With websites, like most things in life, you only get one chance to make a first impression. People quickly form opinions based on the initial few minutes (or seconds) that they encounter something new, and that is exactly what they do when first coming to a website landing page. It is a make-or-break moment in the visitor’s interaction with your brand or company.

According to MarketingSherpa, only 52% of the companies that use landing pages test them to improve conversion. They also found that the number one reason companies don’t use or test landing pages is because their marketing department doesn’t know how to set them up or they’re too overloaded.

Whether you’re creating a landing page from scratch or simply want to improve your current one, these 3 tips can save you from the dreaded “bounce” – potential customers leaving your site after just their first page visit.

1. Consistent Design and Copy – There’s nothing worse than a landing page that is cluttered, clashes with your branding and is poorly written. A landing page serves one purpose: to provide information on how your business can solve a potential customer’s set of problems. The copy should contain consistent messaging sprinkled with SEO-friendly phrases and taglines. It should provide a call to action or submission form where the customer can take the next steps to learn more about your products and services. The design needs to be visually appealing with the color scheme matching your logo and main website.
2. Test, Test, Test – Crafting multiple landing pages is an opportunity to examine which ones receive the most hits and highest click-through rates, yet very few people actually conduct this type of A/B testing. The reason for this is the personal bias of whoever designed the page. Designers might think that their final creation is appealing to potential customers all across the board. Don’t fall into this trap. It is only through the statistical results of testing that you can determine how to improve a landing page’s effectiveness.
3. Hire Experts – Creating the perfect landing page is both an art and a science. The creative side dictates how the design flows on the page. It handles which colors grab the most attention and evoke the right emotions. The copy should be free of errors and have the one consistent goal of guiding the reader towards the next step. The science comes from non-biased split testing in which several landing pages are created to see which ones produce the best statistical results. Bringing in expert help to ensure all these competing factors are properly balanced and accounted for is often your best bet.

Landing pages are crucial for any business. You only have one chance to either entice a new customer or irk a quickly departed visitor. AWeber recently surveyed small business owners and marketers and discovered that while 94% said online marketing was very important to the growth of their business, 29% said they were a bit overwhelmed by online marketing.

Most business owners do not have the technical know-how or the creative talent to make the perfect landing page. Our team can help ease the process. We can develop landing pages that look great on any desktop, laptop or mobile devices (especially with web traffic increasing trending in that direction).

Do you have a landing page but are currently second guessing its effectiveness? Let us know and we’ll conduct a free assessment. Just send us the landing page’s URL to Service@ARTEMIA.com and put “Landing Page Assessment” in the subject line.