So we’re at hand to give you 10 free CRO tools that’ll help you boost your conversion rates in 2021.

What is CRO?

CRO stands for conversion rate optimization. Your conversion rate is the percentage of website visitors who complete a valuable action. For example, a valuable action could be buying a product, filling in an online form, or subscribing to a service. Conversion rate optimization is the process of improving your content and website to increase your conversions.

Example: you have 10,000 website visitors in a month and 7,000 email sign-ups. Your conversation rate would then be 7,000 ÷ 10,000 = 0.7 or 70%.

What can a CRO tool do?

CRO tools offer a range of useful features such as:

• Generalised page optimisation
• Access to page speed data
• Monitoring user behaviour
• Heatmapping
• Survey and form building
• Landing page building
• User analytics
• AI chat capabilities
• Split testing

Many of the best premium tools offer all of them while others focus on certain areas of CRO. Our list of free tools will show a mix of these features.

Why do you need a CRO tool?

Online marketing will bring users to your site, but this is of little use if visitors are not converting. With a CRO tool, you have access to data that you can use to enhance user experience. CRO analytics can identify issues like why so many users abandon their shopping carts, or why your bounce rate is so high on PPC landing pages.

Adzooma is no stranger to offering free tools so enjoy our list and get high-performing solutions without the price tag.

1. MobileMonkey

Founded by Larry Kim, MobileMonkey is a Messenger marketing platform that helps companies connect with potential leads through the use of its chatbots. The software then nurtures and convert leads. Messenger is used by over 1.3 billion people around the world, making MobileMonkey a lucrative and easy way to build chatbots and automate your Facebook marketing strategy without writing a line of code.

Key benefits

• Optimized service: MobileMonkey uses Messenger-based chatbots to deliver your customers a fast and convenient service 24/7.
• Extend reach: You can utilize the popularity of mobile devices and social media to extend your reach.
• No coding: Create AI chatbots with ease and without no coding required. It’s the perfect platform for small businesses and marketers to boost their conversion rates.

Other features of MobileMonkey include chat automation and building conversion funnels.

2. Hotjar

Hotjar is a CRO tool that analyses user behaviour and gives feedback in the form of heatmaps, surveys, and session recordings. These analyses help businesses to gauge deeper understandings of their site users and pinpoint where improvements should be made.

Key benefits

• Analyze web visitors: Hotjar lets you deploy testing and identify the stages of the funnel that are losing your conversions.
• View user behaviour: Hotjar provides a full picture of where your users scroll, tap, click and linger. Combined with Google Analytics, site owners gain great knowledge of their sites
• Heatmaps: Hotjar is best known for its heatmaps which are graphical representations of data using colour to depict site interactions.

Hotjar also deploys feedback and analysis using session recordings to help improve your conversion funnels.

3. TypeForm

TypeForm is a platform where individuals and businesses can create and manage forms and surveys. It does this by removing the challenge of obtaining feedback with more engaging forms. With Typeform, the average completion rate of its forms is 57%.

Key benefits

• Customized forms: Create the forms you need including opinion scales, multiple choice questions, and rating scales.
• Free API: This feature lets you integrate your forms with the other applications to automate your processes.
• Logic Jumps (available in paid subscriptions): use the Typeform tools in unison with your very own survey logic. Logic Jumps allow you to respond to people’s answers.

With the free plan, you also get templates, reports and metrics, and the ability to embed your typeform.

4. SurveySparrow

SurveySparrow is another survey platform, allowing brands to collect answers and opinions, and transform insights into actionable data. That user feedback contributes to boosting conversion rates as businesses enhance their website.

Key benefits

• Subaccounts & multiple users: You can manage multiple accounts, for different teams in your company under one single parent account.
• Multi-language surveys: SurveySparrow allows you to collect feedback from around the globe, in any language, using multilingual surveys.
• Visual workflows: Automate actions based on the survey triggers. When responses clock-in, set conditions and perform tasks. Configure once and forget.

With SurveySparrow, businesses can gain top insights and supercharge their CRO.

5. CrazyEgg

When it comes to free CRO tools, you can’t get much better than Crazy Egg. It’s a top website optimization platform, used to monitor user behaviour.

Key benefits

• Heat mapping: You can see where your customers are clicking, and discover which parts of your site are performing the best.
• Origin tracker: Gain insights about where your users have landed from and whether that needs to improve.
• Interactive analytics: Instead of reports, you can view your analytics with a fully interactive and intuitive UI.

Crazy Egg boasts a range of other appealing features including design testing, CRM (customer relationship management), A/B split testing tools, and scroll maps.

6. Unbounce

Unbounce is a drag-and-drop landing page builder for individuals and businesses. The platform allows users to design, test and publish landing pages in a quicker, more efficient way. Your company can improve marketing, increase leads and enhance your connection with customers.

Key benefits

• Unlimited testing: There’s no limit to the pages you can create and test with this CRO tool.
• Design assistance: Unbounce comes with a wide range of different design templates to assist you with your web pages.
• Client management: You can organize leads and manage your clients.

Regardless of your business size, Unbounce makes things simple with easy management, the ability to set permissions for each user and replicate the success of your best-performing landing pages between different accounts.

7. WebWave

WebWave’s free website builder allows you to create amazing websites effortlessly with their drag and drop tool.

Key benefits

• RWD – responsive website: You can precisely tell how a user will see your website on a computer, tablet and mobile phone.
• Animations: You have full control over animation, its direction and duration. You can add animations to every element of your website and present it in unique ways.
• Image feature: WebWave offers a range of image features, including parallax effect, ken burns effect, free stock photos, and dynamic elements size and alignment.

Their range of features gives you a range of possibilities when creating your website.

8. GTMetrix

GTMetrix analyses the performance and speed of your page plus offers valuable advice on how to make improvements. For WordPress users, you may recognise GTmetrix as a free plugin to optimise your site’s page speed.

