Landing Page Optimization: A CRO Best Practices Guide

Your business can take a different turn with a very well-optimized landing page. For ads, or social media, or even organic search traffic, the aim is always to get this traffic to take action. But half of the battle is getting people to your page. The real challenge is to engage and convert them to stay. Conversion Rate Optimization is the term to fine-tune your landing page to work hard for conversions. In this guide, we’ve outlined how you should practice CRO which also helps you boost your conversions.

Best Practices for Optimizing Landing Pages 

Below are some of the top practices you should adopt to successfully optimize your website’s landing page:

1. Craft a Headline That Hooks Visitors Instantly

The headline is the first thing they see and first impressions do matter. As soon as possible, a strong and compelling headline should tell what your page is about and why it’s important. The sentence should be concise, clear, and alert. Imagine what your audience’s biggest pain points are and resolve them directly. A great headline piques the interest of the visitor or provides a solution, so the visitor can’t help but notice. 

2. Keep Your Design Clean and Distraction-Free

The design of your landing page should be simple, and something that a visitor has an easy time with in order to find what he or she needs. They can also be too much clutter: too much text, too many images, too many links. Too much can overwhelm the user and chase them away. White space can be used on purpose to help make your content more readable. Select colors that are per your brand and in place to attract a viewer to key elements such as your call to action (CTA) button. You can also read the benefits of responsive web design and understand how it can affect your traffic. 

3. Write Copy That Speaks to Your Audience

Words matter. Whatever the call to action, your landing page copy needs to be talking directly to the audience’s needs, wants, or pain points. Instead of pitching a feature, talk about what the benefit of the offer is in conjunction with your audience’s goals and challenges. What issue does your product or service address? Why should someone care? Be conversational but not super casual so it’s meaningful. Get to the point and avoid fluff. Refrain from using jargon for a must-read landing page.

4. Optimize Your Call-to-Action (CTA)

Your CTA (the action you want your visitors to take) is something like signing up, making a purchase, or downloading a resource. It has to be bold, clear, and action-oriented. Don’t just have a generic “Submit” or “Click Here”,  try something like “Get My Free Guide” or “Start Saving Today.” The CTA button should be easy to find, preferably above the fold, and repeated as much as possible on the page.

5. Speed Matters: Make Your Page Load Fast

No one is a fan of waiting, and a slow-loading page puts your conversions in the grave. According to studies, even a one-second delay in load time can increase the bounce rate as high as 7%. Images should be optimized, unnecessary code should be removed, and a good hosting provider should be used to ensure your page is lightning-fast. Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool can guide areas that need improvement.

6. Ensure Your Page Is Mobile-Friendly

With desktop usage behind mobile browsing, mobile responsive landing pages are a must, not a nice-to-have. It is important that your page looks good and works especially on small screens. Make sure your test buttons and forms, and your test navigation elements work perfectly on mobile devices. But a bad mobile experience could prompt clients to directly visit your competitors.

7. Leverage Social Proof for Credibility

People trust other people more than they trust brands. Customer testimonials, reviews and trust badges will help you boost the credibility when added to the landing page. If you already have phenomenal statistics (perhaps the number of satisfied customers or the successes of case studies), then publicize them. Social proof makes them believe that promoting your brand will not be wrong.

8. A/B Test Everything

A perfect landing page does not exist, but testing different elements will get you close. A/B testing consists of developing two versions of a page, where one version has a different (slightly) changed element (such as a different headline, CTA, or image) to compare which is performing better on conversion. If making small tweaks can improve, then that’s bound to be a big improvement. Continue testing and refining based on data, not assumptions.

9. Keep Forms Simple and Short

Long forms are nobody’s cup of tea. If you have a signup or checkout form on your landing page, only ask for what information you need. The fewer fields, the higher the chances of conversion. If you need more details to add, consider the multi-step form to avoid overload in the participant.

10. Use Exit-Intent Popups Wisely

Exit intent popups can be a last resort to grab visitors who are about to leave. A well-timed pop-up showing users a discount, freebie, or exclusive deal helps coax users to remain and act. Yet be aware, that popups should not be intrusive or annoying — if they spoil the user experience, they do more harm than good.

Final Thoughts

While landing page optimization is not a one-time thing, it is done every day, it is an ongoing project, and it’s about optimization, testing, and adapting to users’ behavior. This way, you can create a high-converting landing page that will guide the visitors towards taking the desired action by implementing these CRO best practices. The sooner you start, the sooner your conversion rates will climb!