Give Your Landing Page Design a Makeover

We all get stuck in fashion ruts and routines. Whether it’s a certain outfit, haircut or even a shade of lipstick, once we find something we like and that works for us we tend to stick with it. It’s important to know what works well on you, but it’s also important to keep testing new ideas too. Styles change over time, and even the most classic pieces are slightly tweaked and modernized too. 

It’s the same story with landing pages. Although your favorite landing page template might be getting great results, you’ll never know if a new makeover idea could have even better results unless you test it out. Plus, unlike your hair, landing page makeovers that don’t meet your expectations can quickly revert back to your tried and true style. Here are some landing page makeover ideas to test.

Landing Page Design Makeover Ideas

Button color – Whether it’s your call-to-action button, the button to start a video or any other button, the color does mean something. The right button color will make your landing page design pop and it will pull your visitor’s attention towards the action you want them to take.  

Images – There is so much you can test when it comes to images. Should you include people in your images or not? Does it make a difference if you show a man or a woman? Whatever images you decide to try out keep two things in mind. First, make sure that the image is high quality and secondly make sure the photo is relevant to the message on the rest of your page – even if that pet is really cute!

Video – Try spicing up your landing pages with video. Instead of just using static images, video can make your landing pages feel more interactive and lively. Test different positions on the page, messages and lengths to see what works best.

Font – Ever been to a landing page that used an ugly font? Yeah, you know what I’m talking about. Comic Sans, anyone? For your makeover, be sure to use a stylish and readable font; not one that will want to make your visitors run for the hills!  

Text color – As long as it’s readable (big caveat!), don’t just settle on dull and boring font colors for page elements like headings and your call-to-action that you really want your visitors to see. The right color can make these elements really stand out from the rest of the page.

Above the fold – You want to make sure that your most important stuff is ‘above the fold’ (i.e. they shouldn’t have to scroll down). If your visitor doesn’t immediately see what they want and how they can get it, they are less likely to stick around. Test which page elements matter most in convincing more of your landing page visitors to convert. 

Distractions – You didn’t just spend all of this time on your new landing page makeover to let your visitor’s attention get distracted by extraneous links, sidebars and navigation. Your conversion action should be the only ‘head-turner.’ If other page elements are taking attention away from your conversion action, test taking away extra links and test adding new design elements that bring more attention to your conversion action with implicit and explicit visual cues. 

Makeovers are fun and when done right they can boost your conversion rates!

Are you looking for a way to make sophisticated, stylish landing pages without code or help from developers? Try LiveBall, ion’s landing page software solution.

"I'm a Post-Click Marketing Professional."

Everyone knows the the standard “meet and greet” conversation format. This can happen virtually anywhere, but the usual locations are at a bar, party, or some other form of  social gathering. The conversation generally is a variation of your given birth name, where you live now, with a quick reference of  “But I’m originally from…,” and then the age old question, “What do you do?”

This is the defining moment of the conversation, the portion that you must answer with complete confidence and a subdued brilliance. In this split second your conversation partner will size you up, and formulate an everlasting opinion.

Some people have it easy, a “no explanation needed” position, for example a doctor would answer, “I’m a doctor.” Pretty self-explanatory, and a lawyer would simply state, “Well, I am a lawyer.” Again, not much further explanation needed. Those answers may make you stand up a little straighter, but other than that, the conversation may continue with some back and forth banter for a few more minutes.

I have been searching for the perfect answer to this question, “What do you do?” I do a lot of things! How do you sum up days, months, and years of work into a one or two word response? Recently, I have been testing out “Well, I am a Post-Click Marketing Professional.” Once you have presented this as your answer, my studies show that the conversation will always continue.

Unless you are at the bar outside of the Conversion Conference, you are surely to get a response along the lines of, “Excuse me?” or “Come again?” This allows the conversation to continue, and you are automatically pinned as, “the most interesting person in the room.”

At this point of the conversation you need to decide where to start educating your partner on Post-Click Conversions. I find the best common ground is to begin with landing pages. The best thing to do is define a landing page, and explain to them upfront that it is not building a website for Jim’s Taco Shack down the street.

