When you have a great product or service, it is natural that you will want to get the most out of it. However, having an irresistible product or service and a great marketing strategy (never underestimate its power) is not enough to improve your sales and revenue — there’s always room to improve conversion rates.
You need to craft a high-converting landing page to help turn a larger percentage of your audience into customers. Luckily, you have stumbled on this post. In the next few minutes, you will learn about the key landing page elements to improve your conversion rates. Read on!
Effective landing page elements to improve your conversion rates
A landing page exists within a customer journey. It is reflected in what a customer does after they land on the page. As such, an effective landing page should align with the ad you are promoting.
For example, if your ad was about the best SEO services, a landing page that features an email marketing campaign might not lead to a conversion.
An effective landing page needs to be simple and clear with fewer elements to convert visitors into leads. Any distractions or unnecessary elements will draw the attention of your visitors away from your goal.
That said, here are the key elements of a high-converting landing page:
Your headline is everything
Your headline is the face of your landing page, so ensure it is attention-grabbing, clear and concise. After all, your headline will determine whether people will continue to read your copy or not.
As a rule of thumb, ensure that your headline compels people to read what is on your page. That said, here are the key elements of a killer headline:
Clear and simple
In marketing, simple yet clear headlines carry the day. That is why you should ensure that your users can understand what your landing page is all about to ensure they do not click off.
Do not send your visitors down a complicated path that is hard to navigate to the final stage. Instead, let your customers know what the page is all about in a simple, clear manner to improve your conversions.
Captivating
Your first impression matters a lot. Unfortunately, your headline should form an impression within a blink of an eye, and you will rarely have a second chance to make a great first impression.
As such, ensure that your headline is appealing and can get people’s attention instantly. The idea is to make it hard for anyone who lands on your landing to exit.
Resonate with your target audience
A great headline should attract the attention of your website visitors. Think about your specific website visitors and keep them in mind when writing your landing page message. Ensure that your message clearly states what you are offering and the problem it solves.
Provide value
People who visit your landing page are not just visitors; they are people looking for products or services to solve a problem. As such, your headline should clearly state how you will solve their pain points and make their lives easier.
Value proposition
Like your headline, your value proposition is unique to your business and matches what you are trying to communicate in your headline. Ensure that visitors understand a product or service as soon as they land on your page.
Most marketers make the mistake of putting information about who they are above the fold instead of letting them know what product or service they are offering.
Avoid this at all costs. Instead, use this real estate to let your visitors know how your product or service can help them.
The idea is to ensure that your prospect sees the benefit of what they are purchasing or signing up to. To further improve the conversion rate of your landing page, ensure your value proposition is reflected from the ad to the headline and into the body of your landing page.
One thing, though. Avoid using generic benefits on your landing page. Instead, clearly describe your benefits and add figures so prospects can understand what to expect from your product or service.
An impressive web design
If you need a high-converting landing page, you must pay much attention to your landing page design. That said, let’s look at visual elements that encompass a high-converting landing page.
High-quality images
Imagery is a critical part of a high-converting landing page. Images on your landing page should be high quality and relevant to your page. You can make your landing page more appealing using attractive images, illustrations, and infographics.
Educational videos
Visuals have a special place in marketing, with current surveys showing that consumers prefer videos over text. Additional information shows that only a handful of online readers read a copy till the end.
As such, videos offer an effective way to engage your audience and offer a platform to showcase your offers. The idea is to get more online users to spend more time on your landing page and know the benefits of your offer and how it will change their lives.
Enough spacing
No one likes to read a block of sentences. You must ensure that you have the right amount of white space between the text of your landing page, graphics and other page elements.
Social proof
Credibility is another crucial element of a high-converting landing page. So apart from a clear value proposition, social proof will help increase conversions.
The best way to get the most of this persuasion element is to collect testimonials from your previous clients and add them to your landing page. When you boost your credibility, prospects will trust you, making it easier to convert them to customers.
Page load speed
Landing page loading speed determines how good or bad user experience will affect SEO and other marketing campaigns. No matter the number of hours you have spent on your landing page, you will not get the most out of it if your website loads slowly.
In fact, most users are likely to leave your page immediately and head to a competitive page if it loads slowly. Imagine bringing visitors to your landing page only to leave because your website loads slowly.
Too bad, right?
Besides the speed, you need to ensure that your website loads quickly on all devices, including smartphones and tablets. After all, about 50% of website traffic comes from mobile, which is expected to rise in the coming years.
Google PageSpeed Insights will help get the necessary insights to improve your page loading speed. Implementing these suggestions will help improve your page loading speed and impact your SEO.
