You only have a few seconds to convince your visitor to stay on your landing page. These seconds are critical and your landing page needs to do everything it can to make a great first impression. If you are looking to increase your lead generation efforts through conversion optimization techniques, check your pages for these must-have elements that make a great first impression.

4 Ways to Get More Conversions

1. A strong call-to-action

If you don’t ask for it, you probably won’t get it. When your landing page visitors get to your page they want to first know that they are in the right place, and then they want to know what to do next. Conversion optimization efforts start with a strong call-to-action. Don’t just tell visitors what to do, remind them of what they are going to gain by taking your conversion action.

2. Simple is better

While you definitely want to impress your landing page visitors, you don’t want to overwhelm them with too much information. You don’t need to discuss every award you’ve ever won, nor do your landing page visitors need to know every last detail about your business. Your landing page visitors just want to learn more about the offer in the ad that initially caught their attention. Limit the content on your landing page to only that which will help a visitor decide to take the next step and convert. Being able to edit your landing page down to only the most powerful, convincing elements is one thing that separates the best landing page programs from the rest. One big caveat: simple doesn’t mean boring or plain!

When you design your landing pages, be sure to keep it simple and look at these key areas:

• Landing page design – Keep it easily accessible and interesting so that it peaks interest.
• Keep the message consistent – Keep your brand messaging on target and don’t confuse your visitors.

2. Be trustworthy 

Let’s face it: people and even businesses buy more from those they trust. Visitors are not going to fill out a form and give you their personal information if they don’t trust your brand. To quickly improve your conversion optimization efforts, try building in some trust elements into your landing pages. Some examples of this, include:

• Testimonials – Have some of your clients write a short testimonial. Even better, make videos of customer testimonials!
• Privacy statements – Adding a clear privacy statement to your lead generation forms goes along way to ensure visitors that their information will be kept safe.
• Social signals – Incorporating social widgets can help show that your brand is real and reachable.

3. Tie your offer to your unique selling proposition 

It’s marketing 101 to know why you stand apart from your competition; make sure your landing page visitors know it too. To add more value and reasoning to why a visitor should choose you, tie your offering to your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Instead of creating another free report or software demo that says the same thing as your competitors; make it unique and tie in what makes your product or company unique too.

4. A good strategy to increase conversions

A good conversion optimization strategy has a set focus: to convert as many visitors into leads. The first step in increasing conversions is making it easier for your visitors to convert. Each of the four tips we discussed are focused on providing visitors with the information and confidence they need to convert quickly, without distractions or hesitations. Next time you are thinking of testing ideas or designing a new landing page, try thinking first about what page elements could help your visitors convert quickly.

Author: Jessica Collier     Jessica Collier on the Web Jessica Collier on Twitter Jessica Collier on LinkedIn Jessica Collier RSS Feed

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This article originally appeared on ion interactive blog and has been republished with permission.

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