The importance of getting your landing page right

We hear it more and more…our attention spans are decreasing and decreasing fast. Some figures put it at eight seconds with a recent BBC study looking into the validity of this number. Whatever the figure may ultimately be, the reality is that we are leading increasingly busier lives and for something to be meaningful to us and cause us to act it must grab our attention pretty quickly and then keep it.

Your landing page is the first thing a prospective client will see on your website. Depending on what your business is, this could be your homepage (if you offer a service for example) or a product (or even multiple products). The purpose of your landing page is quite simply to generate business. This could be in the form of additional sales or if you are starting out it could be about awareness-raising of you and your business – this is known as the conversion rate. Ultimately what you want is for readers to click through to making contact with you to find out more, or to buy, and you want your conversion rate to be high. How do you do that?

There are a few simple things to think about when crafting a landing page:

• Be clear on what you want your landing page to say. Limit it to one or two key messages and include a call to action to encourage readers to click through and convert an initial curiosity into an enquiry or sale.
• Keep it simple. Your message must be stated simply and clearly in order to grab hold of that attention and keep it. Tell people exactly what it is you are offering and why they should choose you over the competition.
• A picture tells a thousand words. Images are emotive and if you get them right and in sync with your message they can be very effective.
• Call people to action. Possibly the most important link on your landing page, a call to action (CTA) is what will convert a browser to a buyer. Make sure it stands out clearly on the page and that it tells people what they need to do or how they can benefit by clicking on it.
• Why you? Like it or not you are not the only one selling your product or service. You may have a unique selling point or advantage over the completion but unless you shout about it people probably won’t bother to go looking for it.
• Loading time is important. No one is going to hang around waiting for your fabulous, targeted, and clearly set out homepage to load if it’s taking too long. Forget it, they’ve already moved on.
• Contact details. Your potential customers have them and you want them! Make it easy for them to hand them over by including a simple form for them to complete. Then even if they get side-tracked by something else you have another chance at grabbing their attention.

You need not worry about the details

That’s what Make Me Local is here for! With years of experience and expertise in search engine optimisation and conversion we can help you make your website do what you need it to do for your business. Get in touch with us on hello@makemelocal.com to discuss how we can help you.