Key benefits

• Advanced testing: GTMetrix allows you to test your website at different connection speeds, in various countries and on a range of browsers. You also get a score based on Google PageSpeed Insights and YSlow metrics.
• Page insights: GT Metrix tells you why your page is slow, so you can make changes accordingly.
• Different devices: you can see how your site loads depending on which device is being used.

Speed is an important factor in CRO so a tool like GTMetrix is worth using.

9. Google PageSpeed Insights

PageSpeed Insights offers data on the speed and performance of your web pages.

Key benefits

• Suggestions: the software offers suggestions to help you improve speed and performance.
• Performance score: with a performance score, individuals can track the performance of their site, and aim to boost that score.
• Classification: find out if your site is deemed slow, moderate or fast.

If you don’t use GTMetrix, it’s essential you at least use PageSpeed Insights. It’s a valuable tool for CRO and all aspects of online marketing.

10. Google Analytics

Google Analytics is the most popular analytics platform out there, it’s also one of the best free CRO tools. This Google software tool summarises data and utilizes several funnel visualization methods.

Key benefits

• Top analytics: analysing data is imperative to marketing optimisation, so let Google do what it does best!
• Advanced reporting: Google lets you know the who, how, and what of your audience, in detail.
• Budget allocation: Google separates your working site practices, from those that are not working. Using this data you can improve budget allocation.

Google Analytics is one of the main CRO tools you need in your arsenal. It gives you important insights into how your users operate and the data you obtain can be used in other tools via its dedicated API.

What is a conversion funnel?

A conversion funnel is an eCommerce term used to describe a consumer’s journey from the first interaction with your advertising or organic campaign to the final point of conversion – the sale. The “funnel” gradually gets smaller as a customer travels through.

Why is it important?

Understanding the conversion funnel is crucial in understanding a consumer’s thought process. If you can think like a customer, you’ll know what kind of habits they have and can use more targeted and personalised marketing techniques to guide them to those final conversions.

A successful conversion funnel translates into a healthy profit for your business.

How to create and optimise your funnel

1. Outline the process

The conversion funnel can be thought of as having three divisions: the upper funnel, middle funnel and lower funnel.

• Upper funnel: This describes users who have just searched for a product and don’t know a lot about it. They search through several brands as they try to figure out what exactly they need.
• Middle funnel: These consumers know more about the product and even know about popular brands and technical features of the product. They know what they want and will turn away from brands that do not meet their specifications.
• Lower funnel: These potential buyers are ready to purchase but might need a nudge. They have favourite brands and look for more specific information about the product from customer reviews about it. Consumers at this stage of conversion can be triggered to make a sale through remarketing techniques that get them off the fence.

To be efficient at every stage of the conversion process, aim to convince your customer to go a step further in each stage of the conversion funnel. The popular AIDA model is an excellent tool to divide and conquer the funnel at each stage.

AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire and Action. These are the responses you want to evoke from your consumers at specific stages of the conversion funnel.

• Awareness

For Upper Funnel consumers, you want to create Awareness of the product. There are several ways to achieve this, including social media, organic search, blogging, and pay per click (PPC) campaigns.

• Interest

Now your consumers have made it to your landing page. What measures have you put in place to keep them there? What stops them from tagging out as soon as they arrive? Some strategies include offering consumers a discount or special offer in exchange for their contact information. For instance, they can sign up for an account on your site to benefit from free shipping. These techniques are also known as lead magnets.

• Desire

By this stage, you need to convince your consumer to trust your brand. The aim is for them to desire to choose your brand over others’. Customers can be described as being in the ‘Middle funnel’ during this process; they would value more information about your brand, which you can provide through email marketing. This marketing technique is more targeted to your consumer’s needs and will keep them engaged.

• Action

This is when you want to provide a trigger which pushes your customer to take the final step of making a purchase. That ‘push’ is usually described as a Call to Action or CTA for short. It could take the form of an attractive discount or giving the user a limited amount of time during which they can benefit from a special offer.

This creates a sense of urgency that can be hard for them to resist.

2. Set up conversion goals

Now that you’ve laid out a plan for guiding your users through the conversion funnel, you want to know how well those plans are performing. An excellent tool for evaluating your funnel is Google Analytics. Use this tool to set conversion goals to give you a good idea of whether your conversion strategies are succeeding or not.

To be thorough, set up goals for each stage of your funnel and significant conversions. Conversion goals could be anything from signing up for a mailing list to downloading resources.

After setting up your goals, your site will accumulate user information for analysis in Google Analytics, allowing you to figure out where you can make improvements.

3. Identify weak points to optimise

Another useful feature of Google Analytics is the “Funnel Visualization” report. It helps you to analyse exactly which parts of your funnel are causing your customers to abandon the funnel altogether. In other words, it gives you information about your site’s abandonment rate. Furthermore, it shows you where they go next.

This will show you what might be distracting your users from going through the next stage of your funnel so that you can determine what needs fixing and how to fix it.

4. Use data to justify changes

Evidence-based action is the way to go to ensure optimisation of your conversion funnel. A heat map is a great way to visualise where most of your visitor traffic is going. It helps you to make informed decisions concerning what to change on your page to direct your visitors to the desired destination.

5. Use split testing

Split testing – also known as A/B testing is a neat way to test your conversion techniques by creating two varying forms of a page and analysing them to see which one is more successful at conversion.

6. Consider automation to improve efficiency

Autoresponder emails help you to remind your customers to revisit your page. It’s an efficient way to maintain a lifeline of communication with your buyers to encourage them to repeat purchases in the future. Avoid bombarding them with excessively frequent emails, and they will be less likely to unsubscribe from your mailing list.

There are numerous strategies available for optimising your conversion funnel. Depending on your business, tailor your conversion path in response to how well it leads to conversions to yield valuable increases in your conversion rates. The more users that convert at each stage of your funnel, the more buyers you obtain at the very end.

