More than half of online shoppers worldwide say that they use mobile devices to search for new brands and products. Browsing from your mobile device gives you an additional layer of convenience, as you can do it on the go, wherever and whenever you like. This only shows how smartphones and tablets have been continuously taking traffic from desktops since the day they emerged on the scene. However, desktops still beat mobile devices in terms of conversion. Mobile devices so far remain predominantly just browsing tools. We discussed multiple reasons for this kind of power ratio in one of our previous posts. Still, one of the main reasons is mobile landing pages and their inability to capture conversions easily.
A landing page is a web page with a call to action that appears when you click on a search result, an online ad, or a link from your friend. Good landing pages are those that help your business more easily achieve its business goals and secure conversions. They are, after all, designed to encourage people to take action. That, in a way, is the essence of any online marketing or PPC strategy. If you are not happy with the number of conversions you get from your mobile landing pages, we suggest sticking with us till the end of this post, as our web development company in Chicago explores some of the best practices for you to implement to boost your conversion rates.
Create a separate mobile landing page
Browsing the web from a mobile device can, at times, be troublesome. Despite having the convenience of searching the web from the palm of your hand, the frustratingly poor functionality of some web pages can completely ruin the experience. Think about load times that last infinitely, excessive text that takes up just too much space and can’t be avoided, counter-intuitive navigation, and so on. Not only does it frustrate the user, but it also dismisses potential conversion opportunities. So what can you do about that?
Instead of making your landing pages “responsive” or “mobile-first,” consider making separate landing pages for your mobile searchers. The problem with responsive design is that those kinds of pages, as responsive as they are, are still made with resized desktop elements, not innately mobile, and mobile users browse websites differently than desktop users. Even the flow of the page is created for desktop users. This is why you need to customize your landing pages for each device that may be used to create an immersive user experience across platforms. If resources do not permit creating specialized mobile landing pages, you should utilize different CSS classes so that the mobile experience can dramatically differ from the desktop experience and secure more value for your business.
PayPal’s mobile landing page is an excellent example of a job done well. Their focus is on the two buttons, Menu and Log in, keeping it different from their desktop landing page. It perfectly eliminates the need for mobile visitors to scroll through the entire page to find the information they are looking for. Keep it simple and clear; you are looking at a much smaller screen, after all. Having the web on the palm of your hand doesn’t limit your possibilities but does exclude any unnecessary complexities.
Use click-to-call
Your contact information needs to be easily accessible on your page. This means using a click-to-call button that is easy to spot and big enough to click. If your mobile users need information they can’t find, they will look for an easy way to contact you. Nothing sums up the unique possibilities of a mobile device better than contact with a click of a button. Or a tap on the screen, to be more precise. This button is easy to implement on your WordPress site using the WP Call Button plugin. It works well with Classic Editor and, if you are using Gutenberg, you can do it with the built-in WP Call Button Block. It seamlessly integrates with all top business phone services across the world and works with other popular WordPress plugins such as WPForms, Elementor, WooCommerce, etc.
Implement click-to-scroll
In case users want to browse through your inventory or read something on your site, implementing the click-to-scroll button is mandatory. This means setting up navigation buttons that a user can click to take them to a long scrolling page. Nobody likes scrolling for too long to get to their goal, not on desktops and especially not on mobile devices. Enable your users to get straight to the point. Implementing this button can reduce your bouncing rate by 37%.
Use sticky headers and footers.
Trello did a great job with its sticky navigation letting visitors find what they are looking for 22% faster. Once again, this is a good example that time-saving and effort-saving features are always appreciated by users.
Use mobile-optimized popups
If used correctly, popups can be a great addition to your conversion rate optimization strategy. Not only have they shown to be quite effective in converting, but they also amount to an amazing two-thirds of all conversions. The most effective popups have conversion rates that stand close to 10%. To collect leads effectively, you need to make sure they are optimized for mobile. This means keeping them as simple as you can, matching them to your mobile landing page size, and providing an easy way for visitors to close them or opt-out. It is a good idea to limit your form to as few fields as possible, or just an email address, as you can always ask for additional information later.
Craft shorter copy
Your mobile landing page should be a shorter version of your desktop page. This is not the place to be descriptive. Instead, just lay out the facts and key points of your offer that the visitor should know. It is important to get to the point right away while being as colorful as possible to avoid the bounce rate increase. Here is how you can do this:
- Cut everything unnecessary without sacrificing clarity – Be brief, but keep all the key points that make your message. You can express your message in a minimalistic way if you are savvy with words. Just don’t cut down on anything essential.