Clear call to action (CTA)
The CTA is another critical element of a killer landing page. This button offers an effective way to get your visitors to take action and is a sure way to get more leads and drive sales. The CTA button for a high-converting landing page consists of these key elements:
Text — Your CTA message needs to be concise and action-oriented. The catch is to give your text a sense of urgency and use first-person to give your CTA a personal touch.
Size — The size of your CTA button should be appropriate for your users. Remember, there are many mobile internet users, so ensure that your text can be seen on mobile devices.
Color — The need for choosing the right color for a high-converting landing page cannot be overstated. To make your CTA color stand out, consider a color that contrasts with the background of your landing page.
Lead capture form
Lead capture forms provide a quick way to improve your landing page conversion rate. However, ensure not to ask for too much info as this will hurt your conversion rates. Lessen the required fields to ensure that you don’t overwhelm your visitors with questions and increase their chances of abandoning the form.
Asking your visitor’s name, email, contact details, and location will do the trick. You can always ask for more information at later stages of your engagements.
Short, actionable copy
The need for an engaging copy for a high-converting landing page cannot be overstated. You need to work with an experienced copywriter to help create a landing page that can convert.
Your copy needs to be short and actionable.
Any landing page with more than 50 words above the fold will lead to a higher bounce rate. Ask any experienced marketer, and they will tell you that creating a clear and actionable copy for your landing page works any day.
The catch is to ensure that your copy can evoke your audience’s emotions. Ensure that your copy highlights how your prospects can benefit from your products or services and how it will make their lives easier. In other words, your copy should not talk about your product’s features but rather the solutions.
A guarantee
Trust is a crucial component for a high-converting landing page. After all, if prospects cannot trust you, they are unlikely to buy from you. You can make customers trust you by offering a money-back guarantee on your landing page. Regardless of how you do it, a guarantee will help improve conversions.
Here’s what to remember when creating a guarantee for your landing page:
Guarantees come in different forms. Select the one that works best for your business and include it on your landing page.
Place your guarantee statement around the CTA to give your prospects some assurance and increase the chances of conversions.
If you do not have a specific product guarantee, such as a money-back or satisfaction guarantee, you can offer other types of guarantees like a “no-spam guarantee.”
As you can see, you do not need to provide an explicit guarantee or talk about its legalities. A guarantee statement that provides a level of comfort to your prospects will do the trick.
Include trust badges
Trust badges can significantly increase your landing page conversion rates. As earlier stated, people want to purchase something from a brand they trust. In fact, many (if not all) will click on the badges to check your reviews to confirm whether they are legit before deciding to do business with you.
You will experience an increase in your conversion rate by including trust badges on your landing page.
This can include testimonials, media mentions, and corporate rewards. That said, here are some tips when adding badges and seal tests:
Place the badge close to the “place order button” or any other desired action
Include the badge or seal in your header
Make the badge or seal clickable
A/B test everything
You are not yet done. You need to A/B test everything to ensure you have more accurate data on all the changes you make on your landing page. This is especially important if you make more than one element of your landing page and want to know which one has the best conversion rates.
It is crucial to test one major element at a time.
These include the headline, design, layout, etc., to determine which of the changes has the most impact on your landing page conversion rate. The idea is to be certain the change in conversion rate results from a change you made.
Ready to improve your conversion rates?
That is it. These are some of the elements of a high-converting landing page. By following the above tips, you will improve your landing pages conversion rates and return your investment. However, before I let you go, let us look at some reasons why landing may not be converting. These can include:
Misunderstanding your prospects needs
Poor headlines
Non-intuitive design
Unclear CTAs
Distractions
By avoiding these mistakes and implementing the above elements, you will improve your landing page conversion rate. The catch is to take your time to understand how users interact with your page and keep testing the changes you make to determine the steps to take.
The facts are clear: Startups are finding funding increasingly difficult to secure, and even unicorns appear cornered, with many lacking both capital and a clear exit.
But equity rounds aren’t the only way for a company to raise money — alternative and other non-dilutive financing options are often overlooked. Taking on debt might be the right solution when you’re focused on growth and can see clear ROI from the capital you deploy.
Not all capital providers are equal, so seeking financing isn’t just about securing capital. It’s a matter of finding the right source of funding that matches both your business and your roadmap.
Here are four things you should consider:
Does this match my needs?
It’s easy to take for granted, but securing financing begins with a business plan. Don’t seek funding until you have a clear plan for how you’ll use it. For example, do you need capital to fund growth or for your day-to-day operations? The answer should influence not only the amount of capital you seek, but the type of funding partner you look for as well.