7. Let an Adzooma Marketplace agency take care of it

Sometimes, you just don’t have the resources to tinker with your conversion funnel and we understand. It’s at times like that why we created Adzooma Marketplace—to provide a connection between potential clients and agencies who can help them. Our list of agencies that specialise in CRO are at hand to get your funnel into shape and get those conversions flowing through.

Let me be blunt here. Pain points are killing your conversions, which mean fewer sales and less profits. If you don’t identify these pain points, you’re going to continue losing conversions.

Ready to do something about it?

Read on to find out how to identify your pain points, the most common reasons customers might not be converting and how to fix these problems.

How to identify your pain points

To identify your conversion pain points, you need to set up tracking and analytics for your website. Without this data, it will be impossible to pinpoint exactly where your customers are dropping off and where you need to focus your attention on.

If you’re not already using Google Analytics, this is the first place to start as it gives you data such as:

• Who is visiting your site
• Which pages people are looking at
• Where people are leaving your site
• How long people are spending on your site
• And much more

Programs like Hotjar are also incredibly useful here, as they literally show you what your users are doing on your page. You can see where they click, which bits they spend the longest on and how they scroll through the page.

This allows you to literally see where people are stuck on your website, showing your conversion pain points first hand.

Ask your customers

Looking at the data is always the first step to identifying your conversion pain points. But if you’re still not sure what it is that is preventing your customers from converting, you can always ask them.

Setting up a survey is a good way to get feedback directly from your customers and getting them to tell you what they don’t like, what’s stopping them from buying and what you can do better.

These surveys can be triggered when users go to exit your site, meaning you can literally stop someone who hasn’t converted and find out why.

Test new changes

Once you’ve identified where your customers are dropping off, it’s not good enough to just guess the reason why and mark the situation as fixed.

Any changes that you make need to be tested. It’s how you can see if what you’re doing has made a difference, or if there’s something else that’s causing customers to drop off.

Split testing (or A/B testing) is a way of testing these changes against the original version. When visitors come onto your site, they’ll be shown either the old or new page to see which of them perform better.

VWO has written a guide on split testing which you should definitely check out.

Common pain points and how to fix them

When it comes to conversions, there isn’t really a perfect formula. It’s about seeing where your customers stumble and doing everything you can to make the conversion journey as smooth as possible for them.

Most of it relies on using your own data and testing changes to see if they improve your conversion rate.

However, there are a few common pitfalls that your website might be falling into. To make sure you’re not suffering from them, we’ve listed some of the most common conversion pain points that you need to keep an eye on and how to fix them.

1. Not enough information

85% of people research a product online before making a purchase.

The internet is not always a good place. For every business, there’s another fake website and scam that can offer similar items to yours. Before making a purchase, your customers need to know that you’re selling the real thing.

Even if people trust your company, they’ll want to know that your product is the best place to buy it online. If they can’t get the details they need, they’ll go somewhere else.

The good thing about this conversion pain point is that it’s an easy one to fix. Just make sure you’re including the information that your customers will need. This can include:

• Product dimensions or sizing
• Product images
• Testimonials and reviews from other customers
• Materials/ingredients
• Return information
• Guarantees/warranty information

Reviews and testimonials shouldn’t be ignored here. They are a fantastic way of building trust and easing any lingering doubts about your product that customers will have.

2. Too many checkout stages

Cart abandonment is a real issue in eCommerce. For some industries, the cart abandonment rate is as high as 75%.

One of the biggest reasons for cart abandonment is a complicated checkout process. No one wants to jump through several hoops just to buy one item. The longer and more complicated a checkout process is, the more chances you’ve giving your customers to turn away.

Thankfully, checkout customization is one of the key features that leading website builder solutions offer, as blogger Kaleigh Moore points out.

The checkout process should be as streamlined as possible. Take a look at Amazon’s checkout as inspiration. Their checkout is easy, simple and has very little steps involved. Even better, if you’ve got your information saved you can buy it in a single click. That’s efficient.

If you don’t have a guest checkout option, this might be the first stage. Having an account with a company is great if you know you’re definitely going to be coming back. But if this is a one-time purchase, it’s a hassle creating passwords and submitting all your information for this.

Not everyone wants to give this information over. They just want to pay and go. Not giving them this option is just inviting them to buy elsewhere.

3. Slow page speed

Slow page loading times may seem like a little annoyance, but they can literally kill your sales. Each year, slow-loading websites cost retailers $2.6 billion in lost sales.

Your users are impatient and expect your website to load instantaneously. In fact, 47% of users expect a maximum of 2 seconds to load a website. 2 seconds. Wow.

If your page takes too long to load, people will leave. That means you’re losing people before they’ve even had a chance.

You can use tools like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to test the speed of your page and see what is slowing your website down.

If you’re an Adzooma customer, we’ll automatically check the site speed of all your landing pages to keep an eye out for this conversion pain point.

4. No upfront pricing

In a study about cart abandonment, the biggest reason that people abandoned their carts is because of extra costs such as shipping, taxes or fees being too high.

I’ve been there before. One time, I found a perfect notebook that would make an excellent present for my writer friend. I was sold and went straight to checkout. But, after entering all my details I found out that shipping cost more than the item itself, leading to a very speedy exit there. This perfect item was no longer worth it for me because of hidden costs.

Although you might not be able to lower these fees, one way to counter the drop off in customers is to be transparent and open about these prices from the very beginning.

When researching your product, your customers want to know exactly how much it will cost them. They shouldn’t have to go through the entire checkout process just to get an estimate on shipping and taxes.

So, include messaging about these costs on your website. There are some apps that will allow users to enter their postcode and calculate shipping costs on the page, helping to cut your cart abandonment rate.

That’s not the end

Increasing your conversions is never a one-time fix. It’s a continuous cycle of optimisations and fixes to keep beating your personal best and get the best conversion rate for your business.

