8 Landing Page Mistakes that Could be Costing You Sales

Posted by Kenneth

So you might have designed an aesthetically pleasing landing page that gives you a lot of visitors. But if you are not making money from it, you might be doing something wrong with how you built your landing page.

Well, it can be challenging to know what causes a landing page to underperform. Fortunately, there are a couple of landing page mistakes that a lot of businesses can avoid, mistakes that sabotage your results, and cause your sales to drop.

Website on a laptop

No unique selling proposition

Your landing page is the best place to educate site visitors on what makes you different from your competitors. However, a lot of businesses make the mistake of going ahead for conversion.

To avoid that, you should first focus on showcasing your unique selling proposition.

Why would a site visitor purchase your product or sign up for your email list?

If you want your website visitors to download an ebook, you might as well as explain what they can get out of it. If you want them to purchase a product, then do not forget to explain the benefits of your product.

Doing so allows you to convince your audience to take your desired action.

Multiple or no calls-to-action

Ideally, your landing page should have one goal in mind ‒ to convert visitors.

When there are numerous call-to-action on your page, what you're doing is to convert them from your main message.

A CTA, along with a compelling copy on your landing page, makes the user's path to conversion simple, clear, and intuitive.

Poorly written copy

A copy is one of the most powerful things that could make or break your landing page. Right from the headline to your content, your copy should address what it can do for the reader.

Ideally, it should spell out the main points to the reader and carry on right at the very end. Your copy should also reflect the benefits of a service. It should tell visitors what's in it for them.

The effectiveness of your CTAs can also be significantly reduced because of the following reasons:

  • It isn't visible: In your CTA button and the entire landing page, try out contrasting colors. Don't be afraid to make necessary changes so that it's more eye-catching and incredibly hard to ignore.
  • You chose the wrong words: Ideally, your CTA should be easy enough to understand, as well as compelling enough for someone to take action. Use action words and try to be direct. Reinforce CTAs through supporting statements, reminding visitors why they should act now, as well as what will be the benefits if they do.

Too many distractions

Your landing page might be filled with unnecessary details. So, try to minimize the distractions!

The only thing that you need is to make your prospect take your desired action, which is to purchase your products.

Clean and simple design without the clutter is what will push a prospective customer to act. Too many navigation links, social media icons, and widgets are a few web design elements that you might want to consider removing when creating a landing page.

Using irrelevant images

An image that is well-placed on your landing page will give context, as well as convey what you want to your website visitors.

Poor quality images like pixelated or irrelevant stock photos will reflect on your brand poorly, making your offer less enticing.

For the best results, your landing pages should:

  • Show how your products and services are used.
  • Provide people a much better understanding of how the product works, as well as what they can achieve when they use it.
  • Highlight the results so that most of your prospects can picture themselves using it.

Slow page loading speed

You might think that page speed isn't critical to your landing page's success, but it is. If your page doesn't load within 5 seconds, 74% of visitors will leave.

That's why the best brands and companies in the world are focusing more on how they can trim down their landing page’s loading time.

Ideally, your landing page should fully load within three seconds. Otherwise, half of your traffic will be gone.

Not optimising for search engines

Just like how you optimise your content and website copy for search engines, you should also adopt the same practice on your landing page.

If you're a startup with not much budget to spend on paid search campaigns, then make sure you use search engine optimisation best practice on your landing pages so they show up on the top of organic search results.

Before writing your headlines, product descriptions, and the likes, make sure that you conduct keyword research. And then incorporate these keywords in your content. That way, your landing page has a fighting chance to rank on search engine results.

Sure, you have a well-designed and well-thought-out landing page, but it will be useless if you can’t make it rank.

Lack of social proof

Social proof, otherwise known as recommendations from others, will show how strong your reputation is and that your brand is trustworthy. Doing so can lead to an increase in conversions through your landing page.

This should be actual content from customers, influencers, or celebrities who have used your products or services. By showcasing real people with their names, functions, and pictures, your landing page will look friendlier and a lot less intimidating.

After all, it can be challenging to convince a potential customer to take what you can offer if they will only rely on your words. Thus, the more well-known the person is, the more credible your social proof will be.

Over to You

Now that you already know the landing page mistakes that you should avoid, there is no excuse in committing them over and over.

By avoiding these biggest landing page mistakes that are costing you sales, you will be on the path to landing more conversions. It is high time to get those conversions up to improve your business results.