Your landing pages are the single most important of your site. They are your “welcome mat” and are the first impression you're giving to your visitors. I work with landing pages everyday and have found top landing pages have one huge thing in common…
A word of warning though… YOU MUST TEST. Reading blog posts like this is a great way to get ideas, but it you just implement these changes because “Mercer said it would work” then you're heading down the wrong path. First, just because these tips may have worked for others, it doesn't mean they'll work for your market. Second, you learn a TON about your market when you split-test. Split-testing your landing pages will make you a better marketer.
Highly Converting Landing Pages Begin Converting Before The Page Even Loads
Bear with me for a second… this one is easier than it sounds.
It's all about matching expectations of the click that caused the landing page to load.
Here’s a good example of a company that IS matching expectations.
On beauty store Sephora’s landing page, there's a CTA (call-to-action) for their weekly specials. Now… what would you expect that would lead to once you click on it?
Clicking takes you directly to a page where you find exactly what you thought you’d find.
Notice how it even carries the same copy used in the ad: “weekly specials”–this assures people that they came to the right page and eliminate confusion. It matches the expectation that caused the initial click.
If they used a different headline or, worse yet, didn't show a page with any “weekly specials” it wouldn't convert (because it wouldn't match expectations).
Here's an example of NOT matching expectations.
The ad shows an image of a specific type of portable battery charger — one that is small and can easily fit in a pocket.. But when you click on the link, you get taken to the brand page where the product that caught your eye isn’t even on first few featured images.
They are FORCING their market to think “Where is the battery charger I just saw?” and the second your market has to think about what to do next, conversion rates drop.
What's the moral to this story?
The single biggest secret to a highly converting landing page is to make sure it MATCHES EXPECTATIONS. In that instant before your visitor clicked on the ad or email link that brought them to your landing page, they had an idea of what it would do, show or provide. They had an expectation of where that “click” would lead. The better you match the expectations that caused the click in the first place, the higher your conversions will typically climb. (Though, as always, you should be testing so you know for a fact you're not only having the impact you want, but able to measure just how much that impact is.)
If you have any questions, just leave me a message in the comment section below and I will get back to you. And as always, if you found this post useful, be sure to hit those share buttons!
– Mercer