There are countless CRO tools that you can use to help you with this. But if you’re lacking the time to learn and implement all these changes, you can always trust a local agency to help.

At Adzooma, we’ve got the perfect place for you to find them.

Our Marketplace is an independent directory of agencies ready to help your business. Just search for the service you need to see your next agency or freelancer in the list.

Find your agency today.

In this article, I will look at what CRO is and the best metrics to track and analyse your conversion rate.

What is conversion rate optimisation (CRO)?

Conversion rate optimisation is the process of increasing the number of site visitors who you want to take an action (which would result in a conversion). This can include:

• Signing up to a newsletter
• Creating an account
• Completing a form
• Downloading a white paper
• Making a purchase

Much like SEO, CRO is an optimisation process and requires constant improvements and maintenance. You need to understand the user experience (UX) of your website, the actions that visitors take, and what might be stopping them from converting.

Have you been using Google Analytics for your CRO?

Google Analytics is one of the most important CRO tools out there and if you’ve been using it, you will know how essential it is for CRO-related analytics. Insights from the platform can go a long way to helping you find areas for optimisation and split testing and with a basic knowledge of analytics, you can find great opportunities.

Top CRO analytics to track

But what do those opportunities look like? Here are 6 CRO analytics you can monitor and use in your optimisation efforts.

1. Conversions by Browser & OS

Not all browsers and operating systems are built the same; the experience on Windows 10 using Microsoft Edge is very different to someone using Safari on macOS Catalina, for example. That’s why the Technology reports in Google Analytics are a hotbed for CRO insights.

In the Browser & OS report you can find the following data categories (which you can set as Dimensions):

• Browser
• Operating System
• Screen Resolution
• Screen Colors
• Flash Version
• Java Support

Why this is important: When it comes to browsers, are there any that convert lower than the rest of them on your site? If you find that is the case, then you can click on that specific browser to see the different versions. Then you will be able to see if there are some versions that are particularly hindering the conversion rate.

How to track in Google Analytics: You can produce a report for this by going to the Audience > Technology > Browser & OS. Set your date range and look to the third set of columns under the heading, Conversions.

Note: Make sure you’ve set up conversion goals!

2. Mobile conversions

You might find that there is a particular mobile device that represents a large percentage of your website traffic. But if there is a bug in that mobile system, then it means that you’re losing a big opportunity. It could also be worth seeing if there are any differences between smartphones and tablets, and compare to desktop. If you find that there are some discrepancies, then you know where to look next.

Why this is important: The most common mobile devices you’re likely to find are iPhones, Samsung Galaxy’s, and Pixel phones. But only optimising for these is alienating a large pool of potential customers. 72.6% of smartphones worldwide use Android compared to 26.72% using iOS (as of May 2020). As there are millions of different Android devices around the world, you need to take them into consideration. You can’t optimise for all of them of course but completely ignoring them isn’t advisable either.

How to track in Google Analytics: You can produce a report for this by going to the Audience > Technology > Mobile > Devices. This gives you a list of known mobile devices that have been used to access your site. Set your date range as normal and check the Conversions section against other metrics.

3. Site speed

There will be a much better user experience if you have a site that loads quickly. The longer people stay on your site the more likely they’ll convert. The general rule is to aim for 3 seconds or less to avoid the risk of visitors becoming bouncers.

If you are interested in the user experience, then you need to care about the speed of your site. Check if there are any browsers that have slow load times, and then you can go from there.

Why this is important: Site speed is not only a UX necessity but it’s also a ranking factor (according to the mercurial John Mueller). It’s also linked to revenue—a 2017 study by Akamai showed that “a 100-millisecond delay in website load time could hurt conversion rates by 7%”. A slow site costs you money in the long run.

How to track in Google Analytics: You can produce a report for this by going to the Behaviour > Site Speed. From there, you can check an overview of your site speed data, analyse Page Timings, Speed Suggestions, and User Timings.

4. Site Search

Site search is an underrated tool for CRO. It cuts out the middle man of navigating through a site to find something. It’s either there or it isn’t and that’s down to the efficacy of your copy, internal linking, and general site architecture. Using data analysis, you can see behavioural aspects of your site searchers compared to the visitors that don’t search, and then use that to your advantage. 

Why this is important: According to a study by Screen Pages, visitors who used internal site search contributed to 13.8% of the revenues generated. It can also give you content ideas. If you have an e-commerce site and someone searches for something that generates a 404 page (meaning there wasn’t a page the matched their search), you might need to create that page and meet the demand.

How to track in Google Analytics: This can be found by navigating to Behaviour > Site Search. From there, you can get an overview, analyse Usage, Search Terms and Search Pages.

5. Traffic by Hour of the Day

People search at different times. The assumption is traffic is highest after 5pm on a weekday in your local area but that’s not the case for all sites. Viewing your site data by time can give you quite a variety of insights. This can be about what site visitors are buying at certain times and what they are searching for at certain times. Not only that, but you can also compare it to marketing campaigns, and the times and days that offers and promotions went out.

Why this is important: When is the best time to release a special offer to customers to generate the most revenue and gain the most traffic? It’s not going to be same for all sites and the only way to know is with an analytics report. You also need the data to plan for potential server overloads. If everyone accesses your site at the same time, it will cause slower speeds for other customers, lose money, traffic, and potential repeat custom.

How to track in Google Analytics: To find site traffic, navigate to Acquisition > All Traffic. From there, you can check the Channels tab, Tree Maps, Source/Medium, and Referrals. For each one, you can analyse your data by Day, Week, and Month. But for hourly data, you can find this under Behaviour > Overview.

6. Behaviour funnel

If your site has a lot of content, then you need to think about what the content does to help, or possibly hinder, conversion. You might find that some content brings in more conversions than others, whereas others that get a lot of traffic don’t convert. Then you can see what pages of content have the biggest business value.

