Imagine the scenario: you’re talking to a friend and they tell you about a product that will solve the pesky problem you’ve been dealing with for weeks on end. But when they take you to the shop the product isn’t on the shelves, and when you ask about it you’re greeted with generic money saving offers and lists of other products’ features.
This would never happen in real life, so why do we see it so often on landing pages?
Read on if you want to know whether or not you’re making these big landing page mistakes, and how you can avoid them in the future.
1. Readability
Readability is one of the most important considerations when you create a new landing page. These days no one sits down to read an entire article, they scan first to see if it’s too long, too boring or just not relevant to them.
It’s more important than ever for the content on your landing page to stand out at first glance and be presented in an easily digestible way. Your top considerations for readability should be:
- Clear and easy-to-read font
- Wide enough line spacing so your text isn’t bunched together
- Appropriate colour scheme (no one can read yellow text on a green background)
- Relevant sub-headings to make it easy to scan
2. Lack of a defined goal
A landing page should have an aim, something that it wants the user to do before they leave the page. This could be clicking through to another page, purchasing something or subscribing to a blog.
Every piece of copy on the landing page should be trying to get the user to achieve the conversion – the best way to make this clear is with a good call to action.
One clear call to action such as “click here to sign up” lets the user know exactly what they need to do next without confusing them. A succinct call to action shows the user exactly how to continue with their conversion. An unclear CTA will confuse the reader and could even cause bounces.
3. Lack of clear information
No one is going to sign up to a blog, or buy a service if they don’t feel that they have all the necessary information. You should be very clear with what you’re offering – over complicated offers that don’t give all the relevant information can leave the consumer confused.
To take it a step further, if you’re offering any specific deals or time restricted offers you should be specific with numbers! State clearly when the sale ends and be specific with the discounted rate.
A more informed consumer makes better decisions and builds trust with your brand. Generally, people would rather a known outcome than an unknown, so keep this in mind with your CTA.
If you’re trying to get a user to click to the next page (such as a make an account button), it might be worth implementing some text explaining what will happen when they click through.
4. Leaving users confused after clicking through
The user experience should be easy and consistent from the initial click through to the landing page, right through to the end of the conversion. This means using consistent language, layout and colour scheme.
Actions should be consistent in their phrasing too. Take a look at this advert from Aviva.
Meanwhile, the Aviva landing page uses the same language and even stays consistent with quoted prices from £180.
If you’re ever confused about whether or not your process is consistent, review your landing page independently from the page linking to it, and ask yourself “would I understand what this page is for?”.
5. Taking too long to get to the point
So many landing pages waffle on about the amazing features of their product. It’s better to simply state the benefits to the user in a clear and concise way.
GoCompare fall into the trap of listing the points of their “customer promise”, when realistically all people want to know is whether or not it would be beneficial to them.
Keep content engaging and relevant to your target user, keep your writing concise and organise your headings – no one likes a cluttered landing page.
Make sure your landing pages are clearly trying to accomplish a predetermined goal, don’t over complicate things and definitely avoid adding in too much information. Users want things to be quick and easy, so keep that in mind at all times.
Author Bio
Nat is a Content Strategist at WooContent, where she specialises in writing fashion, travel and ecommerce content. WooContent is an international, multi-lingual copywriting agency with offices in London, New York, Sydney and Singapore.
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