Start with a concrete plan and make sure it aligns with the structure of your financing:
Match repayment terms to your expected use of the debt.
Balance working capital needs with growth capital needs.
It’s understandable to hope for a one-and-done financing process that sets the next round far down the line, but that may be costlier than you realize in the long run.
Your term of repayment must be long enough so you can deploy the capital and see the returns. If it’s not, you may end up making loan payments with the principal.
Say, for example, you secure funding to enter a new market. You plan to expand your sales team to support the move and develop the cash flow necessary to pay back the loan. The problem here is, the new hire will take months to ramp up.
If there’s not enough delta between when you start ramping up and when you begin repayments, you’ll be paying back the loan before your new salesperson can bring in revenue to allow you to see ROI on the amount you borrowed.
Another issue to keep in mind: If you’re financing operations instead of growth, working capital requirements may reduce the amount you can deploy.
Let’s say you finance your ad spending and plan to deploy $200,000 over the next four months. But payments on the MCA loan you secured to fund that spending will eat into your revenue, and the loan will be further limited by a minimum cash covenant of $100,000. The result? You secured $200,000 in financing but can only deploy half of it.
With $100,000 of your financing kept in a cash account, only half the loan will be used to drive operations, which means you’re not likely to meet your growth target. What’s worse, as you’re only able to deploy half of the loan, your cost of capital is effectively double what you’d planned for.
Is this the right amount for me at this time?
The second consideration is balancing how much capital you need to act on your near-term goals against what you can reasonably expect to secure. If the funding amount you can get is not enough to move the needle, it might not be worth the effort required.
Elon Musk said Sunday he “somewhat agonized” over the font designs for his companies Tesla and SpaceX.
The billionaire businessman added he “loves fonts” and has tweaked the logos over the years.
He revealed the SpaceX logo also holds a hidden meaning, representing a rocket’s arc to orbit.
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In a series of Sunday tweets, Elon Musk said he “somewhat agonized” over his choice of fonts for his businesses and revealed a hidden meaning behind the SpaceX logo.
Responding to a tweet about serif and sans-serif fonts, the billionaire businessman took a break from posting cryptic memes and discussing politics to say he loves fonts and put significant consideration into how his companies are presented to consumers.
“I somewhat agonized over the Tesla & SpaceX font design (love fonts tbh),” Musk tweeted. “There are some similarities, particularly use of negative space. We’ve made many little tweaks over the years.”
The Tesla logo — a T-shaped design with a custom, sans-serif font spelling out the brand name — is meant to resemble a cross-section of an electric motor. The SpaceX logo, written in a similar font with an extended X, references the reusable rockets made by the company.
“The swoop of the X is meant to represent the rocket’s arc to orbit,” Musk tweeted.
Other business logos have also held hidden messages: Baskin Robbins, a chain that sells 31 flavors of ice cream, has a secret ’31’ hidden in the letters of its logo. Likewise, Amazon’s arrow logo is meant to represent a smile, while the circular ‘B’ logo for Beats by Dre represents a person wearing the popular headphones.
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The internet has revolutionized the business world and changed how we conduct business. Any business that aims to increase its visibility and boost profit needs to pay much attention to top ranking factors, including local SEO — which introduces the topic of the local search algorithm.
Local SEO is one of the top practices that help boost a business’s visibility and generates more sales.
However, achieving better local SEO rankings is not a walk in the park, especially due to increased competition. To appear higher on local results, businesses and marketers need to understand how the local search algorithm works.
Knowing this helps guide the steps for improving rankings in the local pack.
The competition gets stiffer as more businesses open and optimize for local searching. Besides, Google is updating its algorithm consistently, meaning only businesses that can keep up with these updates can appear at the top of local search results.
Luckily, you have come to this post as this article looks at everything you need to know about Google’s local search algorithm and what you can do to get that top spot in the local pack.
Understanding the local search algorithm
Google aims to provide the best results that match a specific local search query. It constantly updates the local search algorithm to determine which business to rank on top of local search results.
Ideally, Google wants to provide local content that is relevant and valuable to users. As with search engine optimization, keyword stuffing cannot give you that top spot in local search results.
SEO specialists and marketers should consider Google’s local search algorithm updates and make the necessary changes to rank higher. Failure to consider these updates means losing your local search presence, resulting in fewer leads and conversions.
Local algorithms check the Google My Business (GMB) listings to determine where to rank a business in local search rankings.
Ideally, Google’s local algorithm ranks businesses with information that matches a searcher’s query. And the higher a business ranks in local search results, the more chances a potential customer will click on it.
