7 Ways to Convert Visitors into Customers with a Landing Page

When a person lands on a website, there are two major scenarios of their further journey - they either browse and leave, or they interact with you in any way - subscribe to a newsletter, download an ebook, or buy something from your store. Our goal as marketers is to steer as many people as we can toward the second scenario, in other words, to convert them.

The landing page is the first thing your visitors land on, that’s why it’s called a landing page (ba-dum-tss!) From this point of view, it’s the most critical piece of your content as it defines if the user just browses casually and leaves or lingers long enough to convert. On average, a visitor spends between 45 and 54 seconds on a website, and this is how long we have to catch their attention and lead them to conversion. Luckily, there are ways to do it. Read on.

What is your landing page conversion rate?

Let’s start with calculating your conversion rate. It may very well happen that your website is already performing great, and you can close this post without even spending 45 seconds with us.

The conversion rate is calculated by a simple formula: 

The number of conversions/ The number of visitors * 100%

Use the analytical data of your website to calculate your conversion rate. Don’t get disappointed if you get a figure under 10%, - the average website conversion rate is 2.35%, and 5% is considered a good conversion rate. 

Conversion optimization for ecommerce websites and SaaS products will differ; that's why it's important to conduct some research and study the average conversion rate for your niche. However, if you think you still need to boost the conversion rate of your landing page, use some of the techniques we gathered in this post.

👉 Related Read: How to Create a Landing Page

How to improve your landing page conversion rate?

There are multiple factors that affect the landing page conversion rate. It varies from industry to industry, from platform to platform, from location to location. For example, in e-commerce, there is a notable difference in conversion rates, with food and beverages leading with 3.1% and electronics and accessories lagging behind with only 1.7%.

Still, you can improve your landing page conversion rate even within your industry bracket by reviewing your website design strategies.

1. Target the right traffic

Whether you are just planning and creating your website or optimizing it for a higher conversion rate, it’s always wise to start with defining your target audience. Based on your product offering, outline your user personas taking into account their social and demographic features:

Once you have defined your user personas, you will see the types and formats of content that are the most attractive and engaging for them. Use this information to set up your website landing page. For example, compare the landing pages of Chase Bank and Planet Fitness. Different audiences lead to different designs, color themes, calls to action, and media usage.

After targeting the right audience and optimizing your landing page, you might be exploring more specific avenues, such as starting a unique clothing line to attract and convert more visitors. Gaining insights on how to start a clothing brand can offer additional strategies and detailed approaches to enhance your landing page’s appeal, particularly if you are in the apparel and accessories industry. 

Learning from an exhaustive resource in the respective niche can provide you with more precise guidelines on presenting your products and brand effectively to convert visitors into loyal customers.

2. Use clear design and navigation

Your landing page needs to grab the visitor’s attention within seconds. In this context, the worst thing you can do is overload the page with text, graphics, animation, and colors. When a website seems crowded and cluttered, visitors do not see the value you offer and prefer to leave rather than spend any more time trying to figure out your message.

👉 Related Read: Checklist to Create a Winning Landing Page Using a Drag-And-Drop Website Builder

Design a clean and intuitive website that tells people what you offer. Here, “clean” does not necessarily mean “empty,” but it may be a good idea to leave some air on your page so that your message stands out. Make sure that the description of your product is clear, the call to action is visible, and the navigation is intuitive. Needless to say, the website content should be verified before posting to prevent any typos and formatting errors.

For inspiration, check out the website of Kohost, a hospitality platform. As soon as you land on it, you see what it is about, can find the menu easily, and can book a demo by clicking the CTA button. No clutter, just business.

👉 Related Read: 11 Key Benefits of Landing Pages

3. Implement user engagement techniques

Getting the visitor to interact with you can engage them enough to browse more and eventually perform a conversion. Among the most popular engagement techniques, live chat and chatbot are the first that come to mind.

By offering to converse in real-time, they gather leads and engage website visitors. To automate conversation and relieve the pressure on your support team, you can replace live chat with a chatbot, however, make sure you use an appropriate chatbot template that is the most engaging.

As an example, see how chatbot is implemented on the website of Mendix, a low-code development platform. It invites visitors to send a message or use one of the pre-programmed options that allow them to learn more about Mendix and its product.

Remember about senior customers who might be more comfortable with old-fashioned forms of communication. Consider providing the option to contact your customer support representatives via landline phone service or cell phone.

4. Compose powerful calls to action

Make your CTA buttons visible and prominent so that when the user decides to convert, they don’t waste time looking for the place to click. When designing the CTA button, pay attention to what it says - it should be as clear and transparent as it can get.

The CTA button’s label should tell the user what is actually going to happen when they click it. For example, “Learn more” may not be the best choice in all situations, as it may start a download, offer to schedule a call with the company, or take you to another page with more information.

To avoid misunderstandings, use clear CTAs - “Join now”, “Subscribe”, “Book a demo”, etc. Check out the landing page of Evernote - it displays not one but three CTA buttons triggering different types of conversion. The user can proceed to a special offer, download the product, or choose a free pricing plan. 

5. Include social proof

People tend to trust fellow users more than brands. This is why social proof is so critical for boosting conversions. It's one of the best practices for landing pages. Even simple customer testimonials can raise a website conversion rate as much as 34%.

Design your landing page to include social proof and make it easily visible. Depending on your business, there may be different types of social proof:

You can combine these types of social proof to inspire greater trust in your website visitors and drive them to conversions. Or you can choose one and display it prominently. For example, Pagely, a WordPress hosting platform, shows logos of the brands that use its services right on its landing page.

6. Leverage gamification techniques

Gamification increases engagement and retention encouraging the user to spend more time on the website and learn more about the products. Gamification can take many forms:

Usually, it does not take much effort and resources to implement gamification on your website. A simple widget, such as a spinning wheel or a progress bar along with a story idea generator, can be all that is needed to include this conversion-boosting technique.

In addition to increasing engagement and, eventually, conversion rate, gamification creates a superb opportunity to collect user data which can be then used in marketing campaigns. For example, PerfectBody, a website that assists users on a weight loss journey, offers everyone a quiz that helps to build a personalized plan for getting into shape. When you complete the quiz, the last step is to provide your email address where your plan is going to be delivered. Needless to say, the address is added to the company’s database.

7. Test your strategies

Of course, all these techniques work when they work specifically for you. To see whether your strategy brings the results you expect it to, test it and compare it to others. It may very well happen that something you implemented does not seem to boost conversions or bring any other benefits. In this case, do not be afraid to discard what is not working and start over.

The most popular way to verify that a technique works on your landing page is to run A/B tests. In such tests, you need to roll out two different versions of your landing page and monitor your audience’s response to each of them.

In A/B testing, you can validate your decisions on any number of small details - page layout, calls to action text, even the color of the CTA button. Sometimes, these small things can make a big difference.

Conclusion

Boosting conversions is not a trivial task. You never know what clicks with a particular visitor and makes them linger on your landing page. Hope our tips on how to optimize your landing page for conversions help you use that small window of the user’s attention and convince them to browse more.

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