I had an amazing opportunity to attend HubSpot’s Inbound Conference 2012 in Boston this August. The variety of topics and mixture of focused and passionate speakers made the whole experience well worth the trip. They have easily provided Get Talked About (GTA) an array of discussion topics that are relevant to the marketing challenges we face right now. It is up to us to turn each challenge into a meaty opportunity.
One marketing challenge is your landing pages have problems. A landing page is a website page with a form used for lead generation, and your home page is typically the most visited landing page on your website. Tim Ash, CEO of SiteTuners, led a Brakeout Session declaring, “Your baby is ugly.” Hey, Designers! Your beautiful landing page is not converting. The lack of conversions may very well have to do with a few of Tim Ash’s 7 Deadly Sins of Landing Page Design:
- Unclear Call-to-Action
- Too many choices
- Asking for too much information
- Too much text
- Not keeping your promises
- Visual distractions
- Lack of trust
GTA see big brands creating these sinful designs on the front page of their website over and over again. What am I supposed to do? Where am I supposed to go? Take the hotel industry, for example. Many hotel websites look eerily similar to one another, and a lot of them miss the boat with a clear call-to-action.
Mmm nice supple drink. Now what? People need to be told what to do.
Clink-Clinkity-Clink. CLUNK! Users don’t want to have to think while they are online. Guide the user through simple steps through an obvious call-to-action.
Below is an example of a hotel in Chicago that may have escaped the 7 deadly sins is the Public Hotel. The call-to-action is clear against the solid white background. A dark grey button is telling you to “Book Now”. The large images are beautiful, but are not overtaking the call-to-action. Little text is being used and they are gaining trust through testimonials that are scrolling along with each photo. Could the testimonials use Travel & Leisure Magazine’s logo for more trust? Sure! But this hotel is keeping their website simple for their potential customers.
How can this be an opportunity for your business? GTA has the ability to create multiple versions of a landing page and A/B test. We use more than one analytic tool to measure their results giving us the opportunity to design you smarter landing pages that work for – not against – your potential customers.
Would you like us to fine tune your landing pages? We offer a free Inbound Marketing Assessment!
