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7 Landing Page Optimization Best Practices in 2024

on 30 Aug 2024, by Bogdan, in Blog, WordPress, Cloud, Guides

by Bogdan

Are you looking for the latest landing page optimization best practices to ensure your current page is reaching its fullest potential this year? If yes, this guide is here to help.

By optimizing your landing page, you can improve its ability to achieve specific goals. For example, increasing conversion rates, generating more qualified leads, boosting sales, and more.

So, after putting in all the hard work to design a highly converting landing page, let’s now fine-tune certain elements to ensure it’s performing at its peak. This article will walk you through 7 tried and tested best practices you need to know to create an optimized landing page.

We’ll cover:

Why landing page optimization is so important
7 landing page optimization best practices (with tips, success stories, and a page builder tool to design with)

Let’s begin by explaining why it is really important to optimize your landing page in the first place.

Why landing page optimization is so important

Landing page optimization (LPO) is important because user expectations constantly change and so does their behavior on the internet. These changes are largely influenced by new trends that reshape the way users interact with online content — and ultimately your landing page performance.

For instance, studies show that integrating video content on landing pages can increase conversions by up to 80%.

WikiJob increased its conversions by 34% by simply adding testimonials to a landing page. That was the only change they made! On the other hand, personalized CTAs can convert up to 202% better than default versions.

VWO found out that landing pages that use images of a real person pulled in over 161% more clicks and a 38% registration increase.

There are more trends we’ll uncover later in this article. Probably, that’s why you’re here: to find out the current best practices for landing page optimization.

Generally speaking, making targeted improvements such as refining your CTA, reducing form fields, or personalizing content can directly impact how effectively the page converts visitors. It’s not just only landing page conversion rates that will increase. Your return on investment, user experience, bounce rates, etc will also improve.

With that in mind, let’s discuss some of the latest landing page optimization best practices to try this year for more conversions.

7 landing page optimization best practices

By definition, LPO involves refining landing page elements like design, content, call-to-action buttons, user experience, and more to easily guide (or encourage) more visitors to take a desired action.

This can be signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or downloading a resource.

This is exactly what we will do in this section – how to optimize landing pages. We’ll also show you the best tool to use for your landing page design.

We’ll also share a few case studies to show you that if some of these landing page best practices worked for some people, it can also work for you.

First on this list, is changing your offer.

1. Refine your value proposition and messaging

Changing your offer means looking hard at your headline, sub-headline, and benefits to see if it's compelling enough.

By compelling we mean coming up with something different and unique; something more tangible, benefit-focused, or action-oriented than just sending them to a software trial to find their way around.

Refining your landing page copy can make your value proposition immediately obvious and help users quickly understand why they should choose your product or service.

Craft a compelling headline and sub-headline

The headline is the first and most important landing page element visitors see. Make it bold, clear, and benefit-driven if you want it to grab attention immediately. One way to do this is by clarifying your offer, for example, using an action-oriented copy like L’Axelle.

This was L’Axelle’s original headline:

This was their text headline and copy.

It is about solving a problem and earned a 38.3% conversion rate, 93% better than the original.

Source: issuu.com/coversion-optimization-case-studies (pag. 45-47)

“Put an end to sweat marks” is action-oriented and assures some relief for customers. Adding the word “end” makes it sound like they won’t get sweat marks ever again. If the headline read “Reduce Sweat Marks,” the copy might not have performed well.

If you can add a number to your headline, do so. It can improve your conversion rates. This isn’t just theory; clear and specific headlines have been shown to increase conversions by up to 30%. Tips for high-converting headlines:

The headline includes numbers (if possible). Like this one:

It focuses on the customer’s pain point: saving money on their electricity bill.

The headline is crystal clear
The headline is between 5 and 9 (or up to 18) words.
The headline has two parts – headline and sub-headline.

The sub-headline can then add more context to the main headline. For example, “Underarm sweat pads – the long duration against sweat” gives users a quick overview of what they’re getting and why it’s beneficial.

Highlight benefits with bullet points

People skim online content, so use bullet points to make key benefits easy to scan. If you’re promoting an email marketing service, your bullet points might look like this one of L’Axelle:

Note: The grammar must be impeccable.

2. Use high-quality visuals that relate to the copy

The human brain processes visual information faster than text.

It takes us just fractions of a second to absorb nearly all the information in an image. We can subconsciously decide whether to stick around a page or leave in the blink of an eye just from an image.

If you want to make an offer they can’t refuse, then adding visuals such as images and short videos to your landing pages is going to be important.

Use high-quality images

Don’t just use any photo. Use high-quality images that are real to make a point.

This is because conversion studies have shown that real images almost always outperform stock ones.

For instance, 37Signals increased their Highrise signups by 102.5% by adding a picture of a smiling person. They did other A/B tests like trying a long page with the same background vs. a short page. The long page performed worse.

Source: signalvnoise.com

Obviously, the image can be that of a product or depicting a service as well.

Augment the message with a high-quality and short video

Some people are most influenced by text, while others find audio or video more helpful. So use videos to explain how your product solves a problem instead of adding extra information to your landing page copy.