This post looks at the three major pillars that determine local search results to better understand the local search algorithm: proximity, prominence and relevance.
Of course, other factors make up Google’s local search algorithm, but since we cannot identify all of them, we’ll focus on the most crucial ones in this post.
By understanding these pillars, marketers can better position themselves for local search success.
1. Proximity
Proximity is one of the major ranking factors when it comes to local search. That means the distance between a business and a searcher is a ranking factor in local search.
When a searcher searches for something, Google considers how far the searcher is from the location of the term they use in the search. When a searcher doesn’t specify the location, Google calculates the distance based on the information they have regarding their location.
Ideally, Google aims to provide the most relevant results to a search query. For instance, why would Google provide a list of coffee shops in Los Angeles if the searcher is searching from Colombia?
That would be irrelevant local search results that won’t benefit the searcher.
Unfortunately, while proximity is a major local search pillar, it’s one of the factors that businesses have little control over. After all, you cannot change where your business is located, right?
You can only ensure your business location is as clear as possible, so that it appears for related nearby queries. Here are steps you can take to achieve this:
Claim and verify the Google My Business listing
Ensure local listings are accurate and optimized for local products or services
Get the Google Maps API Key and optimize for your location and routes
Set up your profile correctly (for Service Area Businesses) to avoid violating Google’s guidelines
Users can perform several types of local searches, including:
Geo-modified searches
Users will perform geo-modified searches when they are planning to visit somewhere. For instance, a searcher in Los Angeles planning to visit Toronto, Canada, may search for a “coffee shop in Oakville.” The results will differ from if they searched for “coffee” while physically in Oakville.
To be specific, geo-modified searches are mainly based on relevance and prominence as opposed to proximity when a user searches for something when outside the city included in the search.
Non-geo searches
Searchers perform this type of search when looking for something around them. For instance, a user in Los Angeles performing a local search for “coffee.”
Ideally, the user only needs to search for something and is shown results based on proximity. They will get the results that are closest to them.
“Near me” searches
“Near me” searches have been so popular in recent years. Although their popularity has significantly declined, users still perform this type of search when looking for something locally.
For instance, some users could add “near me” when searching for a coffee shop, hoping to get the most relevant results near them. As we’ve stated, this trend has lost popularity because when you perform a local search, you are searching for something near you.
It is not necessary to add “near me” to what you’re searching.
2. Prominence
Prominence refers to how important Google thinks your business is, which gets factored into the local search algorithm.
In other words, it refers to how well a business stands from the rest in various aspects, including directories, links, reviews, mentions, among other things.
If search engines view your business as trustworthy and credible, they will likely show it on top of related search query results.
The local search algorithm views businesses/brands with a stronger online prominence as credible and trustworthy. Some of the factors that determine prominence include:
Citations
A local citation is the mention of a business’s information online. The mention can include the partial or complete name, address, and phone number (NAP) of a local business.
Citations are an excellent way for people to learn about local businesses and impact local search results.
A business with high-quality citations can rank better in local search results, although businesses must continually manage citations to ensure data accuracy.
Inbound links
Backlinks play a crucial role in local business prominence. Gaining relevant backlinks from high-quality sites is an excellent way to build a business’ online reputation.
If you’re trying to outrank your competitors without much success, your backlink profile could be the reason.
In that case, you should check your competitor’s backlinks and compare them with yours. When doing this, pay attention to the number and quality of their backlinks.
As a rule of thumb, aim to have high-quality local backlinks pointing to your site to improve your page’s authority.
Reviews
Next, you need to pay much attention to reviews to improve local prominence. Many customers look at a business’s online reviews before deciding whether to engage more with the business or not. Besides, many positive online reviews can increase a business’ ranking factors.
Consider this scenario. A potential customer is looking for a pub around Oakville. When they perform a search, they are presented with two results: one with over 100 reviews and another with less than 10 reviews.
Which business do you think the searcher would trust? The one with 100 reviews, obviously.
As with search engines, customers need to trust a business before they decide to do business with it. Similarly, search engines can view online reviews and analyze them to determine a business’s online prominence.
That said, here are strategies you can use to boost your online review signals:
Have a strategy
You won’t have a strong online prominence if your products or services are not of a high standard. So, the first step to having many great reviews is to develop great products and services.
After that, develop a strategy to encourage your happy customers to leave honest but valuable reviews of their experience doing business with you to help boost your online reputation.
Monitor and manage the reviews
Having many reviews is one thing; you need to develop a plan to engage with your customers for better results. Responding to reviews shows people that you care and are genuine about your products and services.
People will avoid businesses that don’t respond to customer reviews (whether positive or negative).
