12 Landing Page Best Practices for Boosting Conversions

Did you know that some companies have achieved a 100% increase in their conversion rates by implementing some landing page best practices?

Yuppiechef, an online store that specializes in kitchen tools, was able to achieve this by just removing their navigation menu from their landing page.

The reason?

It was too distracting for visitors on the landing page and prevented them from taking an action.

If you run an online business, you should know that your landing page is the most important factor governing your conversions. It is the first thing that your website visitors will see when they land on your site.

So the more you distract them from responding to your call-to-action, the more you hurt your conversion rates.

The average landing page conversion rate is 2.35%. However, there are web pages that have twice or thrice the average conversion rate too.

The good news is that by implementing some landing page best practices, you can improve your conversion rate. You can actually make your website visitors do what you want.

In this article, I’m going to share 12 landing page best practices that’ll help you boost your conversions.

So let’s jump right in, shall we?

1. Minimize Distractions

There’s something known as the “attention ratio,” which is a crucial piece of your landing page optimization puzzle. Oli Gardner, defines it as the number of options that visitors have on a landing page to your conversion goals.

Simply put, it is the ratio of the number of things people can do to the number of things you want them to do.

One of the most important landing page best practices is to maintain an attention ratio of 1:1. So your landing page must include only what you want your visitors to do.

Everything else would be a distraction. Everything on the landing page that does not get them to take the intended action, that is.

As a best practice, use no extra links, no navigation bars, no footers, and no social shares buttons on your landing pages.

In the example we spoke about earlier, Yuppiechef found that the online store navigation menu on their landing page was distracting visitors.

With Navigation – Image via VWO

They wanted to increase signups on their landing page for their Wedding Registry. By removing the navigation menu from that landing page, they found that their conversions went up by 100%.

Without Navigation – Image via VWO

Our attention span keeps getting shorter day by day.

The attention span of an average person today is 8 seconds. One of the most effective landing page best practices is to minimize the amount of text on your landing pages.

Visitors aren’t interested in reading a lot. So keep your landing page copy concise while making sure that you’re able to convey your value proposition clearly.

For example

As a best practice, Slack displays only the necessary information on their landing page.

Image via Slack

2. Use Catchy Headlines and Relevant Content

We’ve talked about how you should focus on making your landing page less distracting from your goals. Now let’s talk about best practices how to catch the attention of  your target audience so that they take an action.

Catchy headlines on a landing page are extremely effective in driving conversion rates.

Your headlines should not only motivate your visitors but also give them a good enough reason to take an action.

Create headlines that are concise yet showcase the value you can provide to your customers. Use relevant keywords in your landing page headlines to optimize your pages for search engines.

Protalus, a seller of insoles, made changes to the headline on their website. The new landing page headline mentioned the option of upgrading to free expedited shipping in the headline.

This gave them a 145% increase in conversions.

Image via Moz

If you run ads to direct more traffic to your website, make sure that your landing page headlines and content match the ads.

Otherwise, your visitors may get confused and think that they’ve landed on the wrong page. As a result, they’ll leave quickly, which can adversely affect your target audience conversion rates.

3. Place Important Elements Above the Fold

A study of how visitors scroll through landing pages found that the most viewed part is just above the fold. 80% of people view the area on landing pages at around 550 pixels.

Image via Chartbeat

The same study also showed that most of the engagement from visitors happens just below the fold. So, one of the landing page best practices is to place your call to action button just above or below the fold.

It need not be the call-to-action only. You can place important elements like attractive offers or benefits there too.

For example

Elegant Steps, a seller of women’s shoes were looking to boost their conversion rate. One of the landing page best practices they implemented was to mention their free shipping offer just above the fold.

Their bounce rate dropped by 50% and conversions went up 3X.

Image via VWO

4. Include a Clear Call-to-Action

This is one of the most important landing page best practices. Without a call-to-action, your visitors will be at a loss for what to do next, and will soon leave.

So you definitely need to include a call-to-action (CTA) on your landing page. And you need to also make sure that it is placed in an optimum position on your landing page so people don’t miss it.

As a landing page best practice

Use directional cues to get people to notice your CTA easily. You can do so with arrows, photos, or finger pointers. The idea is to make it effortless for visitors to find this button.

For example, Loud Rumor displays a hand-drawn arrow to direct attention to their CTA button.

Image via Loud Rumor

Another very important consideration is the background and font colors you use for your CTA.

Using contrasting colors is one of the best practices because they make your CTA button easily visible. If it blends into the background of your landing page, it’s easy for people to miss it.

Keep in mind when you create copy for your call-to-action that you’re not using something too generic. Instead, you need to articulate your value proposition clearly. You need to give your visitors a reason to click that button.

Here’s a great example from Timothy Sykes.

He gives you a reason for clicking the CTA button. He may have taken it a bit too far. But essentially, what I’m trying to say is that you need to talk about the value you’re offering. The value people will get when they click that button.

Image via Timothy Sykes

5. Win Trust With Testimonials

Your landing page is the first thing that consumers see upon visiting your website. So it may be the only opportunity you get at creating an impression on them.

Trust is a major factor when it comes to influencing purchase decisions. 55% of online shoppers read reviews of products before buying them online.

The role of reviews and testimonials is undeniable in winning the trust of your customers.

These are strong trust signals that indicate other people have found your products or services valuable. It tells them that they too should feel confident about buying from you.

So one of the landing page best practices is to display your testimonials or reviews on the landing page. Here’s a great example from Pipedrive, a CRM solutions provider.

Image via Pipedrive

6. Use Intuitive and Interactive Forms

There’s probably nothing more annoying than long forms requiring you to type in tons of information. They can easily drive away visitors to your web pages.

