Recently I was fortunate enough to become certified in Landing Page Optimization (LPO) after attending a one-day course presented by Dr. Flint McGlaughlin of MarketingExperiments, an internet-based research lab that conducts experiments in optimizing sales and marketing processes. The primary goal of LPO is to optimize the content and appearance of landing pages to make them more appealing to a target audience, in order improve the conversion rate of website visitors that become sales leads or customers.

Having been a designer for nearly 12 years I’ve designed my fair share of websites and landing pages, and I was skeptical about how much I could really learn from this course. However, as we dug deeper into the science of LPO I realized that thinking from a potential customer’s perspective, as opposed to a designer’s or website user’s perspective, allowed me to see beyond just the visual design and understand why content and process are also large parts of the puzzle.

Here Comes the Science Bit
MarketingExperiments has developed a heuristic formula to aid understanding of LPO and conversion:

It looks overly complicated but it’s actually very simple: the likelihood of a click becoming a sale (C – probability of conversion) depends on how badly the user wants what you have to offer (m – motivation of user), how clearly you state the reasons they should buy from you (v – clarity of value proposition), whether there are any special offers to encourage them to do so (i – incentive), whether they experience any resistance from poor design or messaging (f – friction), and how wary they are about submitting personal information or committing to a purchase (a – anxiety). The coefficients and the variables’ position in the formula (left to right) specify how much influence each has in the conversion process.

Effective Solutions
In order for a landing page to be successful, a clear value proposition must be effectively communicated – state why what you are offering is different from the competition and why potential customers should buy from you. Each element on the landing page should state or support the value proposition (congruence), just as every step of the conversion process should too (continuity), from banner ad, email or tweet, all the way to sign-up/checkout. Friction can be reduced by cutting down on superfluous graphical elements, and through clear and effective information design (e.g. reducing the amount of information required at sign-up or reducing the total number of steps in the process). Testimonials, awards and official certification logos can help reduce user anxiety and encourage them to put trust in your company.