Landing pages are a fundamental part of your B2B online campaigns and should be optimized properly in order to see substantial conversions and minimize the dreaded bounce rate.
A landing page is a unique web page or minisite that is designed and geared towards fulfilling a specific objective, like increasing lead conversions or promoting a particular product, and it can be an extremely effective tool in your marketing arsenal, if used correctly.
Landing page performance refers to the effectiveness of your page. In other words, how many leads does it deliver? How can it be improved?
Check out these 6 tips on how to maximize your landing page performance to increase conversion rates, attract more customers, and make the most out of your online campaigns.
1. Create Consistent Messages
To increase lead conversions, ensure that your ad and its corresponding landing page have similar messaging. For example, if a potential customer searches for “manufacturing services” and clicks on an ad promoting manufacturing solutions, that’s exactly what the landing page should be about. Being redirected to a list of manufacturing supplies instead will cause frustration and annoyance, and you can safely bet your bounce rate will increase.
Zebra offers a perfect example of consistent messaging. Their landing page offers to take visitors to the manufacturing service they want, complete with warehouse efficiency, plant floor optimization, and 24/7 customer service.
As a rule of thumb, don’t try to play a game of “bait and hook”, because you will most likely lose that game. Landing pages that are irrelevant to the ads being clicked simply end up frustrating prospects and driving them towards competitors.
2. Avoid Vague Wording in Your CTA
When your call-to-action simply says, "click here”, “buy now”, “submit” or any other type of generic message, it leaves a lot to be desired. Landing page CTA copy should be more specific and tell visitors why they should click, thus, increasing their motivation to do so. Writing more detailed and attractive CTA copy will more effectively drive visitors through the conversion funnel, as they will clearly understand that, by clicking the button, they’ll get precisely what they came for.
As an example of call-to-actions that are clearly stated, visit our landing page for the guide “Conquering B2B SEO.” The CTA clearly states that visitors to the page will receive a free guide by filling out the provided form. Once the form is filled out, the button then reads “Download Your Free Guide, Now!” which is much more compelling than “submit”.
3. Landing Page Performance Drops After Two Seconds
B2B marketers sometimes refer to this rule as the “2-second rule”, which essentially means that your bounce rate can increase by 50% the longer your site load time goes beyond two measly seconds. That’s all most visitors will give you before they get bored and find somewhere else to spend their time online.
This also means that you only have two seconds to capture the attention of your prospects. Therefore, make sure your landing page loads quickly. There are a wide range of issues that can cause your site to load at a snail’s pace.
Certain scripts, fonts, and plugins can cause lag time. These issues usually boil down to “bad code” and could require a professional to fix. Other issues might include page sizes as well as images. For instance, you might want to optimize the images on your landing page, or leave your landing page image-free, since image weight is one of the main factors that can slow your site down.
Google PageSpeed Insights is a tool that analyzes your website to provide you with a site speed report. The platform will give you a Page Speed and Optimization score for both mobile and desktop. You’ll receive page statistics, optimization suggestions, and all those elements you’ve put in place that are helping your site load more quickly.
Pingdom is another tool that gives you instant insights in your landing page performance, and specifically your landing page load speed. While the service isn’t free, you do get a free trial and a host of benefits, such as uptime monitoring, real-time monitoring, page speed monitoring, and more.
The service even gets a second opinion on all verified issues to ensure there are no false alerts and so that you get only the most reliable information in real-time, when the incident occurs.
4.develop Trust
Landing pages that have trust symbols, contact information prominently displayed, and customer testimonials (the Spectoos Faceboard widget is a great solution for that!) can more easily build trust with their potential B2B customers than those lacking those elements.
Since you are most likely aren’t working face-to-face with your customers, your online marketing efforts need to incorporate trust factors to make potential customers feel compelled to share their time, money, or personal details with you on your landing page. A surefire way of doing this is by using testimonials from real customers.
The majority of online consumers read reviews and testimonials before completing a purchase, and reading comments made by previous customers similar to themselves allows them to imagine what their experience could be like if they were to buy your product or service, as well. Testimonials are one of the major influences over the online shopper, so it’s a good idea to include them for a boost in landing page performance.
Take our testimonial page, for example. Using the Spectoos Faceboard Widget mentioned earlier, we build trust by displaying pictures of real clients along with their quotes about their positive experiences with our company and a link to their social media profiles.
5. Go Mobile First
B2B buyers are increasingly accessing content through the use of mobile devices to research their needs and identify service providers. According to a study by Google and Millward Brown Digital, 42% of buyers use a mobile device during the purchase process.
Turns out, having a landing page that is mobile-friendly will also help in the SEO department. Google is now rewarding sites that provide a memorable experience for mobile users. In fact, Google announced in November 2016 that they were moving to mobile-first indexing, as mobile had overtaken desktop search for the first time just a month prior.
To make your site more mobile-friendly, don’t use flash or pop-ups and ensure your site is responsive so that it tailors itself to any sized screen. You’ll also want to ensure that your site doesn’t block CSS, JavaScript, or images. Whatever you do, make sure you optimize your site for people with oversized fingers. That means that your text should be adequately sized and spaced far enough apart so that links aren’t clicked accidentally.
Finally, make sure you format your content so that visitors don’t have to scroll very much to receive the necessary information, as most won’t go to that much trouble.
The idea is to make the mobile viewing experience easy and memorable for improved SEO and a boost in landing page performance.
6. Utilize Fundamental Landing Page Optimization
Landing page optimization is about clear direction and quality user experience, but don’t forget about the behind-the-scenes elements of internet marketing. Before you launch your landing page, check that it is optimized for SEO. Here are the main 3 elements you should be sure to include:
Appropriate meta tags: Make sure you have a page title, meta description, and alt tags on images.
Relevant keywords: Use your main keywords in the text on your landing page so search engines (ahem, Google) know what your landing page is all about. But be sure to use them in a natural, organic way. You should also use your most important keyword in the title of the page.
Well-displayed social sharing buttons: Search engines (Google…again), give preference to highly shared pages, so make sure the social sharing buttons are easy for your visitors to find and use.
By following these six tips for optimizing your B2B landing pages, you strengthen your probability of achieving increased leads, conversions, and ultimately, sales. Consistent messaging, compelling CTAs, fast page loading time, use of social proof, mobile-first preparation, and SEO optimization are all key elements to focus on to make sure your landing page performance is at its maximum potential.
Do you need assistance getting your online campaigns up and running? Contact us at KeyScouts today for a free consultation.