Search engines, too, can tell whether you engage with customer reviews or not and will use the information to determine where to rank on local search results.
When responding to online reviews, pay special attention to negative reviews and how you respond to them. While no business likes getting negative reviews, how you respond to them can positively impact your business — respond positively to turn the negative reviews around.
3. Relevance
As earlier stated, Google wants to provide the most relevant results to a local search query. This key ranking factor will determine a business’s position in local search results — how well does a local business match a search query?
Even if your business ticks the above pillars (prominence and proximity), if the content on your page isn’t well structured and doesn’t cover the topics that a searcher is looking for, you won’t appear on top of local search results.
Here are factors that businesses should consider to create a relevant listing:
Local page signals
Local listing categories and attributes
Social posts and responses to online reviews
Local listing signals and categories
A business GMB listing and category can impact its relevance score for local searches. As such, complete your business profile carefully and continually add quality content to the web page to ensure it is relevant for proximity searches.
More specifically, ensure that all information on all listing pages, including Yelp, Bing, and Google, is complete and accurate. Aside from these factors, here are two crucial features you should pay attention to:
Category selection
Selecting the right categories for your local business listing is among the crucial factors for ranking locally. With over 4000 GMB categories, you want to choose categories that best describe your business — ensure they are relevant and specific.
Here are guidelines to follow when selecting a category:
Describe your business as opposed to your services
Be specific to minimize competition
Reduce the number of GMB categories to describe your business better
Business description
Without a proper description, users won’t know what your business is about. This section is about adding an introduction to your business so that customers and search engines can know more about your business.
However, don’t use this section for marketing your business. Just give users and search engines descriptive info that can help determine whether your business matches their needs.
Local page signals
Another way a business can improve its standing in the local search algorithm is by optimizing web pages for specific keywords. For multi-location businesses, it’s essential to have separate, localized pages for each location, with relevant information and contact details for customers to reach you.
Performing competitor research is advisable to determine what terms or keywords to use for a specific query. Here are top on-page signals to consider when trying to gain relevance for a given topic:
Keyword research — Before creating local content, you need to find keywords that matter to your business. Perform keyword research to determine highly relevant keywords with high intent. When finding relevant terms to use in your content, base your research on the customer perspective; think about what they search for and the type of content they are looking for.
Create local content — After finding the right keywords, it’s time to create your content. Google values the quality of content more than the length of the content, so keep this in mind when creating content. Another crucial thing to pay attention to is localizing the content. For example, you can create content on local news and events or use your city’s name within your content.
The goal is to create a connection between what’s happening in your local area and your business. Also, use pictures with your specific geolocation to increase your content relevance.
Creating quality and relevant content is only the start. You need to optimize your content for on-page signals so local search algorithms can discover and rank them better. Here’s how you can optimize your local content for on-page signals:
Meta descriptions — Include keywords in your meta descriptions to encourage searchers to click through and increase visibility
Title tags — Title tags are some of the factors that search engines use to determine where to rank content. Incorporating keywords naturally in your title tags can help boost local rankings
Image tags — Another way to improve local rankings is by including relevant keywords in your image tags. Including geotags also comes with an added advantage
Headings — Users and Google value pages with clear structures. Consider creating headings within your content to capture readers’ attention and encourage them to read on. However, ensure your heading tags describe the content that comes after them well. Also, include keywords in your heading tags to help search engines understand them and their importance.
Off-page local signals
Gaining high-quality backlinks is a great way to boost credibility and trust. Backlinks refer to external links from another website to your site. Aim to have more high-quality backlinks to boost your website authority.
Ideally, having many quality backlinks shows search engines that your website or page is credible and trustworthy, which boosts the chances of ranking it higher in search engine results.
Guest posting is one of the best examples of link-building strategies you can use. Finding great guest posting opportunities provides an excellent opportunity to share your content to a new but relevant audience, which helps boost your website authority.
Another strategy you can use is to create longer and better content than what is already available on the web. When your content is high quality and relevant, it will be easier to get high-quality backlinks.
Review and social signals
Online reviews can also help boost relevance for your local business. Aim to get as many positive reviews from your happy customers as possible.
Remember, when customers perform a local search, they get not only the relevant businesses but also reviews related to the search. The more positive reviews a business has, the higher chances a potential customer will do business with them.
Closing thoughts on the local search algorithm
Ranking on top of local search results can seem daunting, but it shouldn’t when you know the vital things to focus on. As you have seen above, the local algorithm is based on three pillars: relevance, proximity, and prominence.
Of course, other factors determine local search rankings depending on your industry and competition.