Source: conversion-rate-experts.com/moz-case-study

Basically, implementing speeches, videos of your testimonials, and product images into a landing page can have a positive impact on the visitors. At the same time, it can give visitors an extra push to look further into a product or service.

3. Understand customer pain points

Someone with a nagging problem or a challenge will always look for solutions one way or another. So, be there when your ideal customer needs you the most — by providing them a solution on your landing page.

Why is it important to address visitors’ pain points

Your landing page becomes a trustworthy and knowledgeable source when it identifies and addresses a specific problem or challenge that a potential customer faces. By demonstrating an understanding of their pain and offering a solution, you position yourself as the expert they’ve been searching for. This trust and relevance increase the likelihood of a visitor to convert.

But when you fail to understand visitors’ pain points, they’re more likely to get annoyed after they realize they’ve been let down, yet again.

How to incorporate customer pain points in your landing page

Firstly, research and identify customer pain points. It can be done through surveys, customer interviews, Google Analytics, analyzing customer feedback, and more.
Highlight the problem. Communicate the customer’s problem, issue, or concern in your headline, sub-headline, or even with an illustration.
Solve the problem. Demonstrate how you'll solve your customer's pain points. Be specific and use examples or social proof to help illustrate your point.

Let the testimonials do the selling for you. 92% of people read an online review before buying. 88% of those people trust peer reviews more than brand-sponsored messages.

WikiJob added testimonials to their landing page and increased their conversion by 34%. So, why don’t you?

Highlight benefits over features. Don’t just describe what your product does—explain how it improves the user’s life.
Create a sense of urgency by highlighting the benefits of taking action now and letting them know you’re there to help solve their problems quickly and effectively. Just be relatable and authentic.

Next up, you need to make it easy for visitors to take the desired action.

4. Change the design for maximum conversions

Sometimes it's your landing page design/layout that needs a few adjustments to help boost your conversion rates.

Combining a great headline/subheadline with relevant web design, a strong call to action, and well-placed content can dramatically increase your conversions big time.

Keep in mind that the design of a website is what drives our first impression 94% of the time.

Therefore, some of the key landing page design elements or layouts to focus on include.

Use a clear visual hierarchy

Visual hierarchy involves arranging content in a way that guides the visitor’s eye through the page, leading them towards the CTA. A good layout ensures that your most important elements like the headline, subheadline, and CTA are immediately noticeable. For this, you can use size, color, and placement to draw attention to these areas and guide the visitor's eye from one section to the next.

Underwater Audio implemented the same strategy some time ago and increased their sales by 35.6%.

Source: https://vwo.com/success-stories/underwater-audio/

Stong call-to-action buttons

The call to action (CTA) is one of the most critical elements on your landing page. A well-placed, well-designed, and action-oriented CTA can significantly boost conversions. The key is to make it stand out and clearly convey what action you want the visitor to take using the following best practices for CTA buttons.

Make your CTA button more prominent
Colors that coordinate with the message may increase conversions.

For instance, Performable found that 21% more people clicked on the red button than the green button.

Source: issuu.com/coversion-optimization-case-studies (Pg.4)

A bigger button makes for a bigger conversion rate
Be less generic and more specific with your CTA.

Optimize for mobile

Optimizing your landing page for mobile devices caters to on-the-go users. For example, make sure buttons are big enough to tap easily and the text is easy to read without zooming in. Also, consider using mobile-specific CTAs as well.

Use whitespace wisely

Whitespace refers to the empty space around elements. It can help make sure your page is clear when used wisely. This will make it easier for visitors to follow the path to conversion.

The best tool to easily achieve these design optimizations is Brizy.

Use Brizy landing page builder to design your page

Brizy is both a robust website builder and a landing page builder. It provides multiple templates and various design elements to help you create landing pages that are highly converting, user-friendly, mobile-friendly, and so on. With Brizy, you can easily adjust your page layout, experiment with different design elements, and create a visually appealing, conversion-focused landing page without advanced technical skills.

Here are two examples of optimized Brizy landing page templates you can start with depending on the type of your company:

Tip: Find out more common web design mistakes to avoid when revamping your landing page design in this guide.

5. Simplify the conversion process

When upgrading your landing page design, prioritize simplifying the conversion process.

Simplifying your landing pages will almost always increase conversions. On the other hand, overloading your landing page design with multiple options or excess information can confuse visitors.

Why?

Think of it this way: Customers want their problem solved (some are even stressed). Giving them too many options doesn't help but only makes their life more difficult than it already is. Instead, you should limit the decisions a visitor has to make on a landing page. Always aim to keep your landing page’s conversion process as simple as possible.

Some of the ways you can simplify the conversion process is to do the following:

Try to limit choices

Focus on doing one thing, and do it perfectly.

If it is to collect email addresses to build your mailing list, focus on that. If it is lead generation, focus on generating qualified leads, but don’t combine the two. You can create separate landing pages.

Just so you know, 48% of marketers create a new landing page template for each marketing campaign according to Marketing Sherpa.

Here is a good example from Indeed:

The only option visitors have is to enter an email address and sign up for the service.

