Top 5 Landing Page Conversion Killers - And What to Do About Them

So your landing page is humming along, getting good traffic and conversions - them BAM!  One day you wake up and see that your cost-per-click (the bid price for your chosen keywords) has doubled overnight!

What happened?  Are Google and Yahoo singling you out because of your success?

Hardly!  Chances are, they’re giving you a red alert to things that need to change on your pages.  These things need changing quickly too - and the best way to get your attention is to take more of your money for the exact same results, right?

So what can you do to prevent your bid prices from rising while keeping your most valuable keywords? 

Here are the top five reasons your landing page (and your wallet) are suffering:

1. Forcing registration or sign up - If someone has to sign up to see your offer, or to make a purchase, chances are, they won’t stay long.  Google and Yahoo track how long a visitor remains on your page after they click your ad, and if the time is too short for too many visitors - the search engines have a way of knowing about it - and punishing you for making their visitors have to hunt more to find the information they wanted.

Resist the urge to make people register to view the information you promised them in the ad.  That also means not trying to squeeze their name and email address out with a landing page before you give them what they want, either. 

Instead, just give them what they want.  If they trust you (and it may not happen on the first visit), they will likely give you their contact information in due time.

2. Too many distractions - That includes plug-ins like video, audio, Flash ads and other “wow” factors on your landing pages.  Remember, the people clicking on your pay-per-click ads might not be as tech-savvy as you are! 

Keep it simple and keep it focused.  You can include things like video testimonials, audio messages and the like on your home page - where they’ll have a greater impact.

3. Not using testimonials - Testimonials are an ideal way to show the quality of your work or product.  Including them on a landing page helps build trust and confidence in your customer that your product or service is legitimate and that it does what you advertise.  

Not including testimonials will make people wonder if you have something to hide.  Don’t be afraid to ask customers what they think!  Chances are they would be more than happy to tell you if you just ask.

4. Ads that go to the home page - This is a sure-fire way to bleed your advertising budget dry as quickly as possible.  If all of your ads simply go to the home page, you’re losing out on a huge number of potential buyers! 

Even if you think no one would ever care, and that everyone will be dazzled by the offer on your main page and sit around to read it all - don’t make this mistake - because they won’t.

Target your ads in as narrow groups as possible.  Make individual landing pages for each group and follow these tips to create those pages the right way - right from the start.

5. Not testing your ads or landing pages - It’s easy to split-test your pay-per-click ads and direct traffic to your different landing pages, so why not use the search engine’s built in analytics programs to find out which one of your pages is performing better?

It’s simple to do - just create two separate landing pages with one minor change on each - such as the placement of text or the product photo.  Then name each landing page A and B and set those as your destination or target URL in your pay-per-click campaign. 

Wait a day or two and log back in to determine which page and which ad had the higher number of conversions.  It will show you the winner and run that ad more often until you replace it with another, different one.  Always keep testing!

Hopefully these landing page conversion tips have helped you see where your mistakes are and have put you on the path to squeezing every dime out of your marketing budget. 

 If you need help creating landing pages that convert well, why not get a free quote from iElectrify and find out how you can have your own affordable landing pages created for your business?

Recommended Tools and Resources

• Write Sales Copy like a Pro