Lander Academy: Your Landing Pages Won’t Ever Be The Same

Yesterday's Lander Academy webinar featuring Dustin Sparks was a blast! Did you have a dentist appointment? Your computer suddenly died and couldn't attend? Or you simply couldn't see the slides during the webinar? (Sorry about that). Don't worry, we've brought to you Dustin's presentation and a summary of the most important topics explained during the webinar. Also, at the end of the post you'll find Lander Academy raffle winner!

During his presentation, Dustin explained the 6 “Worst Landing Page Mistakes” he has recognized after his 15 years of experience in conversion optimization and online marketing:

1. Mistake #1 - Speaking to all visitors the same.
2. Mistake #2 - Not A/B Testing
3. Mistake #3 - Not Getting These Essential Best Practice Tactics on your Landing Page.
4. Mistake #4 - Not using a customized "Thank You" page.
5. Mistake #5 - Not turning on the "traffic faucet."
6. Mistake #6 - Not closing the loop.

Mistake #1 - Speaking to all visitors the same.

As shown in the image, visitors can be classified in the sales funnel as in the Top, the Middle or the Bottom. There are many tactics for appropriate things to apply to each of these three, especially the bottom folks, but we have to be mindful of time and don’t miss good opportunities with all our visitors.

But...what kind of visitors are in the Top, the Middle or the Bottom of the funnel?

1 Top of the Funnel

• Not sure how they got here
• Respond well to "lists" "Did you know.."
• Can be attracted through your blog, social media and SEO.

2 Middle of the Funnel

• Read the lists, have heard of you
• Follow you on Twitter or Liked your Facebook Page, or Googled you.
• Currently visit your blog.

3 Bottom of the Funnel

• Ready to buy.
• Ready to talk to someone.

4 Conversion!

Mistake #2 - Not A/B Testing

Or not comparing 2 pages to find which one performs better. Plain and simple. Testing is one of the most important parts of landing page optimization, but...how to run it correctly? And for how long?

1. Create the "variation" (B) or the alternate version.
2. Versions "A" and "B" are simultaneously tested to measure which version is more successful.
3. Evaluate results, tune and adjust accordingly. Setup the next test. Repeat.

How long do I run an A/B test?

Dustin’s answer for this common question is “every business is different”, but don’t worry, there are some tips. First, try for a minimum of 100 conversions. If it takes you 'forever' to get 100 conversions, consider reviewing the results in a month. The more visitors you have the less time you have to run your A/B tests.

How do I interpret the test results?

• Don't look at JUST sales.
• Define success metrics.
• Review all areas of improvement: Click through rates, conversions, bounce rates, pageviews.

Mistake #3 - Not Getting These 8 Essential Best Practice Tactics

1. Drop the navigation
2. Big, fat headline (your value proposition)
3. Key benefits
4. Clear call to action
5. Supporting imagery
6. Video Asset if available
7. Ratings (Crucial)
8. Reviews (Crucial)

Mistake #4 - Not using a customized "Thank You" page

Just as we told you in our post Confirmation Pages: The Conversion is Not Over, Till It’s Over, Dustin explained the importance of telling your lead/customer what to do next, what to expect. Some of the options you have with your confirmation pages are:

• Encourage them to "Connect" or "Follow You".
• Offer a Gift or Discount
• Link to Related Content
• Show them a Video

Mistake #5 - Not turning on the "traffic faucet"

You can optimize and plan but it is not a "party" until the guests arrive. You need to create traffic for your landing page to make it work...but, what’s the best way to do it? Pay Per Click tactics are the fastest way to get this traffic. Some of the tips Dustin gave on creating traffic through PPC were:

• Make ad budget decisions. Keep in mind that if you spend a tiny amount on advertising, expect your results to reflect your investment.
• Google Ads and Facebook Ads are great and have plenty of resources available & allow for excellent segmentation.
• You want to have it recurring, controllable, and stable so you can repeat it.

Mistake #6 - Not closing the loop

Suppose you are doing everything right with your landing page: messaging in place for the right "Funnel Parts", A/B Test was run correctly, you followed the essential best practice tactics, you had a great thank you page, you’ve generated recurring, controllable, and stable traffic.

But what are you doing with the visitors? You need an email service provider (ESP) like Mailchimp or Doppler to "close the loop".

Lander Academy raffle winner of a Lander Small Plan for six months is Jason DeMoe! Thanks for participating Jason! We'll be contacting you soon!

And we have another Small Plan good for six months for our blog readers and other Lander Academy atendees, so leave your comment in this post to win!

Lander team keeps working to give you a better Lander Academy training every month. We apologize for the technical difficulties we had during the webinar and promise you we are doing our best to stop having those problems. Stay tuned, Lander Academy December edition is on its way!