Designing a well-performing landing page is both an art and science.
Although you will never be able to call your page a perfect one, the following checklist might be helpful in improving your landing pages and providing the visitors with a better landing page experience.
Strategic Concerns
- Is your landing page focused on a single purpose?
- What kind of value are you going to provide?
- Do you communicate your value proposition clearly?
- What kind of value do you provide for the visitor?
- If your page has backlinks in other pages (as anchor or banner), does it hold promise?
Lizard Brain Validation
The so-called lizard brain validation is one of the most critical criteria in validating a landing page. It means assessing the first brain reaction to visiting a page.
Here you can find some of the most important points in checking your landing page in this regard:
- Do you have an eye-catching headline?
- Could the visitor understand the core message in first 10 seconds? (eye-blink test)
- Have you capitalized on creating visual elements such as pictures and illustrations?
- Does the visitor consider you page relevant after skimming through it?
- Have you omitted extraneous navigations from the page? (to lead the visitor mindlessly into the conversion funnel)
Landing Page Architecture
A landing page has to be something more than a full-width pop-up!
- Does it look like a generic ad? Although a landing page is definitely a kind of ad, your conversion concern should not overshadow the non-commercial contents of your page.
- Is your page designed according to the look, style and brand identity?
- Do you have any subheadings in the page?
- Have you tried to convert parts of your paragraphs to bullet lists and tables and illustrations?
- Have you embedded remarketing messages in the next navigation level?
- Is it necessary to prepare different versions of landing pages? (for different personas or based on where they come from)
- Do you use a separate landing page for every campaign?
- Have you considered enough visual clues?
Technical Points
- Is your page mobile friendly? (responsive layout or mobile version)
- Have you optimized page title, meta description, and URL for search engines?
- Have you considered SEO-optimized alternative texts for your images?
- Have you done A/B test on your page? (long vs. short, 1 CTA vs. 2 CTAs, etc.)
Copy Checklist
- Does it say what the page is about?
- Is your content focused?
- Is the body copy scannable and scrollable?
- Have you included all the relevant keywords in your copy?
- Does your copy focus on benefits rather than features? (benefit-driven)
Trust Checklist
How do you assure the visitor about your service?
- Does your page look credible?
- Have you provided any social proof?
- Industry awards
- Consumer awards
- Customer testimonials
- Links to the articles in the other media about your business/service
- Are you providing a sample of your product/service/content?
Call-To-Action (Applies to transactional / lead creation landing pages)
- Do you have a clear call to action?
- Do you get their email address? (if applicable)
- Is your CTA visible before the third scroll? (preferably without any scroll)
- Have you minimized your contact form?
- Do you have a privacy policy link near the submit button?
- Do you have a clear refund/customer care statement?
- Is your submit/purchase button visible enough?
- If you have a multi-step registration/interaction, have you informed the visitor about it?
- Is your promotion/offer visible to the visitor?
- Is your CTA near the top of the page?
- Is your CTA readable from 2 meters away?
- Check to be sure that have not more than 3 CTAs on a single page.
