5 Lead Gen Landing Page Mistakes

In last week’s Inside Sales Virtual Summit, SiteTuners CEO Tim Ash talked about five lead generation landing page problems that are detrimental to conversion and how they can be addressed.

1. Obscure Call-to-Action

There are three common CTA-related problems: lack of a CTA, unclear CTAs due to lack of visual prioritization, and the main CTA not getting enough attention because of competing CTAs or visual clutter.

CTAs are sometimes dominated by pictures so that the form disappears into the background, maybe because of benign color choices. Marketers should call out what they want the user to do. This can be done by using a photo or an anchor point that will immediately draw the user’s attention to the CTA and using bland colors for the rest of the page.

2. Imposing Forms

The first question to ask when creating a form is this: What is the minimum amount of information I need so that the customer can accomplish a task?  The amount of information you ask from the customer should be commensurate to what you’re giving them. Most people will not think it’s worth filling out a long form asking for unnecessary information just to get a whitepaper.

Most marketers suffer from the greedy marketer syndrome – they ask for more information than necessary. Instead of gating the visitor from getting the information, let them download it and share it virally with other people.  After a visitor reads the guide, they’ll probably take your next desired action.  Then, you’ll have the right to ask them, in context, for more information. Information should be collected through progressive disclosure – not in one shot – so that the funnel keeps flowing.

In short, if the form is shorter, then the conversion rate is higher.

3. Text-Heavy Pages

Unless, it’s a “See more details” page, then there’s no reason for a page to be text-heavy as people mostly do no read on the web. Instead of texts written in paragraph form that come across as gibber to web users, the following can be used:

• Bullet points
• Headlines
• Clickable areas (buttons and links that users can use to drilldown for deeper information)

The only thing that’s worse than having a text-heavy page is a bunch of text on the page interspersed with distracting little thumbnail graphics. Cut back on the text by getting rid half of what you originally have and removing adjectives that can’t be substantiated factually.

4. Visual Distractions

Overdecorating the page is detrimental to conversion; photos that do not support the CTA only overwhelm the visitors.

Motion is an even worse distraction. The reptilian part of the brain will always react to motion, so when there’s a slider on a page, the eye keeps getting jerked back to the picture at the expense of the CTA and the form. Sliders and rotating banners should be used only when there are very compelling reasons to do so; but really, there’s rarely a reason to use them. If you can edit and prioritize your content, then you shouldn’t have sliders or rotating banners on the page.

Even worse than plain motion are unnecessary, motion-based gimmicks. Tim discussed chat pop-ups that are difficult to close as an example. Chat help that appears even before the visitor gets to look at the page is unnecessary and does nothing but ruin the user experience. Exit pop-ups are a different story, but entry pop-ups interrupt visitors on their way in and block the visitor from seeing the page.

5. Lack of Trust

It is, naturally, hard to build trust online- you don’t have a face-to-face relationship, you can’t go to the golf course, and you can’t go out for a drink. Hence, trust depends on the visitor’s experience of your website. 

Trust is especially a big deal in business-to-business where decisions have repercussions on the company. All B2B decisions are based on covering one’s butt and avoiding mistakes. This is why, as a marketer, it is important to show off your trust symbols: industry awards, client logos, and media mentions. These trust indicators tell your visitors that you can do the job.

These are just 5 aspects of your landing page that you can address to dramatically improve your lead gen conversion rates. You can also check out this article for 20 more landing page optimization tips.

Now, it’s time to take off the rose-colored glasses, so you can see the problems on your lead generation landing pages, and get to work.