Table of Contents
Create a compelling headline to draw visitors in
To capture visitors’ attention immediately and keep them engaged on your page long enough to evaluate your offer, you need a compelling headline. Speak directly to the benefits of your product or service and how it fulfils an essential need for your prospect.
One technique to use is the focusing effect. The focusing effect is the tendency of people to place too much emphasis on one thing at the expense of others. When it comes to your landing page headline, though, you can use this to your advantage. Your product or service likely has many benefits, but highlighting your unique value proposition (UVP) in your headline helps prospects focus strongly on that one feature. In turn, your UVP encourages them to click your CTA button. Another way to craft a compelling headline is via message matching. Message matching provides a consistent message from ad to landing page to make prospects more comfortable in converting on your landing page offer. It is most common in headlines, but it can also be demonstrated through images, copy, and colours.
Include engaging media to keep visitors engaged
This is the the hardest part for me as I’m not a vlogger and I don’t massively like taking videos let alone talking and presenting myself, I’m rather a writer and photographer. But I will now try to explore a bit more about this. People are different and a lot of people like watching videos. So, no wonder, that in the list of landing page best practices, video and images both play a critical role in persuading visitors to take action. For example, on average, a visitor will stay on a web page with video (5 minutes and 50 seconds) longer versus a page with only text and images (43 seconds). So it’s no surprise that videos have proven to increase conversion rates by as much as 80%.
Landing page images often employ the “deictic gaze” — a visual cue to draw the viewer’s attention toward an intended object. The most common example of this is a person looking towards the CTA button, drawing the visitor’s attention to it so they click it.
Write ultra persuasive copy
This is another challenge for me, and I know for most bloggers. I tend to just write as the thoughts are popping up in my head: I use long sentences and often too complicated phrases. But that’s not good. Not only should your copy be readable, it should also be easy to understand. Stay away from jargon and write in a way that a 6th grader would understand.
Also, loss aversion can be an effective psychological tactic. It’s based on the idea that people value not losing something more than gaining something. So telling your prospects what they’ll be losing if they don’t convert is a surefire way to get them to take action — especially when you combine this with a free offer.
Urgency is another effective strategy to incorporate in your landing page copy. By letting prospects know they must act quickly to redeem the offer, you’re persuading them to convert. This is often done in conjunction with a countdown timer, like a webinar landing page or event registration page.
Next is the decoy effect. It involves at least three choices packaged smartly together using persuasive copy to convince prospects to select the option you want them to choose. Sales pages (like a pricing page) in particular use this tactic in which adding a decoy option (a third option) to a set of original options tends to increase the prospect’s preference for one option over the other original option. Meaning, one option is inferior to another, but in the middle ground compared to the least favourable option.
Here’s how The New Yorker uses the decoy effect on their subscription landing page. By adding the best value option — both print and digital subscription for the same price as just either one by itself — it makes choosing that one a no-brainer:
Utilize white space to focus their attention
By choosing a right theme and not cramming your landing page with adverts and too many widgets – this should be fairly doable. Here’s what to focus on:
White space and various colour combinations are great for providing visitors with a pleasing visual experience, but they also play a vital role in persuading visitors to click your CTA button. White space (aka empty space) helps isolate certain elements on your landing page, like forms and CTA buttons, so they can draw maximum attention. By surrounding important elements with white space, you effectively tell visitors what you want them to focus on.
When it comes to colour, consider the Von Restorff Effect, which states that people tend to remember things that stand out to them most. With landing pages design your CTA button in a contrasting colour.
Add trust indicators to make visitors feel safe
For a blogger this is not too hard: privacy policy and terms & conditions (especially if you often run giveaways) is essential. Cookie consent and data storage is another important thing to remember – you are required now to do so by the law. But even displaying blog post comments is beneficial. In my view, having advertisement placed on the page helps too – but not too many!
Trust indicators come in many forms: customer badges or testimonials, awards, industry ratings, and a privacy policy link. All of these can help make prospects feel confident enough to convert on your offer, or at least stay on your page long enough to consider it.
Social proof is one of the best ways to gain prospect’s trust. Displaying customer testimonials and prominent publications that your brand has been featured establishes credibility for your offer. It makes people more comfortable knowing other people trust you.
Here is a good example for all the above said: