Landing Page Optimization: Why And How

You should create several variations of your landing page and have them compete against each other, just like in a boxing match.

By now you know what a landing page is and what elements it should have. After you have created it, you should go live with it and see how your target group reacts to it.

But this is not the end! You should keep improving your landing page to get more conversions.

Always better

Unfortunately, only half of the companies do this . This is the only way to find out which landing page is the best. Boxing is no different, is it?

While there are many tips , neither you nor other experts know exactly what works best in your context. You can only find out if you send two different landing pages into the ring.

What is landing page optimization?

Landing page optimization is part of the conversion rate optimization, which looks at the entire marketing funnel .

Landing page optimization is essentially about changing elements on your landing page and testing them in order to achieve a better conversion rate.

To put it simply, it’s the process of increasing the number of actions you want your visitors to take.

You have the following methods and tools to choose from, which make testing possible in the first place and provide you with numerous ideas for it:

1. A / B tests

Are also called “split tests”. This is the easiest and most common way to test your landing pages. It is therefore used by more than half of  the companies.

In this you compare two variations of your landing page. The starting point is always the current status of the landing page A. This is often called “control”. So you send 50% of the visitors to Landing Page A, and the remaining 50% to the new variant Landing Page B.

Of course you can also test several variations against each other. Then you would have Landing Page C, Landing Page D etc. Here you have to make sure that you have enough traffic. Otherwise such a test takes half a year or even longer! 😉

The ratio does not have to be 50:50 either. So you can also play more safely and e.g. B. Leave 70% of visitors on the current landing page A and send only 30% on the new landing page B. But then you have to realize that it takes a lot longer to get real results.

It is important with all testing that you only change one thing on your landing page. Otherwise you can not understand exactly what changes really brought something. Then you have a higher conversion rate, but you haven’t really got any smarter.

2. Multivariate tests

Multivariate tests are a bit more complicated. But they have the potential to give you better results faster. Here you test different elements at the same time .

Do you want z. For example, to find the best combination of a heading and a picture, you have four different combinations:

• Heading A, Image A
• Heading B, Figure B
• Heading A, Image B
• Heading B, picture A

You see, logic alone makes it a little more complex. So I would only recommend multivariate testing for really busy landing pages. I honestly never tried this method. It just sounds too complicated.

3. Heatmaps

Heatmaps help you to get to know the behavior of your visitors better. You lay a colored layer over your landing page. This will help you answer the following questions:

• What is the most clicked on?
• How will you behave?
• How deep is scrolling?

This gives you wonderful insights. You know where most of the attention goes and what you should optimize in the layout. So you could e.g. B. Position your call-to-action where there is a lot of clicking. Or you can make elements clickable that were previously not clickable.

4. Polls

Simple surveys are a wonderful way to get quality feedback. You can either integrate these surveys directly on your website or send them via email and social media.

Alone a pop-up that pops up when your visitor wants to leave your landing page and asks why he didn’t perform the desired action can bring really good feedback over a longer period of time. This in turn creates new ideas that you can then test.

5. Usability tests

During a usability test, real people get a goal at hand and are sent to your landing page.

These subjects then report positive and negative things. The best thing is to make a screencast including sound and just think out loud.

This gives you the chance to observe the actual behavior of your visitors in a certain situation. You can see how they interact with your landing page.

This can lead to surprising insights. Because you experience her or his perspective. Most of the time you are so deep in the subject that you can’t see the forest for the trees.

Eye tracking tests are pretty cool here too. Here, test subjects are put on special glasses and visit your landing page. Finally, you can understand exactly where the eye was looking. The result looks like this :

Unfortunately, due to the technology, this is really expensive only for companies that can and want to afford it. That is why it is often used for studies. But who knows, maybe Google Glass will be able to do that soon?

What are the advantages of landing page optimization?

Clearly: A better conversion rate, which leads to more leads and customers, which in turn brings more sales. And we all want that at the end of the day, right?

In other words, if you don’t test, you lose something because you are wasting sales potential! 😉

By optimizing your landing pages, you can increase your conversion rate by up to 300%. How do you think that would affect your business growth? And even if something like that is rare, a few percent each month bring a lot in a year.

The thing is, if you ask your customer directly, they may tell you one thing, but act completely different later. That’s why you actually have no choice but to test your landing pages. That’s generally the cool thing about it:

It’s like a giant digital marketing lab to get to know your target audience better.

