Landing Page Conversion Guide

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Introduction
- The 10-minute guide to effective landing pages
- The Smart Insights Digital Experience Toolkit
Step 1
- Set your landing page goals, objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs)
Step 2
- Understand your visitor needs
Step 3
- Engage your visitors
Step 4
- Design the optimal page layout
Step 5
- Create compelling content and creative
Step 6
- Increase brand credibility and trust
Step 7
- Improve results

Creating high-converting landing pages

Seven Steps to Success Guide

Authors: Dr Dave Chaffey and James Gurd

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

Seven Steps to Success Guide

Contents

Introduction .............................................................................................1

The 10-minute guide to effective landing pages ...................................................................1

What you will learn from this guide ......................................................................................6

Common aims of landing pages ...........................................................................................8

Factors inuencing landing page creation and optimisation .................................................9

Factors you control to improve landing page performance ................................................. 11

Using your home page as a landing page ...........................................................................12

Tailoring landing pages to suit device capabilities ..............................................................13

Facebook landing pages ..................................................................................................... 14

The Smart Insights Digital Experience Toolkit ..................................16

Step 1: Set your landing page goals, objectives and key

performance indicators (KPIs) ............................................................ 17

Keeping your landing pages focused on customer needs ................................................. 17

The difference between goals, objectives and KPIs ...........................................................19

Dening how landing pages will deliver against goals and objectives ................................21

Setting KPIs for landing pages ............................................................................................22

Creating a management dashboard for landing pages .......................................................23

Create conversion models to assess potential of landing pages ........................................24

Set branding objectives for landing page ...........................................................................25

How strong is your brand personality?................................................................................27

Dene minimum contact information to maximise conversion ............................................29

Step 2: Understand your visitor needs............................................... 31

Outline your main audiences ..............................................................................................32

Dene main user scenarios or tasks ................................................................................... 35

Techniques to surface deeper content ................................................................................ 37

Explain the service or category clearly ...............................................................................39

Review relevance of ofine contact options ........................................................................40

Review devices that visitors use ......................................................................................... 41

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

Step 3: Engage your visitors ............................................................... 44

Measuring engagement for landing pages .......................................................................... 44

Audience recap ...................................................................................................................45

Engagement techniques .....................................................................................................46

Step 4: Design the optimal page layout ............................................. 59

Getting the right page layout ...............................................................................................59

Layering information ...........................................................................................................62

Consider offering distinct, segmented landing pages .........................................................64

Make the page work above the fold ....................................................................................65

Understanding where to place the call to action .................................................................67

Page layout questions to ask yourself ................................................................................. 69

Creating mobiletouch and mobile -friendly landing pages ..................................................72

The importance of testing ...................................................................................................73

Step 5: Create compelling content and creative ............................... 76

Good practice techniques for copywriting ........................................................................... 76

Content to engage the visitor ..............................................................................................77

Persuasive messaging hierarchy ........................................................................................78

Brand and strapline ............................................................................................................. 79

Effective copywriting ...........................................................................................................80

Step 6: Increase brand credibility and trust....................................... 84

1. Logo ................................................................................................................................84

2. Strapline ..........................................................................................................................85

3. History/About Us .............................................................................................................85

4. Testimonials/Reviews ......................................................................................................87

5. Accreditation ...................................................................................................................88

6. Security messages .........................................................................................................89

7. Customer service support ...............................................................................................89

8. Guarantees/warranties ....................................................................................................90

9. Awards ............................................................................................................................91

Step 7: Improve results ........................................................................92

Why do you need to improve results? .................................................................................92

Importance of clearly dened KPIs .....................................................................................92

Making sure you’re getting value from your landing pages .................................................93

Tracking landing page efciency .........................................................................................94

Tracking form errors .......................................................................................................... 101

Analysing visitor ow for existing landing pages ............................................................... 101

Actions on landing pages ..................................................................................................101

Testing alternative page versions ......................................................................................102

Testing different page elements? ......................................................................................103

Testing tools ......................................................................................................................104

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

Introduction

This guide explains all the steps you need to take to create effective landing pages.

We’re often asked by members for succinct summaries, so the introduction to our Landing

Page guide summarises all the main factors that affect effectiveness.

The 10-minute guide to effective landing pages

You can simply think of a landing page as any “entrance page” where visitors enter a site.

Typically landing pages are simplied pages designed to get the highest conversion when a

visitor arrives from specic media like paid search, afliate marketing or an ofine campaign.

What is it? Landing page

An entrance page to a site where a visitor arrives on a site when they click on an ad or

other form of link from a referring site or an ofine campaign. It can be a home page, but

more typically and desirably a landing page is a page with the messaging focused on an

offer featured in an ad or another site.

There are two main types of landing pages:

1. Standard pages such as category, product and home pages

For some marketing campaigns you may already have good quality landing pages on your

website that can be used to avoid having to spend time and money creating new pages. For

example, an ecommerce retailer that sells well-known consumer brands might choose to

use their brand landing pages for brand-centric paid search campaigns. With the number of

different types of different products it’s not practical to create specic landing pages.

Take a look at the example below of beauty retailer Escentual.

The marketing team is using the Clarins brand page from its brand directory as the paid

search landing page for brand-related search queries (the top ad in this example is triggered

by searches on ‘clarins’).

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

Note that a landing page can be any existing URL that is accessible via the website so

it’s important to see how to boost conversion for visits through SEO as arriving on landing

pages. Some web teams create custom URLs specically for marketing campaigns, for

example curated product list pages that cater for high priority paid search terms. This

includes URLs that are generated by the use of search/attribute lters; many search tools

allow you to create custom search lists and assign a unique search identier that creates a

unique URL for use in campaigns.

The example below shows Boden using a ppc landing page for the search term ‘womens

polo shirts’ that is actually a search results page hosted on its search sub-domain (powered

by SLi Systems), generated by using multiple search lters.

Let’s have a look at our rst tip

Best Practice Tip 1 Show the specic value you offer straightaway

For a retailer typically this is the pricing, delivery and returns policy, often shown in a ribbon

below the main navigation or in the right sidebar as a “Why choose Us?” box. In the Clarins

example from Escentual, the focus is on telling the brand story and promoting the new

products.

2. Creating a bespoke landing page for a specic trafc source

This type of campaign landing page is often what companies refer to when they discuss

landing pages.

Often, digital marketers don’t have an existing web page that satises the unique requirements

of a marketing campaign. For example, they may be targeting an audience segment for which

additional content and different calls to action are required. In this case, they will design and build

a bespoke landing page to give them a better chance of converting visitors.

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

Bespoke landing pages are really useful when existing web pages aren’t performing as well

as you would like (e.g. high bounce rate, low conversion rate, low per visit value, etc.) to

justify sending lots of campaign trafc to them. Why spend time and money creating great

marketing campaigns only to send people to a web page that won’t convert their interest?

The goal of a landing page will vary depending on the business and market you operate

within. Typically landing pages fall into one or more of the following types:

þ1. Sales conversion. The goal is to generate revenue via an online purchase via the

website. This is the most common form of landing page for ecommerce websites.

þ2. Lead generation. The goal is to capture visitor interest in a product or service and get

them to submit contact information for follow-up sales activity. This is most common in

B2B marketing.

See the example below from Edgar’s Water, a supplier of rental bottled water and water

coolers for ofces, where this is again a destination page for an AdWords campaign, for

search queries including “ofce water cooler”. You can see that a range of messages are

used to encourage direct response via a lead generation form.

þ3. Data capture/sign up. Here the goal is similar, it’s to get information from the visitor

that will enable the business to include them in future marketing campaigns or improve

the relevancy of future marketing campaigns by supporting a customer relationship

management (CRM) program.

An interesting application of this is in the insurance industry where users are asked to

submit lots of personal information to get a free quote. The quote can be stored and

retrieved later, or the user can commit to purchase immediately. Even though many users

won’t buy once the quote is complete, it generates a lot of data for future marketing and

customer analysis.

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

Best Practice Tip 2 Capture email at the start of the process and follow-up

It’s expected that many people won’t actually complete their quote or make a direct

purchase but this process gives the insurance company data that can be used to

convert prospects into customers, as open quotes can be saved for future reference.

Follow-up occurs via a triggered email.

Some B2B software websites use simple signup forms to get new users subscribed to a

free service, creating a database of users that can be harvested to upsell paid services,

such as an upgrade to a premium version. This is common amongst SaaS vendors.

The example below is from Webceo.com, showing the ppc landing page from a Google

search for “seo guide”. The actual landing page is much longer, the screenshot only

shows the signup form.

þ4. Download. The goal is to get visitors to download content, usually with the exchange

of contact data in return for the content.

A good example is from email marketing where B2B companies regularly promote free

content to harvest contacts. To access the content online or download, you need to

provide basic contact information (name, company, job title, contact phone and email).

The screenshot below shows the user journey from a paid search ad from AdClarity to

download a free B2B ebook on programmatic buying.

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

Key Strategy Recommendation 1 Dene the primary marketing aim of your landing

pages

We nd it helps to categorise your landing pages to help you focus on a primary goal

for each page. This will ensure that your landing page strategy targets outcomes rather

than being undirected.

Why are landing pages important?

Generally speaking, there are two challenges for digital marketers: rst, they need to devise

compelling content and marketing campaigns that will inspire customers to respond; second,

they need to provide a destination where the customer can easily achieve their goals and nd

all the information they need to make a decision.

The second requirement is often the most overlooked – it’s far more exciting to launch a cool

marketing campaign with stunning creative and unbeatable offers than to carefully plan out the

onwards user journey and ensure all angles are covered to make the most of the response.

However, it’s this requirement that determines how successful a marketing campaign will

be. For campaigns with an online response mechanism, your landing page plays a vital

role in matching the needs of visitors with relevant calls to action and conversion paths. A

well-designed landing page removes the barriers to conversion – the difference between

failure and success. For example, a landing page that uses creative assets (e.g. banners)

consistent with the marketing campaign reassures visitors that they are in the right place.

The example below from a holiday company is from a Google search for “holidays in

Bordeaux”. When clicking on the paid search ad from Carisma Holidays, you’re dropped on

a busy landing page with no mention of ‘Bordeaux’ anywhere. The page spends focuses

on trying to persuade you the website is quality instead of thinking about the most relevant

content based on the user journey. If you don’t know the region well, would you think that La

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

Dune des Sables and St Hilaire are in Bordeaux? They’re not, although they are relatively

near by.

What you will learn from this guide

Our advice in this guide is about improving pages specically created to increase conversion

to lead where you either convert visitors to making a purchase online or collect visitors’

details through a form for follow-up marketing activity to convert to sale. The latter is typical

for B2B companies where often the online channel is used to generate leads and feed the

sales funnel.

Examples of where landing pages work well include:

þLeads for business-to-business services like SaaS software

þHigh-value consumer services like holidays, mortgage applications or laser eye treatment

þSearches for complex products/services where lots of information needs to be presented,

in an easy to understand format.

It’s most common to create these types of landing pages when you’re paying for site visitors

by running a Google AdWords or banner campaign. Alternatively, if you’re running a print ad,

direct mail or TV campaign, you may want to have a call-to-action to visit an online landing

page. It makes sense to do all you can to get the best returns when you invest to drive

visitors to your site. You want to give visitors a focused experience to encourage conversion

without all the clutter of a home page.

The page can be part of the site architecture which visitors reach by searching or browsing,

or a page specically designed for links from paid ad campaigns. The aim of the landing

page is to maximise conversion rates plus help brand familiarity and favourability.

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

Key Strategy Recommendation 2 Create bespoke landing pages for lead generation

Landing pages will maximise conversion since you can create a simpler page focused on

your goals and making it easier for site visitors to engage.

Even if you don’t have these types of pages on your site now, this guide will give you lots of

ideas about how you can make different types of pages more effective. The recommenda-

tions we give in this guide apply to both types of landing pages. First, those integrated into

the site’s structure with standard page templates and navigation for the site. Second, landing

pages specically created for getting new leads and customers with a different look and feel.

Remember also that the home page can effectively be a landing page, so similar approaches

often work.

Here’s an example of what we think is a good landing page from SLi Systems, promoting an

industry event. It illustrates many good practices such as replicating the campaign creative

to provide visual consistency. We’ve marked up what we see as good about this format. It’s

maybe not perfect, but better than most!

1. Consistent creative from email to landing page

2. Simple positioning copy promoting the event

3. Countdown timer with clear CTA

4. Latest social content

5. Links for people who want more information.

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

Another example is the landing page from Zoho.com promoting a CRM software solution for

small business. We can see the power of these pages in generating awareness and leads if

we take a look at the Google AdWords ad that encouraged visitors to this landing page.

Zoho.com has the top sponsored position in Google AdWords which supports sitelinks: this

will give it many more visitors than its natural listing which isn’t even on the rst page of

SERPs in Google because terms related to ‘CRM’ are highly competitive.

In this guide we have curated lot’s of examples of good (and sometimes poor) practice, but

if you’re looking for more examples of landing pages to inspire you, see these compilations

from:

þHubspot1

þUnbounce2

þCreativebloq3

There’s also an interesting case study available on the Smart Insights website looking at

how Saleforce.com used landing pages to promote its CRM solutions4. Please note that this

landing page has subsequently changed but the good practice learning is still relevant.

Common aims of landing pages

It’s important to consider the aims for your landing pages, specically what you want them to

achieve. This ensures that you match content with the needs of visitors and business aims.

We will go into this in more detail in Step 1 where we look at Dening how landing pages will

deliver against goals and objectives, but to give an indication of aims, we like to split our aims

or purpose of landing pages into four streams as shown in the next table.

When thinking about aims, remember that only a percentage of your total audience will be

ready to commit to a conversion. Many people respond to marketing campaigns to nd out

more information as part of the research phase of the decision making process. Therefore,

1 http://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/landing-page-examples-list

2 http://unbounce.com/landing-page-examples-built-with-unbounce/

3 http://www.creativebloq.com/web-design/landing-page-design-6133358

4 Smart Insights: The Perfect Landing Page.

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

don’t obsess over the conversion rate at the expense of everything else, although it is an

important key performance indicator (KPI) to measure and monitor.

Conversion Information and

onward journey

Lead generation Brand awareness

Where the visitor can

complete an action on

the landing page itself.

Here the conversion

occurs online.

Examples:

þ Paid search ad

links direct to a

product page

with “Buy now” as

primary CTA

þ Email campaign

directing people to

a landing page for

subscription to a

service.

Where the landing page

acts as a conduit to

a more complex user

journey, or to provide

specic information to

engage visitors.

Here, conversion occurs

on another web page or

via a different channel.

Examples:

þ B2B purchase cycle

for IT solutions

with landing page

to promote key

benets with links

to specic products/

services.

Where the landing

page is used to

capture interest

in a product or

service using a

contact form.

Here the online

channel is often

used to generate

leads for ofine

channels like

telesales.

Examples:

þ Digital

Marketing

company using

an online form

to enable

visitors to

request a free

site audit.

Where you are providing information

designed to raise awareness of what

your brand represents, to encourage

future visits.

Examples:

þ Banner ad taking people to a

landing page where they can

download a White Paper written

by the company.

It’s common for landing pages to have a primary conversion call to action (CTA) followed by

several secondary calls to action, such as signing up to a newsletter and requesting a sales

call. We discuss this in more detail in Step 7 – Improving results.

It’s also important to think about the onward journey. Landing pages need to be clear and

easy to use. If you have a complex message to communicate, consider using a landing

page as the central hook to capture attention and then provide clear links to more detailed

information on individual elements of your proposition.

Factors inuencing landing page creation and optimisation

There are many factors that inuence the effectiveness of a landing page. In a moment we

will recommend some practical steps you can take to change and improve landing pages.

