Demand Generation
The B2B Marketer’s Guide to Landing Page Optimization

The B2B Marketer’s Guide to Landing Page Optimization

January 14, 2021
5 min read

As every B2B marketer knows, getting traffic to your website is only half the battle. You also have to make sure that those visitors actually do something when they land on your site – this is where landing page optimization comes in.

Optimizing your landing pages means making the most of the traffic you already have. These visitors have already shown they have some kind of interest in your business by clicking through to your content so now you have to convince them to stick around for longer.

Spending some time on landing page optimization will decrease your bounce rate, increase your conversions, and decrease your lead acquisition costs, which in turn will increase the ROI of your marketing campaigns.

The effect of on-page optimization is immediate and with a period of testing and continual improvement, you can see even more improvement.

Quick Takeaways:

  • Landing pages targeted at a specific audience can maximize your conversions when designed well.
  • Simple landing pages are best to draw attention to your CTA
  • Landing page builders can help you to design well-converting landing pages as well as testing and optimizing them.

What is a Landing Page?

Source: https://unbounce.com/landing-page-articles/landing-page-best-practices

Before we get into the specifics of what you can do to optimize your landing pages, we should make clear exactly what we’re talking about.

A landing page is not just the homepage of your website or any random page. It’s a very specific type of page that you send traffic to directly and is set up for a specific goal such as collecting email addresses.

Most landing pages do not have menus and other navigation to other parts of your site. Instead, the traffic will be funneled to a CTA, such as signing up to your mailing list, making a purchase, or requesting a quote.

It’s not a good idea to use your website homepage as a landing page because it’s designed for the needs of every web visitor and there are too many options. A visitor landing on your homepage might click through to read one of your articles without completing the desired action, or might simply not know where to go and click the back button.

When you create your landing page, you design it so the required path of action is very clear and there are no distractions or other links that might lead the user away from the desired action.

Landing Page Optimization Tips

Keep forms simple

Most landing pages will have some kind of form to collect the details of visitors. While it can be tempting to try and collect as much information as possible about prospects, the longer and more complicated a form is, the higher the likelihood it will be abandoned.

Keep your forms simple and the fields minimal. At the bare minimum, you can collect only email addresses so that the user only has one box to fill out.

Research by Quicksprout shows that forms with three fields achieve the optimum conversion rate of 25% and this conversion rate decreases as the number of form fields increases.

If you really think you need to collect more information, it’s worth testing different versions of your forms so you can see the tradeoff between collecting more information for each lead and collecting more leads.

Show social proof

You have to earn trust before people are willing to do business with you. One way you can show you’re worthy of that trust is by including ratings, reviews, testimonials, and logos of your existing and past customers on your landing page.

It’s particularly important to include this social proof if the purpose of your landing page is to lead directly to a sale.

Simplify your design

It can be tempting to try and squeeze as much information into your landing page as possible. After all, you want to try to convince potential prospects about how great your offer is. But in the world of landing pages, less is almost always more.

Try to keep key information concise, using bullet points and short paragraphs so it’s easy to scan.

Make sure your main CTA is visible above the fold so the user doesn’t need to scroll to get to it. The portion of your landing page that’s above the fold should summarize your offer. You can then expand on more details and features further down the page.

You should also remove any unnecessary design or navigation elements like menus. There’s only one purpose for a landing page – to drive conversions. You don’t want to be sending traffic to other pages on your site.

Landing Page A/B Testing

If you follow the key advice for designing a landing page as detailed above, you should be off to a good start.

But to get the most out of your landing pages you need to continually test and optimize.

Changing something as simple as the color of your CTA or the wording of your main heading could have a significant impact on your conversion rate. This is why testing is so important. Companies that saw an improvement in their conversion rates over the last year are using 50% more tests on average to improve their conversion rates.

Landing page builders such as Leadpages, Unbounce, and Instapage offer pre-built templates that are designed using landing page best practices.

These platforms also have A/B testing built-in, so you can experiment with different variations of your landing page and see how changes affect your conversion rate.

Some also offer AI-powered automatic optimization. These intelligent tools will dynamically build your landing page for each visitor based on the behavior of previous visitors.

3 Examples of Great B2B Landing pages

It’s all very well explaining the theory of great landing pages but it’s even better to look at some concrete examples. This will guide you when it comes to putting what you have learned into practice.

These B2B brands have been successful in building landing pages that not only look great but also drive a high number of conversions.

DivvyHQ

Content marketing software company DivvyHQ doesn’t beat around the bush with a vertical-focused, campaign landing page that appeals directly to their target audience.

The hero area includes key benefits, a simple form, and the main site menu is removed to eliminate any other exit paths from the page.

If you’re not convinced at first glance, you can scroll down to see client logos within their target vertical, a promo of their recent industry awards, and some targeted content resources for those who might not be ready to buy.

Campaign Monitor

Minimal does not mean ineffective. Email marketing software company Campaign Monitor states their offer clearly and draws all attention to the email collection form.

If you scroll down the page, you’ll see more features and testimonials, but the navigation menu featured on the rest of the site is replaced with only a “Try it for free” button.

SEO Sherpa

Search engine optimization company SEO Sherpa keeps its main navigation on their landing page but also includes a prominent CTA button.

As well as an eye-catching image, they use the prime above-the-fold real estate to name-drop some of their biggest clients and awards.

Optimize Your Landing Page Conversions with Great Content

A well-designed landing page may convert well but you can increase conversions even more if the prospect is already aware of your brand and familiar with your content.

If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content published consistently, check out our Content Builder Service.

Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today — and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

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Michael Brenner

Michael Brenner is an international keynote speaker, author of "Mean People Suck" and "The Content Formula", and Founder of Marketing Insider Group. Recognized as a Top Content Marketing expert and Digital Marketing Leader, Michael leverages his experience from roles in sales and marketing for global brands like SAP and Nielsen, as well as his leadership in leading teams and driving growth for thriving startups. Today, Michael delivers empowering keynotes on marketing and leadership, and facilitates actionable workshops on content marketing strategy. Connect with Michael today.

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