I recommend beginning with, “Well, a landing page is a web page that appears in response to clicking on an advertisement. The landing page will usually display directed sales copy that is a logical extension of the advertisement or link.” Then continue to explain that, “landing pages are often linked to from social media, email campaigns, or search engine marketing campaigns, in order to enhance the effectiveness of the advertisements.”

As your partner continues to listen, be sure to explain that, “the general goal of a landing page is to convert site visitors into sales leads. By analyzing activity generated by the linked URL, marketers can use click-through rates and conversion rate to determine the success of an advertisement.”

Give your partner a minute to digest this information, they will proceed to take an overextended sip of their desired beverage and continually shake their head in the “yes I understand” direction. I find that this gesture is a great segway to pronounce that, “we have the ability to increase your ROI, and in turn make you money!” 

The attention-grabber! Your partner will forever associate you as the go-to person for post-click conversions. You have now fully secured the title of “most interesting person at the event,” and everyone will soon want to know what a Post-Click Marketing Professional does.  

What kind of tester are you?

It may sound silly, but it’s good to know what kind of tester you are — kind of like your testing personality type. Just as investors have varying profiles and risk tolerance, so too do online marketers in testing roles. Organizations also tend to have testing profiles — predispositions or cultural norms that affect planning, documentation and reporting.

We’ve found that marketers exhibit characteristics that ultimately push them towards being rock stars, pragmatists or purists — and often combinations of all three. 

Are you a testing Rock Star, Pragmatist, Purist or a combination?

Is Your Message Match Missing the Mark?

The best way to show that you are truly interested in your visitors and want them to have the best possible experience with your company is to tailor your landing experience to their interests and needs. We call this message match, and its a basic requirement for relevant landing pages. You can try testing targeted landing pages to measure the impact of message match. 

Let’s run through a quick scenario to help you understand the potential of testing messaging targeting. 

Searching for “car insurance” on Google, I was presented with ads from three of the top car insurance providers in Florida — Progressive, Esurance and State Farm.

Progressive promises “car insurance made easy” and a quote in 6 minutes. Awesome. Esurance is not only easy, but fast. Esurance offers potential savings of 28% and a quote in minutes. State Farm, touts 40 million drivers, but unfortunately, doesn’t offer “ease” or a quick quoting process like the others.

Message Match Evaluation #1

Let’s take a look at Progressive first. The headline says “Compare rates in three easy steps.” They got the “easy” down, but what happened to 6 minutes? I’d give Progressive a solid “C”. 

Message Match Evaluation #2

Now Esurance gets the headline right, with reiterating the 28% savings. For me, this is big. However, again, they’ve lost the promise — “free quote in minutes.” I’d give Esurance a “B” for strong message match in the headline.

Message Match Evaluation #3

Now a finger wag at State Farm for a couple of reasons. Discounts up to 40%? Why wasn’t that in the ad? Better potential savings compared to Esurance would be a strong driver of clicks. Secondly, State Farm is missing the social proof, “40 million drivers trust us.” I do, however, like the simplicity of the landing page. With a little work on the PPC side, this landing page could be an A. But, as for current message match, its well below average.

An ad is not complete without it’s matching landing page, and vice versa. Think of the two as peanut butter and jelly; one wouldn’t be right without the other. Whatever promise you make in an ad should be directly fulfilled in the landing page. Visitors will abandon if your page doesn’t fulfill the promise. While none of these landing pages are particularly bad on their own, improved message match between the ad and landing page would likely increase conversions.

Is your message match missing the mark?

3 Landing Page Optimization Lessons from Lady Gaga

The Good News: You found a winner! After countless variations of A/B landing page testing, you’ve finally optimized your landing pages, dramatically reduced bounce rates, increased conversions and at long last declared a landing page champion! Woo-hoo, Congratulations!

