How to Improve Any Landing Page in Just 3 Steps

Imagine 7 years worth of conversion optimization and website building experience and knowledge. Now, imagine all that experience distilled down into a simple, repeatable process for improving any landing page, no matter the market, background or conversion goal.

That's exactly what you'll get in this post.

For our website reviews, landing page designs, themes and other content, I've spent a lot of time studying websites - both good and bad. When it comes to creating pages that convert, I've seen what works and what doesn't, over and over again.

While I can't share everything I know on this topic in a single post, we can take a look at the 3 major factors that influence how effective any web page is (whether that's a homepage, a sales page or even a blog post). After watching the video, you'll know exactly how to improving any page on any website.

The Basics of Landing Page Conversion Optimization in 3 Steps

The reason I present the 3 steps the way I do is because for most websites and in most situations, these 3 factors are the greatest levers for boosting the effectiveness of a page. These are the 3 things that do the most "damage" if you get them wrong and the 3 things that most commonly need to be improved on under-performing sites.​

Here's a quick summary:

Step 1: Improve Clarity Above the Fold

Don't worry too much about where exactly "above the fold" ends. Instead, make sure that anyone can recognize:

• What your website is about.
• What market or niche you are in.
• What you are offering/what they can get from your site.

More importantly, make sure that these things are recognizable at a glance. They should be the first things that stand out, when looking at a page. If a visitor has to scroll down and spend several minutes reading before it's clear what your website is actually about, you've failed step 1.

To learn how clear your pages really are, you can put them to the test. The 5-Second Test, to be more exact.

Step 2: Improve Readability​

Us humans are lazy, lazy creatures. And that's never more true than online, where a thousand variations of everything you can imagine are instantly available (often for free).

This is important to keep in mind when it comes to the readability of the content on your site. If it's even slightly difficult to read your content, many visitors will simply choose to leave and do their reading elsewhere.

Some factors to keep in mind:

• ​Use a clear typeface in a large enough size (my recommendation: 16px and larger).
• Use a high enough contrast of dark text on a light background. No white text on black backgrounds and no light grey text on white backgrounds!
• Avoid the "wall of text" look that comes with small font sizes, small line heights, small paragraph margins and a lack of paragraphs and sub-headings.

You can find some more examples and fixes for readability issues in our post about the big 3 conversion killers.

Step 3: Have 1 Clear Call to Conversion

​If you hope to create a high converting page, that page needs to have a conversion goal and a call to action. So much is obvious.

However, even a good conversion goal can be ineffective if the call to action is weak. And even a good conversion goal can be drowned out by too many other goals.

Too often, I see websites that overwhelm visitors with options. Effectively, the visitor is being asked to sign up to several mailing lists, share on different social networks, leave a comment, add something to their shopping cart and answer a quick question in a feedback widget... all at once.​

The more actions you call your visitor to, the less likely they are to take any of those actions (see: the paradox of choice).​

The solution is to have one clear goal on each page and as little distraction from it as possible.​

Taking it to the Next Level: the LIFT Model

If you've covered these 3 basic points on your site and want to step it up further, the next step I recommend is to apply the LIFT Model by Chris Goward from WiderFunnel.

It looks like this:​

To make this vehicle lift off, you take the following factors into account:​

Increase Relevance

​The more relevant your offer is to your audience, the better it will do. What can you change on your page to match your offer more precisely to the expectations and desires of your visitor?

Increase Clarity

How clear is it on your page, what exactly you are offering? How clear is it to the visitor, which next step they should take? The greater the clarity, the better your page will perform.​

Reduce Distractions​

This is equivalent to step 3 in my approach: make sure there are no conflicting calls to action and that you don't distract your visitor from your main conversion goal.

Reduce Anxiety

What concerns might your visitors have, that are preventing them from "pulling the trigger" on your offer? What can you do to address anxieties and objections and help your visitor feel more confident?

Add Urgency

What can you do to add a sense of urgency to your offer? The more you can transform your message from "buy me anytime" to "buy me right now!" the better your page will perform.

Putting it All Together

As you can see, there are many similarities between what the LIFT Model focuses on and what we've been writing about and building into our products for a long time.

• ​The 444 templates in Thrive Architect are all designed for increased clarity, readability and are made to focus on one conversion goal.
• With Thrive Optimize, you can add A/B testing (with automatic winner selection) directly to your WordPress pages and Thrive Architect landing pages.
• Thrive Leads comes with advanced targeting options which is the basis for increasing relevance of your offer - i.e. making your offer a better, more relevant match for your audience.
• Thrive Ultimatum gives you every tool you need to add strong and real urgency to your landing pages and offers.

With this (as well as our other tools and content), we aim to give you everything you need to improve your site's performance.

Do you have any other questions about improving your site and landing pages? Any thoughts you'd like to share about today's post? Let us know by leaving a comment!​