Tip: Remove distractions like unnecessary links, menu items, or external ads that could divert attention away from your CTA.

Use shorter form fields if possible

There are two rules of thumb when creating forms on a landing page:

Ask for only what you need.
The “ask” should be appropriate for what you’re giving.

That means you’ll often have different form lengths depending on your objective.

But here is a catch. Cobloom found that conversion rates were highest with only one form field. This rate decreased with each additional form field. But after leveling out between four and seven form fields the conversion rates began to climb again.

Source: coBloom.com/form-fields-and-conversion-rates

In this instance, ten form fields actually saw greater conversion rates than three.

It’s fair to say that not all landing pages are created equal. Sometimes, visitors will be very eager to fill out more fields.

That’s why the next landing page best practice in our list comes in handy.

Note: There are other useful landing page designs you can test like limiting your scroll length. Or, putting the CTA button or form field above or below the fold to see if it will improve conversion rates.

6. A/B Test for continuous improvement

The idea behind this is simple — test, test, test.

A/B testing allows you to experiment with different versions of your landing page to determine which one performs better. This is before you can settle on the final design.

For example, you can compare a headline that highlights the benefits ("Boost your productivity") with one that emphasizes the features ("All-in-one time management tool") to see which one resonates more with your audience.

This helps to eliminate ineffective design choices and business decisions based on assumptions. The more frequently you test different aspects of your site, the more reliable your data will be, enabling you to focus on what really matters — the user.

MarketingExperiments.com experimented with form fields to see what happens to conversions on three different forms.

One had nine fields, the other had seven, and the last one had five.

Unsurprisingly, the shorter form outperformed the others.

MarketingExperiments.com experimented with form fields to see what happens to conversions on three different forms.

One had nine fields, the other had seven, and the last one had five.

Unsurprisingly, the shorter form outperformed the others.

Source: MarketingExperiments.com

Big note: Don’t wait until the last minute to do A/B testing. Accessing real data sooner allows you to make design changes based on what users do, not what you think they will do. Test frequently to ensure that any adjustments to your landing pages lead to improvement in your conversion rates.

7. Improve page load speed

All of these landing page best practices so far can help drive conversions.

They can contribute to getting people to do exactly what you want. Particularly, if you make them an offer they can’t refuse – it almost always dictates conversions.

But there is one improvement you can’t ignore; page loading times. It affects the user experience on your page and SEO.

Page speed is critical for conversions

Page speed directly affects page views, time on page, bounce rate, and ultimately, conversions.

A slow page can be a major conversion killer. According to Bidnamic research, conversion rates can drop by 17% for every second increase in load time, possibly costing you money and leads from customers who do stay on your page.

Unbounce makes it more crystal clear that a one-second delay in mobile load times is enough to reduce conversions by up to 20%.

According to Think with Google, when your page load time increases from one second to three seconds, the probability of bounce increases by 32%. If it rises from one to five seconds, that probability increases by 90%.

In short, every second counts.

Ways to improve your landing page load speed

Compress and optimize images. As a general rule, high-quality images can be compressed by 60% to 80%. You should never have an image larger than 1MB. So, make sure all your images are resized and compressed correctly. Using lots of images can also affect speed.
Use a content delivery network (CDN). This can increase website performance by providing content from servers closer to the user than the origin server. Images transfer much faster with this method. Cloudflare, for example, is a well-known CDN.

Brizy uses optimized and lightweight code for all landing page design elements and templates so you can design lightning-fast landing pages. You can optimize for speed further using techniques like minification, image compression, browser caching, and more.

Get to grips with these landing page optimization best practices today

Optimizing your landing page greatly increases the likelihood of converting visitors. This involves addressing their concerns, solving customer problems, and making an irresistible offer.

To improve conversions, focus on clear messaging, user experience, strategic design, page speed, and limiting choices. Keep in mind that achieving desired results requires time and thorough testing – not once or twice.

Using tools like Brizy simplifies designing landing pages that are highly converting.

It provides a range of landing page templates and options that strictly follow tried and tested tactics for an optimized landing page. They provide you with the perfect place to start from and then customize.

FAQ

What is the most important element of a landing page?

The most important element of a landing page is the call-to-action button. CTA is primarily the action you want visitors to take like signing up for a newsletter making a purchase, etc,. However, it must work seamlessly with other important elements like the headline, subheadline, and landing page copy to make visitors an offer they can’t refuse.

How often should I update my landing page?

You should update your landing page regularly to ensure it remains effective and relevant.

Monitor your landing page performance regularly
Update when your offer changes
Do seasonal or event-based updates to align your landing page with seasonal trends, holidays, or major industry events.

Continuously run A/B tests
Periodically, update with real images and device your copy to keep it current or to reflect brand updates.

What are common mistakes to avoid in landing page design?

Some common mistakes to avoid include:

Weak or hidden CTA
Too many distractions
Slow page loading times
Overloading the page with too much information or too many elements
A mobile-unfriendly landing page.

Article by Bogdan

Co-founder & Head of Design, Bogdan has a passion for everything that works great and looks awesome. Guilty for most of the UI and UX around this place, you can say "Hi" to him at bogdan at brizy dot io