There’s no time to waste when a reader hits your landing page. Whether they arrive via search, digital ads or email, you need to grab their attention, state your value proposition, and drive them to your call to action (CTA).
To keep things simple, we follow a rule of three F’s to build and optimize landing pages:
- Focus on Readability
- Feature Facts
- Find the CTA
Focus on Readability
How long do readers stay on your website before they jump? Your Google analytics will come in handy here, but a rule of thumb is 15 seconds. The majority of visitors simply aren’t going to read copy.
Here’s what we know:
- Web copy is almost always scanned, and not read entirely. At most, readers take in about 28%of the words on a page.
- Copy is typically scanned in an F-pattern.
- Readers start at the top of the page to read important headlines
- Move down the left side of the page to view numerals or bullet points
- Finally, they move across the page again to read bolded text or callouts
If you need more than a couple of short paragraphs of text on your landing page, the first words need to be impactful and tell the reader what’s more important. If you can divide the content into groups, or use bullet points or numerals, do so! Use headings to help scanning eyes find the information quickly and easily.
Feature Facts
Numbers pop more than words. Our eyes are naturally attracted to numbers because they usually represent facts. Break the rule of spelling out numbers less than 10.
Also, use bullet points to call out the most important information. A few examples include:
- 6 key learnings from a recent survey
- 5 trends featured in our new e-Book
- Top 3 reasons to register for our webinar
Remember, not only does it have to be eye-catching (scannable and punctuated with facts), the content must be persuasive as well.
3 quick tips to amplify your efforts:
- Link to sources and credible websites
- Quote industry experts
- Highlight your own expertise
Find the CTA
Use what you know about scanning and f-shaped reading patterns and place the CTA button where readers are most likely to look for them. We recommend action verbs to create a sense of urgency. Check our list of top 10 CTAs:
- Give us a try
- Sign up
- Subscribe
- Apply today
- Schedule a demo
- Join our webinar
- Let’s get started
- Claim your free copy
- Discover more
- Request a quote
Remember, if you don’t the perfect landing page on day one, then make tweaks and improvements as you analyze the data and observe your conversion rate. If you want to learn more about using landing pages or boost your conversions, we’d love to connect.
