What could Landing Pages and first dates possibly have in common? A lot more than you might think! First dates are all about setting the stage for a potential long term relationship. Landing Pages should be designed to do just that. In most cases, the Landing Page should be the start of what’s hopefully a lasting relationship between a company and a customer. It’s important to get your Landing Pages right on the first shot or you risk losing out on potential long term love, we mean business.
To illustrate the commonalities between dating and Landing Pages, we took 5 popular first date tips and turned them into Landing Page optimization tips:
- Dress to impress – First impressions are huge! The first things your visitors are going to notice about your Landing Pages are the colors, layout, headlines, and graphics. It’s amazing what a good color scheme and layout can do. Keep the page simple and organized by eliminating clutter that might distract the visitor from the end goal. Use contrasting colors to help your call to action stand out from the rest of the elements on the page. An eye-catching, clean Landing Page can dramatically help to convert more visitors into customers (i.e. land you a second date!).
- Say the right things – Your good looks won’t get you far if you can’t talk the talk. Lead with your most important message points and keep the content exciting. That being said, most visitors aren’t interested in reading lengthy paragraphs of content. Expect visitors to have short attention spans and a preconceived expectation of what they will find on the page. Match the expectation and provide information to entice the visitor to complete a desired action.
- Don’t ask for too much information – In-depth contact forms that require a lot of information can be overwhelming for visitors and will quickly turn them away. Think about what information will be most valuable to your business and cut the form fields based on that information. Do you really need a visitor’s fax number? If a lot of information is necessary, consider splitting the form up into multiple steps (i.e. wait until the second date!).
- Stand out from the crowd – What do you have to offer that the other guy doesn’t? Understanding your competitors will help you break away from them. Research your competition to identify the types of messaging, special offers and promotions they’re using. Use this information to develop a strategy that will set you apart from those competitors. Your most influential offers and messages should be the focus of your Landing Pages so they quickly grab the attention of your visitors.
- Establish trust – Remember that awful blind date your friend set you up on that made you scared to ever go on a date again? Assume that your visitors still have a bad taste in their mouth from the last company that scammed them, sold their information or flooded their inbox with spam emails. Your goal is to establish instant trust with your visitors and position your company as a credible, trustworthy brand. Including authentic testimonials, endorsements, certifications and awards on your Landing Pages are all great ways to establish credibility and make your visitors feel more comfortable.
So there you have it. Now you’re ready to enter the beginning of what’s sure to be a lasting relationship. Follow these five tips and we can (almost) guarantee that your Landing Pages will be a perfect match for your website visitors!
Happy Valentine’s Day from E-Power Marketing!