But rst, consider the broad factors that affect conversion rates; these are nicely summarised

by this formula:

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

This formula was developed by Flint McGloughlin and team at Marketing Experiments5. We

really like the way it simplies the whole interplay between what the landing page needs to

achieve for the business and what the visitor is seeking.

It’s worth thinking about how you can control these elements of the equation. As Flint says:

“Optimization is not simply changing offer page elements, but doing so to better engage with

your prospect’s thought process”.

þConversion probability (C). What you want to increase, the conversion rate!

þMotivation of visitor (4m). This is given a high weighting - it’s the job of the landing page

to increase motivation. The more motivation already available when the visitor arrives on

the page, the easier your job will be...

þValue proposition clarity (3v). Simply put “Why should I hit that button - What’s in it for

me?”. So, emphasising what this value is to different types of visitors is a key planning

decision before you can build the landing page.

þIncentive to take action (i). These are offers additional to the core value proposition

such as a time-limited offer or bonus if the action is taken.

þFriction elements of process (f). There are many friction elements centered around

the effort needed from the user i.e. time or hassle. The number of elds, or if a multi-step

process, pages required to sign-up are the obvious friction components. Notice how, in

the equation a more powerful incentive (i) will overcome the friction elements.

þAnxiety about entering information (a). Straightforward, this is the fear of privacy and

security for personal data. It’s important to reassure about these. For example, ensuring

form pages using HTTPs.

Of course the strength of each element will vary for different types of visitors and how well

your page is already performing.

Key Strategy Recommendation 3 Review the balance of value for your current pages

This formula is a great high-level tool to help you review the strengths of your current

pages.

So, improving landing pages is fundamentally about getting the balance right and this is

nicely shown in this diagram.

5 Marketing Experiments: Optimizing Offer Pages

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

When you are working to improving landing pages the two main levers are:

þ1. Improving and emphasising your Value proposition and Incentive.

þ2. Minimising and reducing Friction and Anxiety.

Simple! But which tools do you have to achieve this? Many! They are all the different design

elements including visuals, copy and how they are laid out. These are some of the decisions

on what you can improve.

And don’t forget that you can turn to independent voices to help tackle friction and anxiety, for

example customer testimonials that demonstrate that you have happy customers.

Factors you control to improve landing page performance

Here are some of the main characteristics of the page you control, that we will drill down into

later in the guide:

þ1. Relevance of the page. In the rst few seconds of a visit this is affected by the

relevance of the header of the page (images and copy) to the context of the user’s visit -

why and where have they arrived from?

þ2. Length of the landing page. There is a popular myth that short-form landing pages

are ‘best practice’, with key content and call to action above the fold. However, there is

sufcient evidence to counter this view and demonstrate that the length of a landing page

should be determined by a mix of factors, including the needs of the audience for detailed

information.

We discuss this in more detail in Step 4 – Create the optimal page layout.

þ3. Placement of call to action. All calls to action must be above the fold right? Wrong.

Yep, surprising isn’t it. In truth, there is no hard and fast rule. Whilst it’s true that in most

cases a strong call to action above the fold increases conversion, there are cases where

this isn’t true and actually putting the call to action in front of the customer before they are

ready to take action can actually put them off.

We also discuss this in more detail in Step 4 – Create the optimal page layout.

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

þ4. Matching content to marketing creative. This is marketing good practice 101 – make

sure that your landing page is consistent with the source marketing campaigns that

generated the visit. Often referred to as the ‘scent trail’, this ensures visitors know they

have landed on the right page because they can recognise the creative treatment.

We discuss this in more detail in Step 5 – Compelling content and creative.

þ5. Consistency of messaging. This is closely related to marketing creative. It’s important

that you replicate the headline copy from your marketing campaigns on the landing

pages. This is especially important for paid search where search engines like Google

will look to see if the keywords used in ad copy match content on the destination page –

failure to do this can adversely affect ad Quality Score.

We also discuss this in more detail in Step 5 – Compelling content and creative.

þ6. Form validation. Forms are typically used by B2B marketers on landing pages, for

a variety of reasons including capturing contact information from people downloading

free content. The biggest barrier to goal completion is poor user experience, where the

landing page makes it hard for the visitors to quickly and easily complete and submit the

form.

We discuss this in more detail in Step 3 – Engaging your visitor.

þ7. Optimal blend of content. Let’s be realistic – if you have a large audience, it’s almost

impossible to design a landing page that is perfect for everyone (we’re yet to see that so

please do share if you have one!).

This is where landing page optimisation comes in to play – testing different variations of

the landing page to nd out which one drives the best results (based on the KPIs you are

measuring performance against). We discuss this in more detail in Step 7 – Improving

results.

Using your home page as a landing page

Landing page thinking is increasingly applied to home pages since a simpler experience and

clearer messages can be offered to the site visitor. This is particularly the case where there is

a simple proposition without a large choice of products.

Autoglass is a great example as shown in the next screenshot below and we reviewed a

previous version in our article on Home Page as Landing Page6. In this version they are

promoting the core service of repairing chipped or cracked windscreens with a simple CTA,

using content to provide reassurance and quality validation e.g. “What our customers are

saying”.

6 Smart Insights: Home page as landing page

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

Tailoring landing pages to suit device capabilities

Hopefully you’re aware that mobile trafc for many websites has now surpassed desktop

trafc, although there are exceptions. What’s interesting is how people are using mobile

to access information and make purchases, from reading emails to clicking on social ads.

Research from Litmus shows that mobile dominates for email opens:

And it may (or may not) surprise you to know that in B2B mobile is a popular device for

decision makers to nd information, including accessing emails. Google and Millward Brown

surveyed the research and purchase habits of 3,000 B2B professionals and found that 42%

use mobile devices during their B2B purchase process and purchase rates have increased.

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Image credit: Thinkwithgoogle.com7

With the importance of mobile increasing as a trafc source, web teams need to ensure

that landing pages are optimised to suit the mobile audience. This requires core UX design

skills to ensure the design is mobile friendly, such as using native gestures, but also an

understanding of how user needs and journeys differ when browsing via a mobile device.

rQ. Do you have a long, detailed landing page?

If yes, how do you make this usable on smaller devices? You shouldn’t expect users to scroll

endlessly to access key information, so what UI design techniques can you use to make the

page user-friendly?

It also means you need to stay on top of the latest industry development that impact mobile

browsing. A great example is Google’s recent launch of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP),

designed for content landing pages to provide super fast loading on mobile due to lightweight

code. We recommend watching Distilled’s helpful video explaining what an AMP8 is.

Facebook landing pages

Company Facebook pages encouraging visitors to ‘Like’ a brand are similar in many ways to

landing pages since they have clear, direct response goals – to get the ‘Like’ and to have to

communicate benets to achieve this.

So, many of the tips you nd in this guide may also be useful for Facebook company pages.

Educational organisations make good use of social media to promote key products and

services via landing pages. An example of a US organisation using a landing page on its

Facebook prole is Walden University. It includes links to provide useful information and has

a lead generation form.

7 https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/articles/the-changing-face-b2b-marketing.html

8 https://moz.com/blog/accelerated-mobile-pages-whiteboard-friday

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Some brands also use Facebook landing pages as a gateway to collect customer information

in return for entry into prize draws and competitions. This is similar to using a data capture

landing page on your main website.

You can read about a similar Facebook competition on our blog9.

So let’s move on to Step 1 and look at setting goals for your landing pages.

9 Smart Insights: Facebook Sweepstake promotions

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The Smart Insights Digital Experience Toolkit

This 7 Steps Mobile Marketing guide will teach you how to develop an overall mobile

strategy. Smart Insights Expert members can consult the other resources in our Digital

Experience Toolkit in our members area to drive the performance of both their mobile and

desktop marketing efforts by specic recommendations on site design. We recommend:

þInbound Marketing Quick Wins template, fully updated to cover the latest inbound

marketing techniques across the full customer lifecycle structured around the Smart

Insights RACE planning approach, this guide lets you apply a consultant’s approach

yourself by following the questions you need to ask.

þCustomer persona toolkit, aimed at helping agencies and consultants improve their use

of design personas and also to develop customer journey maps including mobile.

þLanding Page Conversion and Improving website results guides, detailed best

practice tips for desktop and mobile sites with over 50 examples of best practice to inspire

improvements to your landing pages covering a range of sectors from retail, nancial

services, travel, business-to-business and not-for-prot.

We also recommend these closely-related guides to develop your Mobile strategy:

þEcommerce Design pattern Bible in our Ecommerce toolkit features many mobile

examples of mobile optimised page layout and design best practices

þOnline Marketing Benchmarks statistics compilation to save you time in searching for the

latest, most reliable online marketing benchmarks, this guide gives you a single source of

the latest and most reliable sources.

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Step 1

Set your landing page goals, objectives and key

performance indicators (KPIs)

rQ. Have we dened a full range of landing page goals and objectives?

Setting goals and objectives helps you and your external agency partners to focus planning

around achieving tangible targets. Goals and objectives represent success criteria for your

landing pages; if achieved, or exceeded, the campaign can be considered a success. For

this reason they are essential because every penny invested must be analysed to determine

whether it represents value for money and this can only be decided if there are clear success

criteria that can be validated.

Key performance indicators add an essential level of detail, providing a set of metrics

against which landing page performance can be measured. By analysing KPI data, you can

determine the level of success of your digital marketing, using something concrete against

which to benchmark outcomes over time.

Before we look at the difference between goals, objectives and KPIs, let’s remind ourselves

through an example that success in achieving our objectives will be based on creating a

customer-centered landing page and that relies on understanding customer needs.

Keeping your landing pages focused on customer needs

Although the marketing principles are the same for B2C and B2B (i.e. give people what they

need and make it easy for them to take actions), the application of landing page strategy

varies signicantly in B2B marketing where the purchase cycle is often more complex,

involving multiple decision makers and inuencers.

Here are some of the things to think about when planning landing pages for B2B marketing

campaigns:

rPrimary audience

Who is the main decision maker you want to inuence? What calls to action or “scent

trails” specic to them will grab their attention? What questions might they have that need

answering? What business challenges do they need solving?

rSecondary audience(s)

Who are the other decision makers and inuencers in the project team who need to be

catered for? How can you make it obvious there is content for them without disrupting the

user experience for your primary audience?

For example, if the IT Director is an inuencer, simple headlines like “Robust and proven API

for low-cost implementation” can help get people onside.

rStage of buying cycle

What stage of the buying cycle is the audience at and what information do they need now

to help them progress their decision? How can you help them make a good decision, for

example through buying guides?

rContent surfacing

What content is required to satisfy all audiences? What is the most important content that

must be visible without visitors having to take any further action? What additional content do

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you want to provide and how do you signpost this (e.g. text links to additional information that

display lightboxes).

The aim should be to keep the content light and focus people on taking further action, but no

so light that it doesn’t give people enough detail to make a decision.

rTake away content

Do you have relevant content that you can provide for visitors to take away and either digest

in detail later or share with colleagues and business partners? What is the best mechanism

for distributing this content e.g. online video/downloadable white paper.

rLead harvesting

What techniques can you use to capture more information about your target audience(s)?

Where can you integrate this into the landing page without disrupting the user experience?

What are you going to do with this data when you capture it? Are the benets of sharing data

clear to the visitor?

The screenshot below provides an example B2B landing page by Policy Bee from a paid

search ad for the keyphrase ‘business indemnity insurance’. We have marked up the key

landing page techniques being used.

You may think there is too much information on this page and it’s true that testing a simplied

version may increase conversion. However it provides a great checklist of the main features

you should consider for a B2B landing page. Also compare this to one of it’s key paid search

competitors:

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Although there are some good landing page techniques here, including the display of the

business award, the page isn’t focused on the search query, it’s a more generic business

insurance landing page. Great for people not sure what ins8rance they want, unnecessary

effort for someone specically searching for indemnity insurance.

The difference between goals, objectives and KPIs

rQ. Is there a difference between a goal and an objective?

YES! Different people in different companies use these two terms differently, even in-

terchangeably, so this can get confusing. What’s important is that you agree a working

measurement framework that suits your business and has specic SMART metrics10.

Key Strategy Recommendation 4 Dene a measurement framework linking goals,

objectives and KPIs

You need to create a dashboard to clearly show the value you are getting from landing

pages and promotion of these that link broader goals with specic objectives and KPIs.

no foot-

note

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Recommended resource? 7 Steps Guide to Improving Digital Marketing Results

The 7 Steps Guide to Improving Digital Marketing explains how to build measurement

frameworks for a business in more detail.

We like to use a simple test to determine if something is a goal or objective: if there isn’t a

clear target it’s a goal not an objective. Goals and objectives need to be aligned: goals set

out top-level aims and objectives give specic targets. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are

used to assess progress towards these targets.

Goals

A goal is a broad target that denes general intentions. Goals are abstract and not easy to

measure or validate.

NB. Although in management, broad goals inform specic objectives, Google Analytics uses

the term “Goal” to refer to specic measures of outcomes.

For example, a goal for a landing page could be to increase brand awareness.

Objectives

Objectives translate goals into realistic targets that can be measured. Objectives should

be concrete and measurable. For example, an objective for a landing page with the goal of

increased brand awareness would be to increase the number of social shares of the page by

100 per cent in two months.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Key Performance or Success Indicators (KPIs) are specic measures that are used to

check you’re on course to hit your specic objectives. They are sometimes referred to as

performance drivers since, if you can improve these metrics, you are more likely to hit or

exceed your objectives. You can also set targets for improving these too, for example to

reduce the bounce rate across your landing pages by 5%.

The next table takes a look at different goal for landing pages and provides examples

of objectives that can be aligned with this goal and KPIs that help review progress and

performance.

Goal Objective KPIs

Increase brand awareness Increase social network followers

by 10% within 90 days.

Examples:

þ Conversion rates to social sharing

þ Comments and shares of content

within social networks

Increase conversion rate to lead Increase conversion rate by 5%

within 6 months

Examples:

þ Bounce rate

þ Dwell time

þ Page value

Increase visitor quality Increase revenue by 10% within 6

months

Examples:

þ Revenue per visit

þ Goal value per visit

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Goal Objective KPIs

Reduce campaign costs Reduce cost per acquisition by

10% within 6 months.

Examples:

þ Revenue per visit

þ Goal value per visit

þ Conversion rate

Dening how landing pages will deliver against goals and

objectives

rQ. Are we clear on how landing pages support our goals and objectives

In the Introduction we looked at Common aims of landing pages, let’s now look at this in

more detail. The aims for a landing page are simpler than most types of page. Put simply, the

aim is get a response! When a form on a landing page is lled in and the ‘submit’ or ‘enter’

button pressed, the contact details are added to a database and then added to a workow

within a customer relationship management system for a manual or automated follow-up. In

the simplest case an email will be sent to a dened address giving the details entered on the

form.

Depending on the type of business, this response could be:

þGet a named lead through an email address.

þGet a trial subscriber to a publication or a software service.

þGet interest in a high value product to follow-up by phone.

Key Strategy Recommendation 5 Set broader goals for landing pages

Goals for landing pages often just include response, but if you think about the wider range

of goals your pages will be more effective since the majority won’t convert straightaway!

So far, so obvious, but there should be other communication goals too. Here’s a checklist of

what a good landing page should deliver.

r1. Achieve registration to generate a lead. For example, a quote for insurance, which

leads ultimately to sale.

r2. Prole and qualify the site visitor. We need to design the landing page to identify

higher quality prospects so we can deliver more relevant follow-up marketing

communications by email or phone (essential for B2B).

r3. Value proposition. Explain about your products and services, even if you’re not

immediately planning conversion. You need to carefully explain the value proposition

offered by the company to differentiate from other sites the visitor may visit during the

buying process.

r4. Branding. Communicate the brand values of the organisation running the campaign.