So you do not act according to gut feeling, but find out exactly what works and what does not through a scientific approach. You know what’s true .

This means that there is no longer any needless discussion. Claude Hopkins said in 1923:

Almost every question can be answered cheaply, quickly and once and for all by testing a campaign.

At that time there was no internet. Today we have much easier and faster ways to test.

What steps should you take first when landing page optimization?

Landing page optimization is actually pretty straight forward: think about it beforehand and then just get started:

Step 1: Realize your Buyer Persona

Humans are not all the same. That’s why you want to get the right ones on your landing page. So think about your target group and your buyer personas . The latter are detailed profiles of your perfect customers.

Realize exactly who you want to address. Keep them in mind and never forget who they are, what is important to them and how you can convince them. If you don’t have a persona yet, it’s high time now!

Step 2: collect ideas for testing

Check out best practices and tips for landing page optimization. You can also get inspiration from other landing pages that are doing well. What can you take from it for your landing page?

Brainstorm a bit afterwards, make a list of these ideas and prioritize them. Which is most likely to increase your conversion rate? Which one will work best?

Step 3: split your landing page

Surely you now have many ideas that you can test. Therefore, always remember the 80/20 rule:

It is also the case that solving a few fundamental problems brings the greatest improvement. But accordingly also that some elements have little or no impact. Tim Ash,an author of Landing Page Optimization , also says so nicely in his book: “In reality, improving the conversion rate is not about doing something right , but avoiding doing the wrong things.”

But what exactly should you test now? I recommend the following order:

1. Headline – The most important element. Therefore perfect for testing. Test various unique selling points here.
   
2. Call-to-action – test variations of your CTA box. Also test the number of form fields: short or long, which works better?
   
3. Hero Shot – Test which image works best. Or maybe a video works best? Who knows?
   
4. Layout – Try a radically different layout. Reposition, add, or omit elements.
   
5. Social Proof – A powerful psychological “weapon” that can increase your conversion rate. But it doesn’t have to.
   
6. Text – Test your actual text. Especially the emotional part. Use a different hook, a different approach. Another story.

The headline and your call-to-action are particularly important. Put the focus on it. I think David Ogilvy would do the same! 😉

Statistical significance is also important when testing . I always slept half in the statistics lecture, but I can still remember that! It basically says how close your test results are to the truth. Accordingly, a conversion may drop your conversion rate before it increases. That’s why you need patience and perseverance.

But what if you don’t get enough traffic to reach statistical significance or it just takes too long? Then you have to test sequentially. That means you test one variant after the other. So let Landing Page A run for a month and Landing Page B for the next month. Of course, this is not so accurate, the risk of a bad choice is greater and you are subject to seasonal fluctuations. But that’s the way it is. After all, it is better than nothing.

What is a good conversion rate on landing pages?

It depends. It depends on your industry, your product or service, and your target group. All of these points come into play when it comes to turning visitors into leads and leads into customers . It makes a difference whether it is a landing page for lead generation or for sales.

I found the following WordStream study to go with it. There they analyzed thousands of AdWords accounts, which together spent $ 3 billion a year:

As you can see, the average here is 2.35%. The best quarter has 5.31% and the best tenth even 11.45% and more. Here, however, the conversion rate was measured across the entire account .

But what about a landing page conversion rate ? Unbounce has published a study on this. There they analyzed 64,000 landing pages for lead generation across different industries:

The best conversion rates fluctuate a lot between the individual industries – this is an important lesson that you should take with you. The average is still 4%.

Taking these two studies together, the “true average” is somewhere around 2-5% for a lead generation landing page. With a landing page for sales, this varies a lot.

But those who stand out refuse to rest. Why should you settle for the average? Conversion rate expert describes this very nicely. Your conversion rate is good if it was better than last month.

Conclusion

Landing page optimization is one of the top five marketing problems that businesses struggle with. I hope this post has helped you to shed light on this.

Please keep in mind that tips and best practices are a good place to start, but will not necessarily work for you.

The more you test, the more you get to know your target group and the better landing pages you can create. So test as much and as often as possible.

It is also important that you do not become arrogant. Landing page optimization is an ongoing process. There is always a percentage point waiting to be discovered by you. Your landing page can never be perfect.

So it is never static. It is dynamic. It is changing. It is on the move. It is a living organism that brings growth.

But as mentioned before, when you start testing, you’re already over half of the companies out there. So send your landing page into the ring and make it a real champion.

Let’s get ready. Let’s rumble.