Landing Page Optimization Tips from Leading CRO Experts
Landing pages are a critical tool in your marketing strategy.
Why? Because, unlike regular website pages, landing pages are specifically created with the goal of driving conversions and achieving specific campaign goals. By aligning with user intent and delivering focused content, landing pages can ‘speak’ very accurately to the target audience, generate awareness and interest, and help marketers meet their KPIs.
We’ve created a collection of landing page optimization tips from industry-leading experts, including Unbounce, Instapages, Outbrain, and Swipe Pages, combining decades of experience and thousands of tests to help advertisers maximize the performance of their campaigns.
Why Use Landing Pages?
From the user side, landing pages simplify the conversion process, making it easy and tempting for visitors to take action, whether it’s making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a resource.
Importantly, landing pages offer valuable data-based analytics and insights, enabling marketers to optimize campaigns, maximize ROI, and continuously enhance their digital marketing efforts.
That’s all well and good, but the next question is what aspects of the landing page impact users the most, and how to create landing pages that really work. So we’ve curated the top landing page tips and tactics from leading experts in conversion rate optimization to help you.
Let’s take a look at some of the common themes and hear what these landing page mavens have to say:
ChatGPT for Landing Pages
With all the buzz around ChatGPT and other AI tools for marketing, there’s probably no marketer out there who hasn’t tried it. But it’s not enough to just dabble in it; AI for conversion rate optimization is already proving its value in optimizing landing pages and marketing funnels.
“Don’t be afraid to ask the robots for a little help. AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Adobe Firefly and Unbounce’s Smart Builder offer countless ways to streamline the design process, helping you get from build to launch that much faster.”
James Thomson, Senior Creative Director at Unbounce
“With AI, marketers can break away from the one-size-fits-all approach of old-school testing. You can offer personalized, dynamic content to your audience based on real-time data. With the right tools, you can consistently deliver the right message, to the right person, at the right time.”
Garrett Hughes, Manager, Content Marketing at Unbounce
Your Landing Page CTA
Landing pages are built of many different elements, including copy, layout, design, messaging, and more. That’s where landing page builders can be a huge help, allowing you to create great-looking and high-converting landing pages with pre-set templates that are quick and easy to set up and go live. But there’s one aspect of the landing page that you should pay extra-close attention to…
“CTA buttons are arguably the most important element on your landing page. By designing these buttons to stand out, you can dramatically increase the chances of conversions. This includes playing with color, fonts, sizing, and placement – all quick and easy fixes.”
Carla Lynn, Manager, Customer Marketing at Unbounce
“There’s an idea that a landing page should have one call-to-action, but that’s not necessarily true. While the main action you want users to take should align with your boldest CTA button, it’s actually ok to include other CTAs that are relevant or useful to the target audience. In fact, using specific, well-thought-out CTAs, and placing them strategically to enhance the navigation flow, you may be able to attract more users to convert based on their level of intent.”
Daniel Attie, CRO Manager, Outbrain
Implement Trust Signals, AKA Social Proof
Are you more likely to buy a product if a friend warmly recommends it? What about if there are other well-known brands among the customers?
Chances are, yes. What if you saw lots of people on social media raving about a new product, even if they weren’t your ‘friends’ – wouldn’t that go a long way to convince you that it’s worth opening your wallet?
This phenomenon is called “social proof” and it’s much more important for landing page conversions than you might think.
According to Yotpo’s Consumer Review Survey, reviews are powerful for both returning and new customers. Buyers consume 3 to 5 reviews when they recognize the brand, and 5 to 10 when there is no brand recognition.
Let’s hear what these CRO experts have to say about it.
“Social proof is the use of social signals to illustrate that other people have bought, consumed, read or participated in what you’re offering. The idea is that people are more likely to convert if they see that others before them have (and were glad they did).”
Carla Lynn, Manager, Customer Marketing at Unbounce
“Make sure you don’t only display 5-star ratings. I often see sites not wanting to show anything other than excellent reviews. This can be counterintuitive as it may come across as ‘too good to be true’ and can actually create distrust. Showing your imperfections is an opportunity to showcase just how good your customer service team is and goes a long way to helping build trust with the user.”
Robert Deans, Founding Director, Credo Agency
Landing Page Copy Best Practices
Landing page copy has a very specific and goal-driven purpose, whether it is convincing the user to complete a form, purchase a product, or download an e-book. That’s why landing page copy must be relevant, compelling, and effective.
Every. Word. Counts. Writing landing page copy that converts users is often easier said than done, and that’s where these expert tips can help you.
“A prospect does not care how great your product or service is. They care about what is in it for them. Hence the copy should:
- Focus on value & benefits over features.
- Address pain points of a prospect and showcase the product or service as a solution.
- Make the headlines impactful. Highlight key benefits and use quantifiable data when possible.
