One of the funniest clips I’ve seen is in a classic only-fools-and-horses sketch – David Jason or ‘Del Boy’ as he’s fondly referred to, falls casually through the air onto the floor after trying to act too cool with his friend at the bar.
In a way – that sums up what design is. You put yourself out there and try not to land flat on your face in the process. Starting a new landing page can be an absolute nightmare. I can definitely relate. Late nights, headaches and a seemingly endless process of back and forth, trying to grab any result you can. Sound familiar?
I’ve been with Push for about 10 years now and picked up a few tips along the way. If you’ve got a couple of minutes, I’d like to share the pitfalls and secrets I’ve learned to help get the best results out of your pages.
1. Creating Value
Why is this important?
Start with understanding your customer and what the objective is, the core of what you’re trying to produce has to have good value to your audience. Make sure you understand the ripple effect of generic/poor messages and construct content that holds weight. This will offer a stronger incentive to your user to complete their journey.
How do I do this?
- Add incentives and bonuses to help sweeten the deal
- Add time-sensitive offers to create a sense of scarcity (limited time only)
- Ask what your target demographic is interested in ( how can you relate?)
- Highlight your unique selling points in bullet points to help clarity
- Get specific when your speaking about the benefits – (what does this mean for the user)
- Keep information simple, clear and concise (if you can’t explain your content simply you don’t understand it well enough.)
2. Tease your content.
Why is this important?
Giving all your information away can actually hinder your user’s interest level. Without intrigue, you have less interest (obviously). Finding a middle ground that marries personable content and curiosity – gives the user a reason to feel excited about the prospects ahead.
How do I do this?
- Add conditional elements like before and after scenarios
- Add an authority figure / human element to validate your service
- Reinforce your content with social proofing
3. The conversion ‘tone’
Why is this important?
In order for your expertise to resonate with your user, they will have to feel connected to how you speak to them. Your choice of words should reflect your brand’s personality and look to create a sense of camaraderie with your audience. This doesn’t just come with how the words read but also how they look. Take some examples from uppercase and lowercase text and break them up into their natural connotations of ‘shouting and demanding’ to ‘soft and friendly’. Breaking these up, effectively using typographic hierarchy and a personable tone – creates a winning formula for great conversion.
How do I do this?
- Personality adds authenticity
- Avoid ‘salesy’ copy
- Get your H-Tags in order before you start to create a consistent hierarchy
- Add familiar elements to help users understand the journey you are conveying
4. Responsive Responsibility
Why is this important?
The amount of pages that aren’t mobile-friendly in 2021 is a crime and demonstrates how little understanding of the market they have. It’s been rumoured by CNBC News that ‘Nearly three-quarters of the world will use just their smartphones to access the internet by 2025.’ If you are not on the mobile-first train you’ll need to get up to speed. Fast.
How do I do this?
- Make your designs mobile-first
- Add more ‘to the point’ content this helps display better on smaller devices
- Appy Accordions – to Reduce ‘endless scrolling syndrome’
5. A knockout CTA
Why is this important?
In a sea of saturated mindless prompts from different competing pages what makes your service different? The word ‘submit’ wins the laziness award hands down. Speak to your customer. Get down to the core of what you’re offering and create a personalised message to entice users to the next step. Guide them through your process and make them feel comfortable with what’s coming next.
How do I do this?
- Make the text more personalised to what the user is getting
- Consider uppercase or lower effects your tone
- Add a contrasting colour to your CTA to help stand out (add an accent)
- Avoid generic language like the plague!
6. Speed Kills
Why is this important?
It can be incredibly painful waiting for a slow site to load and naturally this will take its toll on conversion, optimal pages take a little under 2 seconds to load content.
On average a 1-second delay can impact conversion by 20% so naturally making sure you have the right factors in place from the beginning is a must.
How do I do this?
- Optimise all of your imagery/files
- Reduce the number of animations / Unminified CSS and JavaScript
- Chatbots are double-edged swords – helpful but can kill speed
- Fix all broken links
- Use cache plugins & update your CMS
7. The perfect form.
Why is this important?
Standard or multi-stage forms is the question you need to ask from the beginning. If you have a longer process you might benefit from a multistage form this will offer an interactive user journey and may increase user commitment through the subsequent steps. The right fit is to ask how much information you need.
If you don’t need as much data capture or you’re not as established in the market yet, you need to keep in mind that users may be reluctant to hand out their personal info so freely. Limiting it to a simpler option would be better.
Either way be sure to keep the user journey as concise as possible, ensuring the least amount of clicks, with the right amount of data capture. Marry this with your GDPR ‘privacy’ messages and you’ll be on the right path to high conversion.
How do I do this?
- Decide how much data is necessary
- Keep the questions simple if multistage
- Tell them how quickly the form is to complete eg: ‘Takes just 60 seconds’
- Add a headline to your form
- A/B test after 3-4 months to ensure best results
- Add any deals or benefits & Limited time offers to sweeten the incentive
- Add social proofing near the form or CTA
8. Tell the story
Why is this important?
A more personable brand always helps establish a deeper connection with your audience. A good way to do this is a narrative. Setting a narrative to your service creates a better user journey by breaking down areas of information into easily digestible chunks of content. We can then, access what we need faster – ultimately creating a more effective grasp on our audience.
How do I do this?
- Break content into sections of importance
- Beginning – your most important content
- Middle of the page – Reinforcement of content above
- End of the page – Summary of all (user is feeling good for what they are getting.)
9. Images Talk
Why is this important?
Custom imagery – always trumps the ever-popular stock inventory because this creates a more authentic attempt to reach your audience. When you can’t try to find people who at least look natural. (Real) the more frequently an image is used the more it becomes watered down, Svgs (vector imagery) can sometimes help to look more quirky and slow downloading times as they carry such little weight.
How do I do this?
- Make sure your images are always good quality. (optimised of course)
- When possible – use custom imagery for greater brand authenticity
- Illustrations can help lower your site speed
- Don’t use too many – keep your site speed optimal.
10. Build trust – the RIGHT way.
Why is this important?
Psychology and marketing go hand in hand obviously!, – The general consumer has a naturally suspicious aversion to sales pitches. Adding Testimonials / social proofing is not only a great way to reinforce your message, it’s also a great way to reassure your user that they are not alone in their decision.
From a few words to a video testimonial, the value of users feedback can be a huge conversion factor. Having any accreditations also serves to increase reassurance for users. Your aim is to create security at the same time, as this ultimately leads to trust.
If you don’t have much to go with then add what you can. Don’t overthink and create ‘fake news’ for your user to swallow. Consider secure checkout icons and a thoughtful privacy policy. Remember the most important factor here is Trust. Trust creates value. It’s not about the hard sell or the soft sell. It’s about honest sell.
How do I do this?
- Add Testimonials when you can higher up the page
- Add Accreditations when you can higher up the page
- Honest content always wins
- Less repetitive ‘bragging’ – what value can you offer the customer?
- Add security icons near forms
- Always have a clear privacy policy
11. The Aftercare
Why is this important?
It is essential that you keep up to date with your leads after any conversion and ensure that they have made the right move. Making sure to outline what’s going to happen next and reassuring the customer is in good hands with attentive follow-ups – this can be paramount for retention and future business down the line.
How do I do this?
- Make your thank-you page easy to understand and specific to what the user will receive
- Add a welcome email – Summarise and inform of good things to come
- Offer them an update or discount for their loyalty
- Courtesy call/incentive How valuable are your customers to you?
Tara, for now!
As Del would probably say, it’s not about how you fall it’s about how you get up. Keep testing, keep moving forward and you’ll get there in the end.
