To trap or not to trap, that is the question

All about creating a Website your visitors won't wander from

Many landing page best practices dictate that you trap your visitors inside your landing page and not allow navigation to other pages within your Website. The logic here is that you are after a conversion, so keep the visitor focused on converting rather than letting them wander around and forget to provide you with their info before they leave your site.

While the trapping technique can be quite effective for some advertisers, we’ve seen it result in complete failure for others. How to know what to do? Here are some simple criteria you can use to determine whether or not trapping your visitor will bring you the highest conversion results.

When trapping is not likely to work:

Your product offering or market space is not well-known. Do you have a new type of product or service that you are trying to sell? In this case visitors need to learn more about your offering before they will be ready to fork over their contact details or make a purchase. Your website should serve as an educational vehicle to help them understand what you do and how it will help them. Guide them through this educational process through your site with a strong emphasis on conversion along the way.

Your brand is not a known. Are you the new kid on the block? Are you the smaller, local guy trying to compete with bigger well-known national brands? In this case your website needs to be a credibility building vehicle. People are not likely to give you any information until they know they can trust you. Help them get to know you and why you are reputable throughout your website pages. Comparisons, testimonials, awards, as seen ins can all be helpful here.

Multiple offerings or conversions are available. Sometimes it’s good for you to have your visitors wander around. The more they wander, the more they are likely to buy or the more conversion opportunities that exist. Also, if you have multiple offerings for them to sign up for it that are all standard, it’s good to let them gather this information and choose the package that’s right for them. So use your website as an up-selling vehicle and let them wander and spend.

Your website facilitates the full conversion process. If you have an e-commerce site, or your website is built to facilitate the purchase of what you are offering, let the user wander around to gather all the information they need, select what they would like and complete their transaction. Some examples here include ecommerce sites and hotels.

When trapping is effective:

You have a commonly known product. If people know what they want and are familiar with your product or service, they are likely just looking for the best provider for them. In this case they don’t need to comb through your website to figure out what you have to offer. It’s more important to focus on the conversion when they first land.

You are a known, trusted brand. If visitors already know who you are, they don’t need the rest of your site to find out if they like you or you are trustworthy. In this case too it’s worthwhile to keep the visitor focused on converting right there on the landing page.

Your best sales are done via phone. If your Website isn’t your best sales vehicle, but is rather focused on lead generation, it’s best to focus on capturing your visitors contact information so you can follow-up with your more successful sales tactic of direct contact.

Your conversion doesn’t capture sensitive information. If you aren’t asking for any sensitive information, but are just seeking an email or phone number maybe with some form of free information provided in return, you can be very successful trapping your visitors and keeping them focused on providing this info before they move on.

What Makes a Successful Page Trap?

You’ve got one page to engage, convince and capture. Your visitor can’t be longing for more or unsure after viewing the page, so what do you need to include here to be successful?

Engage visitors and highlight your most prominent value in large font. Show them that you understand them and have the answer for them.
Short / Concise Info Capture. Only ask for the pieces of data that you absolutely need. The shorter the form, the more likely visitors are to complete it.

Testimonials and Awards. Provide as much credibility as possible in this small space – testimonials and awards can go a long way on the trust factor.

High-Level Comparisons. Providing quick info around why you are the best can go along way to help solve the question of what provider the visitor should use. It will also help you to frame how the visitor examines your competitors.Samples of your work, or results they are likely to expect, or what they will experience can go a long way in providing the visitor with some comfort and some excitement about working with you. The more visual, the better here.

Always offer an out from a page trap through your company logo. Even on a technically trapped page, there should always be a way to get to your Website if the visitor really feels the need to. The most common way to handle this is for your company logo to be a link to your website.

One last piece of advice: always test. Test, test, test. If you think one strategy might be good, test it against a control and carefully track the results. Only through consistent, rigorous testing can you be assured that you’ve got the right landing page strategy at work for your business.