Why this is important: To build the best funnel, you need to know how site visitors behave and navigate your site. A funnel analysis, for example, can show the exit rates on landing pages and if they’re particularly high, a place for necessary optimisation.

How to track in Google Analytics: You can set up Funnel Visualisation in Google Analytics by going to Conversions > Funnel Visualisation. Then you need to set up your goals. You can also analyse your Multi-Channel Funnels from the same section to see how your marketing strategy is working together to create conversions.

Conclusion

Using web analytics is essential for CRO.

But it’s also important to remember what CRO entails. It requires user data research to draw logical conclusions and form better lead gen strategies. The combination of Google Analytics can give insights into your target market, user behaviour and the potential to improve your site structure if necessary.

And never forget to set your goals and keep in mind the CUTE model:

• Clarity – make your site clear to understand for all users
• Urgency – site visitors want results immediately—it’s your job to give them that to the best of your ability
• Trust – offer users security and trust when they use your product or service
• Evidence – before you make a change to your site, ensure you have social proof that this is necessary

Keep it CUTE and let CRO lead the way to more sales and conversion.

Unfortunately, you can’t just copy someone else’s, no matter how great it is. The quickest and easiest way to create a successful landing page is by doing some industry research and scanning the market to find the best techniques that will work for you.

If you haven’t got an eye for detail, we’re here to share 15 of our favourites.

1. Balance Meals

The bold headline and featured image here are some of the best. The headline is benefit-driven and instantly ticks off three deal-breakers, which is perfect considering 80% of people only read the headline. Examples of their delicious meals shine through the headline and showcase the variety of meals they cater to, creating both excitement and intrigue. It’s a win-win.

The two CTA’s above the fold prompt the user to take action straight away, with a white background that makes them stand out on the artistic page. If you scroll down, three popular meal plans are explained and broken down into a brief description, contents and price, so visitors know exactly what to expect.

Excellent Trustpilot reviews, information about recycling and details about their cultural influence are found below – all which add extreme credibility.

2. My Tutor

This has seven benefits above the fold. And the design is both simple and appealing. Amazing.

The first subhead assures users they can improve results by a whole grade, with tangible and measurable results from past customers. The following sections are just as benefit-driven, with details about flexibility, freedom and helping children of all abilities reach their full potential. Which is what every parent wants to hear.

The “As featured in” section and real-life testimonials reinforce the pointers at the top of the page and remind customers why they should believe in their service. Extremely important here as the most important thing when choosing a tutor is trust. All of that, while remaining colourful, concise and easy-to-read.

3. Bark

If I created a landing page, this would be my inspiration. Clean, easy to read and driven by massive benefits. All you need.

The three subheaders above the fold tell the visitor exactly why they’ll love the service – it takes seconds to set up, provides instant access to live leads and is great value for money. Which is much more effective and likely to convert than ‘What we do’ and ‘How we can help’. This just tells them.

The bold numbers below highlight the value of using the service, followed by customer success stories to back them up. One of which states Bark has brought in 82% of their clients, which encourages and strengthens trust even further. Specifics like this work extremely well and help to make the statement, brand and website seem more authentic.

4. Able Locksmith

Anyone who’s locked out of their house needs a locksmith ASAP. And anyone reading this landing page knows they can get one. So technically, this one is amazing.

Their phone number is displayed twice above the fold in bigger and bolder text, allowing the customer to get in touch quickly without scrolling through the rest of the page. The bright orange CTA button adds extra impact, while the benefit-driven text shows they’re highly recommended and available 24 hours a day.

Any extra information is clearly displayed under the icons in the centre of the page, assuring the customer there is no call-out charge or hidden costs. There’s also a section dedicated to well-known clients, such as the British Heart Foundation and Hotel Chocolat, with bold icons for each one. (Let’s not forget the ‘free phone’ reference at the top. Love that bit.)

5. Casper

This is probably one of the most in-depth, effective landing pages I’ve ever seen. Straight away you’re inundated with unbeatable benefits worked into a simple design. The 4 benefits at the top are distinct and easy to read and the branded awards and accreditations are impossible to miss.

One small scroll and there are fantastic awards from reputable Real Homes and Architectural Digest, and 1,967 reviews at an average of 4.5 stars. So basically immediate trust.

My favourite though is the carousel of Instagram posts (with the Instagram handle) to show the Casper mattress in real-life living spaces. Being able to see how much other people love the mattress will convince users to buy even more.

6. UK Models

The headline fits perfectly here as most people who want to become a model have always dreamed of being under the spotlight. Placed beside the simple application, customers will feel as if they’re just a few small steps away from walking the runway which makes them more likely to convert.

Though it doesn’t specify any benefits above the fold, anyone who visits the page more than likely just wants to apply and submit their photo. Which means the ‘top 6 reasons why you should choose us’ section is placed perfectly in the centre of the page.

The pop up in the bottom right-hand corner makes people feel as though they must act quickly to land their perfect modelling contract, just like travel websites or Etsy do with ‘6 people have this in their basket right now’. This type of FOMO/urgency pushes potential customers along the buying cycle, cutting their thought-process short and convincing them to take action straight away.

7. Masterclass

The sleek design of this landing page was what landed it in my top 15. But also the technical aspects that are often hard to find.

Above the fold, there’s an energetic and bold video that sums up the excitement of the masterclass. You see basketball tricks from Stephen Curry himself, watch him play for the Golden State Warriors and hear some of his progression advice, without even having to scroll down the page.

Important benefits are highlighted below, with an entire breakdown of every single lesson. So potential customers know what to expect without even having to ask. Language like ‘Here’s how Stephen shoots when he receives a pass’ also entices people to learn exclusive tricks, rather than something generic like ‘Learn how to shoot well.’ It’s also more promising to be JUST like him, as these are the exact techniques he uses himself.

