17 ways to test any landing page

Digital Marketing / May 15, 2018

Don’t ever assume that established best practices are going to work for your market and audience. You can design the absolute most perfect landing page in the known universe and still the conversions don’t happen the way you would like them to.

We’ve seen literally dozens of instances where A/B testing goes directly against what everyone says you should do. Only by testing different landing page variations on your audience can you really learn what your visitors will like and respond to.

In other words: you may think you know what is going to work. But the internet, a.k.a. your prospects and customers, will ultimately show you what they want to see, experience and buy.

17 ideas to improve your conversion rate

There are dozens of things you can do to test a single landing page to gradually optimize its performance over time. Read on for our top 17 ways to A/B test any landing page.

1. Test different offers and deals

A/B test different types of offers, for example, a dollar value discount versus a percentage off.

2. Test top performing ad copy

A/B test your Google Ads copy and then implement top performing variation on your landing page.

3. Test product benefits

Emphasize different benefits of your product or service to see which draws the best response.

4. Flip your landing page

Test your landing page by switching elements from right to left, and left to right.

5. Adjust your copy length

A/B test short and punchy against long and descriptive landing page copy.

6. Change up your call-to-action button

A/B test different colors, shapes and sizes for your CTA button.

7. Try a paragraph against a bulleted list

A/B test different ways of presenting the same information.

8. Change product images

A/B test flat product photos versus photos of your product in use.

9. Create a sense of urgency

Test landing page copy that emphasizes urgency versus evergreen messaging.

10. Compress your funnel

Remove a step from your conversion funnel by compressing or removing content.

11. Tweak your forms

A/B test the background color and the size of the fields in your forms.

12. Strip it down

Test removing one inessential element at a time to minimize distractions.

13. Test photos of people

If you feature photos of people on your homepage, A/B test different ages, genders, etc.

14. Try different customer testimonials

Testimonials are always a good idea. Try different ones, with and without customer photos

15. Test your CTA

A/B test different phrases in your CTA button, such as “Sign Up”, “Register Now”, “Enroll”.

16. Test trust seal placement

Make sure you have a trust seal (such as McAfee). Then test placing it in different locations.

17. Test one image versus a carousel

A/B test whether your visitors respond better to a single hero image or a carousel.

All you need is traffic and a testing tool

As you can see, the ways you can test your landing page are nearly endless. For an A/B test to succeed, you need to focus on two key things: 1) You must have enough traffic for the test to be conclusive; be sure you run it long enough to gather the data you need; 2) Make incremental changes by testing one landing page element at a time.

There are some great tools out there that enable you to test without relying on your (no doubt overworked already) coder or graphic designer. Try a WYSIWYG testing tool such as Optimizely or Unbounce, which enables you to drag and drop to create tests, and measure your results.

Want to know how our CRO experts would improve your landing pages through A/B testing? Get a proposal here.