How to Optimize Your Landing Pages to Improve Your SEO

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Optimization is something that every business with an online presence goes through. Landing pages are a great place to implement optimization because they are so closely related with the number of conversions your business will get.

What is landing page optimization?

Landing page optimization is the process of improving your landing pages in ways that will increase your conversions and improve your SEO scores. This isn’t just redesigning or changing up your landing pages, optimization is more of the science of making small changes to target areas to improve and enhance an already successful campaign. Remember that optimization isn’t something that happens overnight, in most cases optimization takes place over an extended period of time through making small changes and observing the improvements that result from the changes made.

You may know that something is wrong and that your page could use improvement, but that doesn’t mean that you should change everything. In fact, a lot of people make that mistake. They know that something needs improvement, so why not improve everything, right? Wrong. Focus on one change at a time. The changes you make may not actually improve your page, which is why only changing one thing at a time to fully understand what is helping and what is hurting your business is so important. Below are 11 ways that you can work on improving your landing pages. These are not the only things that you can improve, but they are the most universal and the best place to start when approaching landing page optimization.

11 Ways You Can Improve Your Landing Pages to Boost SEO and Increase Conversions

Make your offer clear

This step probably seems obvious but we’re going to talk about it anyways. What are you offering? Is it a product, a service, or something in between? Making your offer as clear as possible is very important. Not only will your users not make a purchase if they’re unsure of what they’re buying, but Google won’t show your ads to as many people if it can’t tell what you’re selling. Keeping your offer at the top of the page to clearly show what you’re selling and what the customer will receive will boost your SEO and increase conversions. Don’t hide prices or make it difficult to figure out what the customer will get if they go through with the purchase. A lot of online sales happen in a split-second decision, if your offer is unclear or difficult to understand most people just won’t stick around and will try out the next website’s offer. If you’re unsure of whether or not your offer is clear enough it could probably use some work. Check out the competitions’ landing pages and take notes on how your own could improve.

Simplify your landing page

Your landing page has one purpose: to bring in conversions. Don’t over-complicate it. Adding in unnecessary information or making your landing page too busy and hard to follow is a sure-fire way to lose customers. You don’t want your page to be visually uninteresting, but you want to keep it as simple and straight forward as possible. Your users are interested in your product, and you are interested in selling it. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t include information on your landing page, any relevant information regarding the product should be included. Just remember to keep it short and sweet, your users don’t want to read an article just to finalize a purchase.

Try contrasting colors

Contrasting colors can be a great tool to use, especially when it comes to buttons or images that you want to particularly stand out. Contrasting colors draw peoples’ eyes and keep your page looking interesting without making it too busy. If your landing page is looking a little too monotone or uninteresting play around with the colors and see how you can make elements pop.>

Make sure the important info is above the fold

The fold is an old newspaper saying that refers to the point above where the newspaper folds over, the part that is instantly visible. In internet terms, this refers to the point at which your screen cuts off the rest of the article. This is the fold. The information and images placed above the fold are the most important when it comes to convincing a user to stay on your page. Users don’t want to scroll down to find the product they’re looking for, they want it to be directly in front of them. Make sure all of your most important info, such as the product image, a CTA button, and a short description of the product, are placed in this area above the fold. Remember that the area above the fold will look slightly different on varying screen sizes so make sure to double check that your information translates properly on different screen sizes.

Use scarcity technique

Scarcity techniques are a marketing tool that utilize language such as “limited time only” or “just 2 left!” to convince you to go through with the purchase. If people are convinced that the product will not be around forever, they will be less inclined to think about it and come back later and more inclined to make an immediate purchase out of fear of missing out. This also works with coupons or sales, putting a deadline on when customers can get a product for a certain price makes them much more receptive to making a purchase that day.

Keep your CTA buttons simple

Keep your CTA buttons short and sweet. They should only be a couple of words, maximum. Stick to phrases like “Buy Now” or “Join Today”. Buttons that are only two to three words will be significantly more effective than buttons that have more text. Just like with everything else on your page, your users are in a hurry. You want to make it as easy and as painless as possible to reach the checkout process.

Make sure you have contact information

Your landing pages may not be a part of your main site but they still need to include all of your contact information. This is something that Google looks at far more than your users will, but it needs to be there. Put it in the header or footer where it’s out of the way, but make sure that on every landing page you include your company contact information.

Try different headlines

Headlines are a huge factor in SEO scores and on traffic to your site. If your headline doesn’t garner interest or attract attention, then no one will click on your link. Similarly, if your headline differs from the content on your web page Google will bump it down to avoid showing people low quality results. Remember to not change everything at once, slow and steady wins the race and sometimes all you need is a different word or two to get the job done.

Be consistent

Remember how we talked about Google not liking it if your headline and copy don’t match up? That’s important. Really important. Don’t stray from your main topic and make sure your web page is consistent. If your landing page is all about a particular high heeled shoe, there shouldn’t be a large section on men’s sneakers. It just doesn’t fit. Keep your topic in mind and make sure your page is consistent with your headline and your product.

Use testimonials or reviews

Testimonials and reviews can be huge when it comes to convincing an unsure buyer to purchase your product. These can be comments, videos, pictures, or anything else that shows the product being used by a real customer. Don’t fake these, they have to be genuine and may take a bit of time to collect in the beginning but are more than worth it in the end. These should be placed further down on your page, don’t let them interfere with the product info you are giving to your users.

Try an exit popup

Exit popups can be a great tool. You may think they’re annoying, but they don’t have to be! Things like offering a coupon in exchange for an email sign-up or reminding your user about a sale that’s about to end can help them reconsider leaving the page. The promise of spending less money is a strategy that almost everyone will fall for and using an exit popup to introduce a coupon or remind users of a sale is a way to keep them on the page a little bit longer without them feeling trapped or annoyed.

Commonly Asked Questions

How do I know if my landing pages are performing well?

If your campaigns are performing well in every other aspect: keywords and ads have a high CTR, your spend is low, but you’re still not getting conversions, it could be a sign that your landing pages are not performing well. To figure out if this is truly the case go back to your research. Look up your top competitors’ websites and see how their landing pages compare to your own. Based on this research, learn what your landing pages could improve upon and make changes to see if it then improves your conversions.

What should my budget be?

While it greatly varies between different business and different campaigns, I tend to set most of my campaigns at a starting budget of $5. I watch my new campaigns closely and if they perform well, I might raise the budget. However, if they do not perform well, I make sure to quickly fix the problem or lower the budget if the campaign is hurting the overall account.

How do I know if my campaign is performing well?

While what is considered “good performance” greatly varies from business to business, there are a few things to look for when you’re first getting started. A CTR (click through rate) of 2% or higher is considered a good interaction rate with your website, and anything below a 1% is very bad. When looking at conversions, the best tool to use is the Conversion Value/Cost. This calculates your ROAS (return on ad investment) and a ROAS higher than 4 is generally considered good.