Given how pivotal landing pages are in every marketing campaign, your marketing efforts are completely in vain if you have poorly optimized landing pages. You ran advertisements, drove traffic, and got people to your landing page, but they didn't convert. Why? Small landing page design mistakes are silently killing your results. Every dollar you spend on driving traffic to your broken landing page is a dollar wasted.
In this article, we'll show you how to fix common landing page mistakes that might be hurting your conversions.
Here are the top 13 mistakes that are costing you leads and sales:
- 1. Cluttered and Distracting Design
- 2. Lack of Clear Value Proposition
- 3. Unclear or Missing CTAs
- 4. Too Many Conversion Goals
- 5. No Relevant Images or Videos
- 6. Generic Content for All Audiences
- 7. Not Leveraging Above-the-Fold
- 8. Complex Forms
- 9. Lack of Social Proof
- 10. Lack of Mobile Optimization
- 11. Intrusive Popups
- 12. Ad Copy Misalignment
- 13. Not SEO Optimized
How to fix common landing page mistakes
Most landing pages are easy to fix if you know what to look for. But if you don't act fast, these landing page mistakes will keep draining your conversions. By making a few strategic adjustments or tweaks, you can change a poorly optimized landing page into a high-converting one. Let’s go through each issue and see how you can optimize your landing page the right way.
1. Cluttered and distracting design
A landing page overloaded with text, images, and unnecessary elements confuses visitors and makes it hard for them to find what they need. Without a clear visual hierarchy, users don’t know where to look first, which can cause them to miss the value proposition or CTA entirely. As a result, potential leads leave before engaging, leading to high bounce rates.
The fix: Prioritize simplicity; less is more when it comes to an effective landing page. You can keep the design clean and structured by arranging elements in a way that guides the visitor’s eyes naturally from the headline to supporting text, images, and the CTA. When your landing pages are visually-appealing, easy-to-navigate, and conversion-focused, visitors can quickly absorb key information without feeling overwhelmed, leading to higher engagement.
2. Lack of clear value proposition
Visitors need to instantly understand why your offer matters. If they don’t see the value, they’ll leave. A generic or weak value proposition on your landing page fails to capture interest and differentiate your offer from competitors.
The fix: Craft a strong, benefit-driven headline that immediately communicates what makes your offer unique. Use bullet points or short descriptions to articulate the benefits and outcomes of your product or service.
3. Unclear or missing CTAs
A landing page without a compelling call-to-action (CTA) leaves visitors unsure of what to do next, resulting in lost conversions. If your CTA is vague or hidden, visitors won’t be motivated to take action.
The fix: Use clear, action-driven CTAs such as "Get Started Now" or "Claim Your Free Trial." Make them prominent, using contrasting colors and strategic placement to draw attention. Repeating the CTA at multiple points in the page can help increase conversions.
4. Too many conversion goals
A landing page is designed for one primary goal, and that is to drive conversions. But when there are multiple conversion actions, like signing up for a free trial, downloading an e-book, and purchasing a product, visitors get overwhelmed and leave without converting.
The fix: Keep your landing page focused on a single, clear objective like booking a demo or subscribing to a newsletter. Avoid using buttons leading to different objectives as it can dilute the impact of your main conversion goal. If needed, create separate landing pages for different goals to maintain clarity. Use A/B testing to determine which conversion goal performs best.
5. No relevant images or videos
A text-heavy landing page without engaging visuals can feel uninviting and fail to capture attention. Additionally, people can easily recognize overused stock images, which can make your brand appear less authentic and even untrustworthy. Visitors need a visual representation of what you’re offering to quickly understand your product or service and feel confident in taking action.
The fix: Use high-quality images and videos that support your message and add credibility to your offer. Showcase product demos, customer testimonials, or explainer videos to build trust and enhance engagement. You can avoid using generic photos as they often feel impersonal and fail to establish an emotional connection with visitors.
6. Generic content for all audiences
A one-size-fits-all approach makes your landing page feel impersonal and less effective. Similarly, a single landing page for multiple campaigns reduces relevance and lowers conversions. Different audiences have unique needs and pain points that require targeted messaging. If your landing page speaks in broad, vague terms rather than directly addressing their intent, visitors may feel like the content isn’t relevant to them and leave without converting.
