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.
