchase decision.
If you already have a page, you’ve likely already asked yourself questions when designing your branding:
- what type of device are users using?
- What do users expect from the page?
- What kind of information does a visitor want to get on the page?
- what are the real actions of the user?
- what might prompt a potential customer?
- what factors will scare users away from the page?
If you are just going to create a Landing page, then try to answer them as honestly as possible and record the data. This is the basis on which you will draw up terms of reference (terms of reference) for the designer.
For what reasons do users leave the landing page?
Any psychologist knows: in order to make a decision, a person needs to be served in a convenient form of information. The higher the “price”, the more informative the website should be to sell products and services.
What are the reasons why a potential customer may leave a website? There are several of them. Here are the main factors that alienate the user from buying from you:
- the offer does not reveal the essence of the USP, meaningless and incomprehensible;
- Important information is located incorrectly, unnoticeable on the page;
- CTA is missing or the button merges with the background;
- poor quality copywriting;
- the design does not take into account the principles of reading web pages;
- pages take a long time to load;
- keywords are not highlighted.
Also on the fact of purchase affects the device from which the user came to your landing page. A simple example: a person sitting in the park will have no problem ordering food from a smartphone, but is unlikely to buy a car at this point. However, if your UTP is convincing enough for him, he is likely to return to the site already from the desktop. Therefore, take care about adapting the design of the landing page for different devices (smartphones, tablets, PCs).
7 tips on how to improve the usability of the landing page.
Based on the above problems, let’s pick up the appropriate solutions to them. These tips will help to increase the number of applications and sales on the Landing page. They are quite universal and will suit any business in the B2C segment, as well as being useful for some B2B webpages.
The first screen solves everything
The reality is brutal. Users spend 80% of their time on the first screen. If they’re not interested in it, no one will look at the rest of the page.
What is the first screen of a Landing page? It is a separate meaningful block of the page, which contains STP and highlighted graphically.
The ideal first screen should contain strong selling text and a quality product photo or graphic. Both elements increase the visitor’s interest and make him want to learn more about the product, which is the principle of the selling structure of the design of a landing page.
Of the additional elements on the first screen is also appropriate brand name / organization, phone number, a dedicated button CTA (call-to-action), a short list of benefits. Everything else distracts the user and takes them away from the page. But more about that later.
The less text, the better.
Use copywriting not for the sake of filling a landing page, but to convey to a potential client all the benefits of buying from you. Brief blocks of meaning are enough for this, instead of a long “sheet” of letters.
For example, the benefits of a product or service is more effective to present in the form of an infographic with concise captions. And the principle of how something works is sometimes better illustrated than described in text.
Take the principles of usability into consideration when writing the text. In particular, F- and Z-patterns – the way your human eye scans the content. Do not put important information in the blind spots.
On the first screen, try to place all important information in the upper left corner. The navigation menu is perceived better vertically, but headlines and other texts are perceived better horizontally.
Don’t leave customer questions unanswered
Some people need help to make a buying decision. Consequently, the perfect landing page should also cover this need to reach the goal.
The easiest option to help a potential customer is to set up a quick-call service. Studies show that a call-to-action icon increases CTR by 10%-20%. By the way, we have an interesting article on how to set up goals for Binotel Calltracking and the Getcall widget to properly track channel effectiveness.
However, for some users, having a real conversation with a stranger can be a serious step out of their comfort zone. For that case, an online consultant comes in handy. This can be either a real chat operator or a “humanized” bot. He should be able to conduct a dialog in a friendly manner, identify potential customers’ “pains”, give expert comments on the products/services being sold, be interested and offer alternatives, quickly find solutions to the user’s problems and sell.
Important! It is recommended to take the client’s contacts in the process of the dialogue, after the trusting communication has been established. Filling out forms right away scares away and makes internet users tired.
The customer came to buy, not to print
Do not make the user perform “extra” actions on the page. Your task is to bring the potential customer to the end of the page and make him want to fill out the lead form, not to close it quickly. Consequently:
- Minimize the number of drop-down menus;
- reduce the number of fields to fill in the lead form;
- make sure that fields are adjusted for characters (for name – letters, for phone – numbers);
- set up registration via social networks or e-mail;
- check whether the filled-in data is being pulled up to the payment service.
Remember that the desktop is not the only source of traffic
Users can make their first acquaintance with the landing page from their phone. Those whose page design is not adapted to mobile devices and slow loading, will lose this audience.
To make the Landing page easier, make sure that:
- Images are optimized and load quickly, even with low Internet speeds;
- used technology scalable vector graphics (increasing or decreasing the size of the picture does not affect its quality);
- the content is coded in HTML, not displayed as an image.
Distractions steal customers
Any link to a third-party resource can be used against you. So, from a targeted action, users are often diverted by:
- Social media buttons;
- secondary links;
- Unnecessary navigation (in most cases, the landing page does not need it).
Important: Not everything that works for 99% of the leadings will work for you. To increase conversions, resort to A/B testing. For example, remove social media buttons and metrics trackers. Use a comparison method to choose the best option for the Landing page.
Also, the distracting factor can be the lead form itself, placed on the first screen. Web designers recommend placing it closer to the end. If the page is long, then duplicate the lead-form after the informative blocks.
Exception! The lead-form on the first screen is effective for products and services for which the decision to buy is taken instantly. For example, there’s a promotion on the product, or the service offers free registration.
Trust – an important trigger to purchase
Also, the use of trust triggers is mandatory in the design of the Landing page. Without them, the client will not have the desire to voluntarily pay for the product or service offered.
Popular variants of trust triggers for a landing page:
- Customer testimonials with a photo or video (ideally backed up with a link to the person’s social media accounts);
- videos with “unpacking” (if it’s a tangible product);
- gifts or nice bonuses (e.g., a free test period for a program or online service);
- an all-inclusive offer (along with the purchase, a person receives delivery and installation);
- guarantee (a guarantee of anything increases customer loyalty).
Banding design: examples with photos
Example of a good design for a landing page:
- the page is sharpened for one specific offer;
- The image of the product is qualitative and attractive;
- A bright CTA button stands out against a bright background;
- the first screen is no superfluous text, but only a “tasty” description of the product;
- the name of the brand is located in the upper left corner and is immediately memorable;
- On the first screen there is no extra buttons and links.
Example of bad branding design:
- Three CTA buttons on the first screen at once + a pop-up form for entering a phone number;
- Too much text that overwhelms the user;
- “cocktail” of multiple sentences, which is confusing;
- Unfortunate color scheme, the text is poorly readable.
- Bad example of a landing page
- An example of a bad design for a landing page
Conclusions
An effective landing page is focused on solving one particular “pain” of the customer. Therefore, getting on the site, the user must immediately get answers to all questions. Superfluous text and buttons, bad color scheme, long loading elements or inability to write to the seller will immediately lead the user away from the page.
In order for the landing page achieves the goal of sales, focus on conciseness, usability, informativeness and functionality. Each additional element is supported by dry statistics: if it does not increase the number of orders, feel free to remove