You could lose web visitors in an instant but don't. Find out how to make your landing pages engage and convert visitors by avoiding the top 8 mistakes. For more resources like this go to http://www.technoledge.com.au/b2b-marketing-trends

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Your landing pages must work
hard. In many cases, they’re the
first impression you give, and they
could turn visitors on or off in an
instant.
More importantly, unlike your
sales team, they work 24/7, they
don’t need praise or bonuses and
they don’t take holidays or sickies
So, you need to equip them to
work hard, as well as for long
hours. They must present well, say
the right things and be convincing.
Too.
Here are 8 common ways your
landing pages could be letting you
down—and costing you business.
1. Visual assault
Don’t use lots of colours that clash
and assault the eye, unless you’re
selling solutions to chaos or
teenage fashion.
Assuming you’re not, choose
colours and styles that are inviting and give your
message impact, but don’t go too far. If you’re selling
Document Creation software, don’t make your landing
page look like a Vogue lounge room, unless your target
market is interior designers.
2. Too much clutter
Especially on landing pages, less is more. On Home and
other pages you have more latitude. On landing pages
that must delver on key words you don’t. Keep it
focused.
Don’t fill every square centimetre with information, ads,
social media icons, affiliate banners and other
distractions. Keep it simple. Visitors don’t like clutter or
crowded spaces. More than that, they won’t know which
part to read, or which action to take (see 4). You want
one call to action only.
Tiny font size can also add to the clutter and difficulty in
reading. It just looks too hard. Make sure your font is
easy to read and the words are easy to understand.
3. Key content below the fold
It used to be that 80% of visitors didn’t scroll web pages
so it was more important to have your key text ‘above
the fold’ i.e. viewable without scrolling.
With more people viewing content on mobile devices,
scrolling is inevitable. Even so, over 60% of B2B content
is viewed at the desktop, according to the 2014 Eccolo
Media Survey1
, so if you’re marketing B2B, keeping key
content above the fold still counts, for a while longer,
anyway.
8 Fatal Landing Page Mistakes
How to lose web visitors in an instant
Caption and attribution

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4. Competing calls to action
Some landing pages are studded with buttons, from go
to our blog and download our free e-book, to sign-up
now and Buy. Don’t ask visitors to do more than one
thing at a time. Too many choices ill result in visitors
taking no action at all. The simple rule is to call for a
one action only—and make it very clear.
This is critical for landing pages which are supposed to
deliver on one key term (yet is not so for your Home
page which overviews everything). Visitors have come
looking for one thing. If they’ve found it, you need to
tell them the one thing they need to do next.
5. Weak headlines
Landing pages live or die by their headlines. Readers
won’t take the time to dig into the detail on first
glance. They’re in search mode, so you need to grab
their attention and show them you have what they
seek. Otherwise they’ll exit and keep on looking.
A strong headline will make your landing page more
effective, regardless of what else in on it. Be careful
though; the rest of the page must deliver on the
headline (which should reflect and contain your key
search term too). You can also break up text up with
more than one headline, but don’t ramble on. Keep it
simple.
6. No pictures
Images make instant impact. We’re visual beings and
the internet is a visual medium. More than that, the
right image can tell your story before a word is read.
Use attractive, engaging mages, or quirky, unusual
ones, or arresting ones. Avoid graphic images (e.g. of
death or war) unless they’re relevant to your business,
to the key term or purpose of your landing page.
As with magazines, people are first drawn to pictures
and will read the text linked to them. Make your image
relevant to the content on the page or the headline, or
use a caption in or under the image which links it to
the purpose of the page.
If visitors only look at the picture and read the caption,
you want your key landing page message to be clear.
7. Too much happening
It’s not just clutter and competing calls to action that can
detract from your landing page’s purpose. Unnecessary
music or too many animations do too.
A bit like the annoying ads you can’t avoid before the
breaking news on media sites, music and animations can
be a real turnoff. That said, you can use animations or
video very effectively.
Below is a still from a media production site, where the
video starts as soon as you land. It’s an employee (or an
actor) showing us video, using video. It’s as if he’s
speaking to us directly. Simple and effective, and the
message is clear too (even if the still looks a bit cheesy).
8. Slow loading pages
The impact of slow loading pages is instant and it’s been
known for over a decade. Yet, it still afflicts a surprising
number of websites and landing pages.
If your visitors are looking for a provider to deliver on
their key term, they won’t wait for your page to load.
They’ll move on to one that does.
In summary, keep your landing page focused, make it
easy to read and understand, avoid distractions and make
sure the next actions are clear. Good luck. ###
References
1. Eccolo Media B2B Technology Content Survey 2014