Generally speaking, you’re looking to increase the brand audience’s familiarity and

favourability for the brand. If you take a look back at Policy Bee it differentiates through

the Bee ident and strapline in the site header.

r5. Sharing. Often, more than one person will be involved with deciding on purchase of

a product or service, so it’s worth thinking about making it easier for them to share this

through email or sharing more widely through social media.

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r6. Answer visitors’ questions. Make a list of the top questions or objections the visitor has

about your product, offer or brand. More on this below.

r7. Give ofine contacts. If the visitor doesn’t want to disclose their details right now,

provide contact details for traditional sales channels such as a phone number, or give

the visitor reasons to return to the site or engage them through other relevant content or

offers.

rQ. How do our existing landing pages compare to this checklist?

You have to prioritise. It’s not always possible to satisfy all these requirements on one landing

page. We recommend listing the main goals or responses for your landing page to help you

focus:

Goal 1.

______________________________________

Goal 2.

______________________________________

Goal 3.

______________________________________

See Step 7 on improving results to check you’re able to track these goals.

It is important to run through these objectives since sometimes it’s just the two primary

objectives related to data capture that mainly determine landing page design and not the

secondary objectives, which are equally important. The majority of the visitors to the landing

page won’t actually convert, so it is important to give them a favourable experience also. You

want them to think of you when they’re ready to convert – a great landing page will help bring

them back when the time is right.

Setting KPIs for landing pages

Key performance indicators are used to measure performance against objectives. Key

performance indicators are essential because they provide the evidence that demonstrates

whether your landing pages are achieving targets.

To measure KPIs properly you will need to turn to your web analytics tools, like Google

Analytics. Please take a look at our guide on Google Analytics to check you are using these

key techniques related to landing pages:

Recommended resource? 7 Steps Guide to Google Analytics

The 7 Steps Guide to Google Analytics explains goal set up and advanced segments.

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Best Practice Tip 3 Use customisation to make landing page analysis more effective

Recommended techniques for customization, which we explain relevance and setup for in

our Google Analytics guide, are:

þ1. Goals. Where landing pages have forms with “thank you” conrmation pages goals

should be setup for each.

þ2. Funnels. These help dene the effectiveness of form conversion rates. The funnels

are the previous steps in the funnel such as the URL of the form or previous pages.

þ3. Event tracking. Event tracking enables interactions to be recorded such as a video

play on the landing page, button or promotion clicks or even clicks on specic elds of

the form. You may also want to record PDF downloads. Event tracking can also be used

for assessing attribute renement lters on a Christmas landing page being used by an

ecommerce retailer. The Event tracks which renements are used the most to help the

web team prioritise the order of the renements on the landing page.

þ4. Event Goals. These enable you to relate events such as video plays to specic

goals. This post on Smart Insights gives examples of how to setup Event Goals.

þ5. Custom variables. Visitors who complete forms can be tracked when they return

via cookies that can also store information about their prole information or lead quality

based on information entered.

þ6. Advanced segments. These can be used to lter the behaviour of visits related to

landing pages. For example, show related pages for people who visited or completed a

landing page.

þ7. Custom reports. Enable a report on landing pages only, for example if they have

common URL elements.

We will look into more detail on how to use analytics to optimise your landing pages Step 7

Improving results.

Creating a management dashboard for landing pages

More generally, for reporting on Google Analytics at a management reporting level in a

dashboard, we advise classifying the types of KPI data you need to review into three areas:

1. Volume

The trafc that is being driven to the landing page, monitoring visitor activity.

2. Quality

This involves measuring the level of engagement your visitors have with the website based

on bounce rate, interaction with the page and conversion rates.

3. Value

This relates to the nancial value that the trafc is driving in terms of ecommerce KPIs such

as revenue, Goal Value per Visit, Revenue per Visit.

For each area, focus on the KPIs that help you interpret what impact your landing page is

having on the goals and objectives. This table gives examples.

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Create conversion models to assess potential of landing pages

rQ. Have we created conversion models to review the potential from landing pages?

To set expectations of what the landing pages can deliver, which will help set budget for

their creation, you need to create conversion models. We have some examples available on

Smart Insights for you to download here.11

Key Strategy Recommendation 6 Create conversion models to assess landing page

potential

Conversion models can help set expectations and set budgets. Use a worst and a best

case scenario to see what you can afford to pay to drive visitors to your website – this is

your affordable cost-per-lead.

Here’s an example showing how you can model how many you will add to the top of the

funnel and how this will translate to leads and sales.

Conversion models are really useful in helping you determine the number of impressions and

visits you need from a marketing campaign to your landing page to achieve the goals set.

Let’s take paid search as the example. You want to create a new landing page for an ad on

Google but you’re not sure if you can justify the investment. You use a conversion model to

plug in revenue and cost data from three key sources:

1. AdWords data (impressions, click-through rate, cost per click, etc.)

2. Google Analytics data (sessions, conversion rate, average order value, transactions,

revenue etc.)

3. Product margins.

From this you calculate the forecast net margin for the campaign. You can then reow the

conversion model to include a projection for conversion increases as a result of having a

bespoke landing page and deduct the cost of building the landing page to determine if the

investment is justied. See below for an outline of this type of return on investment model

that can be used to make the business case for landing page optimisation.

Please note that some marketers will invest in a landing page even if it doesn’t add to the

net margin of the campaign. Why? They may perceive the uplift in conversion (new customer

acquisition) to be more important as they then have more customers to target via their

retention programs. Again, this all depends on what goals you set for your landing page.

11 Smart Insights: Download conversion calculator models

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Set branding objectives for landing page

rQ. Have we dened the branding goals for our landing page?

Be aware that many of the people visiting your landing page won’t have heard of your brand

before, or may not know much about who you are and what you offer. For this audience,

there needs to be an element of reassurance to convince them that you are reputable and

reliable.

For example, on retail e-commerceecommerce landing pages, it’s common for the company

to display its unique selling points (USPs), such as free delivery and returns, as well as

security messages to emphasise that shopping online with them is safe and secure.

Take a look back at theat this example John Lewis example from the introductionfrom White

Stuff. They display a prominent guarantee delivery and returns messaginge to reassure

visitors that they are in safe hands, and the creative is consistent from email to landing page.

Conversion doesn’t usually occur in one step, so another goal is to get across the values of

your brand – make it memorable! You should communicate:

þYour brand identity, what you stand for, what makes you different.

þYour customers – who values you? Testimonials and social followers work well here.

þIndependent accreditation – who rates you? Display well known trust marks.

Ways to implement this include an ‘About Us’ tab or a sidebar explaining what makes you

different, or testimonials. The Salesforce.com example illustrates this well.

Ways to implement this include an ‘About Us’ tab or a sidebar explaining what makes you

different, or including customer testimonials and social proof. The Salesforce.comDollar

Shave Club example illustrates this with the number of Facebook likes shown beneath the

video and a prominent link in the main menu for ‘Reviews’.well.

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Landing pages often fail here since they are only thinking about the response.

Don’t underestimate the power of quality testimonials or stories of how your product or

service has helped. Social proof is really important online – you can provide this by adding

testimonials or by using a ratings and reviews service to display actual customer feedback on

products and services. There are many options for adding ratings to your website, including

using your web platform’s review module – the most popular third-party solutions are

Trustpilot, Feefo and Bazaarvoice.

If you’re considering adding ratings and reviews, we recommend using a solution that is

compatible with paid search so that your seller ratings can display in paid search ads as well

to help increase click-through rate. You can nd a list of supported partners here12.

Using remarketing to follow-up on Landing Page visits

rQ. Remarketing considered?

It’s possible to track each visitor to a landing page and to follow-up on them to remind

them about your offer. This could be for all landing page visitors or just those that showed

additional intent, for example through completing a form.

Best Practice Tip 4 Use remarketing to follow-up on landing page visits

Remarketing provides a way to encourage your customers about your offer as they browse

other sites that offer advertising.

This example of Remarketing using Google AdWords is for the Policy Beefor the Boden

example we looked at earlier. You can see the display ad in the right sidebar. Note that in

this example the ad isn’t targetinged to a relevant siteshoppers of kids clothing, one of the

categories we visited on the website.to increase the reach of the ad.

12 https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/2375474?hl=en-GB

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How strong is your brand personality?

rQ. Have we reviewed how we communicate our brand personality online?

Rohit Bhargava, a Vice President at Ogilvy New York and author of Personality Not

Included stresses the importance of developing a brand that is sufciently distinctive and

energetic to encourage interaction and discussion that will amplify brand messages through

word-of-mouth. We recommend Rohit’s book or site (www.rohitbhargava.com) to learn

more. For us, this is one of the most important marketing books of the last few years, this

millennium even!

Key Strategy Recommendation 7 Review and rene brand personality

Is your brand personality distinct and energetic enough to encourage engagement and

sharing? If not, you will nd getting cut-through increasingly difcult.

Rohit nails it when he describes personality as:

‘the unique, authentic, and talkable soul of your brand that people can get passionate about’.

He goes on to say:

‘Personality is not just about what you stand for, but how you choose to communicate it. It is

also the way to reconnect your customers, partners, employees, and inuencers to the soul

of your brand in the new social media era.’

A great example is the UK company Wish, which provides experience days. They haveIt

has developed a unique tone of voice to theirso that copy that conveys the personality of the

brand brilliantly. So brilliant in fact that it attracts one of twosome negative reactions because

you can’t please everyone!

The screenshot below is the landing page for their Zombie Battle London experience

days – as well as the distinct voice of the copy, you’ll see other good practice landing page

techniques to establish brand credibility, such as the USP bar at the top of the page and

customer ratings..

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Rohit and others, like Jay Baer of ‘Convince and Convert’, recommend that you combine

your brand personality with your ‘one big thing’. Online, this has become particularly

important to communicate since interactions can be so eeting.

Best Practice Tip 5 Communicate your ‘one big thing’

Particularly true for start-ups, but valuable for other companies, communicating your main

point of difference is key.

Entrepreneur Jason Goldberg13 recommends that online start-ups should answer these

questions:

r1. What’s the one thing your product will do?

_________________________________________________________________

r2. What’s the one thing that your start-up will do and do better than everyone else?

_________________________________________________________________

r3. What’s the one thing your brand will represent?

_________________________________________________________________

r4. What’s the one thing you will do day-in and day-out, to the exclusion of all other

things?

_________________________________________________________________

Goldberg says ‘The answer to all 4 of those questions should be exactly the same. And

that’s your one thing.’ He gives these examples:

þTwitter: Share short updates.

þFoursquare: Check-in.

13 Jason Goldberg: What I learned creating 4 startup companies

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þInstagram: Share pretty photos.

þDropbox: Easy cloud storage.

þYouTube: Upload a video.

þGroupon: One great local deal per day.

þThe original Google: Algorithmic search.

þLinkedIn: Professional networking.

Key Strategy Recommendation 8 Take away thought

Every page on your website can be a landing page – make sure you have clear goals for

each page and think it through from the customer perspective to provide the best possible

user experience.

Dene minimum contact information to maximise conversion

Your key challenge is to decide what information is required to follow up leads. This is usually

determined by a combination of the marketing medium being used (e.g. paid search, ofine

advertising) and the action that you are trying to persuade visitors to take.

There is often a trade-off – your sales and marketing team may want to get as much data as

possible to help prole leads but generally speaking, the more elds a visitor has to ll out to

complete a form, the greater the chance they will abandon.

So, we recommend starting by dening the goals for your data capture, then design the form

accordingly. And think carefully about form usability on mobile devices.

rQ. Have we dened our goals for collecting proling information?

Less is denitely more when collecting information, but you do need sufcient information to

understand the characteristics, needs and values of the person who has lled in the form. In

most cases you need more than an email address!

Best Practice Tip 6 Collect the minimum prole information to qualify and personalise

If you try to collect too much information, then your conversion rates will fall, so cut out

every eld that isn’t essential. What are your minimum prole elds that you will actually

use to qualify leads for follow-up or personalised email? Ask which are essential not just

‘nice-to-have’.

These are the main types of information to consider:

1. Contact information

______________________________________

2. Prole information

______________________________________

3. Signals of buying readiness

______________________________________

The example forms below areis from Hubspot, an Inbound Marketing Software vendor based

in the US. They have used different versions lengths of the form, to suit the different lead

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generation needs and probably to also test the impact on conversion of form length. This is

good practice at work. The shorter form is for the free software trial sign-up and the longer

form for downloads of the State of Inbound 2015 market report.

Surprisingly, theThe forms isn’t usingalso use intelligent validation, displaying error message

in-line as the user progresses through the form. as it’s possible to submit the form with an

invalid phone number. We discuss form validation in more detail in Step 3 – Engaging your

visitor.

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Step 2

Understand your visitor needs

rQ. Have we reviewed our audience information needs?

It’s not all about the incentive for the visitor. It’s also about explaining the basics. You have

to cater for online novices as well as web savvy customers. If you make your landing page

content too complicated, you risk alienating some of the visitors. There’s a great article

from Unbounce explaining the need to build trust with landing pages, using a human and

personable language14. We like this quote:

Why Should I Do Business With You?

Right answer: ‘Because we care about what you need and want to help you make the most

out of what you have to succeed.’

Wrong answer: ‘Our semantic targeting features yield the highest ROI in the entire industry.’

We recommend reading the full article:

Remember the three familiarities – your brand, your services and your site. Obvious, but not

all landing or home pages get these basic messages across.

It’s really important to evaluate these in the context of the user journey – what are people

expecting when they reach your landing page, and what type of content is most relevant and

useful? Take the example below from a search for “business VAT”; the HMRC landing page is

focused on answering the key questions business owners are likely to have about paying VAT.

14 Unbounce: Why Should I do business with you?

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We think Unbounce also achieves this well through its home page (which is usually the most

visited landing page for a website). Note on mobile the menu switches to the hamburger

icon, and there key value proposition and CTA display in the visible pane. The mobile landing

page also makes use of native features like the swipe gesture to reduce vertical scrolling.

We’ve included a screenshot of the full desktop page to show you how much content is on

the landing page.

You may also need to explain the service or category; not everyone will get it as clearly as

you do.

We’ll talk more about this in Step 5 – Compelling content and creative.

Outline your main audiences

rQ. Have we dened our main audiences?

Every site or landing page will have a range of audiences, so think about who you prioritise

content for. We recommend you use personas for clarity in dening the audience. Before

you start the design, write down the audiences in order of priority. Identify audiences by

buying needs, lifestyle or demographics (age, gender, company size or position in the buying

chain).

What is it? Web design personas

A thumbnail summary of the characteristics, needs, motivations and environment of typical

site users.

Key Strategy Recommendation 9 Be clear on your audience and create personas to help

dene them

Personas can help improve the page so it’s based on the psychology and needs of the

visitor. In short, it makes pages more customer-centric.

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Recommended resource? Personas toolkit

See our Personas toolkit showing key issues to consider when creating personas and with

examples of different styles of personas.

List audiences in order of priority:

1. ____________________________________

2. ____________________________________

3. ____________________________________

4. ______________________________________

5. ______________________________________

6. _______________________________________

You may nd it worthwhile to consider scent trails for different audience members.

What is it? Scent trails and audience-specic content

An interface element such as a link, heading or image which users assess as being

relevant for their situation or need, so they “self-select” or “self-segment. Examples

include type of person, size of business. The destination pages can then be tailored for the

audience needs

Take a look at the landing page from Livingston International below. For the scent trail,

they use four tabs to provide tailored messaging for different audience types. Each content

snippet links off to a dedicated landing page for that audience. This is a useful way of helping

segment content and user journeys based on visitor type. There is no ‘right way’ to cater for

different audience segments on your landing page but it’s important you provide clear links to

enable people to access information that is most relevant to them.

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Another example is from the US, where Internships.com segments its homepage into three

distinct service areas for students, employers and educators. In this case the Employers tab

gives a landing page specic for the audience clearly explaining their proposition.

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Dene main user scenarios or tasks

rQ. Have we dened the audience scenarios?

