Landing Page Optimization-Review

The Landing page is the first page that your visitors land on when they come to your website. It is not always the Homepage. It can be independent and focused on a clear conversion goal. It is your website’s first impression and should follow up the promises you made on the Ad source and set a clear path for your website visitors.

I’m going to share some principles here which I have learned this week on the CXL institute’s Conversion Optimization Mini-degree that can help you create and optimize a killer landing page.

1. Addressing the Cognitive Biases

Cognitive bias is often a result of the Brain’s attempt to simplify the information which it is processing. The results affect one’s decision-making process.

Our mode of thinking can be categorized into two: One is Intuitive thinking, which is Emotional and Subconscious (2 x 2 = 4). It often doesn’t need any effort. The other one is Slow thinking, which is usually Conscious and Effortful (27 x 14 = 378). Intuitive thinking is something that happens to you and slow thinking is something that you do.

So the longer the experience of the process, the harder it is to go through it. To minimize the time it spends on this process, our brain creates some mental shortcuts or Cognitive biases. In connection with the landing page, there are three Cognitive biases that you should be aware of. Priming, Framing, and WYSIATI. The landing page should address these biases to reduce the cognitive strain.

Priming — Exposure to one stimulus influences the response to the subsequent stimulus.

Framing — The way you deliver a message has a direct impact on how it is perceived.

WYSIATI — What you see is all there is. The decision-making is just based on what they see on your page.

2. Information Hierarchy

What information is important for your landing page and how much information is necessary? The answer varies based on the awareness level of your visitors.

Obviously, you cannot personalize a landing page for every single one of the visitors. But there are a few possibilities you can try. A visitor who comes from your weekly Newsletter will know more about your product than the one who comes from a Banner Ad. So test the awareness level and match the information with your visitor’s expectations. Another possibility is understanding the risk level of your product. The risk of downloading a free app and buying a 1000$ product is very much different. The higher the risk, the more information you need to provide.

Apply the 5-second user testing on your landing page to identify the weakest points. It’s a process of showing your landing page to a user for 5 seconds and see if the person can answer the following questions:

What is your first impression? How does it make you feel? Is there anything that stands out? Is it clear who the source is? Does it seem credible?

This is a great way to build an initial hypothesis. There are some great online tools where you can upload a screenshot of your landing page to get insights (For example usabilityhub.com).

3. Understanding the Role of Brain chemicals

There are two brain chemicals Dopamine and Cortisol which have effects on the User experience. Dopamine drives towards the reward. It is released when one is exposed to a reward stimulus. On the other hand, Cortisol creates fear and drives one away. It is called Stress hormone. Look out for Cortisol triggers on your website.

4. Quantitative and Qualitative research

Quantitative research on your landing page is when you use Analytics to find out what is the problem and where it is happening on your website. Using Google Analytics, you can analyze the bugs and overall performance of your landing page. Once you find the weak spot, you can use Session recording or Heatmaps to get valuable insights. Make sure you comply with the data and privacy rules depending on where you live.

For example, using a GA metric called ‘Page Value’, you can find out what are the high contributing areas on your website that can help you create opportunities for conversion.

Qualitative research is often underrated. It requires a lot of effort and time. Talk to the people in your company who are interacting all day with your customers. The Support and Sales team have so much empathy for the customers. They understand the pain points of the customers which you may not know that even exist. Conduct a team interview with the front line people and ask the below questions.

What are the top queries you get?

What do you answer to them?

Can you pitch our product in 30 seconds?

Is there anything that almost made the customers not buy?

Which feature triggers the decision-making of our customers?

Feedback polls are also a great way to do qualitative research. But make sure to bother the visitors as little as possible. Do not fire a poll window immediately when they land on your website.

5. Landing page Copywriting & Design

Copywriting for your landing page begins even before your visitor lands on your website. It begins from the source, the banner ad which they used to get to your page. Try not to give an entirely different experience compared to what they saw on your ad. Match your landing page copy with the promise or claim you used on the banner ad. In this case, both design and copy go hand in hand.

Crucial copy elements to focus on your landing page:

Headline — Trigger Dopamine.

Benefits and features — Trigger Dopamine.

Credibility — Mitigate Cortisol.

Expectation manager — Mitigate Ambiguity

CTA — A simple method to make your CTA copy effective: When I click, I’d like to ____. For example, when I click, I’d like to see plans. Make ‘See plans’ your CTA button copy.

When it comes to landing page design, it’s all about the visual hierarchy of what elements are important and where do you want your visitors to see. For example, a common but very effective design tactic used now is having pictures of people’s faces looking at the call to action button.

A powerful landing page can help you in improving the user experience of your product. Hence it is important to focus on the little things which can create a huge impact on your conversion rate. The real-time examples given by the instructor Michael Aagaard helped me to understand quicker. I found this lesson in CXL very informative throughout the end.

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