- Use bullets – Bullets draw visitors’ attention and are hard to overlook, making them a great way to highlight key points using less space. They also cut down on text as they don’t require complex sentences, which you would have to align in one complete statement, have they been in a paragraph. Instead, they just let you lay out the concise facts in a minimal amount of words.
- Keep sentences and paragraphs short – Breaking up the text keeps the visitor interested and makes it easier to find key points. You are also working with less space so that a ten-word sentence can take three lines of text.
Compress images
Images take data, but not all users that are visiting your page will be connected to WiFi. Keeping images to a minimum and compressing those you do use is great for visitors using their limited cellular data. Don’t make visiting your page costly for your users in that sense. Make it as available as possible. If you are using videos, make sure that they are not set to auto-play for the same data-related reasons as well as because they can distract visitors from your call to action.
Reduce load times
This is extremely important since as load time goes up, bounce rates go up as well, and most of the visitors that leave your site because of slow loading times never come back. A visitor’s attention span is short, as so might be his patience. The digital world is not a place for waiting. If something is not available within a reasonably short amount of time, visitors will not consider it worth their while. If you followed the previous advice, the chances are that you have already significantly decreased loading time since images and videos tend to be the number one problem with slow websites. Another thing you can do to increase speed is to upgrade your hosting plan to a faster one.
Use single-column layouts
Don’t overcomplicate it for your users; keep in mind that they are looking at a relatively small screen. The screen size on mobile devices doesn’t allow multiple columns, and anything more than a single column would make scrolling difficult.
Rethink navigation
It is becoming a prevalent opinion among marketers that you should avoid navigation on mobile landing pages and focus on the primary call to action. You have also probably grown accustomed to seeing a “hamburger’ button on your screen that brings up navigation options when you click on it. This, as well as using sticky headers to include a couple of main navigation links, are the best ways to save some space and avoid clutter.
Optimize forms for mobile
People don’t like filling out forms, especially those on mobile phones and tablets. The small screen size makes it much more difficult to fill them without misspelling or mixing up information. The longer the form, the more repulsive it will appear to users. Most people back down from the offer altogether when they see a lengthy form, so it is crucial to ask only for the bare minimum of information you need to accomplish your goal. You can always follow up later for more information if you find it necessary. If you have a WordPress site, you can use a plugin like WPForms to build responsive forms until you hard code your own solution.
Just a gentle reminder, here at web design agency Chicago, we suggest that you avoid plugins whenever possible. All of our plugin recommendations are temporary solutions until you hard code your own within your Sage Framework website.
Use High Contrast
High contrast colors are eye-catching help people that browse on the go clearly distinguish content in daylight. Looking at a mobile screen outside on a sunny day can prove to be quite tricky. Someone that cannot see your offer – will not convert. It’s as simple as that, so consider using dark color text on light color background.
Don’t avoid white space
When used with taste, white space can create interest and make your landing pages look modern. It also gives the eyes room to read text while making touchscreen interactions easier, keeping accidental clicks to a minimum.
Place calls to action at the top of the page
Place CTAs strategically. Keep in mind that 80% of a mobile visitor’s attention is spent at the top of the page before the first instinctual scroll. This is where your primary call-to-action button should be. Drift does it great with another call to action midway as you scroll to keep your focus on the reason you came.
A/B test everything
This is the most important practice and what optimizing is all about. Testing can provide invaluable insight into what you need to improve to make your site better, increase conversions and increase revenue. Keep in mind that small changes can sometimes make an essential difference. A/B testing can show you what those changes are. Here are the basic steps of A/B testing:
- Decide which issue you want to solve.
- Determine what you want to compare
- Perform the test by creating two versions of the landing page that only differ in the parameter you are comparing
- Analyze the data and review the results to see what works better
- Revise and rerun your experiments
Final thoughts
Building the perfect mobile landing page is no easy task. Unless you have a strong strategy in place before you start, you could be missing out on invaluable opportunities for greater conversions. The ability to view desktop landing pages on mobile devices should not be the reason not to design specialized mobile pages. People interact differently with sites on mobile devices. Having the world within the palm of their hands and requiring everything they look for to be just a click (or tap, if you insist) away means that mobile users are impatient and in need of a landing page that is created only for their convenience. If you are looking for web design services to help you with creating your best mobile landing page, look no further and contact our company.
