The Landing Page Handbook: Part 3

The Landing Page Handbook: Part 3:from Business 2 Community by Zach Heller


This is the third in a three-part blog series on creating a landing page. The goal of this series is to explore a few simple ways you can improve your advertising numbers by adjusting the web page that first respondents see and interact with. It’s a part of the advertising process that is completely measureable, and completely controllable, yet ignored or misunderstood by the majority of companies.
Part two of the series gave us tips on improving the content of your landing page.
If you recall yesterday’s post, you’ll know that a “call to action” is a requirement of every landing page. A call to action alerts the visitor to what they should do next. You know what you want them to do, and a call to action lets them know, easy as that.
Today’s tip is a simple one: create a stronger call to action.
If you bring up your landing page in front of you, and step back from the screen, far enough away that you can’t read the smallest text, can you still tell what the call to action is?
You should be able to. It should be the element on the page that stands out from everything else. It should be the big red button in a sea of white or grey. It should be the largest font, the biggest image, the most obvious place to go to take the next step.
Most consumers are not dumb. But they are busy. And if you make them search your page to find out how to take action, chances are they won’t. They’ll give up, and they’ll leave.
You have less than 2 seconds to capture their attention. And once you do that, you don’t have a lot of time to sell them. The eye should be drawn to the action step. Don’t be afraid to make it larger, higher up on the page. Use color and punctuation to eventuate its presence.
Test different variations of the same call to action. Sometimes changing the text or the color on a button, and leaving everything else on the page the same, can have a huge impact on your success rate.
Ex. In a recent test, I changed the wording on the “submit” button of a landing page form from “Submit” to “Get My Free Catalog” and the success rate increased 40%.
The smallest changes can have the biggest impacts. Always be testing your calls to action.
Tell me how I did. Did you like the series? Did you hate it? Tell me why in the comments below.