How to transform a landing page into an effective lead generation page has always been a concern for many web owners. That is why, many focus on conducting frequent A/B split test to learn which element needs to be tweaked properly for an efficient call to action, and which practice needs to be discarded.
The Landing Page
A landing page is basically the page, which your customer comes across when looking for a specific query. It could be a PPC ad, a blog, a generic search service page or even your home page. You can generate traffic to your website from anywhere other than those from the same web page. If you have a landing page set up, this means you are generating good traffic. Good one! But the real game starts when you compare your number of bounce rates to your conversion rates. If your landing page generates more bounce rates compared to the number of leads, you have got a serious business here, and you need to look into both your design and copy style.
Landing Page Formula For Call To Action Generation: What You Need To Know
Before you commence to design a landing page, you must know that landing page layout follows the basic formula of AIDA (Awareness. Interest. Decision. Action.)
Awareness + Interest + Decision + Action = Landing Page Layout
Diamond Principles Of Landing Page Creation
Awareness
This depends on how much your reader is aware of your company’s products and services. If not, then you need to build up an awareness atmosphere. How do you do that? By displaying your unique selling point. Look at the screen-shot below:
Note the USP or the ‘unique selling point’ headline they provide. The heading creates an awareness and anyone visiting the site would know what kind of service they might get from here.
Below is another screen-shot provided of another website with a strong awareness generating headline:
The ‘#1 Web Development Company in Orange County’ promises anyone visiting the page that they will work with one of the best web development companies. Also notice the manner in which logos (of the clients who have worked with them) have been displayed. This creates a social awareness of other noted clients, who prefer working with them.
Interest
The only reason why customers would click on the call to action button, is because your service caters to their needs. They will always compare your service with that of other contemporary service sites, and only then would give the green signal. You need to keep their interest in mind, when designing your landing page layout. Give them some reason why you are the best choice, show them something about you or maybe get some proof of satisfaction, which would interest them. There are many ways to influence the interest of your clients. Depends on what you want them to get started with? It can be anything – information, price offers, special offers, etc.
Look at how some companies have tried exploiting a buyer’s interest with these strategies:
Fast5xpress presents viewers with a price chart. This makes it easier for visitors to see, which one of the following options they can go for:
On the other hand, B3NET has a different strategy. They give clients a little pictorial demonstration of their work process, for those who are curious to know how their work is going to be handled.
As you can see in the screen-shot, there is a testimonial section on the right side. Clients can get acquainted with not only the work process, but also have a look at what others have to say about their web development team. Now if you visit the site, you would notice that this is immediately followed by a call to action button:
Makes work clean and clever. First, customers are put to an initial warm-up session by creating an ‘awareness’ about how they work, followed by what others have to say about them. Then, they are put to task by a call-to-action button ‘Request for Proposal.’
Some generate interest by displaying a special offer directly. Look at the screen-shots below, taken from the landing pages of two e-commerce websites:
It’s loud and clear. One has a free delivery service offer for a particular purchase price limit, while the other one has an urgent sale offer.
Different websites use different interest generating strategies. What strategy do you use for your landing page?
Decision
Once you are done with creating awareness and interest, the question now lies, whether they have decided to work with you. You need that one strategy to influence their decision. But what do you know about their reason to decide? Well, you can have an influence on that with some basic strategies like letting them know what prices you have to offer, or what kind of benefit your customers are going to get if they decide to work with you. This is almost like the interest generating bit, but it involves more than that. This means your copy, your design and the information you provide, are all going to influence your customer’s decision and would ultimately result in the step for a call to action.
Action
Once you have successfully influenced your customers’ decision making process, it’s now time for the epic ‘to do or not to do’ moment, where your page can either be rewarded with a lead or be penalized with a bounce. It takes all of your factors to get that one business click on your page. Design matters a lot, and speaking of which, it includes all elements of your page.
Your visuals need to be right – Images act as a substitute for the original product. It is essential that you use a high res image of good quality. Another trick for using images is by using it to direct the target’s eyes to the form section. Take a look at this one:
Look at the way the image has been used and also how the copy is utilized. This takes me to the next point – pertaining to design.
Your copy should be engaging and full of confidence – Did you notice the heading of the form in the above screen shot?
How about the call to action button?
Both have copies that are engaging and effective in a way that your customers are influenced, without any demonstrating effort. In the above mentioned copies, the words ‘take’ and ‘find’ call for an action.
Use contrasting colors for your calls to action – Contrasting and sharp colors tend to draw more attention and hence, use such colors for your call to action features that are easily visible to the eyes when prospects land on your page.
Note how Spotify uses neon green color for the download buttons against a dark background. The color choice makes it impossible for anyone to turn a blind eye on them.
There are a lot of ways to make use of color contrasts. Here are a few examples for smart color strategy from B3NET’s site:
- Color contrast in heading
- Color contrast while displaying contact information
- Use of color contrast in a form page
Determine what size would matter the most – It is generally said that the size of a good call to action also matters. You can make your call to action buttons a little bit bigger than the other elements. This makes it immediately noticeable to the eyes of a viewer.
In the screen-shot below, Basecamp keeps the page white with a contrasting big and blue call to action button:
However, having a big call to action button does not always work out. Rather, it can turn to be a disaster. You need to take all your landing page elements into account before deciding to tweak the buttons.
Determine which location is perfect for your call to action – According to research, when people land on the page, they tend to navigate it with their eyes in an ‘F’ pattern. So, the ideal place to a call to action button would be on the lower right hand corner of your landing page. It is recommended for small business owners, especially those who have just started out their venture in e-commerce.
You can’t get results from Call to Actions Overnight
This is true. You cannot expect to get an immediate result after tweaking a feature or two. It’s a slow process, and would require some days to determine whether the improvements you made, are for better or for worse. Different customers interact in different ways and if you want to generate quality leads, you need to keep patience while conducting an A/B split test. It’s almost like a customer relationship building platform where you need to test each and every element with precaution or get rejected in no time.
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This article was syndicated from Business 2 Community: How To Optimize A Landing Page With Better Call To Action Strategies
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