The Bad News: Your tried-and-true champion has gone unchallenged for months and results are starting to stagnate. On top of that, recent analysis shows your winning landing page’s conversion rates appear to be slowly skidding along towards a downward trajectory. Not Good.

So now what? You need to push the dial. It’s time to act fast and test something completely new - something fresh and innovative to go head-to-head against your champion. So, where do you start? Take a deep breath along with a good, long hard look at your landing pages and ask yourself one simple question….what would Lady Gaga do?

Here are 3 tips to help you add innovation to your landing page testing cycle, Gaga-style: 

1. Embrace your diverse audience

Lady Gaga’s catchy pop music and glam pop persona appeals to widely diverse audience. I understood that immediately as I passed through a sea of outlandish Gaga-inspired costumes and grabbed my seat at the Monster Ball this year. One thing that completely took me by surprise me was the woman seated next to me. She was a hardcore, hugely enthusiastic, Gaga fan who also happened to be around sixty-seven years old. As I looked around, I started to notice numerous little monsters of the AARP demographic.

My point here is that you can’t make assumptions about your audience. You may have many hidden layers of segments and sub-segments just waiting to be discovered. Adding segmentation to your landing pages is one of the best and easiest ways to gain valuable insights on who exactly your audience is. Once you have a deeper understanding, you’ll be better able to speak their language and appropriately tailor offers and messaging. The lessons learned from segmentation are a surefire way to develop pages that will get your audience to convert.

A side note: You’ve heard Gaga’s duet single with Tony Bennett, right? Coincidence? I think not.

2. Stand out from the crowd

As the camera pans the celebrities seated at the VMA’s, or the Grammy’s there’s always one performer that instantly grabs your full attention. Whether she’s wearing haute couture or laminated meat, Gaga knows how to get noticed. Which leads me to my next point, how does your page stand out from the crowd? 

One way to instantly find out is by utilizing the site preview tool on the Google search results page. It’s a great way to quickly compare your landing page creative to all the surrounding competitor pages in a single glance. If you aren’t familiar with it, it’s the little blue magnifying glass icon that appears next to the search result link. Whenever you hover over the icon, a preview image of that web page pops up. It’s an invaluable tool for quickly scoping out the competitive landscape.

Check it out and see how your landing page stands out from the rest. If your page wilts like a wallflower into the background – even if it is solid performer – chances are, your conversions could be much higher. Start testing an eye-catching innovation that is daringly different.

3. Entertain, Connect and Share

Your audience is everything. How well do you connect with them? 

If you’ve seen the Google Chrome commercial, you know that when it comes to social media, Mother Monster is the reigning queen. With over 10 million fans and followers on Facebook and Twitter, she has eclipsed every other celebrity on the planet. What makes her unique? The difference is that her fans are not only wild about her music and fashion, they are also personally invested and share a deep connection to her story and message. 

Gaga’s impressive following demonstrates the power of social sharing. Social widgets on your pages can spread your brand exponentially as well, but the catch is that people tend to only share things that they find valuable or interesting. That’s why it is important that your page entertains and forms a connection in addition to being informative. A page full of heavy text would be radically more interesting if the same copy was repackaged and represented through video, infographics or animation. Landing pages are the perfect laboratories for experimenting with different media types. Fan generated content such as testimonials or videos uploaded to your pages could have a huge positive impact on conversions by adding transparency to your brand along with social proof.   

However, this doesn’t mean that you should go crazy with animation and roll out pages that are chock full of bells and whistles. The goal is to strike a balance between being clear, informative and interesting. Get creative with headlines by speaking to your audience on a deeper, more personal level (easier to do with segementation). Be clear, honest and upfront about your offers. Strong, clear offers work; people often follow brands just to stay ahead of special promotions and offers. The bottom line is that everyone has an innate desire to be entertained and to connect with others. Make sure your content is share-worthy by making it engaging and valuable.

Break new ground with your landing page testing cycle, by stepping out of your comfort zone.  Take a cue from Gaga and imagine that your landing page innovation is your stage. When you step out there, be bold, be brave, be different and stay strong little marketing monsters!