Most of my readers are business owners who are heavily reliant on their biz websites to generate sales and leads.
I feel really sad whenever I see their websites not converting because of the lousy on page user engagement and conversion rate optimization.
Let me directly start by taking 2 scenarios as references that most of us can relate to.
1st Scenario: How do we generally drive targeted traffic?
Suppose you’re running an Adwords search campaign and bidding $5 on a particular keyword to drive targeted traffic. You're getting 20 clicks a day and it’s costing you around $100 a day (though the CPC is fluctuating). You’ve passed the hard part of driving super targeted traffic to your landing page. Kudos!
But, the bitter part starts once you look into the insights.
Out of 20 visitors, only one converted and signed-up to your offer.
You might be okay with that 5% conversion rate, but what happened to those 19 visitors who turned down your offer? Even though they had the same buying intent as the one that converted (all being derived from the same search ad campaign).
2nd Scenario: Why didn’t the remaining 19 visitors convert?
The number of possibilities is endless. But for the sake of this scenario.
Maybe because -
You placed your call to action or lead capture form below the fold at 25% of scrolling.
Maybe the user landed on your page, scroll down only 20 percent and bounced back. These are the users who never see your call to action or contact form. And why didn’t they scroll down more than 20 percent?
Because you put a wall of text in the above-the-fold and they didn’t bother to read it at all. They might have filled out your form if they would have seen it by scrolling down the page.
But they didn’t, period.
There are a ton of other minor and major factors that affect conversions on a landing page. By not optimizing your landing page for conversions, you are leaving a great chunk of money on the table.
So, let’s try to save those $95 by converting more visitors into leads, just by testing & tweaking your existing landing page here and there.
In this post, I won’t exaggerate on general optimization techniques like optimizing page load speed, mobile responsive design, or using catchy images, videos and charts to support your copy.
So without further ado let’s jump right into the real strategies to optimize your on-page user engagement and conversions eventually:
1) Personalized Landing Page
Let me start the list with the best and most advanced tactic for a high converting landing page.
Personalization.
Just log-in to your Amazon account and see how they are nailing it at account level personalization.
They personalize the homepage based on what products you've viewed but haven’t bought yet, product suggestions based on your previous purchases.
You can start small by -
Personalizing based on the source of traffic -
Like if someone landed on your website from ProductHunt.
You can personalize the page saying something like this:
“Hope you have already upvoted us on ProductHunt :) If not, could you please upvote and leave your constructive feedback there. It means a lot to us since we just launched ProductX on ProductHunt.”
Personalize based on geo-targeting -
You might have seen this in many places, especially on hotel booking sites. Mention user’s location on your landing page and say something like - “Book a hotel in Las Vegas”. Or on an e-commerce site - “We ship to Montreal for free”.
Personalization based on previous search history -
Capturing users’ search data (obviously within your website) can be the real gold for you because you’ll know exactly what they are looking for and start suggesting similar or complementary products from the very next page on your website.
A personalized landing page also helps in lowering the cost of PPC ads because you start converting more leads. More conversions result in higher CTR and lower CPC.
The possibilities with personalization are endless. It’s just a matter of your A/B testing based on your industry, offering, and visitors.
2) Navigation Menu
Keep your navigation menu minimal not only on landing pages but on the homepage as well.
In fact, try avoiding the navigation bar altogether on targeted landing pages.
Keep the bar sleek so that it doesn’t capture much of your above-the-fold area.
Need proof that sleek navigation bar works better?
Just head over to those high traffic websites like Facebook, Twitter, linkedIn, Amazon and check out how sleek and minimal their navigation bars are. Those are tried and tested on billions of users.
3) Multi-Step Contact Form
If your lead capture form is long and you need more than 2 or 3 form fields. I advise you to A/B test your contact form by changing it to a multi-step form that captures and stores lead information in short steps.
The guys at CTO on Demand use this technique of multi-step forms to boost their form submissions and convert more leads.
Why it works: Because a long form usually put the visitors off and overwhelm on the first impression.
On the other hand, multi-step forms move users through small steps towards the final submission instead of slapping them with 10 form fields at once.
4) Copy That Converts
"Your words have power, use them wisely."
The most persuasive thing that you can put on a landing page is - your text copy.
Don’t go over the board with that old style 10,000+ words sales pages. To me personally, they feel like a bit scammy these days (but it’s always better to A/B test the length of your copy to analyze what’s working and what’s not).
5) Show People’s Face Behind the Company
"Be human and sound authentic."
The study shows that web visitors get attracted and influenced by happy human faces. So don’t hide behind your product or offering, and make a human connection with your audience to gain credibility.
Highrise - a CRM company ran an A/B test on their landing page by putting a smiling picture of one of their clients along their optin-form and saw a whopping 102.5% increase in conversions against their previous version.
6) Strong Call to Action
Those age-old “Click Here” or “Sign Up” call to action buttons are no longer enticing to click. Everyone is losing attention towards those generic and over-used web elements.
7) Above-The-Fold Optimization
Above the fold is the area on your landing page that captures the most eyeballs and holds the highest potential of converting a visitor into a lead.
Keep it simple and make sure your text is concise and adds value. No one wants to see a wall of text right on the first view of the page.
A value-packed punch line with a call to action and some trust signals are all you need in the above-the-fold area for higher conversions.
Remember: "Less is more in the above-the fold."
8) Gain Trust
When you drive cold but targeted traffic to your landing pages, most of them are first-time visitors who haven’t heard of your brand before. So, it's your job to leave a lasting and trustworthy impression on them.
Think like a consumer, what are some of the trust signals that usually influence you in making a purchase or hand over your contact information.
Reviews and ratings that you get on your website or on some other platform, press mentions, business partners, guarantee seals etc., are some of the trust signals that influence user behavior on web pages.
9) Testimonials that Boost Conversions
It’s easier to add marketing claims with buzz words like reliable, trusted and smart on your landing page.
But backing these claims with evidence is where the conversion is hidden.
As I already mentioned before, people are getting web blind to certain generic elements that are being abused everywhere and the same applies to these empty claims.
So, instead of relying on these meaningless marketing claims, let your previous customers do all the talking for you. Grab some enticing testimonials along with their happy photos. And voila! You are ready to A/B test the results.
10) Precise Grammar
Sometimes a small mistake is enough to turn off a converting visitor.
Whether you’re in B2B or B2C, grammatical errors can easily take away from your website’s credibility.
Just take care of your visitor engagement and you’ll see your conversion rate grow day by day. Keep doing A/B tests and implement what’s working in your favor.