- Keep the copy crisp and concise as majority of the people access a landing page on their smartphones.
Here’s a generic headline:
Get your Teeth Straightened Using Invisalign
And here’s a powerful headline:
Smile with Confidence in 3 Months with Invisalign: The Pain-Free Way to Straighten Your Teeth.”
Swaminathan Ganesan, Founder of Swipe Pages
“When writing copy for conversion, it’s essential to address the key questions of who, what, where, when, and why. In particular, you need to emphasize the “why” aspect, specifically why customers should choose you. An effective formula I’ve found useful for crafting value propositions includes:
- Relevance: Clearly identify the customers’ problem and demonstrate that you understand their needs. Highlight how your service or product addresses their pain points.
- Define Value: Explain how your offering solves the customers’ problem and outline the benefits it provides. Showcase the unique value proposition of your service or product.
- Differentiator: Differentiate yourself from competitors by highlighting the reasons why customers should choose you over other options available to them. Communicate what sets you apart, whether it’s unique features, exceptional customer service, or any other competitive advantage.”
Michele Barnes, Senior Manager, Strategic Services, Instapage
Streamline Landing Page Design
Design is everything! Landing page design is visual, navigational, and experiential – every single design point and strategy has an impact on the user experience and therefore on landing page performance. Landing pages can’t just look good, they have to feel good and flow intuitively, guiding the user to conversion or action. Don’t take our word for it, read these expert tips.
“Streamlining landing page design has a twofold impact on CRO. Firstly, it’s essential to ensure that the user interface (UI) is simplified, intuitive, visually appealing, and easy to navigate. Avoid hiding important information behind excessive clicks or complex menus and that key details are readily accessible to users. Secondly, consider and test the content hierarchy on your page. Present the most important and relevant information upfront, capturing users’ attention immediately. Experiment with the order of content to refine the formula to determine the optimal arrangement that encourages users to take desired actions.”
Michele Barnes, Senior Manager, Strategic Services, Instapage
“Often marketers are worried their content won’t be seen, so they place a lot of information close together on the landing page. But if the page is too crowded, it won’t be readable. The user gives up, they miss the message, and conversions are lost.
White space, or ‘empty space’, on a landing page helps to highlight a specific element or piece of information. Incorporating white space may make the page a bit longer than you planned but more importantly, it will be readable! White space also helps to differentiate between sections on the landing page, and creates a visual hierarchy that flows towards the CTA. And that means more conversions.”
Ben Hazan, Design Director, Outbrain
Personalizing and Segmenting Your Landing Page
Copy, design, look and feel – these are all critical, but what about the target audience?
A landing page that truly ‘speaks’ to specific customers and buyer personas will always perform better than a landing page directed at a general audience. That’s why personalization and segmentation are key tactics for high-converting landing pages. Let’s hear an expert tip from an expert in website optimization.
“The best way to use personalization is to target key visitor segments with more relevant content. Here are some great examples:
- Show returning visitors content in the homepage hero section that relates to the product or category they spent the most time on during previous visits.
- Show first-time users content in the homepage hero section that relates to why they should use the website and the benefits of using it compared to other similar websites.
- Show frequent purchasers content on the homepage and product pages that offers special rewards or discounts for their loyalty.
However, it doesn’t matter how personalized your website is if it doesn’t provide a good user experience or doesn’t persuade them to convert. To see the best results from personalization, you need to ensure your website has first been improved with conversion rate optimization.”
Rich Page, Rich Page: Website Optimizer
Landing Page Speed
While many aspects of landing page optimization are more creative and therefore harder to quantify, landing page speed is a purely technical problem. In theory, it’s easier to tackle! That doesn’t mean that landing page speed is not vitally important – it is!
A slow landing page will have high bounce rates and won’t be able to get the results you want. So don’t delay, use these tips to improve your landing page speed even today.
“Quick load times are essential to converting with mobile landing pages. According to data from the Unbounce Page Speed Report, folks have much shorter attention spans on their mobile than on desktop. This means you want to keep things extra lightweight on your mobile LPs.”
Unbounce
“Assuming you have a good server and low initial response times, the biggest speed jump will come from the following:
- Compress your images and load them from a CDN. Avoid large PNGs and use WebP images when possible. Lazy Load cropped images appropriately for different screen sizes.
- Load javascript files asynchronously and defer them until content above the fold loads.”
Swaminathan Ganesan, Founder of Swipe Pages
Get Your Landing Page Optimization Tips from the Very Best
Relying on the advice of CRO experts is a smart move if you’re serious about maximizing the potential of landing pages.
These insights and tips, backed by extensive experience, can help you optimize the key aspects of your landing pages – from design and copy to CTAs, social proof, and page speed.
By harnessing this hard-won expertise, marketers can create high-converting landing pages that drive success and achieve campaign goals.
