Picking the perfect landing can be hit and miss without a little testing and experience. Consider the bird in this photo – he certainly has looked around and tested a few spots. With full knowledge, he can then pick the perfect landing site to find a mouthful of food below.
Your eCommerce landing pages are no different. With some different designs and a lot of testing, you, too, can find the sweet spot for landing page optimization netting you more customers on a daily basis.
In this article, we’re going to talk about how to test different designs for better eCommerce landing page optimization. We’ll also look at some case studies and see what’s worked for others.
ECommerce Landing Pages are Important
You should almost never send campaign traffic to your website’s homepage. Why not?
Because your home page is filled with so much information. Because you want to capture your visitor’s attention, maintain it, focus it and get them to take an action. Because your home page is usually very busy with multiple links.
On a landing page, you can focus all of the attention to the desired action.
While you’re testing eCommerce landing pages, you could test different designs as well as different calls to action and decide which one works best.
Using Statistics to Gauge Success
As you redesign your eCommerce landing pages, you’ll need to use statistically valid testing methods to get a reliable analysis of your improvement. Your “gut” isn’t enough. To decide how to measure your results as well as what to measure, consider investing time in the following:
- Use Google Analytics or data from your Pay-Per-Click advertising to get a baseline. Evaluate what’s working and what could be improved upon.
- Create a conversion optimization strategy so you can gauge improvement on an on-going basis.
- Decide what you want to test and put it in order of importance.
- Design your test page variations.
- Set your testing time frames.
- Start A/B testing.
- Use expert conversion optimization resources to help you analyze your results. Compare results of your test pages to your control page.
How to Test Different Designs
We’ve put together a few tips on how to test different designs for better eCommerce landing page optimization. Follow these steps as you begin your testing:
- Test more than once. Monitor your pages and tweak them as necessary. Testing landing pages isn’t a set it and leave it project. Optimize again and again to make necessary changes.
- Match your message. If you’re sending people to your landing page from a campaign such as Google AdWords or even your Facebook page, make sure your message matches. If your campaign or Facebook page/post is about men’s pants, don’t send your visitor to a landing page about pants for all genders. Match your message to your landing page.
- Write copy that compels an action. Stay away from the “we” words and instead use active words, such as “You’ll enjoy the pants that men for generations have loved.” Create a sense of urgency in your copy. Tell them why they should act while making your copy short and to-the-point.
- Add testimonials. Social Commerce Today found that customers are twice as likely to buy when they see social media recommendations.
Case Study: Gyminee – A Page Full of Options
Their original landing page was full of choices, a plethora of text and no immediately visible call to action. The first thing they wanted to do was to remove the paradox of choice issues.
They originally had 25 above-the fold options. Once they narrowed the options to five, they saw an improved conversion rate of nearly 21% in both test one and test two.
Case Study: HighRise – The Long and Short Form
This company tested long form and short form pages to see how they could increase sign-ups. They A/B tested text heavy pages and visually appealing designs.
They learned that 37.5% more people signed up with their long form design.
Next, they tested a form page with a large photo of a woman on it. They used much less text as well. The results – a 47% increase in paid sign ups than the long form design.
Then, they decided to test the photo of the person. They tried different women and different men. Their conclusion – big photos of smiling customers work, and a specific person didn’t matter much – anyone seemed to do.
The take away with this case study is to keep testing until you find what works the absolute best. Just imagine if they had stopped with the form test…
Case Study: Figleaves – The Addition of Reviews
Figleaves improved their conversion rate by more than 35% by adding product reviews to their website. They found that customers were much more likely to purchase their women’s apparel when they could use reviews to help with their purchasing decisions.
The Take Away
Each eCommerce site is different. What works for one may not work for another and vice versa. The key to remember is to test, test and test again.
Lastly, your eCommerce landing page should fulfill the following criteria:
- Your page design and visuals should match the marketing campaign. For instance, your page should match the email design that sent the visitor to your landing page.
- Your copy and your call to action should match the landing page. For example, use the same headline in your pay-per-click ad as on your landing page.
- Your landing page must be easy for the customer to navigate, gather important information and make a decision.
- The landing page should provide a clear pathway to other pages if that is your desired action.
When you follow these tips and review the case studies, you’ll be better prepared to create and test different designs for better eCommerce landing page optimization.
If this all sounds daunting, or too time consuming, we are here to help. We are the conversion optimization experts. If you’re ready for a little conversion page “voodoo,” we guarantee your results! Contact us today. We’ll provide you with our FREE site performance analysis to help you decipher what to change and how!
Image: Don McCullough