8. Top 10 Best Paid Surveys

Earning up to £55 (rather than a generic £50+) for filling out a survey sounds amazing, and is the exact reason this landing page will convert. People who want to earn cash will just want to fill out the form. And they can do that so easily here.

The simple step-by-step section makes the process seem even easier than imagined, with the most detail put into the final “Get paid” step. Because that’s all these visitors care about. Money. Especially as the brand icons add intrigue and make the surveys seem worthwhile.

As the design is so simple, there’s a FAQ section at the bottom of the page about how to register, how old you have to be to sign up and the kind of surveys available. An FAQ is designed to answer any questions for users who need a bit of extra trust before signing up for something that seems too good to be true, making it really effective for this page.

9. Plumbing Force

Everything you could possibly want to know is above the fold here. And they even had room to add an image of a plumbing superhero. Genius.

Local, Gas Safe registered emergency plumbers, with 2952 reviews averaging at 4.40, guaranteed satisfaction and six clear services. And, two phone numbers and a bright yellow CTA that’s psychologically proven to gain higher conversions. There’s even the option for a live chat, assuring the customer it’s quick and easy to get in touch while subconsciously persuading them to stay on the page.

The testimonials below also include full names and the dates they were posted, which adds credibility and convinces more people to use the service.

10. Housekeep

A classic landing page in my opinion but also works extremely well.

Visitors can easily see the discounted price of their first clean, a 4.5-star rating on Trustpilot and that the business has featured in credible magazines, without having to lift a finger. The two colourful CTA’s also entice the reader to click through and find the perfect cleaner for their home.

Further benefits are explained below, with a simple step-by-step graph of how simple and easy it is to book. Images and star ratings for each cleaner show the visitor exactly what to expect – allowing them to do nothing but relax before their sparkly clean.

11. Benjamin The Photographer

A little different from the rest, but the perfect match for this type of industry. Rather than “Do you want amazing photography?”, a simple, benefit-driven snippet of text tells the visitor everything they need to know. And, the featured image is a carousel of diverse photography. A slight downside though, you can’t read the text on the image shown.

Underneath, 5 key achievements are highlighted in simple icons, with stand-out numbers that add extreme credibility. People are much more likely to believe you’ve won 33 international Weddison awards than 30. The CTA ‘Is my date available?’ is also one of my favourites, and will have a much higher click-through rate than ‘Get in touch.’

I’m not usually a fan of large descriptions either, but I think the one here works. It shows his personality, describes his photography style and helps build a connection.

12. Perlego

The headline and subhead have got me here. Who doesn’t want to learn anything, effortlessly? And do so for less than the price of a single book?

Speaking of effortless, the simplicity above the fold is amazing. The hint of colour before the design splits into hundreds of colourful books emphasises the text even more, highlighting just how simple the service actually is. The design makes it easy to explore different genres without having to click through to a different page.

Best of all, the entire page appeals to two separate personas (students and professionals) without making it confusing. There is a clear divide between the two, with clear CTA’s for both.

13. Property Cash Buyers

This one reminds me of a sales page you’d see back in the day. But that’s why I love it.

The snappy headline assures visitors they can sell their house as quickly as possible. The use of the arrow directs straight to the bright red ‘GO’ button, which adds to the urgency and makes the service feel fast-paced. Even better, the colourful icons underneath give potential customers peace of mind that they won’t spend more money than they need.

In the centre of the page, the CTA “Take the 60-second Valuation NOW… that’s all the time it takes” adds personalisation and makes people more inclined to click through. Especially since it’s included throughout. You don’t just have to take their word for it either, as the 3 simple steps to selling a house are highlighted below. It’s all quite old-school, but I’m a big fan. Why change what works?

15. Team Bootcamp

I like this one because of its energetic copy. The nature of the site means customers need to feel encouraged, motivated and like they’re in safe hands, and that’s exactly what it does. It’s quite long, but long landing pages can generate up to 220% more leads than a CTA above the fold.

The interchanging headlines, relatable intro and body copy scream enthusiasm. The use of ‘YOU’ throughout, in sentences like “the focus is purely on YOU.’, assures potential customers they’ll be the core focus of the boot camp. Which means when it comes to losing “up to 12 pounds”, they’re guaranteed amazing results.

Along with the enthusiastic, benefit-driven copy, bold statistics like “24 tonnes of fat scorched” and “lose between 8-14 lbs in a week” makes personal achievements seem even more realistic. Which is bound to encourage higher click-through rates, enquiries and sign-ups.

16. Leadfeeder

I love the simplicity of this one. Anyone who runs a business wants information about new leads. So instantly getting their contact details without using the business credit card? Even better.

The short snippets of text and a strong focus on the CTA’s emphasises this, with “30-days worth of fresh leads” adding a sense of urgency. The CTA button above the fold has a similar effect and persuades potential customers to enter their email address straight away. Being rated highly by G2 Crowd and Capterra does all the convincing, especially since they suit the industry it’s in.

For those who think it seems too good to be true, stand-out statistics from November 2019 show specific results, with 13.9 million leads for 33,696 B2B customers.

Tools and services to help you optimise

There are also many free and cost-effective resources online that can help you create a successful landing page. Even better, some can be used together to drive excellent results and automate your workload.

Here are some of our favourites:

• Landingi – design and publish your landing pages with their easy landing page design platform. They also offer over 300 templates to choose from, so you will certainly find the right one for your business.
• Unbounce – create and optimize dedicated landing pages that prompt your visitors with one focused goal, instead of leaving them to wander a site full of distractions with Unbounce.
• Simvoly – their drag and drop builder makes creating your landing page quick and easy. They offer hundreds of templates and custom blocks to choose from so there is no need to build the pages yourself, you can pick a design and modify it to whatever suits you.
• Instapage – consisting of six products under one advanced platform, Instapage can help you maximize your conversion rates through creating landing pages, personalization, experimentation, AdMap, collaboration and page speed.
• Wishpond – Wishpond gives you everything you need to help your business excel under one platform, specialising in creating high, converting landing pages with their easy drag-and-drop builder.

