Originally featured on IonInteractive.com (Thanks, Jessica)

Landing page friction is a known conversion killer and a major cause of high bounce rates—but what exactly contributes to friction on your landing pages? How do you ensure that certain page elements are not adding friction and causing your visitors to slip away?

Factors that can lead to landing page friction

  • Long page load times
  • Unexpected video or audio (Brice: “Especially auto-playing media.”)
  • Inconsistent use of font sizes & colors
  • An imbalance of copy and images
  • Long forms (Brice: “We frequently dispute this claim.”)
  • Relevancy
  • Validation patterns
  • Long or complex pages

5 simple ways to eliminate landing page friction

Reduce content by keeping the most relevant copy above the fold. Test different layouts for high-content experiences: microsites, tabbed content, and rotators or slideshows are all great ways to organize content in a digestible manner.

Manage form complexity by only asking your visitors for what’s absolutely necessary to convert. If your organization requires many fields for a particular offer, try testing multi-step forms or using progressive profiling forms for longer buying cycles.
Brice: “We’ve actually found in many cases that asking MORE questions that (a) are highly relevant, and (b) give the visitor a sense that their answer will get them a step closer to what THEY want will convert visitors at a higher rate than short forms.

Create highly-targeted experiences by ensuring a tight “message match” between your ad copy and landing page. You can also test dynamic content substitution on your page by substituting dynamic variables for keywords or location.

Keep your visitors focused by using visual cues that direct attention towards your call-to-action. Eliminate any micro-conversions that distract from your primary conversion goal, and instead delegate these links to your confirmation page.

Keep it simple by building intuitive landing experiences and reducing the number of clicks needed to convert. While complex widgets can be useful in certain circumstances, in general the simpler the interactivity, the quicker you’ll gain a response.

 

Oops! We could not locate your form.