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Conversion Killers and

How to Beat Them

aving just one thing off about your landing Without a headline, it can be hard for someone almost always better for your conversions to start
Hpage can drop your conversion rate to know what the page is expecting from them. building your landing pages from scratch.
drastically. It could be that there’s no easy path The layout for the landing page might also be too
for the eye to follow, or that the page is just jumbled and chaotic. It’s also true that too many landing pages
too busy. You don’t want your visitors to have get designed by a committee. Landing pages
a psychological resistance to elements on your You can make your landing pages tighter by are often a compromise, where the marketing
landing page. Here are some examples of typical removing your multiple calls to action to focus department wants one thing but are overruled
landing page problems and how to correct them. on one clear objective. Let’s say you have a by upper-level management. When every
free trial button, a demo sign-up button and a department in your company gets a say in the
1. an eye path that zig-zags contact button next to each other. While all three design of a landing page, it’s no surprise that you
end up with a landing page that has a poor focus.
across the page. of those might be different ways of landing a
sale, it’s best if you pick one to focus on in your
Whenever you have columns on a landing page, landing page. You want to stay away from having 4. Using multimedia on a
see if there’s a clear eye path for your visitor. You too many objectives on the same page. The more landing page when it’s not
don’t want your sidebar fghting for attention objectives you try to achieve on the same page, appropriate.
with your main body content on the page. the more that your conversion rate is going to
suffer. It’s not necessarily bad to rely on a video to
communicate your advertising message. But you
A particular concern is evenly weighted
columns, which usually happens when marketers Another consideration is how to call attention have to consider your target demographic and
are trying to cram too much information on to your email opt-in box. When you’re asking for whether or not they want to sit through a video.
the page. Equally weighted columns are almost information like name and email from the visitor,
� What if the visitor doesn’t want to watch a
always going to hurt your conversions as both try to make the process as short as possible for
video?
sides of your page are competing for the visitor’s them to give you their information. If you place
attention. If it’s diffcult for a person to form a a button offering a free bribe for the visitor, � What if they are at work where it would be
quick impression of a page, they’re more likely to don’t have it link to another page. Use a popup inappropriate to play a video?
be confused and less likely to stick around. box instead that asks for their name and email
� What if they are in a hurry?
right on the same page. A one-step process is
The best landing pages have a direct eye path better for conversions than a two-step process. � What if they want to read something frst
that makes it easy for people to jump in and Each step that you add between your visitor and before making the time commitment to
be guided along by your copywriting. There’s a a conversion means one more point where they watch the entire video?
chronological order of how you want to persuade may bail and drop out of your funnel.
Landing pages are also sometimes flled with
your visitor and control what they think. A simple
too many images. Images tend to get included
eye path will help entice your visitor to read
3. Reusing old landing pages because someone thinks they look nice, but are
through your landing page.
(instead of building clean they really contributing anything to the page?
landing pages from scratch). Stock photos tend to be poor choices for landing
2. Too many calls to action. pages as they lack any vitality or grittiness to
A landing page that gets revised over the years
draw the viewer’s eye. Even if you do have eye-
Too many times you’ll see multiple calls to can end up hurting your conversions. Think of a catching photos, care has to be taken so that you
action on a page that don’t necessarily contribute landing page that starts off as a simple free trial don’t get too much of a good thing. The worst
to what the page’s overall goal is. Once you have landing page. Maybe it has legacy components case is when the designer is forced to use an
too many important elements on a page, they like Flash or a wallpaper-style background that image carousel to accommodate all the images
start fghting with each other for attention. gets brought forward with each revision. The on a single page.
company might be so used to these legacy assets
There could be multiple buttons to click that that they decide to keep them out of comfort. These are simple principles, but keep them in
are cluttered alongside too many images on But while that makes managing the landing page mind for your next landing page. A simple design
the page. Your landing page might be missing easier for the company, those out-dated design tweak can be all that’s needed to boost your
a headline that naturally draws the viewer’s eye. choices are going to hurt your conversions. It’s page’s conversion rate.

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