There's no better (and more efficient!) way to increase the return on your online marketing spend than by improving your landing pages. With that in mind, here are 7 sure-fire ways to give your landing pages an instant conversion boost.

1. Have a Clear Call to Action

Make sure your call to action is obvious as soon as visitors arrive to your landing page. Don't bury it under long copy or hide it beneath an image. Say it loud and clear: "Subscribe," "Sign Up," "Download," or "Purchase."

2. Use Benefit-Driven Copy, not Product-Focused Copy


When you click on an ad, do you want to hear all about a product's features, or all about how a product can help YOU? Make sure your headline, body copy, and bullet points focus on your visitors—not on your product or service.

3. Match the Message of Your Ad With the Message of Your Landing Page

This may sound simple, but you must fulfill the promise of the ad with the message of your landing page. If your ad promises a "50% reduction in costs," your landing page must echo that message. Think about it: If the message is powerful enough to elicit a user to click, you must expand upon that message if you want them to convert.

4. Use Trust Elements

So if you want your visitors to take action, there must be trust. Trust in your conversion process, trust in your company, and trust in your products. You can develop trust many ways, including adding trust symbols, a privacy policy, and even testimonials.

5. Keep It Simple

Keep your landing pages simple and streamlined. This includes forms, body copy, headlines, and design. After all, your visitors want to get to their goal (whether a download, purchase, or sign-up) in the shortest amount of time possible. All the fluff will just take your visitors off their intended path. Give the gorilla the banana as fast as you can.

6. Remove Navigation

Navigation is a bad way to get visitors to a landing page to convert. If you include the elements of your corporate website, such as navigation and links, on your landing pages, you'll significantly dilute the direct response you want your visitors to take.

7. Test

The great thing about landing pages is that they allow you to test the performance of your campaigns in real time. You can learn what works---and what doesn't. With a landing page testing solution, you can usually get statistically significant results within hours, days, or weeks. A/B testing helps you find out what design performs best, and multivariate testing is a great way to refine the elements (headline, subhead, hero shot) within that champion design.

Ready to take your landing pages to the next level? Join us tomorrow at noon for the PRO Seminar, "The 7 Deadly Sins of Landing Page Design" with landing page optimization expert Tim Ash.