By Gregory Smyth
Common Errors on Landing Pages
The tight production schedules and many different variations of landing pages often mean they cause you more trouble than any other page on your website. However tempting it may be to simply leave the page as is when you get an error you don’t understand, missed opportunities from these errors are literally cash walking out the door! All the SEO, paid ads, and social campaigns in the world won’t help your business profit if customers can’t get through your order or conversion form from your landing pages. We look at some common types of errors on landing pages, such as privacy errors, slow page errors, and more. Then, we will explore how to handle them to best retain customers.
Privacy Errors and How to Handle Them
Privacy errors are one of the trickiest types to handle. This type of error occurs when a customer either leaves a field blank because they consider it inappropriate to ask for, or makes a “donkey” entry. Donkey entries may include fictitious names (Mickey Mouse, John Citizen) or obscure countries of residence. They can also be identified by sporadic blank fields throughout the form.
These errors are understandable from a customer’s point of view; however, they are frustrating from a conversion optimization perspective. The best way to tackle them is to provide a reason why the field is required. Use a tooltip or inline help text to explain why the information is needed, or include a short note in your error message.
If you see a high rate of privacy errors, reconsider whether the information you are asking for is worth the possibility of losing customers. Collecting demographic details might be useful for your digital marketing strategy, but unnecessary fields can increase abandonment rates. Review your analytics and form completion data to make an informed decision.
Data Entry Mismatches & Frustrations
Category errors are another common and difficult type. They occur when the categories on the form don’t match the user’s details. This happens with addresses that don’t match your customer’s expectation, or orders that may be larger or smaller than you planned for.
To reduce frustration, explain why specific data is required. In another way, shipping restrictions apply to certain countries or to PO Boxes. Modern best practice also includes providing real-time validation with clear instructions. In addition, offering alternate contact methods helps: callback requests, customer support numbers, live chat, or even chatbots can prevent drop-offs.
Slow Page Load Speed
Slow-loading landing pages are one of the biggest reasons visitors bounce before converting. Even a one- or two-second delay can push bounce rates through the roof and frighten off potential customers. Your SEO budget and ad campaigns won’t matter if customers are never able to see the offer since the page loads too slowly. To fix this problem, you should optimize your images, shave off bulky scripts, use lazy loading, and use a quality CDN to get the load as low as possible.
Mobile Usability Issues
With the majority of traffic emanating from mobiles these days, an unfavorable usability of your website from a mobile phone is a significant error. Non-rendering of landing pages from small screens frustrates visitors. Tiny buttons, broken layouts, or non-mobile-friendly form submissions can all provoke instant exits. You should embrace a mobile-first approach and philosophy of design, and use responsive layouts, and inspect your pages on a number of real-world devices, and not desktop preview only.
Ambiguous or Vague Call-to-Action (CTA)
Your call-to-action is the key to everything your marketers do to get through to the customer’s decision. A generic CTA like “Submit” or “Click Here” doesn’t encourage action. Too many CTAs per page results in confusion and dulls attention and conversion rates. Take advantage of action-based CTAs like “Get My Free Trial” or “Book a Demo,” and one major objective per page of landing pages for maximum impact.