Personas are in different situations when they arrive on your site. Are they just browsing or

do they have an immediate need? So you need to consider the scenario that has triggered

the visit.

1. ______________________________________________________________________.

2. ________________________________________________________________________

3.________________________________________________________________________

Another way to use content segmentation is to split the product offering into its constituent

parts, enabling visitors to pick and choose which components to read about.

This is particularly important for landing pages where there will often only be a single

choice, but paths should be available for visitors who don’t want to respond right now. The

automotive industry is a good example for translating a complex product and purchase path

into a well-structured product landing page, using layered data to let users explore and learn,

without bombarding them with too much information. The example below is for the Mercedes

GLS, showing the landing page on an iPhone 5s and laptop. Note how for mobile users,

the page is streamlined and the menu links adapted to suit mobile interaction. Unfortunately

some essential data is missing from the mobile page, for example the ‘On the road price’ –

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you can only nd pricing info by clicking on Highlights > Prices, and then the UI design isn’t

intuitive.

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This approach is used well in B2B Software marketing where solutions often comprise

multiple software tools and landing pages are used to promote capabilities in each area, or to

appeal to unique audience segments whose needs are quite different.

Best Practice Tip 7 Identify the primary paths of customer journeys

Offering too much undifferentiated choice to website visitors without visual emphasis can

be a mistake, so keep it focused on the primary paths.

So you need to decide on the main action(s) you want a visitor to take and then emphasise

those through the design. Take the homepage example of SAP Ariba, an eprocurement

specialist, where the content is segmented based on the three service needs: spend &

supplier management, payables management and ecommerce & account management. Also

note the inclusion of customer testimonials.

Key Strategy Recommendation 10 Test different ways to provide segment specic content

clear on your audience and create personas to help dene them

A/B and multivariate (MVT) testing can help you nd the optimal way to signpost content for

different audience segments.

Techniques to surface deeper content

rQ. Are we making it easy for visitors to access more information?

It’s a challenge to nd the right blend of content depth to cater for the needs of visitors –

some will pack light and want a clear call to action, others will want to read on and learn more

before making a decision. How do you provide the right information for all of them?

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Our experience tells us that the focus of the landing page should be top down. By this we

mean providing the key information that will encourage visitors to convert, then providing

access to more detailed information if required. By adopting this approach, you’ll ensure the

most important call to action is prominent and there is sufcient information to tackle barriers

to conversion.

Here’s a list of methods to surface additional content:

rHTML quick link. This is where you provide a list of links as a navigation menu that can

be clicked to deep link people to relevant content sections within the landing page.

rExpandable (or accordion) link. This is where a text link, when clicked, expands to

reveal additional content. When doing this, make sure that the rest of the page re-aligns

automatically and you don’t break the page design. Accordion links are popular on

mobile, where the content expands vertically for the user.

In the example below from Rainbow Tours, the landing page has a left hand menu of links

that when clicked direct users to more content explaining the range of services available.

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rLightbox. When the link is clicked, or moused-over, an overlay appears within which content

is displayed. The overlay can be closed at any time. This is preferable to redirecting people

away from the landing page as they can return to the landing page easily. We’ve seen some

mobile sites use a slide-out navigation pane to achieve this, where the user is taken ‘off page’

to view content, then returned back to the page when nished. Brands like House of Fraser

use this UX pattern for their main catalogue navigation on mobile devices.

We generally advise against redirecting visitors to another web page to access additional

information, unless you have to redirect to take people to the conversion page. For example,

a landing page from an email campaign to promote a new range of clothes will usually

include links to individual product pages where the ‘buy now’ action takes place.

Why?

Loading a new URL requires an additional server request, which adds time to the user

journey. If the user is on a mobile connection with poor signal, this can be really frustrating.

Wherever possible, load the content that the user requires when the landing page is

requested, then let the front-end do the work in surfacing additional content.

We discuss the pros and cons of short and long landing pages in Step 4 – Create the optimal

page layout.

Explain the service or category clearly

rQ. Have we clearly explained the services or product category?

Many visitors may not be as familiar with your range of products or services as you are, or

even the type of ‘thing’ you’re offering them! This is particularly true if you’re offering a new or

non-mainstream service, like indemnity insurance for example.

Here’s a REALLY useful technique for answering visitors questions that involves mapping the

questions that a site visitor nding out about the project will be asking (mental model) against

different types of features and content on the site to help answer these questions (content

model). We like the technique because it’s a simple yet powerful way of brainstorming or

reviewing content effectiveness.

Here is a generic service launch example we have created to show how the method can be used:

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How will you explain the service or category you are providing. Check these ideas:

r1. Block of text about the service.

r2. Tab (‘About choosing X’).

r3. Bulleted list of service features AND benets.

r4. ‘Our services’ link in footer.

r5. ‘Why choose us?’ message.

r6. ‘How to choose “X” guide’.

r7. Customer testimonial endorsement.

Review relevance of ofine contact options

rQ. Are there any relevant options for ofine contact?

You’ll denitely know this piece of advice. We all get annoyed when the phone number isn’t

prominent. That’s easy to x, but it helps if the phone number is also tracked through a

unique number. It’s also worth offering a callback and live chat. There are call tracking tools

available, such as ResponseTap15 and Mediahawk16.

‘Different strokes for different folks.’

Have you included any of the following?

r1. Prominent phone number.

r2. Phone number tracked through unique number.

r3. Callback option.

r4. Live chat option.

Take a look at the live chat option available on Thewatchgallery.co.uk mobile site. Given the

premium price point of the product, live chat is a useful tool to support landing pages as it

enables the Customer Service team to respond to customer queries in real time.

15 https://www.responsetap.com/

16 http://www.mediahawk.co.uk/

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Review devices that visitors use

rQ. Have we reviewed the technology platforms used by visitors?

Use your analytics system to check which platform your average users use

If you use Google Analytics these will be within the Visitors’ section where you can record the

browser capabilities and the proportion of visitors using mobile devices.

Best Practice Tip 8 Check current screen resolutions before you start designing

Use your analytics system to set a realistic minimum target screen resolutions before you

start designing.

You need to know what type of device is going to be used to access your landing page, then

you need to test how the landing page looks on each device. This is especially important

with mobile optimisation – a landing page optimised for desktop resolutions may not render

effectively on a smartphone, or be usable based on device specic capabilities and user

behaviours. For example, are you supporting standard touch gestures on touch-enabled

devices?

It’s important to split tablet from mobile – tablet resolutions (at least the larger tablets –

the advent of mini tablets adds a layer of complexity) are more similar to desktop than

smartphone and we know some retailers who have seen better conversion by directing tablet

users to their desktop landing pages.

We really like Matt Kersley’s free online Responsive Web Design Testing Tool.17 Use this to

test your landing page to see how it renders on different screen resolutions.

Below are examples of two different landing pages run through Matt’s testing tool, showing

how landing pages can be broken if they’re not considered across device types.

The rst is an example of a responsive website from CrowdShed, where the homepage

layout changes depending on the device resolution.

17 Matt Kersley responsive design test

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The second is an example of a website from Floormats.co.uk that isn’t optimised for mobile,

where the homepage simply ‘squashes’ to t a mobile browser:

Reasons for creating unique landing pages for mobile

rQ. Is a unique mobile landing page appropriate?

Even if you are using responsive design to reow the page content based on the device type,

that doesn’t guarantee a mobile-optimised experience.

The reality is that the browsing experience on a mobile is vastly different to that on a desktop.

This means that not all features and functions of a desktop landing page are relevant to

a mobile visitor. A good example in retail ecommerce is the product zoom feature – on a

smartphone people are used to double tapping images to zoom, rather than pressing a

‘zoom’ button.

It’s therefore common for people to create custom landing pages for mobile visitors, with a

stripped down version of the content and features.

The top reasons for a mobile optimised landing page are:

rThe desktop landing page has too much content for a mobile visitor to digest easily.

rSome of the features on the desktop site won’t work effectively on a mobile device.

rThe calls to action aren’t easy to click and need to be re-positioned.

rYou want to provide a different call to action to mobile visitors (e.g. download the mobile

app).

Checklist for landing page technology compatibility

1. Minimum screen resolution

____________________________________

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2. Web browsers to support

____________________________________

3. Mobile devices to support

____________________________________

Learning from your visitors

rQ. Do you use voice-of-customer techniques to get landing page feedback?

Voice-of-customer data (qualitative and quantitative) is really useful in helping you

understand why a page is or is not performing well, helping you learn what customers really

want. See the selection of feedback tools we recommend18.

Companies using these feedback tools often factor the data into their weekly reports. With

tools like Foresee you can capture customer ratings of different aspects of the website and

chart these over time. This is great for trend analysis, especially when making major changes

to the website (major release, relaunch etc). You can analyse the trend line before, during

and after the change to see what impact it is having on individual measures of success. For

example, if you have just redesigned your landing page, how does this rating change over

time? Does it affect the overall website satisfaction?

Persistent online surveys (Qualaroo, Kampyle, etc.) are great low cost tools to keep pumping

customer feedback into the data pool. Qualaroo (previously KissInsights) supports page-level

data capture. You can use a simple qualitative question to nd out what people like and

dislike about your landing pages. This is a great way to provide your marketing team with

feedback direct from the customer, helping inform your landing page optimisation program.

Best Practice Tip 9 Gain audience feedback from landing pages

You can only learn so much from web analytics tools. Often it’s best to ask about specic

needs or offer support.

18 Smart Insights: Feedback tools

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Step 3

Engage your visitors

rQ. What does ‘engagement’ really mean?

Engaging visitors as they rst arrive on a landing page is a challenge, they’re in a mode of

quickly scanning different alternatives. So it’s really important to provide a relevant engaging

page. To help you do this, in this section we will provide 9 key issues to consider as you

review your landing page showing examples of good practice for each.

The word ‘engagement’ is much maligned, often because it is used without context. It’s

important to dene what we mean by engagement in the context of landing pages. For the

purpose of this guide, we’ll be using the following denition:

‘Engagement is the process of gaining customer participation in your landing pages by

providing relevant and useful information, or giving them a compelling reasons to take action

e.g. an unbeatable offer.’

Let’s break that down into its key components.

þ‘gaining customer participation’

This means getting a reaction from the customer. This reaction could simply be clicking on an

ad and visiting a web page. However, reactions become more meaningful when they lead to

conversions such as making a purchase or submitting an enquiry form.

þ‘providing relevant and useful information’

This applies both to the marketing campaign and the landing page. Relevant and useful

information is information that helps a visitor make a decision and/or achieve the goal for

their visit. This can be simple information like a clear call to action, or more complex content

that helps answer questions.

þ‘give them a compelling reason to take action’

Sometimes it’s not about the content or the overall design, it’s about the quality and

uniqueness of offer. If you have a product that people need/want and an offer that beats

all other retailers, and is time constrained to create urgency, then you’re likely to persuade

people to act.

Measuring engagement for landing pages

rQ. Are we measuring engagement?

So we have dened what engagement means. Now let’s look at how it can measured.

Remember Step 7 has more detailed information on measuring the performance of landing

pages.

Below are a few metrics you can use to measure engagement.

þ1. Bounce rate. How many people when they visit your landing page, leave immediately

without taking any further action? If your landing page is a conversion page (e.g. the

primary goal is to secure a transaction or lead), then a high bounce rate isn’t a good

sign, unless people are coming back in subsequent visits to convert. Please use this

metric in context; a low price everyday purchase is unlikely to need multiple visits but for

a high ticket complex purchase, such as a home cinema kit, it’s more likely that users

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will want to do some more research and explore the product options before committing

to purchase, so a higher bounce rate isn’t necessarily a sign of a poor-performing page.

Context is everything.

þ2. Time on page. If you have a lot of information to digest, are people taking the time

to read this? Or, if your landing page is basic with a simple call to action, if people are

spending a long time on this page, is there something wrong with the landing page?

þ3. Scroll depth. Do people scroll down the page and access content below the fold?

Using Google Analytics you can get basic in-page analytics reports (showing click rate

on each link) but it’s advisable to invest in a dedicated tool like Inspectlet, CrazyEgg or

Clicktale for more advanced scroll analysis.

þ4. Page depth. Does the landing page contribute to the onward journey? Is the

signposting clear enough that visitors are following visual signs to access other web

pages? If your landing page is a gateway to a more complex online conversion path, then

the page depth for visitors to the landing page should be greater than 1.

þ5. Use of social sharing buttons. Are visitors nding the content valuable/useful enough

to share socially with their networks? If not, is this because the social sharing buttons are

in the wrong place, or because people don’t think the content is worth sharing?

þ6. Feedback loops. If you provide feedback options like Live chat or ask a question,

usage is an indication that people are engaged with the landing page, even if that

engagement results in a frustrated enquiry because they couldn’t nd what they needed.

Audience recap

rQ. Which audience am I targeting with my landing page?

Before mapping out the engagement techniques you will use on your landing page, refresh

your mind about the target audience.

The persuasion techniques you need to use must be considered in light of the people you

want to inuence. Audience type affects:

þTone of voice.

þChoice of headline.

þCall to action.

þDepth of information.

þUse of creative.

For example, when targeting the 55+ audience it’s unlikely you’ll want to use lifestyle imagery

that has been tailored for the 18-25 audience.

Let’s use the example of ASOS to show this in action. See the subtle difference in tone of

voice between the Men’s version (top left) and Women’s version (bottom right). The call to

action for women plays on the emotional element of shopping far more than the men’s, which

is more matter-of-fact.

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Engagement techniques

In this guide we will cover the core techniques that will help you create a high quality landing

page. These techniques are:

þ1. Create a relevant headline (and sub-heading if relevant).

þ2. Provide a clear call to action.

þ3. Create engaging visuals.

þ4. Ensure colour schemes are consistent (and accessible e.g. colour contrast).

þ5. Make benets and features clear.

þ6. Ensure content/copy work for different decision-making styles.

þ7. Provide a functional, concise form.

þ8. Provide relevant trust indicators.

þ9. Enable social sharing.

þ10. Use visual techniques to make copy easy to read e.g. bullets, highlights, tabs etc.

Please note that this is good practice guidance based on years of learning. However, good

practice doesn’t mean it applies in all situations – there are always exceptions. Therefore, we

strongly advise testing your landing page design to learn what works best for your business

and your customers.

Whichtestwon.com is a mine of useful information and practical examples where ‘gut feeling’

based on good practice doesn’t always pick out the right solution.

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Creating high-converting landing pages

1. Create a super-relevant, super-engaging headline

rQ. Have we reviewed the suitability of our heading?

The headline is often the rst thing that visitors notice when they hit a landing page. So make

sure it’s clear and engaging. Headlines lose their impact if the visitor has to spend too long

translating what it means to them. Therefore, headlines should be:

þClear

þConcise

þUnambiguous

þRelevant

þCompelling

We like this quote from Michael Aargaard on Unbouce:

‘In my experience super creative or cryptic headlines are dangerous as they can backre in a

major way. I always recommend going the safe route with a clear relevant headline that gives

your potential customers a really good reason to invest their time in reading on.’

Some landing pages also use a sub-heading, where there is more than one key message, or

multiple parts to the message, and designers don’t want to use a long heading, as this can

be harder for readers to digest. It’s ne to use a sub-heading but make sure it compliments

the main heading and provides additional information, don’t simply use it because your main

heading isn’t concise enough.

If you’re using paid search, then the headline should match the keywords used to trigger your

ad and the key phrases or search terms typed in by users. In AdWords, if there is a better

match this will give you a better Quality Score and so your cost per click will be lowered. It’s

also a key SEO ranking factor.

We recommend reading Michael Aagaard’s post ‘The Flexible Framework for Writing High-

Converting Landing Page Copy’ on the Unbounce blog.19 It’s not new but the thinking still

applies.

