Enticing prospects through email and digital advertising to click on your ad is only half the battle won. Now that you have led them to a landing page, you need these visitors to preferably enter their contact information in a form in exchange for some promised benefit. Successful B2B marketers know that it is absolutely essential to design a well-constructed landing page for a great “post-click” experience, so that the visitor follows through and hits “enter.” Then the landing page will have done its work to convert a random person on the web into a concrete lead to follow up on.
Here are four surefire ways to improve landing pages and increase your search marketing conversion rate exponentially.
- Use Simple And Easy-to-Fill-out Forms
While it would be nice to get the full details of a potential lead upon first engagement, ease into getting their personal details through progressive profiling later. There is indeed a fine line between asking too many questions in your form fields and getting only the necessary information that is needed right now for your database! Try and keep your mandatory form fields to a minimum, such as first name, last name, email address, company name, and job title, to increase the number of people taking the time to complete it. You can also include optional fields like phone number, address, etc. to gather richer customer data, without losing as many leads. After all marketers must try qualify each registrant by collecting sufficient data.
Do test various form placements (upper right corner, page center, and left side bar) on the landing page to find out what B2B audiences respond more favorably to. Finally, test different form titles, or headlines, to zero in on the one best communicating the benefits associated with completing the form.
- Include An Effective Call-to-Action (CTA) Button
Ditch the generic and boring “Click Here” for something that communicates the benefit or value-exchange of your offer. Be clear about what you really want people to do? Tell them with action oriented words (RSVP, Download, Register) to get an immediate reaction. Whatever you do, stick to one top priority action you want a prospect to take on the site and be authentic about your offer. Provide them with clear and action steps to the conversion path.
- Be Consistent In Your Campaign
It is vital to make sure that the messaging and information is consistent all through the sales funnel of a marketing campaign, including your search marketing landing pages. Any inconsistency in the facts you present on your landing pages and your site can lead to trust issues among potential clients. Make sure the facts and numbers in your copy are consistent.
Make sure your user experience is consistent too. Consistency brings with it a sense of comfort for those visiting your landing page. Your landing pages should reflect the same voice and direction as your business site. They should exhibit the same brand logo, color, font and language standards as the main site. Landing pages that are aligned with the brand enhances credibility and improves customer loyalty. Make incremental changes to your landing pages instead of introducing everything all at once or it can overwhelm your visitors and cause drop-offs.
- Show Benefits, Not Features
Convey how your product or service can benefit the user instead of focusing on why it is the best in the market. The landing page should speak to the needs of the user and what your product, service, contest or coupon can offer them in terms of value. The list of benefits and unique selling points should be consistent through your online advertising and promotions too. Make sure that the words and images on your landing page communicate your value proposition.
Guide Visitors To Your Site
Optimizing your landing page can be the real differentiator between losing and acquiring new prospects. Hosting well-optimized landing pages on your site can help draw leads in and nurture them further along the marketing funnel all the way to the close.