How to evaluate a landing page before launching advertising

When a site receives a large volume of paid traffic, there is a risk that all efforts to attract users may be in vain due to a poor landing page. As a result, advertising money is wasted and the company loses a lot of potential customers. We'll tell you what you can do with your landing page to make it effective and start bringing more conversions.

First screen

This is the part of the landing page that the user sees first immediately after clicking on the ad. This part of the landing page receives the most attention. The further behavior of the potential client depends on how attractive and informative it is. He may want to scroll down the page or leave the site immediately. On the first screen you need to place a catchy marketing text that will show the advantages of the advertised product and create a desire to scroll further.

It is important that a person is isolated from any distracting factors (website catalog, “similar products” block) and is surrounded by information only about the target product. For example, characteristics, main benefits, pain relief, use cases, etc. You don’t need to apply all of the above at once. First, you should determine what will have a better effect on the visitor in your case.

The first screen clearly and clearly conveys the value of the offer to the person. Pay special attention to these elements:

1. Title. Short, transparent, precise, hitting the client's pain;

2. Company name, logo. The presence of these elements on the site increases confidence in the seller;

3. Image. Shows the product face to face, convinces the user that he ended up exactly where he expected when clicking on the advertisement;

4. USP. Explains clearly why you need to buy this particular product or order this service;

5. Action buttons. The user must immediately be given a tool to communicate with the company. This could be ordering a call, making an independent call, switching to instant messengers, etc. Some people are ready for conversion right away, you don’t need to make them wait.

Usability

The process of optimizing a landing page has long been primarily focused on making it convenient for the visitor to use all the presented functionality. The better the page is designed, the higher the chance that a person will convert. The landing page should not be confusing; there is no point in overloading it with unnecessary text and graphic content. When analyzing usability, pay attention to several factors, which we will describe below.

1. No barriers to viewing content. There is no need to make registration on the site mandatory. It will almost certainly scare away the visitor. The reason may be either a reluctance to share personal data or simple laziness. It is advisable to leave the information transfer stage until the order is placed.

2. Clear website structure and menu. It is worth working on the names of the sections of the site so that the user can easily navigate.

3. Adding filters to the catalog. Companies with a large assortment need to add filters so that the user can more easily and quickly select the right product.

4. Adding internal search. The user should be able to quickly get to the product he needs.

5. Mobile version. You can develop a mobile application or make an adaptive layout so that the page is conveniently displayed on smartphones and tablets.

6. Cross-browser compatibility. The site should open correctly in any existing browser. To check, you can use, for example, Browserling or Adaptivator services.

Content

Right before launching an advertising campaign, it is imperative to check whether the landing page is available. If a user sees a 404 error after clicking on an ad, he will not only immediately close the page, but will also acquire a negative prejudice towards the advertised site. To avoid this situation, you can enable the “Domain Monitoring” option in Yandex Direct. The system will automatically turn off ad serving if it detects that the home page is unavailable. The problem is that the main page is not always the landing page, so impressions will continue if the main page is working and the landing page starts showing 404. As a result, the money will still be wasted.

You should also make sure that the page content includes the following points:

1. Conversion buttons. On the pages of products and services there should be buttons “Buy”, “Leave a request”, “Order a call”, etc. You need to check that they are in visible places and stand out from other elements. You shouldn’t place them unusually; it’s better to follow the patterns of other online stores. A person may leave the site if he does not find the conversion button in the usual place;

2. Order form. It is important to make it as simple as possible. It is worth asking only the most necessary information;

3. Service information. This concept includes payment, delivery, guarantee, etc. It is important to present information briefly and transparently;

4. Prices. The cost should be final if the specifics of the business allow it;

5. Visual content. Photos, videos, graphics, and other media help drive conversions. They show the product and talk about its advantages. It is desirable that the pictures do not contain watermarks and the user has the opportunity to enlarge the images (for this they must be in high resolution);

6. Contacts. Contact information should be placed in a visible place. It is important that managers process requests quickly.

Web analytics

It is imperative to study your advertising campaigns in order to give them an objective assessment. Let's divide the process into stages.

First stage. We connect services for web analytics: Yandex Metrica, Google Analytics.

Second stage. We set up the necessary goals in the counters to track targeted user actions.

Third stage. We check the set goals. You can do this yourself or contact a specialist.

You can also use the built-in Yandex Metrics tool – Webvisor. It records the details of the visit and allows you to watch them in the form of a video: you can see how the cursor moved, what elements on the page the user interacted with, and at what point he left. This information will allow you to detect vulnerabilities on the landing page: broken buttons, boring places in the content, etc.

An important metric that needs to be checked periodically is page loading speed. If the indicator is less than 5 s, everything is fine. If it is more, then there is a risk of getting many refusals. The user is rarely willing to wait a long time for the page to load. He's more likely to leave the site. To reduce loading speed, you can disable some dynamic elements (scripts, plugins) and check the quality of your hosting if pages continue to load slowly.

The advertising itself can be analyzed in the ecosystem click.ruif you work through it. The dashboards contain indicators for all campaigns available in a single account (contextual advertising, targeting, Avito, etc.). For example, you can look at the current CTR, CR, CPC, CPA, and evaluate how effectively goals are achieved.

Conclusion

Try to put yourself in the buyer’s shoes and analyze the landing page from their point of view. You need to understand how convenient, simple and attractive the page is. After such a subjective analysis, it is important to study statistics that will provide objective data.

A good landing page should motivate a purchase and not waste your advertising budget. Optimize it and get the most out of your promotion.