Here he gives the example of a headline test on the DCFinder website that resulted in

a 68 per cent increase in conversion on the landing page. The example illustrates how

subtle differences in the tone and appeal of the headline can have dramatic effects on the

conversion rate.

19 Unbounce: High-converting landing pages copy

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Creating high-converting landing pages

2. Provide a clear call to action

rQ. Is there a clear primary call to action?

A well-designed landing page will use a clear single call to action as the primary response

mechanism. So, you need think carefully about what you want visitors to do when they land.

The more CTAs you provide, the harder it becomes for the visitor to decide what they most

want to do next. If you confuse them, you risk losing them.

The example below is from a test run on the Medecin Sans Frontiers landing page designed

to generate online donations.

Which version do you think got 2688 per cent more visitors to click on the donate button?

It was Version A with the higher contrast, more prominent call-to-action that drove the higher

conversion rate. Did you guess right?

A slight variation is where your landing page caters for multiple audiences, so the call to

action will be slightly different for each audience. This can be seen in the Internships.com

example in Step 2 above, where there are two different buttons based on different user

needs.

Of course, you can have other calls to action but the challenge is to ensure these don’t

detract from the primary call to action.

Best Practice Tip 10 Consider secondary calls-to-action carefully

Secondary calls-to-action may decrease clicks on the primary call-to-action, but they may

increase the overall success of the campaign by providing more information.

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In Step 4 we will discuss the myth of the fold. You may have heard of the fold, the line

beyond which content is no longer visible. Popular thinking is that the primary call to action

has to be above the fold to ensure it gets maximum visibility. However, some research shows

that in specic circumstances, a call to action above the fold can actually depress conversion

because visitors don’t yet have sufcient information to commit to a conversion.

Confused? Don’t be! In most cases, a prominent call to action above the fold will drive the

highest conversion. However, you just need to be aware that this isn’t a hard fact and that’s

why we advocate testing all the time to learn what works best for each landing page.

3. Create super-relevant, super-engaging visuals

rQ. Have we created suitable visuals?

After, or even before scanning the headline, visitors to a landing page will often check out

images. Again relevance is important, but quality is more important. You don’t want to use

boring stock photos, which are all too common on landing pages, instead a video testimonial

or example of the products in action will be more effective.

Net-a-Porter has a visually engaging landing page for its magazine subscription. It uses

images of the magazine in all its formats, from the print version to the digital version on tablet

and smartphone, as well as providing a scrollable version of some of the current magazine to

provide context. We think it’s a great way to demonstrate the product.

The mobile site has a landing page for the content apps, of which the magazine is one. The

landing page also showcases the native shopping app, Edit weekly magazine and Net Set

social shopping network.

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For B2B situations, if you’re offering a download, make sure there is a clear image of the

document that will be received. This helps set expectation and provides clear context.

We recommend reading Oli Gardner’sEric Sloan’s article20 for some insightful commentary

on how to use visual techniques to drive conversion. He doesn’t gives examples of actual

pages, but instead and discusses techniques to create emphasis and draw the eye down the

page. He recommends these techniques for emphasis and to encourage ow:

Directional cues:

þ1. Whitespace.

þ2. Colour.

þ3. Contrast.Colour contrast

þ2. Using pictures of real people

þ3. Show visitors where to look

þ4. The suggestive power of the eye.Use visual clues.

þ5. Match designs.Interruptions.

þ6. Encapsulation Select colours carefully.

þ7. Use strong visuals.

þ8. Make key content larger.

þ9. Use whitespace.

4. Ensure colour schemes are consistent/compatible

rQ. Do our colour schemes make it easy to navigate the page?

Colour coordination is often overlooked as an important element of landing page design.

However, colour schemes can be used by visitors to identify different types of content e.g.

if the rst heading a customer sees is in bold blue, then other content in bold blue should

naturally be a heading.

Colour contrast also has a signicant impact on accessibility. For visitors with visual

impairment (and there are as many as 2 million people in the UK), low contrasts between

background and content can make it very hard for them to read the content. A classic

example is black background with white text – colleagues of ours with less than perfect sight

struggle to read this type of copy.

Here’s a simple example of consistency from Travelocity. All headings User selections use

the same bold blue colour for the type face to make the page scannable and to highlight the

offerselections made. Primary calls to action use a green colour.

20 Unbounce: 8 Visual techniques to focus attention on your landing pages

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We recommend viewing this video from Marketing Experiments that demonstrates how

changes in colour design can have a positive impact on conversion.21 Neil Patel has also

written a useful blog giving examples of colour use on landing pages22.

5. Make the combination of features and benets clear

rQ. Are the features and benets clear?

If visitors like what they see in the rst two seconds, then they will move on to think about the

value of what’s on offer, how will it help them and what’s in it for them?

Avoid long blocks of copy, instead use crisp, chunked paragraphs, each of no more than two

sentences. Better still, use a bulleted list to explain the features and benets.

þFeature 1 meaning that benet 1.

þFeature 2 meaning that benet 2.

21 Marketing Experiments video: changes in colour design

22 http://neilpatel.com/2015/05/14/the-psychology-of-color-how-to-use-colors-to-increase-conversion-rate/

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Creating high-converting landing pages

An alternative to bullets is the use of icons – this can work really well when the same content

is repeated in other places on the website, so the icons can be used to provide consistent

visual signposts.

Best Practice Tip 11 Combine features and benets in copywriting

When you’re thinking about writing copy for products, service or white papers, then the

temptation is often just to write about those features. Instead, it’s much better to combine

features and benets. Combine the two so that the feature is followed by the benet.

Returning to Michael Aagaard’s advice23, he recommends a really useful way of considering

messaging hierarchy which layers on more detail down the page, with each piece of

guidance owing from, and adding to the headline.

Best Practice Tip 12 Create a clear message hierarchy on each landing page

The messaging hierarchy should add-more depth down the landing page.

Here’s an example of this principle in action from Freshbooks, cloud accounting business.

You can see it works best for long-form landing pages, where a story can be told and the

primary CTA is repeated at regular intervals, or is pinned so it follows the user down the

page.

23 Unbounce: High-converting landing pages copy

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The example below is from the French market, for a payday loans (pret sur salaire) company

called Credit Club. This landing page for CondisThe landing page uses a clear feature/

benet list on the right hand side.e (red shading is ours).

6. Review copy and content work for different decision-making styles

rQ. Has the suitability of the page for decision-making styles been reviewed?

US conversion optimisation specialist Brian Eisenberg has developed a useful framework24 to

help us think through the different decision-making styles of different folk. How well does your

landing page support this range of styles?

24 Persona styles

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The Methodical focuses on HOW-type questions:

þWhat are the details?

þWhat’s the ne print?

þHow does this work?

The Humanistic focuses on WHO-type questions:

þHow will your product or service make me feel?

þWho uses your products/service?

þWho are you? Tell me who is on your staff, and let me see bios.

The Spontaneous focuses on WHY- and sometimes WHEN-type questions:

þHow can you get me to what I need quickly?

þDo you offer superior service?

þCan I customise your product or service?

The Competitive focuses on WHAT-type questions:

þWhat are your competitive advantages?

þWhat makes you the superior choice?

þWhat makes you a credible company?

Best Practice Tip 13 Make sure you cater for different browsing styles

Before you sign-off your landing page creative, make sure you have tried to navigate the page

from the perspective of different types of online visitor. If you nd barriers, address these.

7. Provide a functional, concise form

rQ. Is our form easy to complete and submit?

The ease of completion of a form goes a long way to determining how many people will click

on the submit button.

The following are useful pointers:

þLess is more.

þCheck boxes and picklists help visitors.

þClearly mark required elds.

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þClearly label each eld (labels above elds have been shown in studies to help users)

þMake the submit button clear.

þEnsure you use inline validation to ag errors as they occur

þUse tool tips to give people advice on how to complete key elds e.g. password

requirements.

þProvide support options if customers have problems.

Provide support options if customers have problems.

Before you launch a landing page that incorporates a form, make sure you have tested

the form validation in detail. Check every possible way the form can be lled out, including

missing our data for both mandatory and non-mandatory elds. Do the correct error

messages appear? Are these in-line (e.g. they appear next to the eld they refer to).

In-line error messages are essential as they pinpoint where the visitor has to make a change.

Ensure these messages are in a different font colour/style to the main form, making it easy

for visitors to see them. Don’t group errors and display in a large box as this can seem

onerous.

Peter O’Neill of L3 Analytics has written a handy blog post on how to track form errors using

Google Analytics25

The screenshot below shows a B2B landing page test for a lead generation form.

Which version do you think increased leads by 368.5 per cent?

It was Version A that drove the higher conversion rate. Did you guess right? This shows the

value of testing forms and simplication of elds. Note that more background research on

why and how to complete the form helped improve response in this case too.

25 Peter O’Neill: Tracking form errors

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8. Provide relevant trust indicators

rQ. Have we provided relevant trust indicators?

A trust indicator is a piece of content that validates your quality of service. Trust indicators

have the greatest inuence when they are independent, i.e. not written by you or your

company!

Examples include:

þCustomer testimonials.

þProduct ratings and reviews.

þIndustry accreditations e.g. Google Certied Shops.

þIndustry awards.

þExpert reviews from independent commentators, e.g. respected bloggers.

For some industries, there will be an industry-specic standard that customers would expect

to see (e.g. ABTA if you are in the travel business), or evidence that you offer protection and

security and that shopping online with you is safe (e.g. online payment security via Veried

by Visa).

Best Practice Tip 14 Validate your credentials with trust indicators

Where relevant use independent trust markers such as customer reviews and industry

accreditations to validate the quality of your company and reassure visitors that transacting

with you is safe and secure.

The example from Crowdcube, a UK investment crowdfunding company, demonstrates the

inclusion of multiple trust marks at the bottom of the home page. Each logo clicks through to

a dedicated awards landing page.

9. Enable social sharing

rQ. Can visitors share our content socially?

Make sure you give yourself the greatest chance of reaching the largest possible audience,

particularly where more than one person is involved in taking the decision. Social sharing

isn’t the main form of response, but it should be offered in a non-distracting way.

Social sharing is prevalent in both B2C and B2B, and provides the perfect way to allow your

landing page content to have a wider reach than just the people you are attracting via your

marketing campaigns. Since landing pages aren’t shared so widely it’s conventional just to

offer generic sharing buttons, the options for sharing services are covered at the end of this

post26.

26 Smart Insights: Social sharing buttons

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Be sure to optimise the content that is shared, based on what each network supports. You

can ensure that your organisation name as well as the URL is posted. The example below

from Digital Marketing Depot, whilst not a beautiful design, uses social sharing options for

networks relevant to the audience.

10. Use visual techniques to make copy easy to read e.g. bullets, highlights, tabs etc

rQ. Do we break up copy to make it easy to read?

For landing pages with a lot of information to communicate, it’s important that you don’t

simply throw long paragraphs of copy in front of visitors, as it can be hard for them to pick out

the relevant parts, or to focus on the most important message.

Instead, use simple visual techniques to break-up the content and provide bite size chunks

that are easy to digest. Techniques include:

þBullet points

þCheck/tick boxes to illustrate key selling points

þHighlighting important copy

þUsing sections with sub-headings for each section

þInserting visual content amongst the written content

þUsing interactive page elements like carousels or accordions.

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Creating high-converting landing pages

Step 4

Design the optimal page layout

rQ. Have we reviewed optimal page layouts?

In our experience (and that of everyone else we know in e-commerceecommerce), there is

no such thing as a perfect landing page. We’ve yet to come across a landing page with 100

per cent conversion – if you know of one, then please share the secret! Why is this?

Usually a landing page will attract a large number of visitors. Each visitor will have a unique

prole – no matter how effective audience segmentation is, we’ are all individuals at the end

of the day. This means that one 25-year-old male may respond differently to another, even

if the call to action is geared towards them both. For example, one may be visually led, the

other copy led. This is why blanket statement like “We’re targeting millenials” always amuse

us – that’s a pretty large audience to treat homogenously!

Therefore, a key challenge for web owners is to learn what the best combination of landing

page content components is to elicit the highest possible response.

In this guide we use the term ‘optimal’ to refer to the landing page design that drives the best

conversion for your business based upon which call to action is your primary conversion

driver.

Getting the right page layout

rQ. Have we reviewed page layout options?

Getting the right visual balance for a page is crucial. So it’s essential to discuss layout options

before any design happens. Whilst existing page layouts should be considered, make sure you

also think about whether a new layout is required to satisfy the goals of this landing page. And

think touch and mobile rst – how will mobile users interact with the page? What are the most

important content elements for this type of visitor? You can then scale up to larger devices.

Key Strategy Recommendation 11 Use effective layouts

Effective layouts depend on the browser and screen resolution of the user. So, ensure that

the main messages and call to action are ‘above the fold’ for most users and that the right

balance of screen elements is used to encourage conversion.

Where content ows below the visible pane, consider a visual technique to show people

they should scroll for more information.

Designers are likely talented at visual or web design, but they don’t necessarily know the

principles of persuasion and effective marketing communications that you do.

Best Practice Tip 15 Always create high-delity wireframes

Creating more detailed wireframes can help brief your designer or agency to get the

outcomes you need.

Create a wireframe like the one below with two or three options to design the most

appropriate design.

If you don’t have a tool for creating wireframes, we recommend Balsamiq as a simple,

simple, low cost tool.

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Here is an example of output from Balsamiq for a Smart Insights landing page:

For clients on consulting projects we may use a higher delity version using the Mac Drawing

tool Omnigrafe27. This example is a model layout for a tabbed B2B landing page.

Retailers often use different page layouts based on product type. This is important because

different products have different information sets and it’s often hard for a large catalogue

retailer to make a single page layout work for every product type. Why try and t something

into a page that doesn’t provide the best customer experience?

27 https://www.omnigroup.com/omnigrafe

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Please note that this doesn’t mean a different page template. Typically retailers will build a

exible template that can cater for different product scenarios, where additional content can

be displayed as required, or components on the page can be prioritised differently.

The example below is from DIY.com (B&Q) whichCurrys, which shows different product page

layouts for small, low cost items (taps) and high- ticket items (integrated washing machines).

Note the change in emphasis on call to action and service.

Landing page for high ticket item

Also note the “Why buy from us?” message which is important for when visitors deep link into

a product page.

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Landing page for low-cost item

Layering information

rQ. Is it easy for visitors to access more information?

For some products and services, you may need to provide a lot of information to ensure you

have covered the needs of all types of visitor. For example, a B2B sSoftware sSolutions

company may need to provide different information depending on the decision maker, e.g.

business case content for the Finance Director, detailed technical specications for the IT

Director.

To ensure you don’t make the landing page overly complex, you should think about how to

layer this information. By layering, we mean ensuring that the most important content and

calls to action are clearly visible and there are links to enable visitors to expand this content

and view more.

There are multiple ways of enabling visitors to access more information:

þText/image links.

þExpanding content sections.

þQuick links.

þLightboxes on mouse-over.

What to avoid:

ýContent overkill – making it hard for people to know what to do.

ýToo many links – forcing visitors to work hard to nd the relevant ones.

ýNo visual differentiation – making it hard to know what to read, where to click, etc.

ýToo many competing calls to action

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The example below is from Ernest Jones. We think it’s a poorn average main brand landing

page because there is no clear call to action and the deluge of content spots makes there is

no context to the content spots, making it hard to know where to look and what to click on.

The site does use mouse-over visual changes to add CTAs for the three product shots, and

on mobile these CTAs are automatically displayed, which is good.

It’s dangerous to assume people will know what content refers to without clear signposting.

For example, the nal content spot uses a lifestyle image and simply copy, “The Jetmaster

series Michael Kors”. But what is the Jetmaster Series? Is this a click to content or product

(it’s actually a product list page for watches)? Perhaps they’re thinking the intrigue will

encourage people to click but some users may well decide it’s irrelevant as there is no

incentive to act.