Key takeaways

You can learn a lot from the landing pages you find on the internet. But you should always remember the fundamental elements:

1. Benefits: Include as many as you can, especially above the fold.
2. Trust/reviews: These are essential for turning leads into customers.
3. Simplicity: Make sure your page is clear, concise and easy to read.
4. Stats: Be specific! 57% is better than “over 50%” and helps to build trust.

With these four guidelines, you’ll be on your way to creating the best landing pages for your business needs.

The customer journey is what determines if you will turn them from a visitor into a lead or a paying customer directly in your pages. We’ve seen funnels have from 3 to 10+ times more sales than normal e-commerce sites because of the focus and customer flow that they have.

The sales funnel

Here is an example of a sales funnel that is focused on a specific product with the goal to sell that product:

The intention is to give away the right amount of information to make the visitor click and go to the checkout. There are a few really important parts that you should focus on when building your landing page. It doesn’t matter if it is about a sale or a lead generation, the important parts are pretty much the same:

1. Headline – this is what your visitors will read 9-10 times out of 10 and it will determine if they will continue browsing your page. Make sure your message is very clear and on par with your campaign. Nobody wants to land on a page that has nothing to do with what they were looking for.
2. Talk about the benefits – don’t forget that people come with a problem and intent so talk about the benefits and what they will gain when using your products or services.
3. Conversion boosters – essential things that can tip the scale in your favour.

A few examples are:

• Money-Back Guarantee – this shows that the customer is safe even if they don’t enjoy your product or service and want a refund.
• Limited amount of products that can run out of stock at any time and people have to hurry up.
• Countdowns – a great way to include a scarcity element on your page by limiting the deal within a certain period of time.
• Discounts – encourage your leads to buy by offering a discount.
• Make it visible – cross-over your old price to show why now is the perfect time to grab an amazing deal.
• Testimonials – don’t skip this part of your funnel! People want to see what others have experienced with your product or service. Show them by adding useful reviews and testimonials to your landing page. Customers always read reviews when booking a room or buying a new phone, for example.

The importance of A/B testing

Alright, you did it all but you are still not certain if your texts are good enough or if the page would work better with a different structure or images. How to test that? Very easy, by doing an A/B test of your pages.

Just duplicate the page and do some of your modifications to the B version. Sometimes a different headline can convert 2-3 times better than the old one by simply resonating better with your audience. We are past the times where you had to measure for 2 weeks, analyze data and then try for another 2 weeks to see which one works better. Now you can do it in a few seconds and have a conversion rate that shows you which of the two pages lead more people to the next step or sell more products.

The checkout page

Now that we’ve made a well-structured product page it’s time to collect the payment on a checkout page. If not optimized, this step can make your customers quit so you need to try and help them gain even more than what they came for.

Here are a few important parts of the checkout page:

1. Checkout – the actual part where you’re collecting your payment. Make it as simple and seamless as possible – require only one or two steps for quick payment. If you are selling products or services that don’t require shipping, for example, there is no need to ask for shipping details. Make the checkout as fast and minimal as possible, don’t add anything extra or annoying.
2. Build trust – Always serve your checkout pages over a secure (SSL) connection. Visually informing that your checkout is secure with a “this site is secure” badge is also a conversion booster as some customers are very concerned about security. And trust leads to customer loyalty.
3. Headline about the product and service once again – simple and straight to the point.
4. List some of the key benefits of your products to remind your customers what they are getting
5. Add countdowns or notifications for limited items if you want to put even more scarcity to the checkout
6. Testimonials – not essential if you have testimonials on your previous steps but its always better to see more people happy with your product or service.

These are most of the elements to look for on your checkout page. Nothing is mandatory – your checkout page is highly dependent on your products, flow, and campaign. Always collect feedback from your customers and try to optimize the checkout experience.

What if we want to upsell a product right before the checkout completion? It’s called a Bump Offer and it is a really cool way to increase your order value by giving the option to grab another product right before hitting the payment button.

Make sure to use a catchy title for your upsell like “Yes! I want to grab this deal” and give some more information about what your customers are getting with it. Mention that this is a very limited offer, for example, to make it more exclusive in the customer’s eyes. The product should be added to the total and purchased upon submitting the checkout.

Upsell or downsell?

But wait… there is another way to increase the value of your offering – Show and upsell right AFTER the checkout is complete. It’s called 1-Click Upsell or Downsell and is a great way to offer even more to your customers. That’s right, directly after your customers make a purchase, instead of showing them a simple “Thank You” page, you can lead them to a page with another product and an option to buy it right away.

This gives you the freedom to offer limited products only to paying customers. You should show more information about your product, the benefits of it and make a clear call to action button to purchase it without asking your customers to add their billing information again. The product will be added as an update to the previous order and that’s it, you can now send them to the Thank You page.

The “Thank You” Page

If your customers decline the Upsell, you can either send them to your final Thank You page or offer them another, cheaper product with a so-called Downsell offer – a product at a lower price as a final attempt to increase the order before completing the journey. The process here is the same as the Upsell step but with a more-affordable offer for the customer.

In the end, we have our Thank You page. You don’t need to be too fancy with it – use a simple thank you page, include a call to action button to lead the visitors somewhere else or like your social media profiles, for example. With that, their funnel journey is complete.

Final thoughts

This is exactly what we at Simvoly allow you to do in a matter of minutes. All templates and examples that you saw are already available with us and ready to use to build your sales funnel, split-test your pages and make the most simplistic checkout and upsell experience. You don’t have to spend thousands of dollars to marketers and designers when you can do it better all by yourself in less than half an hour. You can sell any type of products – digital, physical, services and memberships, you can even have subscriptions and customer profiles.

Don’t forget, keep it simple, talk about the benefits of your products/services and split test your pages (it really takes a second to do it and a few minutes to play around with different headlines and images).

