It might even be closer to 95%…
And they’re practically kicking people away from opting in.
The few sites that get things right include the likes of Apple and Amazon. Big companies with gargantuan amounts of traffic. Not to mention huge teams of highly trained employees working night and day to perfect landing pages.
But it’s not really that difficult to get the basics right – even a solopreneur can make a very highly converting landing page – all on their own.
If you’re serious about running a business online, you should check that you aren’t making these easy-to-fix mistakes on your landing pages so that you can increase conversion rate.
Some Examples
It’s always easier to understand what you should do, after you’ve seen how NOT to do it.
Here are three landing pages that showcase three different, very common, mistakes.
And check out the pages that we featured in the video:
- Happiness International
- Paying for Life
- The Energy Budget
1.Make the Next Step Easy
When you’re asking the reader to do something, anything, they’re more likely to do it, if it feels easy to them.
The easier the next step seems, the less you seem to be asking.
There are a few ways how you can make the offer feel like a bigger “investment” than it is (and you should generally avoid these):
- It sounds like it’s going to take a lot of time.
- It seems like you’re selling something even when the offer is free.
- You’re asking for more information than is necessary (e.g. last name, phone number)
- The page is unnecessarily long and the first “call to action” is far from the beginning.
- Go through your copy and check that you’re not making the investment sound bigger or more difficult than it really is.
- Be honest and accurate about what the next step requires from the reader. But simplify it as much as possible.
2. Give Enough Detail about the Offer
No one will ever say: “It was too easy to understand how I’ll benefit from your offer.”
NEVER.
That’s why intriguing promises go only so far.
Most people won’t take the risk of finding out more, if they don’t have a good idea of what they’ll get.
For example, “You’ll learn how to get people to read your posts” is a vague promise for an eBook about headlines.
But, “you’ll get 101 headline formulas that capture attention” is something that tells you clearly how you’ll benefit from the eBook.
You don’t have to tell the reader how they’ll get the benefits in the headline. But you have to make it clear at some point in the copy.
Make sure you tell enough about what the reader will get to prove that it’s valuable.
They shouldn’t ever have reason to think: “I wonder if I’m going to get something valuable or something useless?”
3. Make it All About “You”
Remember the first rule of copywriting, “The reader doesn’t care about you.”
Try not to use the word “I” at all, unless you’re sure you’re using it right.
There’s a fine line between building your credibility and sounding selfish (which leads to losing the reader’s interest.)
The main purpose of copy is to make the reader understand the benefit they can get from your offer.
It may be tempting to explain it by telling how something has helped you personally.
But unless you’re a great writer, it’s very difficult to make “your story” interesting enough to keep readers engaged.
That’s true especially if you tell your story close to the beginning of the page before the reader is engaged in the text.
Go through your copy and check that you’re not talking about yourself (unless you’re sure you’re doing it right).
If you have the word “I” used repeatedly, change the idea to something more reader-focused.
4. Keep The Page Focused
Few things drive people away from a page faster than a confusing design.
One place on the page should clearly be the first thing to focus on.
And then there should be the obvious second place that you’re supposed to focus on.
These “focus points” make the page easy to read, and enable you to direct the reader to the right ideas in the right order.
What the first focus point should be depends on what the page is about.
But the main idea is to first give the visitor a good reason for staying on the page. (You can get another great sales letter example from Wayne Mullins – there are some excellent tips and swipe copy available.)
Look at your page from 10 feet away. Is it immediately clear what the visitor should focus on first?
If not, increase the size of the most important element, or change it’s color, or do something else that gives the page clear structure.
And make sure that that element gives the readers a good reason to stay on the page.
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