There are even more competing offers at higher resolutions...Of course, we don’t have

access to their data to know just how this page layout is affecting their clickthrough rate

(although we’d love to know!).

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On mobile, the obtrusive cookie message pushes content down the page unnecessarily:

Consider offering distinct, segmented landing pages

rQ. Should we use segmented landing pages?

We have seen that pages will have different audiences that you should try to meet the needs

of. We also know that landing pages need to be simple to be effective. The layout of the

landing page will be important to achieve both goals.

In some cases, if you are unsure of your audience, you may need to develop tabs or a longer

conversion pathway.

The example from Sage below is a landing page for its Sage 1000 ERP solution. Note the

use of tabs to let visitors access more detailed information without forcing them to scroll

to nd it. We don’t think that the technical implementation is great, as you need to request

new URLs to load each tab, but we’ve included this to illustrate the use of tabs for layering

information.

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Make the page work above the fold

r Q. Are the key content, visuals and call to action above the fold?

There is a myth about web design that persists which states that the whole of the home page

or landing page should t ‘above the fold’ for the average user. In fact visitors do scroll if the

page is designed to scroll. There’s a useful old case study from CXPartners28 that dives into

this in more detail. The screenshot below demonstrates how changing the type of content

above the fold can have a signicant impact on browsing below the fold:

28 CX Partners: Myth of the page fold

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What is it? Above the fold/Below the fold

This term originates in direct mail from when copy was above or below the fold in a letter.

On screen it refers to content in the window that can be viewed without scrolling. Of

course, this will vary according to screen resolution, so you have to review this for the most

common resolutions.

For a home page we would argue that a longer scrolling page which scrolls is more effective

in communicating more messages to different audiences, as long as the scrolling positions

are clearly visible. However in most cases landing pages will perform better if they are

simpler and shorter. There are exceptions to this rule though – longer landing pages known

as ‘squeeze pages’ are often used by ‘get rich quick scammers’ because they work...

Perfectly legitimate companies have also used them successfully as this example shows:29

29 How we made $1 million for SEOmoz - Conversion Rate Experts

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Note that a shorter there is a much shorter design is currently in use, which may reect the

greater awareness of the brand as Moz is a well established company now.

Despite the ongoing popularity of squeeze pages, many tests show that what’s ‘above the

fold’ is critical, so ensure the right content is above the fold or test the length of pages as

explained in Step 7.

Understanding where to place the call to action

rQ. Is the call to action in the best place to encourage visitors to act?

We have discussed the fact that the need to have everything above the fold is actually a

myth but good practice is to ensure the landing page is effective above the fold, i.e. it works

to signpost important content and encourage visitors to scroll if there is more content.

But how do you know where to put your primary call to action amongst all of this content?

It must be above the fold, right?

Well, not always. Here’s the thing – a call to action is best placed at the point on the landing

page where the visitor has enough information to make a decision.

If you place the call to action too soon, you can come across as too eager and actually put

people off because they’re not ready to commit.

Put it too late and people might have lost interest because they can’t nd where to click.

We recommend reading Bnonn Tennant’s this excellent blog post on KISSmetrics, ‘Why

The Fold is a Myth’30. The screenshots below are taken from his blog post and refer to a

Marketing Experiments test31 that revealed that placing the call to action below the fold

increased conversion in this particular case.

This version with the call-to-action at the top wasn’t most effective...

30 Kissmetrics: Why the fold is a myth

31 Marketing Experiments: Call-to-action tests

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Instead, this was...

We can speculate that the second variant raises anticipation by encouraging visits to engage

more with the content.

However, we’re not suggesting that this is denitive proof that moving the CTA to the bottom

drives the greatest conversion.

Why?

Because more extensive testing is required to determine whether a different visual design

and copy for the CTA in the header could actually work better. We need to prove that the

reason for the poor conversion is because the CTA is above the fold, not because the design

isn’t great.

The key take away is this: Don’t obsess over the fold. Make sure that the content that is

visible when people arrive at your landing page makes it easy for them to navigate that page

and take appropriate actions. And be rigorous in testing landing page design and content.

Best Practice Tip 16 Make sure your site is effective ‘above the fold’

Start by assessing your minimum screen resolution you are targeting and then think

what must be above the fold, for example, the main engagement offer. Use the ‘In-page

Analytics’ feature in Google Analytics to assess the number of clicks that occur above/

below the fold. You may be surprised how few people scroll and this will encourage you to

think about what is above the fold. We’re not advocating pages that don’t scroll though.

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Page layout questions to ask yourself

Here are the nal, detailed questions to ask about your landing page:

Q. Should we remove navigation?

This is a common approach in landing pages.

Best Practice Tip 17 Simplify navigation

Removing navigation is fundamental to most landing pages, so reduce navigation choice if

possible through your pages.

Where tested, landing pages without navigation almost always work better.

Compare the two landing pages below, from a Google search for “CRM software for SME”.

Both have different approaches, and there are good points in each but you’ll notice that

Freshdesk has an enclosed landing page that removes the site wide navigation to focus on

the core message.

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rQ. Main navigation removed? or...

rQ. Main navigation reduced?

Q. Does the main offer and response form have clear visual emphasis?

rQ. Form and offer have distinct visual emphasis?

To draw your visitors’ attention to the landing page a border or background tint and clear

heading can help encourage action.

Q. How many offers should we have?

rQ. Single offer used?

Common thinking and AB testing suggests you must strip the landing page right down. But

longer formats can be more effective as the ongoing success of long landing pages shows.

Q. Are the main sign-up elds on the subscription page evident on the main landing page?

rQ. Main sign-up form on the landing page?

If the form is one or more click away, will this reduce response?

Q. Is the main call-to-action clear?

rQ. Main call-to-action clear?

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rQ. Is it button-like (so it suits touch screens)?

rQ. Is the colour right? High contrast works well as does green = green for go!

rQ. Is it repeated? In a longer form or page it’s good to repeat at the top and the bottom?

Q. Is the main call-to-action persuasive?

rQ. Persuasive call to action? Shows value to be obtained by clicking (not ‘click here’ but

‘Download now’ or ‘Learn more’)?

rQ. Point-of-action reassurance? i.e. further information is provided to support the decision

The Autoglass mobile site has a separate page to answer additional questions to

reassure those who are uncertain about committing.uses simple copy to reassure visitors

that it provides a high quality service. Users can also click through to nd additional

information for key messages like “Any glass, any vehicle” (not visible in this screenshot).

Autoglass brand-related messages accessed via the About page

Q. Should we use multiple tabs?

We have seen that tabs can enable us to offer a range of choice to a visitor but without clicking off

to a separate page and with the emphasis remaining on conversion for the home page.

Tabs to consider include:

rAbout the category (What is X?).

rAbout the company (What makes us different?).

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rOur other products/services.

rAdditional resources (Help me decide).

rCustomer testimonials (social proof).

Creating mobiletouch and mobile -friendly landing pages

rQ. Are our landing pages user friendly for touch and mobile visitors?

First, check that you get a signicant percentage of your visits from touch and mobile

devices. Whilst it’s unlikely that you won’t have mobile visitors, there is no point investing

time and money creating mobile-optimised pages if the visitor numbers are so small you’re

unlikely to see a return. We nd for most websites, trafc from touch screens dominates, and

there is an increasing number of desktop/laptop computers using touch screen technology.

Usability on a mobile device is clearly different to a desktop. For example, long complex

forms become a nightmare to complete unless they are well structured. Also, some features

that work on a desktop site might not work well on mobile, so when (e.g. product zoom for

retail e-commerce). So when planning a mobile landing page think carefully about how easy

it is to interact with the content and follow the call to actions.

A few pointers:

þClick-to-call is a popular call to action for mobile landing pages.

þMobile pages need to load fast, therefore need to be lightweight (less than 20Kb).

þAccessibility is key – things like Flash aren’t usable natively supported on most mobile devices.

þDesign needs to be optimised for smartphones – 1 column layout works best so there is

only vertical scrolling, not horizontal scrolling.

The example below shows a twosimple mobile landing pages with athat use touch-friendly

prominent click-to-call calls to action, one using the geo-location capabilities in the browser:

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If you are building landing pages for mobile visitors, then we recommend reading this

insightful blog post by Angie SchottmullerAndrew Miliwauki32.

The importance of testing

rQ. Are we using testing techniques to improve landing page performance?

How do you know what the ‘optimal’ page layout is?

There is only one sensible approach to discover this – testing. By testing we mean using

AB and Multivariate testing tools to compare different page layouts against each other in

real-time and then reviewing the data to determine which version has driven the highest

response rate. We cover this technique in Step 7.

Testing provides the following benets:

þRemoves subjectivity from decision- making. Good practice learning can help us

devise hypotheses for improving landing pages. However, what we might decide needs

improving on your landing page could be different to your opinion. So, who is ‘right’?

Potentially we all are, to a certain degree, and a combination of our views is the best

option.

With testing, you can remove the subjectivity and test multiple versions of a page against

each other and then use the data to prove which one works best.

This can be really useful in large organisations where there are multiple people/teams

involved in e-commerce and it’s often hard to get a consensus of opinion (especially

when internal politics obscure decision making).

þProvides like-for-like comparison. How do you know that a change you make to your

landing page is what causes a change in KPI performance? There are external factors

that inuence landing page performance that can bias results. For example, a competitor

runs a killer discount at the same time you change your product landing page. Your

conversion rate drops sharply and you attribute that to the landing page tweak. However,

the real cause of the drop is the competitor’s price position, which means you have

interpreted the data incorrectly.

Testing enables you to run multiple versions of the page concurrently. This means that

each version is subject to the same external inuences, so any variations you get in KPIs

can be attributed with greater condence to the landing page variations.

þCan be continuous. Rome wasn’t built in a day. And neither is an optimal landing page.

The reality is that the visitor mix changes over time, so customer demand will. What

works today on your landing page might not work in X months’ time.

Testing can and should be a continuous activity, seeking to gradually improve

performance over time and then maintain that level of improved performance. In

some cases you will get the ‘big bang’, where you skyrocket conversion having made

changes to the landing page. However, often it’s an iterative nteractive process, making

incremental improvements each time you test.

32 Searchenginewatch.com: ‘Mobile Landing Page Optimization: 10 Best Practices for Success.

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þCan show what doesn’t work. Not all tests provide positive results! But a negative result

(i.e. conversion decreases) isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It actually teaches you what

doesn’t work on the landing page, helping you to understand what to avoid in future.

Key Strategy Recommendation 12 Don’t be dispirited by negative test results

Learn from the good and the bad. If a test decreases conversion, even if you thought it

would work brilliantly, use that as a learning experience and improve the next test.

Perhaps you are guilty of what Conversion Rate Experts call “Meek Tweaking” where you’re

making minor changes to copy without trying entirely new designs.

For further reading on layout testing, you might like to read KISSmetrics’s blog on ‘The

Blueprint for a Perfectly Testable Landing Page’ that provides a walk-through of using a

wireframe approach33.

We discuss testing techniques in more detail in Step 7 – Improving results, but for now lets’

take a look at an example which shows the value of testing layout.

The example relates to business-to-business service High Rise34.

First we have the original pag, e which was compared to a longer form design; then a shorter

person-based design was added which improved performance. Then a longer-form person-based

design, which was a backward step. It shows the value in making major layout changes.

1. Original page which compared to a longer form design.

2. Shorter person-based design.

33 Kissmetrics: Landing Page Blueprint

34 37 Signals: AB Testing example

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3. Then a longer-form person-based design.

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Step 5

Create compelling content and creative

By now you know the goals for your landing page, who your visitors are and have worked out

the optimal page layout. So, what content do you need to make the page y?

To help you make this decision, you need to understand guidelines for writing online copy.

Good practice techniques for copywriting

rQ. Does our copy follow good practice recommendations?

You will nd a lot has been written about online copywriting. There is much hyperbole. And

there is some confusion with search engine optimisation (SEO). So let’s clarify our take on

copywriting based on years of experience.

Copywriting is not SEO. Copywriting is about producing relevant content that provides

clear and concise messages to visitors to help you achieve the goals for your landing page.

Search engine optimisation can support good copywriting by ensuring the copy is optimised

for relevant search queries. However, content should always be written for the end-user rst

to ensure it reads well. In fact, this is the approach that search engines like Google espouse.

Below are some useful guidelines:

þ1. Write for people not search engines. A paragraph of keywords does not persuasive

copy make! Write copy that appeals to real people and speaks to them in a tone of voice

that will appeal.

þ2. Make the headline impactful. A good headline encourages people to read it – it

provides relevance, reassuring them that this page is worth spending more time on. Good

headlines are useful feature and/or benet led.

þ3. Get the rst sentence read. So important! If people don’t read the rst sentence,

they’re unlikely to read the second and you want them to read on, right?

þ4. Tailor content based on audience type. Make your copy speak to the customer. If

you’re talking to teenagers, write in a tone of voice that resonates with them, use their

language , etc. It often pays to employ specialist copywriters when targeting specic

audiences.

þ5. Be succinct. Don’t take three paragraphs to say what you could in one. Boil it down to

the essentials but make sure you’re not sacricing quality. The copy still has to be legible

and make sense! This is critical on mobile where attention spans are typically shorter

(unless someone has come to read a detailed guide!).

þ6. Be persuasive. Entice people. Encourage people. Even seduce people.

Look at the example of the Hotel Chocolat Caramel ChocolateGift Collections landing page

below. It uses sensual emotive language relating to the indulgence of luxury chocolate to

entice people.

þ7. Know your personality. It’s important that you use a consistent voice across your

website. This helps visitors get to know your brand personality and provides an important

signal that this is your landing page. A good example of this is Wish.co.ukJ Peterman

whose tone of voice is consistent across their product pages.

We recommend reading Brian Clark’s article series ‘10 Steps to Effective Copywriting’ on

Copyblogger35.

35 10 Steps to Effective Copywriting’ on Copyblogger

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Content to engage the visitor

We’ve said that you need a relevant headline, but what really grabs the attention? Often it’s

a video or a strong image, such as an image of a customer using the product that will help

conversion.

Key Strategy Recommendation 13 Invest in effective engagement devices

Although layout and design is important, ultimately it’s your offer and engagement devices

that will help conversion.

Here’s a landing page example that proves the point we think. The offer is for Deep Crawl,

an SEO software solution, but the big image of screenshot from the actual software makes it

more appealing than text or generic images. The screenshot contextualises the product offer.

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Less is often more with landing pages, but this means selecting the right content and then

using copywriting skills to make that content engaging, relevant and actionable.

rQ. What types of content do you have that can bring your copy to life?

þQuality, engaging images?

þVideos?

þExamples of product or download?

þCustomer testimonials?

Persuasive messaging hierarchy

rQ. Do we have a clear persuasive messaging hierarchy?

You have a story to tell and few words to tell it. The messages in your headings are

particularly important and they need to be prioritised. This is what we mean by hierarchy.

Best Practice Tip 18 Effective messaging hierarchy dened

Position your brand carefully through the messaging on the landing page and ensure this

positioning is consistent with other landing pages.

If you remember, we looked at a framework for explaining this in Step 3 in the section on 5.

Make the combination of features and benets clear. Let’s take the example below of the

main landing page for Survey Gizmo, an online survey software provider. It focuses the brand

messaging on providing an easy to use tool that has brilliant support behind it, using the

logos of well-known clients to reinforce its credentials.

Note how it uses a personal tone of voice to communicate the company’s message, not

writing in the third person. As illustrated by the example above, your headlines and the

related copy should:

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þ1. Engage with relevance but intrigue also

‘You have questions. We can provide the answers…’

þ2. Offer a benet straight away

‘Priced so everyone has access to answers – on any budget’

þ3. Link the features with the benets

‘Collect any kind of data’

þ4. Encourage action

‘Try building a survey’

Alternatively, you can try the tried and trusted AIDA framework, your landing page has to

encourage Attention, Interest, Desire and Action.

