This is a guest post from Rachel Bartee, content writer and a marketing consultant at UK Essayontime.

You’ve taken the time to put together an effective marketing strategy, and produced outstanding content. You get a ton of visitors, yet your conversion rate is far below your expectations, and so is your revenue. Something is not quite right there, and most of the time, the problem is within your landing pages.

It may be because it’s failing to capture the attention of your visitors or not being able to collect all the information about your leads.

In order to help you figure out what is wrong, here is a list of 12 landing page mistakes you cannot afford to make.

1. Boring or Misleading Headline

According to legendary David Ogilvy, about 5 times as many people will read the headline, as opposed to reading the actual article. This pretty much illustrates the importance of having a good headline, even when it comes to your landing page. It needs to be able to capture the attention of the reader, but there is more to it. It needs to be clear so that there are no doubts in the visitor’s mind about what they will get once they click on it. It also needs to be relevant.

The biggest mistake you can make is promise something, like a free trial or a discount price on a ticket, and then not deliver it on your landing page. Finally, it should focus on the benefit for the user, and not just the features of a product or a service.

2. Poorly Optimised Copy and Unclear Value

How much copy should you write? Enough so that it explains what you have to offer to the customer, but not too much and not too little as shown here:

Again, the page itself is pretty outdated, and the copy doesn’t reveal anything remarkable about the company and what it does. A solution would be to start with a clear hierarchy of persuasion on landing pages.

Begin by explaining the benefits, as well as why you’re in a position to offer the best solution out there. Since most visitors will naturally object to taking up an offer, address the reason and tell them why they should take up yours.

Then, make it very clear as to what their next step should be in order to get it (i.e. tickets), which would be your call to action.

Finally, provide social proof from reputable sources or authentic reviews. All of this might sound complicated, but it doesn’t need to be with the help of The Ultimate Guide to Copywriting for Events.

3. Starting With or Having Too Many Forms

This also applies to forms which ask for too much information. Take a look at this, for example:

Source: https://www.wufoo.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/sites/8/2014/02/01-long-form.png

It will take more than a few moments for a user to complete this. It’s equally bad if your landing page opens with a form, or if you make the reader fill out several of them.

The best way to do it would be to start with a brief introduction, after which you direct the customer to one of several (but not too many) forms which can be completed with ease.

4. Slow On-Site Speed and Not Optimising for Mobile

According to research, mobile devices have taken over, and as much as 80% of internet users own a smartphone.

This means that optimising your landing pages for mobile is mandatory, otherwise, you are going to lose too many customers.

The speed is equally important because mobile users are even less likely to wait for the page to load than their desktop counterparts. Find out how you can improve your conversion rates here.

5. Call to Action Button Not Visible Enough

The whole point of including a CTA on your landing page is to drive potential customers to take a single action, to have a singular option.

Not designing your call-to-action button highly visible and catchy nullifies your main goal. The best results can be achieved by placing one call to action button at the top of the landing page or right after the description.

Add a contrasting colour to make it stand out against the background. Here is a good example of how calls to action should not be done:

6. Too Many Distractions on Your Landing Page

Once the potential customer is on your landing page, you want them to click on your CTA, especially if it the process is quick and simple, such as signing up for an event or purchasing a ticket. The problem is when you have other elements on your landing page that distract the visitor from your call to action.

Some elements, like requesting their email or offering to sign up for your newsletter may be useful, but you would be better off placing them on another page after the user has clicked on your CTA.

Others are an obvious distraction, such as pop-ups, videos, ads, navigation bars, and even links to your content.

Sure, they may be useful and informative, but they require the visitor to focus their attention on something else or leave the landing page altogether, and once they start going down that rabbit hole, they will most likely never come back to your CTA.

7. Poor Readability

Too much text is a huge no-no these days, especially because of mobile users. Apart from making your text more scannable, your font needs to be clear and readable, and there needs to be a sufficient contrast between text and background. Long and convoluted sentences are also out of the question.

8. Using Stock Images

In 2017, nobody will believe that there is an actual team of people on that generic stock photo on your landing page.

If you are running your event for the second time or more, use photos from your previous event to provide that emotive connection with your audience.

If this is your first event, maybe go a little more abstract with imagery, ensuring it fits within your overall brand look and feel. And remember to capture some photos at your first event so you can benefit from these next time! For more on event photography check out this guide.

9. Not Addressing Common Customer Concerns

If the customer is new to your company, they will naturally have some concerns regarding trust. While these can be solved with authentic user testimonials and mentions from other reputable people in the industry, you can dispel some of them yourself.

For instance, you can reassure them by explaining your money-back guarantee or your ticket refund policy. Also, privacy is a big problem these days, which means you should make it clear that you won’t share any of their information with someone else.

10. Poor Transparency

Another way in which you can establish trust is by being open about who you are. There are plenty of fake websites out there which offer a contact form, which requires the user to enter their information in order to receive a response. This is shady and one-sided. You should offer real contact information, such as your email, phone, or a physical address.

Furthermore, you can bolster your authenticity by providing social media buttons, which will allow the visitors to confirm you are providing an actual service.

11. Not Optimising Your Confirmation Page

If you have managed to gather information from a lead or attendee, or if a user has made a purchase, you should let them know what’s next in store. This means that your “Thank you for purchasing tickets” should be followed by something like “For updates on our line-up and activities please stay tuned via our Facebook and Twitter pages.”

12. Not Testing Your Landing Page

Testing can get pretty complex, but it’s the best way to figure out which version of your landing page will be the most effective.

For example, you can put up a page where you have implemented all the best elements, which will serve as your control version. Then, put up a page which will be your variation version, and which will have a different call to action (in case you want to test the effectiveness of your CTA). Test both for a period of time, and see which one comes out as a winner in the end.

In conclusion

These 12 mistakes should help point you in the right direction when optimising your landing pages. Remember, don’t just assume that if a potential attendee lands on your website that they’ll instantly convert to a sale.

You need to make this process as simple as possible in order to stand out from your competition. Check out this blog on how to boost ticket sales by increasing your conversion for additional information.

Rachel Bartee is a content writer and a marketing consultant at UK Essayontime. She is content-oriented and knows how to put words into action. She feels passionate about travelling and inspired by her morning yoga. Reach her on Twitter.