Increase Conversion Rates with Optimised Landing Pages

Landing Page Optimisation and The AIDA Principle

The term ‘Landing Page Optimisation’ (LPO) is very much in vogue at the moment. This refers to the process of laying out a page of a website and its content in such a way as to maximise conversion rates (the proportion of visitors who take the desired action).

 

This method was traditionally employed by eCommerce websites to maximise sales.  However, over the years, all varieties of web masters and digital marketers have realised that creating a carefully designed user journey within a web page and exploiting the decision making process increases the chances of a user doing what you want them to – whether that be purchasing a product, subscribing to a newsletter, sharing an article et cetera.

 

So how do we apply the AIDA principle to maximise conversion rates?

[tweetable alt=””]AIDA is the term used to describe the four sequential stages of the decision making process a user goes through within the conversion funnel. [/tweetable] In this case, we’ll be exploring the AIDA principle within a vertical landing page, with the call to action below the fold.

AIDA is an acronym for : Attention, Interest, Desire, Action.

Attention

 

 

Grab the attention of your user early on with a powerful and compelling headline.   You need to be sure that you don’t lose your potential customer at this early stage so a careful choice of wording here is critical.  Less is often more as you should aim for a sense of intrigue.  Take inspiration from sensationalist headlines which grab the attention, but at the same time ensure your headline is indicative of the product or service you’re offering, or you risk alienating and losing your visitor further down the line.

Interest

In this stage you will utilise the attention of the visitor and offer further information to develop it into interest.

 

 

Including a slide-show or video provides more of an insight to what the customer may shortly acquire.  There has been a surge in the use of video on landing pages in recent years; this partly due to the decrease in the cost of video production but predominantly for the following reasons:

• Videos increase dwell time, giving you more time to communicate a message
• Videos featuring you / your product are shown to increase the trust factor significantly
• People are (apparently) lazy and prefer to watch vs. read

As a result, viewers are 64 – 85% more likely to buy after watching a video.  This means that at the Interest stage of the AIDA method, a video is perhaps the best solution.

Desire

The Desire stage is where you need to reiterate the fact that your product or service unquestionably satisfies the needs of your visitor / potential customer.

A list of features or benefits is usually the best method here, combined with some cleverly written copy which gives examples of how your visitors’ lives will be enriched and enhanced by clicking your call to action.

 

 

If you’re trying to increase subscribers to a DIY newsletter, then shout about all of the amazing tips and tricks your readers will receive to save money on expensive handymen.   If you’re selling a piece of software, how will this tool make the lives of your customers easier?  If your product / service is legitimately useful and satisfies the needs of a consumer, then the Desire stage should be very straight-forward!

Action

The final stage.  At this point, you should have a fairly substantial buy-in from your visitor.  All that’s left is for them to complete the journey and take the action we want them to.

A well-constructed call to action (CTA) is the best way to ensure you don’t lose any potential customers at this stage. The simple guidelines below will help you to optimise your CTA:

1. Use trigger words – trigger words indicate to the user what a link will do.  If you want your user to sign up to a newsletter, your trigger words in this case will be ‘Subscribe to stay up to date’.
2. Don’t hurry the user into commitment – users are instinctively non-committal, or commitment averse.  This is the reason why ‘Add to cart’ is preferential to ‘Buy now!’ for online stores.
3. Highlight the benefits – one more chance to tell the visitor what a good deal they’re getting, further increasing clicks.

 

 

Hopefully you’ll find these pointers useful for crafting the perfect call to action! If you’d like more help or advice in optimising your digital marketing, please feel free to say hello or visit our conversion rate optimisation page!