Imagine you walk into a store in the mall. You’ve walked past this store before and have a general idea of what they sell, but this is your first time actually going inside. The moment you walk inside, a salesperson walks up to you and asks for your full name, your phone number, your email address, and for you to tell him how you heard about their store.
If you are like most people, you would probably back out of the store, the same way you came in. Why would you serve up all of that information to this guy? You don’t know him and you only really came into the store to see what they had to offer you—you’re not even interested in buying anything specific yet and they are already asking for all of your information. While there are people that would offer up that information in order to look around the store, most people would just leave.
Now, think about most landing pages you’ve clicked on. Do they give you time to browse or do they immediately demand your information? Which do you think is more effective?
The perfect landing page is an elusive concept, but there are ways to make your landing pages more effective at converting people that click on them, whether they are coming in cold or whether they already have an idea of your business and do just want to request more information.
Here are a few simple fixes to increase your landing page conversions:
1. Use whitespace to direct to your call to action
The last thing you want to do is hide your calls to action in blocks of text or under the fold of the page. Don’t make your visitors search to find what you actually want them to do when they are on that page. If it isn’t immediately clear what you want them to do, whether it is click through to another page or hand over their name and email address, they’ll probably just click out of the page and try something else.
How can you solve this problem? By using plenty of whitespace on your site to direct to your call to action. Of course, whitespace doesn’t have to be white—it should just be open space that directs to your call to action so users can find it.
2. Actually point to what you want people to do
There is nothing wrong with putting an arrow on your page that actually points to what you want your users to do while on that page. Test out using very explicit directional clues to point to your call to action. An arrow on a page says, “Hey, look over here, this is the most important thing on the page, you don’t need to read or look at anything else.” Don’t overload your page with arrows—there should be one, pointing at the most important action.
3. Use the line of sight trick
If you are going to be using pictures of people on your landing page, use pictures where the people in those pictures are actually looking at what you want your site visitors to do. As humans, we are programmed to look where other people are looking. You want to see what they’re looking at, to satisfy your curiosity about what is so interesting.
Using a human face that is looking at your form or call to action button can be a great way to direct the eyes of page visitors to that page element!
What tactics have you used successfully on your landing pages? Let me know in the comments or, tweet to me at @ChrisisBald.
Imagine you walk into a store in the mall. You’ve walked past this store before and have a general idea of what they sell, but this is your first time actually going inside. The moment you walk inside, a salesperson walks up to you and asks for your full name, your phone number, your email address, and for you to tell him how you heard about their store.
If you are like most people, you would probably back out of the store, the same way you came in. Why would you serve up all of that information to this guy? You don’t know him and you only really came into the store to see what they had to offer you—you’re not even interested in buying anything specific yet and they are already asking for all of your information. While there are people that would offer up that information in order to look around the store, most people would just leave.
Now, think about most landing pages you’ve clicked on. Do they give you time to browse or do they immediately demand your information? Which do you think is more effective?
The perfect landing page is an elusive concept, but there are ways to make your landing pages more effective at converting people that click on them, whether they are coming in cold or whether they already have an idea of your business and do just want to request more information.
Here are a few simple fixes to increase your landing page conversions:
1. Use whitespace to direct to your call to action
The last thing you want to do is hide your calls to action in blocks of text or under the fold of the page. Don’t make your visitors search to find what you actually want them to do when they are on that page. If it isn’t immediately clear what you want them to do, whether it is click through to another page or hand over their name and email address, they’ll probably just click out of the page and try something else.
How can you solve this problem? By using plenty of whitespace on your site to direct to your call to action. Of course, whitespace doesn’t have to be white—it should just be open space that directs to your call to action so users can find it.
2. Actually point to what you want people to do
There is nothing wrong with putting an arrow on your page that actually points to what you want your users to do while on that page. Test out using very explicit directional clues to point to your call to action. An arrow on a page says, “Hey, look over here, this is the most important thing on the page, you don’t need to read or look at anything else.” Don’t overload your page with arrows—there should be one, pointing at the most important action.
3. Use the line of sight trick
If you are going to be using pictures of people on your landing page, use pictures where the people in those pictures are actually looking at what you want your site visitors to do. As humans, we are programmed to look where other people are looking. You want to see what they’re looking at, to satisfy your curiosity about what is so interesting.
Using a human face that is looking at your form or call to action button can be a great way to direct the eyes of page visitors to that page element!
What tactics have you used successfully on your landing pages? Let me know in the comments or, tweet to me at @ChrisisBald.
Published on March 7, 2017
About the Author: Chris Williams