If your conversion goal is to drive signups, for example, you definitely need to use a landing page form. However, keep the following things in mind when you design them so that you don’t end up frustrating your customers.

As a best practice, make your landing page form interactive and intuitive. It shouldn’t have people wondering about the best format in which to enter their information.

For example

Let’s say you’re asking them to enter their date of birth. Your landing page form needs to be designed such that the fields for the month or date are clear.

One of the best practices for your landing page is to include labels in every field so that people know what exactly you want them to type in. Also, include prompts as these are pretty useful for guiding people.

To minimize the need for too much typing, have radio buttons and dropdowns available. Also, indicate which fields are mandatory and which are not. Here’s a great example of an intuitive and interactive form.

Image via Bohemian Traders

7. Increase Scarcity and Urgency

It’s in our inherent nature that the rarer something is, the more valuable it becomes to us. No wonder why the rarest of elements on earth are the most expensive, right? The same applies to your landing pages too.

Chris Goward spoke about the L.I.F.T model governing conversions in his book, “You Should Test That!” He spoke about six factors to evaluate your landing pages for conversions. One of these factors is urgency.

Basically, he implied that there is a need to create a sense of urgency in the minds of your website visitors. That sense of urgency will make them take action that helps to achieve your conversion goals.

And such signals need to be present on your landing page. If you can show that you’re offering something for a limited time only, it creates urgency.

However, as a best practice for your landing page, make sure that these are real offers. Don’t mention the limited time availability just for the heck of it. Doing so can do you more harm than good.

Consider the landing pages of booking.com.

Image via Booking.com

They tell you that a hotel is in “high demand” and was booked “8 times in the last 24 hours.” They also display the option of viewing their last available rooms creating a sense of urgency.

And by displaying another listing that is no longer available for those dates, they tell you that they’re not faking.

8. Remove Extra Links on Landing Pages

As I mentioned in the very beginning, it is important to minimize distractions on your landing page. Any extra links such as a navigation menu or links to your social media channels can be highly distracting.

In fact, one of the landing page best practices is to remove extra links as this can actually boost conversions.

HubSpot decided to test this hypothesis using five of its landing pages. These landing pages are the ones that got the most traffic. And the conversion goal on them was to get a visitor to sign up using a form.

Image via HubSpot

They ran an A/B test with control pages having navigation menus and social media links. And in the other versions, they removed all such links and menus.

The results revealed that conversions actually increased by removing these landing page elements.

Image via HubSpot

You might think that some of the above increases are statistically insignificant. However, for HubSpot, even a 2% increase in conversion rate equals 1000 more leads.

So their tests proved that conversions can actually increase if you remove all extra links from landing pages.

9. Use Plenty of White Space and Proper Formatting

One of the most important landing page best practices is to make it visually appealing. Too much clutter can easily distract your visitors, thus defeating your conversion goals.

For better readability and visual appeal, use plenty of whitespace between the elements on your landing page. Remember, you don’t get second chances at making a first impression. So make it count.

Make sure that the landing page formatting is done properly.

This means ensuring that you’re using bullet lists for features or benefits. This also means that you use headings and subheadings effectively to make your landing page text easy to read.

Workfront is a software company that sells project management solutions. They wanted to increase the conversions from their landing pages.

So, in collaboration with Big Leap, they tried to identify the improvements that were needed. With several formatting changes and a bit of change in content, they were able to increase conversions by 104%

Here’s an example of a landing page from iMPACT that includes great formatting and plenty of whitespace or negative space.

Image via iMPACT

10. Optimize Your Landing Page for Mobile

One of the most crucial landing page best practices is to make your page mobile-friendly. Studies have found that 53% of the global web traffic is generated from mobile devices.

This means if your landing pages are not optimized for mobile, you might be losing out on half your customers.

A landing page that is not optimized for mobile devices won’t display properly on them.

So, the visitors who land on your pages from search engines or paid ads will simply leave. This experience is quite frustrating and leaves a bad impression in people’s minds.

So if you haven't done so already, you should definitely optimize all your landing pages to make them mobile-friendly.

I recommend using an adaptive design.

It ensures that only the most critical information (necessary for conversions) is displayed on the mobile screen. It can help you boost your mobile conversion rates as well.

Here’s an example of a landing page that’s optimized for mobile.

Image via Landbot

11. Improve Page Load Speed

One of the most important landing page best practices is to reduce page loading time. The chart below shows how an increase in load time can substantially increase bounce rates.

Image via Neil Patel

If your landing page doesn’t load lightning-fast, your prospects will go elsewhere Which makes you lose a chance to convert. Slow loading time frustrates potential customer, and they may never want to return to your site.

12. Use Videos on Your Landing Pages

Using videos is one of the most effective landing page best practices to boost conversion rates. Videos encourage people to stay longer on a page. This gives you more time to convey your message and convince them to convert.

You can use videos in various ways on your landing pages.

You can use them to share more information about your products or demonstrate how they can be used.

A 30-second (or shorter) promotional video can be very effective at grabbing the attention of your visitors. Test various types of videos to see what works best for your landing page.

You can use A/B testing to test different versions of the same web page. You should also consider adding a call-to-action in your videos as a best practice.

For example, Leadfeeder displays a video on its landing page to help visitors learn more about its platform.

Image via Leadfeeder

Ready to Boost Conversions?

These are just a few of the landing page best practices I recommend to my clients. I would strongly urge you to follow the above-mentioned tips to optimize your landing pages if you aren’t already.

Meanwhile, can you think of any other landing page best practices for boosting conversion rates? I’d love to hear from you so let me know in the comments below.