“What are the best practices for landing page optimization?” I’ve heard this question a thousand times. I wish I had a good answer, but I don’t. Or at least not a simple answer.
Every site’s target audience and traffic is different. The message is different. The goals are different. Most everything is different. So wouldn’t it also be true that the elements of the page that drives the visitor to action be different?
Generic “best practices” from a process point of view makes total sense. But to say that “a green submit button works better than orange” is just an untested myth for your site. What motivates visitors and increases conversions for one site, may actually turn-off visitors to another site. You have to be careful not to assume that the generic “best practices” will work for you.
Now, this isn’t to say that ALL generic best practices don’t have some solid data, and a good chance of working for your site, but you need to test it. NEVER assume, ALWAYS test.
It has been quite entertaining going to different seminars to hear how the color of the submit button is talked about as a definitive global end-all rule. Someone will come up front and say “after much testing we have found that green is the highest converting colored submit button by 17.6%.” And of course to bring the rimshot punch-line, “Change all of your buttons to green to see more green in your pocket. he he he.” Of course, then the next speaker has someone saying, “Red submit buttons will increase your conversions at 14.3%, etc.”
While there is a smidge of truth to SOME of this, the point shouldn’t be that X color increases your site submissions by 14.78456%, the point should be to TEST different colors on your pages. You’ll find that one color will produce a decent bump in conversions over another.
We’ll start posting some of the basics that just about everyone should be testing on their sites. Some will apply to your site, some won’t. We have a few “best practices” that will increase your conversion rate by 17.24%. Especially the green ones. 😉