TL;DR

• Don’t just copy your competition – they may not be doing it right.
• Back up your claims otherwise you’ll tarnish your reputation.
• Don’t assume you have to compete on price. Cheapest doesnt mean best.
• Find your niche and establish your voice within your industry.

Marketing is important. We all recognise that. As a way to promote and attract customers to your brand, it’s imperative that you’re presenting your business is the right way.

The problem is, most people think they can do it themselves. Sadly, whilst experts in their industry, most business owners don’t usually follow the basic rules of marketing. It’s important to stick to the principles which have been proven to work effectively. Otherwise, you could be damaging your company without even realising it.

Looking At The Competition

The primary trap that business owners fall into is copying their competition. 93% of people look at their competitors’ websites. Whilst it’s good practice to know what they’re up to, you shouldn’t blindly follow their examples. You see your competitors doing something a certain way and think that must be how it’s done.

Wrong.

The whole idea behind marketing is to stand out – step away from your rivals and offer something new. If your business looks identical to the others, how are potential customers going to choose between you? It becomes a lottery of who gets who’s business. And you shouldn’t be relying on pure luck to bring in work.

Avoid Common Mistakes

By looking at the competition, you also replicate their mistakes.

For instance, many business websites greet you with big “Welcome To My Site” introductions. No one cares about this.

What you need is a strong, grab-your-attention-immediately headline. You don’t need to ease your viewers in. You need to appeal to them straight away before you lose their interest.

Secondly, most of the herd don’t back up the claims they make.

Saying you have the highest resolution rate in the industry doesn’t mean anything unless you can prove it. Anyone can claim something, and if you’re found to be not telling the truth it could damage your reputation irreparably. Make sure you explain your claim so there’s no room for people to question it.

Similarly, claiming you have experience doesn’t mean much. How many years of experience are you talking?

40 years: wow, that’s a lot and will really help build trust with your customers.

2 months: isn’t going to put you in a good light, so avoid making big claims about it.

Just saying you’re experienced doesn’t mean anything. Backing it up is what makes it count.

Other common mistakes such as poor site navigation, lack of subheadings and large logos make websites a minefield for customers – 88% of online consumers are less likely to return to a site after a bad experience.

Your website should be intuitively easy to use. A customer shouldn’t have to put any thought into where to find things.

Make it as simple as possible for people to buy from you and don’t let something as small as your website not working keep you from making a sale.

Don’t Assume

The herd makes assumptions about their customers.

If you respond to what your customers are telling you, you’ll succeed.

Many businesses think they know the best way of doing things, regardless of if they’re being told differently by their own customers. Listen to them. After all, without them, you don’t have a business at all.

Importantly, don’t always assume you have to compete on price. Cost isn’t everything and many people are willing to pay more for a better product or service.

Take Rolex for example. You can get a cheap, functioning watch from Argos for £10. So why would people spend thousands more on something that does the same thing? Well, they want the attention to detail, luxury finish that Rolex offers. They want the best and are willing to pay for it.

Similarly, if you’re a plasterer and can spend a few extra pounds on your materials to provide a job that’s a much higher quality, people will pay for it. The age old saying of ‘buy cheap, buy twice’ is followed by many consumers. So, as long as you’ve got a strong USP (Unique Selling Point), you can charge a fair price and still succeed.

Finding A Voice

The way to move away from the herd is to find your niche. Something that you offer that your competitors can’t. While it doesn’t even have to be something amazing. It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking in your industry. It does, however, have to be of benefit to your customer.

Say, for example, you’re a builder. You do pretty much exactly what all your competitors do. You’re qualified, you do a good job, you’re competitively priced. You’re saying all that already, same as the rest.

But ask yourself, do you always clean up after yourself and leave it tidy? Of course. However, are you telling your customers that? It may be obvious, but someone who’s explicitly telling them all the advantages of using you is more likely to win their business.

Do you offer free quotes? Most builders do – in fact, it’s unusual for them to charge for one. But again, if you’re the only one saying you do free quotes, people will then see that as another benefit of using your service.

Don’t assume or infer. Tell them.

And when it comes to finding your USP, use the same logic.

You could start offering something that doesn’t mean much to you but could be the added persuasion a customer needs. Offer a guarantee on all your work for a year. Say if there are any problems within that time you’ll come back and fix it for free. If your work is good anyway, and the likelihood of it needing repairs in that time are slim to none, you’re not losing anything.

You may have to come out and do an extra hours work every few months, but in return, you’ll gain a load of new customers. Worth it?

This is because you’ve removed risk. You’ve countered against that thought of “what if something goes wrong” and provided a good reason for them to choose you. That’s the whole point. Remember that and you won’t go far wrong.

If you’re interested in learning more about how your USP can make you more money, check out this article that we’ve written.

Start Your Own Herd

Ultimately, if you copy everyone else you’ll just be exactly that – a copy.

Listen to proven marketing principles rather than your competitors and lead the way. Don’t trail behind at the back of the pack and settle for the leftovers.

It’s imperative to the success of your business that you market your business well.

Otherwise, your competition will get all the custom. The way to ensure that people come to you instead is to make it easy for them to decide – stand out for the right reasons. By offering guarantees and hard facts that back up your claims, you remove any risk or counter-arguments that may be forming in their minds.

Most importantly, offer a strong, clear benefit of using you. A USP.

A Helping Hand

If you want to reap the benefits of marketing yourself well, but don’t feel confident achieving it all yourself, we can help.

We’ll also create and manage your Google Ads to draw traffic to your site. You’ll be provided with your very own dashboard to access all the data that’s been collected about your ads, as well as those all important leads.

Alternatively, you can take advantage of our free Performance Report to create a personalised report on your PPC campaign performance. So, you can see how your Google Ads are performing right now and how they could be improved.

Remove yourself from the herd today.