Brand and strapline

rQ. Is our brand and strapline reassuring?

It’s important that what your brand represents is clear from the landing page. This is

inuenced by the strength of your brand reputation and how easily recognised brand symbols

like the logo are.

This is straightforward for a relatively well-known brand like Argos, but for companies where

many visitors will not know them well, a strapline explaining more about their services could

help.

Brand identity on landing pages has a signicant effect on new visitors, those who are likely

to know very little about you or your website. If the brand is not well presented and what you

represent unclear, it could put people off.

A strapline can help give context to the brand logo. Think of well-known straplines such as:

þJohn Lewis – ‘Never knowingly undersold.’

þStella Artois – ‘Reassuringly expensive.’

þMcDonalds – ‘I’m lovin’ it.

Let’s use the example of a pureplay ecommerce fashion retailer, Boohoo.com. It features the

strapline ‘Twentyfour Seven Fashion’ beneath the logo so that it appears on every web page.

This gives the new visitor a clear visual signal as to the positioning/purpose of the brand.

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Use this checklist to see if you have your bases covered:

rDo you have a quality brand identity in the top left navigation?

rDo you use a supporting strapline (if necessary)?

rAre the basic parts of your company or services highlighted?

Effective copywriting

rQ. Is our copy effective in conveying the key messages?

A classic piece of research by Jakob Nielsen, one of the leading authorities on web usability,

showed that:

þWe read 25 per cent more slowly online.

þWe scan (79 per cent) rather than read (16 per cent).

Dave Chaffey and PR Smith devised a checklist for online copywriting in their book

Emarketing Excellence, with the salubrious mnemonic CRABS:

þChunking. Chunking means that paragraphs must be shorter than in paper copy. Think

one or two sentences only. This helps scannability.

þ Relevance. With limited space, we have no room for llers. Stick with what matters – the

details of the offer and how to get it.

þ Accuracy. Don’t get carried away with your copy; don’t set expectations so high that you

overpromise and can’t deliver something you offer.

þBrevity. Brevity goes with chunking and scannability. Write your copy, reduce the word

count and then reduce it again. Give yourself targets and beat them without sacricing

good English and understanding. Where necessary you can hyperlink to more details

proving what you say, although this will often break the ow.

þScannability. This is reading without reading every word, just picking up the sense of

each paragraph from the keywords. The eye tends to pick out words in headers, at the

start of paragraphs and those emphasised in bold.

The success factors in the CRABS copywriting mnemonic are functional, but it’s also worth

remembering the human dynamic as we’ll see in the next section on trust and reassurance.

Think carefully about tone of voice.

Tone of voice

þQ. Is our tone of voice appropriate?

The tone of voice is a key element of the landing page. This is the mood or attitude of the writing,

which needs to be appropriate to your target audience and your own brand values. Dene who

you are writing for, so that you can think about what might make them interested in the product.

Best Practice Tip 19 Get the tone of voice right

The tone of voice should t your brand and audience, but if you can push the boundaries to

make it more accessible, then this can work well on landing pages.

Palace Skateboards is a great example of a brand using distinct, and polarising, copy on

its product landing pages. The copy is clearly tailored to appeal to a specic audience that

will enjoy edgy, provocative content that’s uses street slang. We’d imagine that quite a few

people, who don’t t this demographic, would nd it rude and crude!

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Please note that at the time of writing, the web shop is closed and due to re-open but no date

is provided.

Consistency with marketing campaign creative/content

rQ. Is our copy consistent with marketing campaign content?

As we have highlighted previously in this guide, it’s important that you align your landing

page copy with the content used in your marketing campaigns

Why? To provide a consistent scent trail for visitors. This is really important when you are

promoting an offer or discount via the marketing campaign, either using a banner or via text.

When the customer arrives at the landing page, they will be reassured if the same banner/

text is repeated, conrming that the offer is available.

Take the two examples below from email marketing campaigns. You’ll notice that All Saints

uses a consistent creative treatment but WHSmith has no replication of the email offer

anywhere visible, which is poor practice.

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Don’t assume your content is right

rQ. Have we tested our landing page?

Even if you follow our good practice guidelines, you still need to test your landing page to work

out what the best combination of content and copy is. When you take a look around the web,

you’ll see such a wide variety of landing page designs. Whilst many of them are following good

practice guidelines, they’re nding their own way to implement these based on their audience.

No matter what industry you work in, the homepage design always struggles between

presenting offers and explaining the ‘who we are’.

And there are some surprising results. For every test that conrms your ‘gut feel’ there will be

one that confounds it! Take the example below from Whichtestwon.com showing two landing

page treatments for the homepage of Cleverstuff, an online retailer of educational supplies.

Best Practice Tip 20 Test and test again

Every component of a landing page can be tested, including the copy and brand elements

like logo positioning and use of straplines.

Set objectives Increasing brand

trust and credibility

Improving

results

Compelling content

and creative

Creating the best

page layout

Engaging your

visitor

Understand

visitor needs

7 Steps Guide to creating high-converting landing pages

Set objectives Increasing brand

trust and credibility

Improving

results

Compelling content

and creative

Creating the best

page layout

Engaging your

visitor

Understand

visitor needs

7 Steps Guide to creating high-converting landing pages

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Our ‘gut feel’ would be that Version A with its strong brand positioning section would

encourage better performance. However, it was actually Version B that increased paid orders

by 13.7 per cent!

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Step 6

Increase brand credibility and trust

rQ. How can we increase the credibility and trust of our page to boost conversion?

Think about how you react to information when you land on a web page. If you don’t know

the brand, what do you look for? What signals help you feel reassured that this website is

trustworthy?

For returning customers this isn’t as important – they have already seen your website and

trust it enough to come back. However, for a new visitor, this may be the rst time they have

ever come across your company.

Generally speaking, there are nine techniques for displaying brand signals to reassure visitors:

þ1. Logo

þ2. Strapline

þ3. History/About Us

þ4. Testimonials/Reviews

þ5. Independent accreditation (from well known sources)

þ6. Security messages

þ7. Customer Service support

þ8. Guarantees/Warranties

þ9. Awards.

We’ll look at each of these in more detail below. First, start by asking yourself the following

question:

rQ. Have we clearly communicated our brand credibility and trust?

Although you’ll likely want to keep the page short, review these different methods of

increasing credibility and so increasing conversion.

Key Strategy Recommendation 14 Understand your consumer trust factors

Think carefully about what the barriers to conversion are. How can you reassure customers

that you can be trusted both to generate a response and in a longer-term relationship?

Don’t over play trust – if you seem too desperate to convince people, they might think

you’re trying to hide something.

1. Logo

rQ. Is our logo of sufcient quality for credibility?

This doesn’t need much explanation!

Your logo is the primary brand identity mechanism for your landing page. Online shoppers

are used to nding this in the top left of the page, though some brands feature it in the centre,

or to the right. This is happening more as responsive web design takes hold and designers

base designs on smartphone screen resolutions, where headers often have the logo in the

middle and icons either side.

When featuring logos on your website, make sure the imagery is optimised for web to reduce

le size but is of the highest possible quality – a blurred or obscured logo doesn’t reect well

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Creating high-converting landing pages

on your brand quality. Many designers recommend scalable vector graphics (SVG), so the

quality of the image is based on device capability.

2. Strapline

rQ. Is our strapline effective?

Not all websites used straplines. It’s not essential but a strapline can help reinforce your core

brand values or position your products and services.

Take a look at Oracle’s strapline in the image below: ‘Integrated Cloud Applications &

Platform Services’. It is deliberately positioning the brand as a serious and practical business

partner with a joined up product suite.

3. History/About Us

rQ. Is the about us page or content on page effective?

For some brands, heritage is key. A good example is family run businesses where brand

awareness can be high in local markets, but less so further aeld which can hinder online

expansion. However, the brand heritage and back story can help persuade people that it’s a

reputable company with a track record of delivering great quality service.

The example below is from the Behrens Groups, a business that started in 1834 and is still

run by the family. There is a lot of rich content about the heritage available online, and the

homepage plays on the theme with ‘Textile with heritage’.

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About Us is usually a simple text link in the site-wide header. The destination page will

contain useful information about the history of the company and what it represents. It’s the

perfect opportunity to reinforce brand values and persuade visitors that you are reputable

and trustworthy.

Watchnder.co.uk uses a novel approach with a landing page titled ‘10 years of Watchnder’.

This conveys credibility as it clearly shows the brand has a heritage. The page uses

interactive techniques to encourage the visitors to learn more about the brand.

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4. Testimonials/Reviews

rQ. Are our testimonials and reviews of sufcient quality?

These fall into two categories:

þExpert reviews. Where an industry expert, publisher or well-known person provides an

authoritative review of a product or service.

þCustomer reviews. Where customer feedback is displayed on the landing page. For

retail ecommerce this is usually done via an online ratings system such as Feefo,

Trustpilot or Reevo. However, it’s also common for quotes from happy customers to be

displayed prominently, a tactic more readily associated with B2B.

Both can have a strong impact on a visitor’s perception of quality but, in general, it’s the

customer ratings and reviews that inuence trust the most.

Quotes or videos showing customers using the product or describing the benets of using the

services are also really helpful for visitors.

The landing page36 below shows content from the main landing page for Tripadvisor, which

uses customer quotes to validate popularity of the website and show that it’s an active travel

community – ‘See all 16,417 reviews for Bora Bora’.

36 Smart Insights: An in-depth home page optimisation study

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5. Accreditation

rQ. Relevant industry accreditation in place?

This relates to independent organisations and schemes that you are a member of and that

are widely recognised by customers in your industry. The more well known the accreditation

body, the greater the impact on your visitors.

When using accreditation signals, it’s important to link logos/images through to the

accreditation body’s website or online proof of your membership.

The screenshot below is taken from the site-wide footer for Schuh, a specialist footware

retailer, which displays the Google Certied Shop accreditation logo, which opens up the

brand’s prole in the directory when clicked.

In some industries, accreditation is a legal requirement. For example, all travel companies

selling air holiday packages and ights in the UK are required by law to hold an ATOL, which

is granted after the company has met the CAA’s licensing requirements. The example below

shows the footer area for Southall Travel, which includes an ATOL logo (though the legibility

could be improved).

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6. Security messages

rQ. Security messages and logos sufcient to reassure?

These are message that highlight how safe and secure it is to shop with you online. For

ecommerce websites, these include SSL certicates (e.g. VeriSign logo) and 3D Secure (e.g.

Veried by Visa).

This is particularly helpful for inexperienced Internet shoppers who may not fully trust

handing over their card details to a website.

Key Strategy Recommendation 15 Make it clear that shopping online is safe and secure

If your landing page is designed to generate transactions, ensure it has a clear message

that shopping with you is safe and secure.

7. Customer service support

rQ. Customer service prompts in place to support?

It’s nice to know there is a human presence behind the website. Even if people don’t actually

make contact, providing clear contact options provides reassurance. It says that help is there

if needed.

The example below shows a brand landing page for Navabi, a german plus size clothing

retailer, which provides a persistent Live Chat pull out and a text link for free shipping

(Gratisversand), which on mouse over on the desktop site displays extended customer

service information including a Freephone number and free fashion consulting phone line.

There are multiple ways to communicate support. The most common on landing pages are:

rContact phone number

rContact Us landing page

rRequest callback form

rLive chat.

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8. Guarantees/warranties

rQ. Effective guarantees and warranties in place?

What if the customer doesn’t like the product or service? Can they return it within a period?

Will they receive a refund?

If the manufacturer provides a standard warranty, make this clear and show how long the

warranty lasts for.

If you provide an extended warranty (either for free or for an additional payment) also make

this clear and promote the benets, e.g. peace of mind with full coverage of any repairs for

an extra 12 months.

The screenshot below shows a guarantee message being displayed prominently on the

dishwashers landing page of John Lewis.

Best Practice Tip 21 Reassure across every page with a site-wide feature

Use a strip below the masthead or a feature in the right sidebar to reassure or offer

guarantees.

The example below shows how Thewatchgallery.com does this for its 0% nance offer.

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9. Awards

rQ. Relevant awards in place?

Independent awards achieved by a brand, its products or services are particularly effective in

differentiating a company and encouraging action through reassurance.

The screenshot below shows the footer of the main landing page for The Wine Society, which

features logos of key awards that link through to a dedicated awards page.

In summary, these are the questions to ask to persuade people to invest time in a form or

money in a purchase:

rQ. Have we proved the credibility of our brand?

You have just one page to prove to the visitor that you’re credible enough to respond and

share their details with you. Do they trust you to form a relationship where they know you

may be in touch? So you have to efciently use trust devices and messages to achieve this.

rQ. Do we have a point of action assurance next to our calls to action?

A point of action assurance is text or imagery next to a button to increase trust from the

visitor so they will more happily click the submit button. Examples are:

þPadlock or independent trust body logo showing the transaction will be secured.

þText explaining the users’ privacy will be maintained.

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Step 7

Improve results

rQ. How can we further improve the results from our landing pages?

Why do you need to improve results?

Rome wasn’t built in a day!

There are many reasons why a one-off landing page design won’t necessarily give you the

best possible conversion. For example:

rType of visitor changes over time.

rNeeds of visitors change.

rExternal competition changes.

It’s also very hard to know what blend of content and calls to action will deliver the best

results. That’s why we always advise that you use an optimisation program to test, learn and

improve. In this section we discuss some of the key techniques that will help you achieve

this.

However, some marketing campaigns are one-offs with a short life cycle. For example, a

weekend special promotion delivered by email, afliate and paid search. For this type of

campaign, ongoing optimisation isn’t feasible – by the time you have learned what works/

doesn’t work, the campaign will have expired.

Therefore, when planning which campaigns and landing pages to include in an optimisation

program think about which ones would have the greatest impact if performance improved.

Short-term landing pages can be optimised but only if there’s sufcient volume of visits to

enable rapid iteration.

Key Strategy Recommendation 16 Focus improvement on key landing pages

With nite resource it’s important to identify landing pages where improvements in

performance can have a signicant impact on your KPIs.

Importance of clearly dened KPIs

Cast your mind back to Step 1 – we explained the importance of KPIs and looked at the four

key types of KPI that we mention in our strategy and measurement guides. Let’s remind

ourselves in this table.

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Volume KPIs Quality KPIs Value KPIs Cost KPIs

þnVisits

þnNewsletter

signups

þnContent

þn new and

returning

visitors

þn mobile and

desktop visitors

þBounce rate

þTime on site

þAverage page

views

þ% visitors sharing

content

þConversion rate

(visits to order)

þConversion rate

(baskets to order)

þConversion rate

(bounces ltered)

þConversion rate to

ofine sales

þTotal revenue

þAverage order

value

þRevenue per visits

þValue from

non-ecommerce

goals, e.g.

Newsletter signup,

Leads

þMargin % for

ecommerce site

þCost per click,

cost per sales,

e.g. from

AdWords

þCost per send

e.g. email.

When planning an optimisation program for your landing page, make sure you have agreed

the KPIs from this list that you are measuring performance against. This ensures there is a

consistent evaluation of performance, which will help you make decisions.

In the example below for a retailer, the top eight KPIs for a landing page were benchmarked

prior to the start of the optimisation program. The data was based on weekly reports from

Google Analytics.

Strategy recommendation 17 Benchmark KPIs before doing any optimisation

Once you have agreed your landing page KPIs, make sure you benchmark data. This

means taking a snapshot of each KPI before you start making changes to the landing

page. For example, Per Visit Value is now £0.45. This gives you a number against which to

compare future performance.

Making sure you’re getting value from your landing pages

The starting point to getting the most from your landing pages is making sure you can assess

you’re getting the value from them through analytics.

Within analytics, landing pages completions need to be identied as a special class of goals.

See how in our Guide to Analytics set-up: http://bit.ly/smartgoogleanalytics.