The fix: Create dedicated landing pages tailored to different audiences, offers, and traffic sources. Ensure your messaging speaks directly to the pain points and interests of each segment. Personalize content based on visitor demographics, behavior, or campaign source to make it more relevant. Dynamic text replacement tools help tailor content automatically. This improves engagement with your audience.
7. Not leveraging above-the-fold content
Visitors decide within seconds whether to stay on your page or leave. If key information isn’t visible immediately, they may bounce. Many businesses make the mistake of burying critical information below the fold, forcing users to scroll till the end to find out what the page is about. However, most visitors won’t take that extra step unless they’re already interested.
The fix: Place your most important message, value proposition, and CTA above the fold to capture attention instantly. Use compelling headlines and engaging visuals to retain interest.
8. Complex forms
Your landing page is designed to generate leads, but if your forms ask for too much information too soon, visitors may abandon them before submitting. Forms with too many required fields feel intrusive and can deter potential leads. This results in higher drop-off rates, fewer conversions, and wasted traffic, no matter how well your landing page attracts visitors.
The fix: Keep forms short and only request essential details. For example, instead of asking for a phone number, job title, and company size up front, start with just a name and email. If more details are needed, use a multi-step form—breaking the process into smaller, manageable steps makes it feel less overwhelming. Additionally, enabling autofill helps visitors complete forms faster, improving the overall experience and reducing drop-offs.
9. Lack of social proof
10. Lack of mobile optimization
More than 60% of web traffic comes from mobile devices. A landing page that doesn’t work well on mobile leads to a poor user experience and higher bounce rates. Pages that require zooming in, have broken layouts, or slow loading speeds on mobile can frustrate visitors.
The fix: Ensure your landing page is fully responsive, with mobile-friendly fonts, images, and CTA buttons. A well-optimized mobile experience not only improves engagement but also boosts conversions, as visitors are more likely to complete actions when the page is easy to use.
11. Intrusive popups
Landing page popups that appear too quickly or disrupt the browsing experience can frustrate visitors and drive them away. If a visitor lands on your page and is instantly bombarded with popups, they may leave before engaging with your content.
The fix: Use exit-intent popups to engage visitors just as they are about to leave, offering last-minute incentives like discounts, free resources, or newsletter sign-ups. Time popups strategically, ensuring they enhance rather than disrupt the user experience. Avoid full-screen popups that block content entirely.
12. Ad copy misalignment
When users click on an ad, they have specific expectations based on the messaging they saw. If your ad promises something different from what’s on your landing page, visitors will feel misled and leave. Even subtle inconsistencies, such as using different wording or visuals, can create doubt in the visitor’s mind, making them hesitant to take action. This disconnect leads to lower trust and higher bounce rates.
The fix: Ensure your landing page messaging is consistent with your ad copy, email campaigns, and social media promotions. Align headlines, offers, and visuals for a seamless user experience.
13. Not SEO-optimized
Ignoring SEO means missing out on valuable organic traffic from search engines. Poor SEO practices can make your landing page difficult to discover, even for users actively searching for related products or services.
The fix: Use relevant keywords and include meta tags to improve search visibility. Ensure your URL structure is clean and that alt text is used for images. Increased search visibility means more organic traffic to your landing pages. When your landing page organically ranks on the SERPs, users might find your business to be more credible.
Fix mistakes faster and convert more with Zoho LandingPage
Now, fixing all these mistakes manually is going to take forever. For every second you wait, another potential lead is slipping away. This is where you need to use robust landing page software like Zoho LandingPage that streamlines the entire process. Zoho LandingPage is the best landing page builder, offering a powerful, user-friendly, and feature-rich platform to create high-converting pages with ease. Instead of spending hours tweaking designs, fixing mobile responsiveness, or running manual A/B tests, Zoho LandingPage does the heavy lifting for you.
With Zoho LandingPage, you can elevate your landing page copy by using AI-powered content suggestions, optimize on the go with mobile-first, SEO-friendly designs, and run data-driven tests to find what works best for your audience.
In addition to offering a variety of vibrant landing page templates, Zoho LandingPage packs a punch with advanced features that supercharge your conversions. You can utilize the power of built-in analytics to track your page’s performance in real time, helping you fine-tune and optimize your landing pages for maximum impact. Plus, with multiple integrations, both in-house and third-party, you can seamlessly connect with your favorite tools and platforms, streamlining your workflow and enhancing your marketing efforts.
Ready to create better landing pages?
Start optimizing with Zoho LandingPage today!