Five Reasons Your Landing Pages are Failing

It’s one thing to know how important your landing pages are, but another entirely to make them work. Studies have shown that if your landing pages don’t hook readers in a matter of seconds, you’ve lost them for life. This is precisely why businesses the world over outsource SEO to third-party firms with a proven reputation for delivering exceptional quality landing pages – without them the rest of your site could be a wasted endeavour.

So assuming you know all this and do your best to play by the rules, why do your stats keep telling you that 90% of readers are deserting your site before ever getting past your landing pages?

They Can’t Find What They Want

If they can’t see the wood for the trees, they won’t ever go a step further. Roughly translated, they’ve come to your site in the first place for a reason and with a need to fill. As such, they need to know as soon as they arrive that they are in the right place and you are the right brand for the job. What this means is making it clear from the first second they arrive who you are, what you do and how you can help them. Leaving what you’ve got to say until 300 lines further down the page is pointless – you’ll have lost them already.

They’re Put Off By Its Design

Readers are always…always…turned off by sites with poorly designed landing pages. It could be blocks of unbroken text, too many images with no real meaning, poor quality photographs, an ugly and messy layout or really anything else of the sort – once they’ve decided it doesn’t look and feel to their tastes, it’s game over. Take a look at the landing pages of some of the world’s biggest companies for positive examples.

They’ve Seen Errors

You’re supposed to be an authority in your niche, so if you make any careless mistakes with things like spelling, grammar or factual inaccuracies, you can kiss goodbye to the reader in an instant. Even if the rest of your site is flawless, this is the first impression they will take with them and will most likely never come back.

They’ve Dubbed it Desperate

You need to let them know who you are and how you can help, but it’s equally important not to go OTT. Or in other words, try to steer clear of too many “BUY NOW!!!” and “QUICK BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!!!” banners surrounded by flashing icons and the like, as there’s a good chance you’ll just be seen as desperate – which is never an attractive quality in anything or anyone.

They Can’t Move Forward

And finally, it is of no use at all it hook their interest and practically close the sale in a matter of seconds, if they cannot work out how to move forward and see your other pages. Your navigation system needs to be clean, clear, obvious and simple while your contact details should be immediately visible.