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If you can determine the amount of value from each page, this will allow you to compare the

effectiveness of different landing pages in generating value and work back from these to see

the effectiveness of different media or search terms in generating landing page value from

landing pages.

Questions to ask whoever is responsible for your analytics are:

r1. Is our conrmation page after the landing page set up as a goal page?

r2. Have we attached a value to this goal?

r3. Can we check goals and their value for other outcomes e.g. live chat, callback or

phone calls?

r4. Can we segment landing pages as an advanced segment? This will report only on

landing page trafc to compare its effectiveness through time. To do this the landing

pages should all be placed in a unique folder or contain a similar string which can be

matched against e.g. www.mysite.com/catalogue/articles/.

r5. Can we create a custom variable to track returning visitors and whether they buy or

r6. Can we track and measure the contribution of the landing page to assisted conversions

i.e. a user visits the page, then comes back and converts without revisiting the page?

The latter is often forgotten. The value of a landing page, like the value of a marketing

campaign, isn’t just measured by direct clicks/conversion. There is usually a tail for

conversion whereby initial non-converters come back and convert in a subsequent visit.

Tracking landing page efciency

Page efciency shows how well your page is engaging visitors before they complete the

action. They are useful for comparing pages and performance for different trafc sources like

AdWords against afliate trafc.

Here’s what you should check.

r1. Bounce rate? Should be signicantly less than 50 per cent for an effective page.

r2. Average time on page? Another measure allowing you to compare pages.

r3. Conversion rate? The percentage of visitors who complete the form, or make a

purchase from the product catalogue. Set up a conversion funnel to check this. This can

be more than 10 per cent for an effective landing page. Even over 50 per cent if there is a

great offer and reassurance about privacy.

On the next pages is a useful set of standard reports in Google Analytics that will help you

measure this.

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Report 1. Landing page or entry pages (Behaviour > Site Content > Landing Pages)

This gives you a top-level view of visits where the landing page is the entrance point to the

website.

If you are an ecommerce website, click on the ‘Ecommerce’ tab at the top to switch data

views and show the transactions and revenue that have been generated by visits where this

web page was the landing page.

If you have set up Goals, as outlined above, you can also click on the Goal tabs to show goal

completion data for the landing page.

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Report 2. Top pages (Content > Site Content > All Pages)

This is useful for showing the total number of page views that the landing page gets from

visitors to the site and their effectiveness in engagement. There are 4 key measures to watch

for:

þ1. Average time on page. This is a measure of engagement, so if your landing page isn’t

effective this will be relatively low.

þ2. Bounce rate. Also a measure of engagement, so if your landing page isn’t effective

this will be relatively high.

þ3. % Exit. This gure includes those who visit the page having started their journey

elsewhere on the site, so it’s useful to compare against the number of entrance.

þ4. Page value. As we mentioned in the section on goal setting this is based on your goal

value or ecommerce sales. For less effective pages this will be relatively low.

You will likely need to use lters to make the most of this page, for example, choose the

most important pages above a certain threshold using the “Advanced” lter box to narrow

your analysis to these pages. Or setup an Advanced segment to limit the analysis to visitors

arriving on particular types of landing pages, or rst time visitors.

Best Practice Tip 22 Use Filters and Advanced segments to limit your analysis

Focus on higher volume pages or particular visitor types e.g. Google AdWords visitors with

these pages.

Remember that context is everything when interpreting data. If you have a landing page

where the goal is to get the customer to access and read the information on that page but

take no further action (e.g. it is part of a lengthy sales cycle, acting as an interim stage to

maintain prospect interest), then a high bounce rate isn’t anything to worry about.

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Creating high-converting landing pages

Report 3. Visitor Flow (Audience > Visitors Flow)

Before using this report, be sure to have set up an Advanced Segment for the landing page

you wish to evaluate (do this by using the Conditions tab and specifying the landing page).

This will ensure that when you open the report, the data is focused on this landing page.

The screenshot below shows data from the Users Flow report for a membership sign-up

landing page. By following the data ows you can see how people navigate the site after

visiting this landing page, as well as the number of exits direct from this page.

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Report 4. Navigation Summary (Top Pages > Select Page > Navigation summary)

This is a great report for reviewing the effectiveness of an individual page. In fact we prefer

it to the fancy Users Flow page and the “In Page” click mapping feature that doesn’t work for

many sites.

Best Practice Tip 23 Use the Navigation Summary and In Page analytics to review the

paths forward from and reverse from a page.

These two reports both show which of your calls-to-action are effective.

We nd many people don’t know of it, likely because it’s hidden amongst the All Pages

report. You have to click on an individual page and select “Navigation Summary” to access

it. Then you can easily see the percentage of entrances, Previous Page Path and most

importantly the Next Page Path.

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Report 5. In Page Analytics (Behaviour > All Pages > Select Page > In-Page)

This report is a companion to the Navigation summary. It enables the analyst to see which

calls-to-action are effective, and is useful for showing to clients too. This example shows the

effectiveness of inline links on a blog post.

Note that if one or more links has the same destination URL then Google Analytics can’t

distinguish between these unless you are using Advanced Link Attribution37.

37 Google Analytics: Advanced Link Attribution setup

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100

Report 6. Exit Pages (Behaviour > Site Content > Exit Pages)

This report is perhaps less useful than some of the others, but can be useful if you want to

compare several exit pages. This report shows a list of all the web pages that visitors leave

the site through. This report can help you pick out pages that aren’t encouraging an onward

journey, or might be blocking conversion paths.

Again, remember context. Just because a page has a high percentage share of total exits

doesn’t mean it’s ‘performing badly’. Take the example of a large catalogue retailer – we’ve

seen high exits on top-level category pages (e.g. Home and Kitchen department landing

page). However, this is to be expected because a lot of the trafc that comes here is from

online shoppers who are in the research phase of the buying cycle – they’re not yet ready to

commit to a purchase, so it’s unsurprising that many browse this page then leave to continue

their research.

Report 7. Reverse Goal Path (Conversions > Goals > Reverse Goal Path>

If you have goals set up this is really useful since it will show you which landing pages are

generating the most leads. You can choose different types of goals for this. This example is

showing which pages are encouraging people to visit the Smart Insights upgrade to Expert

form.

Best Practice Tip 24 Use the Reverse Goal Path and In Page analytics to review the

content driving visits to a page.

You can see which landing pages are driving the most leads using these reports.

Note that you can use the Navigation summary (Step 4) to perform this type of analysis using

a more interactive form.

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Tracking form errors

If you are using a form on your landing page, it really helps to know what errors visitors are

experiencing when completing the form.

Why?

What if your form submit button is the primary call to action on the landing page and you only

get a ve per cent completion rate? Is that good or bad? What is preventing more people

from completing the form?

An essential source of information is knowing which data elds return the most errors, as this

indicates a usability issue with that eld.

What can you learn from this analysis?

If you know which data elds returns the most errors, you can look at options to improve

this. Perhaps you’re not providing enough guidance to help people complete the form, e.g.

password data eld has no information to explain how many characters and what type of

character is permitted.

Knowing that there are errors will prompt you to review the landing page form and think about

what might be putting visitors off.

We recommend reading Huge Gage’s insightful post on the eMarketeers blog, Tracking User

Errors With Google Analytics Event Tracking38.

Analysing visitor ow for existing landing pages

rQ. Do you know what happens to visitors when they arrive on your landing pages?

When setting goals and objectives for landing pages, it’s really useful to take a peek behind

the scenes and see how visitors are using your existing landing pages. This will help you

determine what type of landing page is best suited to the goals being set, as well as helping

you decide which goals to set.

Ask yourself the following questions:

þWhat actions are people taking on the landing page?

þWhat is the next page ow?

þIs there a high bounce rate?

þIs this a good or bad thing (in the context of the page)?

þWhere are the key exit pages?

The good news is that all of this data is readily available in web analytics tools. Let’s use

Google Analytics as an example. Below are some pointers on how to access this data.

Actions on landing pages

You can use Events to track click activity on specic elements of the page, such as video

views. If you’re new to Event tracking, Google provides an online developer’s guide.39

Next page ow

How effective is your landing page at moving people to the next stage of the conversion

funnel?

38 L3 Analytics: Visitors from existing landing pages

39 Google Analytics: Event tracking.

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As outlined earlier, the Users Flow report (Audience > Users Flow) is a brilliant way to

visualise how visitors move through your site from the landing page. First, you’ll need to set

an advanced segment for the landing page to ensure the data in the report is focused on that

particular page.

Testing alternative page versions

Many tools are available to assist with AB Testing with Google Content Experiments

(previously known as Google Website Optimiser (GWO) one of the best known. Although the

tools are often free or low-cost compared with the benets, they take time to set up and use,

so this needs a management commitment to encourage their usage.

Key Strategy Recommendation 18 Encourage usage of testing tools

It’s often difcult to judge what works best for users as the tests on www.whichtestwon.com

show, so ensure resource is available for testing

Here is an example from Kissmetrics of the benets of this form of testing where landing

page conversion rate improved by 33 per cent as a result of updating the design.

What is it? AB testing

AB testing refers to testing two (or more) different versions of a page that contain different page

elements such as a heading, images or button against a control which is the original page.

The alternatives are served alternately with the visitors to the page randomly split between

the two pages. Hence it is sometimes called ‘live split testing’.

It may be best to select a landing page creation tool that includes landing page features.

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Best Practice Tip 25 AB and multivariate testing tools

Tools like Content Experiments enable you to modify existing pages while others such as

ION Interactive and Unbounce manage the creation of landing pages also. www.whichmvt.

com provides a great summary.

Testing different page elements?

Multivariate testing (MVT) is more sophisticated than AB testing since all the different pages

can be assessed simultaneously. Individual contributions from different content assets to

conversion increase can be assessed,

What is it? Multivariate testing

Multivariate testing enables simultaneous testing pages for all combinations and variations

of page elements that are being tested. This enables selection of the most effective

combination of design elements to achieve the desired goal.

It’s interesting to note that there has been a shift in emphasis away from MVT towards A/B

testing. That’s not to say MVT testing is obsolete, far from it, but A/B testing simplies the

evaluation of test results because you’re comparing different versions of the same thing.

MVT adds complexity because you’re testing multiple variations of multiple elements at the

same time, so how do you know what has really led to the winning version being the best

performer?

Let’s take an example. You’re testing the homepage against 4 different elements to determine

which combination reduces bounce rate the most and leads to deeper page depth:

1. Brand value proposition bar – removing it vs. including it, showing 1 vs. 2 vs. 3

messages etc.

2. Main image – showing one hero image with a CTA vs. showing multiple images on a

slider with more copy

3. Social proof – versions with and without ratings, as well as testing inclusion of a

customer quote

4. Recommendations – different types of merchandising including bestsellers vs. top

rated vs. new-in.

After lengthy testing you discover that the optimal blend to reduce bounce rate is 3 brand

value messages, one hero image, no social proof and top rated product recommendations.

But why?

Was it all 4 of these elements working together? Or did the focus on one hero image have

the biggest impact?

There are ways to answer these questions within a structured MVT framework but it’s harder

to piece together than when you’re running continuous A/B tests. The best advice is to follow

a structured process so that you know what you’re doing, when and why. A/B tests are great

for incremental improvements to a webpage or user journey.

rQ. How do I know when the investment in testing is justied?

This is an important question. Before you plough into investing in testing tools and resources,

make sure you understand the potential benets of doing this.

We like to use basic models to project the expected uplift on KPIs that testing will provide.

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

104

Cast your mind back to the section in Step 1 on creating conversion models. If you

remember, we provided a simple spreadsheet format for evaluating the impact of investing in

a bespoke landing page:

You can adapt this framework to project the impact of doing different tests based on which

KPIs the test is targeting. If you plug in the cost of testing (cost of the tool + internal resource

+ external resource), you can look at the net contribution to the business of running the test.

It really is a numbers game – as a rule of thumb, the lower the number of visits to a

landing page, the harder it is to drive signicant gains as any improvement in conversion

will generate a small number of leads/transactions. That’s why we advocate picking and

choosing which landing pages to include in your optimisation program.

There is always an exception to the rule though – for some brands, the average transaction

value is very high, so even with a low number of visits, marginal improvements in conversion

can drive a lot of value. So when making a decision, always add your business context to the

numbers.

Testing tools

rQ. Range of testing tools reviewed?

It’s the thinking behind setting up the tests that is most important, but there are a range of

enterprise and lower-cost online alternative to help.

Conversion Rate Experts has a really helpful conversion rate optimisation software

comparison table40 and there’s a Forrester report summarising the main enterprise class

tools. The illustration below is from the 2013 report but there is a more recent version that

can be purchased41.

40 http://www.conversion-rate-experts.com/split-testing-software/

41 Forrester Wave for Online Testing

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

105

For free and lower cost tools we recommend:

þGoogle Content Experiments (formerly Google Website Optimizer)

þUnbounce

þSite Tuners

þOther tools listed on WhichMVT.com

Using Voice-of-Customer (VoC) data for insight

Web analytics data is great at telling you what is happening on your landing page. However,

you also need the ‘why’ to help you make intelligent decisions.

This is where VoC data comes in to play and is an invaluable source of information. Use your

web analytics data to identify potential issues (e.g. landing page X has a really high bounce

rate), then overlay VoC data to provide the context to why.

The following are proven techniques for using VoC data to help improve performance:

rOn-site surveys

The most common form on data capture used by web managers. These can be delivered by

a variety of means including pop-up, pop-under and persistent survey. It is recommended

to keep these as short as possible – as a general rule of thumb, the more data you try to

capture, the fewer visitors will stay around to complete the survey.

The screenshot below shows the use of a persistent on-page survey using Qualaroo

(previously KissInsights). The benet of using a solution like Qualaroo is that you can set up

a Google Analytics Event to track on which landing pages the survey is interacted with.

1. SET OBJECTIVES 6. INCREASING

BRAND TRUST

7. IMPROVING

RESULTS

5. COMPELLING

CONTENT

4. CREATING THE

BEST PAGE LAYOUT

3. ENGAGING YOUR

VISITOR

2. UNDERSTAND

VISITOR NEEDS

Creating high-converting landing pages

106

One technique that isn’t often used is to place persistent surveys in the My Account section

of the website. This enables registered customers to access the survey at any time and can

help increase overall response.

rOff-site surveys

This involves inviting customers to complete an online survey that is not launched from your

website. For example, you include a link to a survey set up using Survey Gizmo in your email

newsletter.

The downside is that they are harder to tailor to specic landing pages and better suited to

general feedback about the website and your products/services.

rUser testing

We absolutely love online user testing! It is perhaps the most insightful type of VoC data that

we have worked with.

You can use online services to invite real people to test landing pages and give you video

feedback of their experience. You can set the scenario you want the testers to follow and set

the demographics of the responders (e.g. age, location, income level).

The two most popular services that we have used are Usertesting.com and Whatusersdo.

com.

rCustomer Service insight

An untapped goldmine, potentially. Every day your Customer Service team handles inbound

enquiries, by phone, email and web. Amongst these enquiries are some useful nuggets of

feedback on the quality and usability of the website.

A word of caution – learn to interpret the importance of customer feedback. It’s likely you’ll

get a few extremes, those customers who are 100 per cent happy or 100 per cent enraged

by your service!

This is the exception, not the norm. So learn to identify trends and react when there are

several customers making the same point. For example, if you get lots of emails saying an

online form isn’t working, react quickly.

This also means working closely with your Customer Service team – encourage them to keep

an eye out for issues and opportunities and alert you when something important happens.

And make sure you regularly review customer feedback with them – at least every month.

We have a listing of all feedback tools we recommend here42. We hope you nd these tools

and the techniques we have described in this guide effective. Happy Testing!

42 Smart Insights: Customer Feedback Tools

Landing Page Conversion Guide

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