Kath
- Oct 28, 2020
- 5 min read

The Ultimate 15-Point Landing Page Checklist

The following landing page checklist applies to both single landing pages or those that are part of a larger website. In either case, I am simply referring to the page on which a user lands.

The objective of this checklist is to provide some guidelines for landing page best practice. It is important to reiterate upfront that landing pages do not get you customers(!). The landing page does not make the conversion. The traffic is what gets you, customers, be it organic or paid.

The goal of the landing page therefore is to ‘do no harm’. It should not be a blocker to conversions. It should insight trust, build credibility and guide the traffic from ‘visitor’ to ‘lead’.

Without further ado, I have broken up this checklist into x3 key areas: content, conversions and technical.

So what makes an excellent landing page?

Content

The first job of your landing page when traffic arrives is to let people know where they are, and secondly reassure them they are in the right place. You need to convince the visitor they don’t need to bounce back to Google for more options(!), they need to be assured their click-through was justified. So how do we do this?

1. Include real pictures or videos

Preferably high-quality, but better to be real than a stock image. It’s about integrity and inciting trust. Real people, uniforms, business assets, processes etc. These need to be genuine images – not stock. The trust factor is brought up by having a real image.

2. Use local language

Particularly with B2C, using local language helps with the human factor as well as robot relevance. Refer to local neighbourhoods, transport links etc.

3. Give more information than you think is necessary

Multiple pages work well because you get metrics on other pages, bounce rates etc. If you are only serving ‘squeeze pages’ and someone doesn’t search for exactly the right thing, you aren’t giving them anywhere to go. You aren’t allowing or covering for personal preferences. If you only have one page, make sure it is content-rich. You need to convey information that isn’t part of the H1 title tag too. It is better to have more content on there to provide options, describe your service, feature real people, real imagery etc. That said, the content still needs to be clean, organised and continue to motivate the eye to the CTA/lead form.

4. Provide language options if appropriate

Adding a swap language toggle button in the top header is a great option to provide if you are serving markets where multiple languages are spoken with the same landing page.

5. Include trust builders

Provide additional integrity cues on your landing pages to further insight trust. Examples include accreditations, in business since 1930 etc., Google Maps location map, testimonials, social media links or awards.

Conversions

The ability to track conversions is crucial. All too often conversion tags are not set up properly, conversions are double-counted or worse, not tracked at all.

6. Have a phone number above the fold

If you have the resources to receive calls, include a phone number above the fold on your landing page. This is particularly important for mobile users who can click to call and skip the form altogether. Make sure calls are tracked.

7. Lead form

Keep it as short as you can. If it does need to be longer for whatever reason, then consider a 2-step process. Keep it above the fold where possible (make sure to test on mobile) and as compact as possible without compromising the content. Have a visible and contrasting CTA button that attracts the eye. People like to be very clear about what it is you’re asking them to do. Don’t make it hard for them, again... incite trust and convince them they’re in the right place.

8. Different conversion options

Do not box people in with one way of converting. Give people five or more different ways to convert if possible. For example, a short lead form, a phone number, a company email, a scheduling system or a longer lead form where they can provide more specific information, request a callback form, chat box etc.

9. Call to action

Make sure the CTA is clear and attracts the eye as mentioned before, but also make sure you include instructions. For example, “call now for a free quote”, “if you take the time to fill out this form, we will give you”, “call now and ask for [name]”.

Technical bits

Technical issues are one of the most common factors in Google Ads that affect Low-Quality Score regarding landing pages. So it is important you have an eye on the technical performance of your landing pages too.

10. Page speed

Make sure your page(s) loads fast. This is the number one landing page issue I come up against with low performing PPC accounts. Check how fast the page loads yourself and use speed testing tools such as Pingdom or Google PageSpeed Insights to ensure your landing pages are not slow.

11. Mobile friendly

Definitely have a mobile-friendly version of the website and test it in Safari and Chrome to ensure everything is working properly. Check the clickable phone number etc.

12. Thank you pages

It is 100 times easier to track conversions if you have a thank you page set up to direct people to after they have completed the lead form. Send them to a thank you page and make sure your tracking analytics is set up on this page (either with a goal set up in Google Analytics, or the conversion code in Google Ads). The conversion tags will only fire if a person reaches that page and they can only reach that page if they complete the form – simple.

13. Basic SEO

Ensure basic SEO practices are deployed on the landing pages. This includes your H1 heading, meta descriptions and title tags, this will help optimise for quality score purposes.

14. Heat Map tracking

Consider setting up heatmap tracking for even more information on how users are experiencing your landing pages. There are some great tools out there such as HotJar that allow you to actually see how your users are interacting with your landing pages. Track, learn and optimise.

15. Remarketing pixels

Make sure you add remarketing pixels on your landing pages, for the invaluable opportunity to market to people later if they don't input their contact information the first time. Tools like Facebook Pixel and Google Ads remarketing are best for this.

There we go! Well done for making it to the end of the list and I hope this gives you some ideas about what to include in your landing pages. As always if you think I've missed something or have any questions, please don't hesitate to leave a comment below or drop me a private message.

All the best, Kath.

Landing Page Checklist Summary