Reasons Your Landing Pages Are Not Converting

Why aren’t users responding to my landing page??

This is one of most vexing challenges marketers face. 

Years ago, when landing pages were new on the scene, it was much easier to capture leads, but now users see them with virtually every offer out there, and people are getting more selective about the companies they submit info to.

That means we all have to up our game a little, making sure our landing pages have the best possible chance of converting. We will outline some common mistakes marketers make, but first let’s review what a landing page is.

What Is a Landing Page?

A landing page is any web page a user can visit or “land” on, but in the context of advertising and marketing, these pages have a singular purpose. The goal is often to get the visitor to take a specific action, usually filling out a form or clicking through to a converting page. We use premium content offers like ebooks, tip sheets, and videos to entice the visitor to give some personal information that will help us understand their needs and enable us to keep in touch with them. 

This is the cornerstone of every inbound marketing campaign, the place where visitors turn into leads, and it’s vital to get it right. If people are leaving your landing pages without taking action, it’s time to look for where things are going wrong.

Offer is Not Compelling

As mentioned earlier, landing pages are everywhere and people are not willing to give their email address to just anybody. It’s up to you to make sure the content you offer is irresistible to them.

You have to know your audience on an intimate level before you can create content they actually want. Learn about your target customer’s biggest challenges, then create an in-depth piece of content that solves it for them. It might be a guide on how to accomplish a task, or a worksheet that helps them save time and stay organized – but no matter what the subject is, the offer must be something your visitors really want. If they don’t see value, you won’t see conversions.

Too Many Links On the Page

How many links are on your landing page? If the answer is more than one, you are giving users too many options.

This mistake is usually made by senior managers that insist on putting the website navigation on landing pages, letting the user choose where to go next. But unlike other pages of your website, where people should roam freely, landing pages have one purpose. If you distract people with links to other areas of the website, chances are good they will click on them instead of taking the action you want.

Landing pages should have one button on them, the one that submits info to you and sends them to a thank you page where they get their download. It’s as simple as that.

Design and Text is Confusing

People get to a landing page by clicking on a call-to-action somewhere on the web – probably another page on your website – and if they feel like they arrived at the wrong place they will leave in a heartbeat.

If your call-to-action says: “Learn To Master Small Engine Repair” and your landing page headline says something like “10 Secret Small Engine Repair Techniques,” these offers are just different enough to confuse people. Make sure your landing page design and text tells visitors that they have come to the right place. 

Offer Is Not Clear

Nothing can defeat a landing page like a poorly written headline. You’ve spent hours crafting the perfect download, but it’s all for nothing unless you can communicate the user benefit in a concise headline.

Landing pages are not good places for large blocks of text. Explain why people will want this offer and what they will get from it. Once you have the page written, start trimming the fat from your copy. Zero in on words you don't need and strike them out. When it comes to writing effective web copy – less is more. Make your words powerful and sparse, and you will achieve great things.

Page Does Not Build Trust

It’s not always easy for people to distinguish legitimate business offers from spam. So how to do you show people your offer is the real deal? 

Start by including a phone number and a testimonial from a real customer. Make sure your copy has no clichés in it, like “DEAL OF THE CENTURY!” and other useless phrases that do nothing to communicate value. Your landing page should make people feel instantly comfortable by demonstrating you understand their challenges and want to help them. 

Not Enough Traffic

Lead generation is a numbers game. You have to drive a lot of traffic to your page before you should expect leads, and that means blogging tirelessly. 

Even when you follow every best practice of landing page optimization, there’s still a chance you will not generate leads without several months of consistent effort, so don’t despair if you don’t see results right away.

Keep testing different approaches and see what works for you. Hopefully, you are using a good marketing analytics tool like HubSpot to give you insight into what users are doing on your website. If you put in the hours, and learn what visitors respond to, you will start getting leads. And that is a great day to look forward to, my friends.