A landing page is one of the most important elements of your Ecommerce business. But a poorly constructed landing page can cost your business valuable conversions, and leave money on the table. Something that you think looks great might not resonate with your users. In order to prevent these mistakes, take a look at some of the do’s and don’ts of creating an effective landing page that converts.

Do have a clear goal

Every page should have a clear goal. Your copy can tell a beautiful story but it won’t convert if your customers aren’t being guided towards one call-to-action (CTA). You can provide plenty of information and add great images. When designing a landing page, it’s important to consider the next action you’d like your audience to take. Do you want them to add a product to their cart? How about sign up to receive emails? A good landing page will place that ‘goal’ up front.Have a prominent CTA in order to make your copy flow directly into one clear and obvious goal.

Here is a good example:

Do feature great product images

While descriptive copy is important, relevant images grab the attention of site visitors and complement your copy in a logical way. But striking a balance between information-rich images and good design isn’t the easiest task for most companies. Plus, capturing good product photos can be difficult to scale. Savvy brands are using more user-generated content (UGC) to showcase their products because UGC converts better and is more scalable.

Good UGC should showcase actual customers using the product, and can even include ratings and reviews overlayed on the UGC to provide more social proof for the product.Here is a good example of how to properly use images:

Do make the page mobile friendly

Mobile traffic likely represents a large portion of your site traffic. Considering the prevalence of smartphones, creating a great mobile-responsive page is a requirement for landing pages. What’s more – a page that is optimized, tested, and easy to use from a mobile device will equate to more conversions naturally. Your users need to be able to easily locate the CTA from that page during that session. Only a small number of mobile users will access your page again from their desktop to order your product. Create a layout that makes it easy for mobile users to press the right button, consume content and of course, complete the desired goal of the page.

Don’t forget to edit your content

Content is one of the most important parts of your landing page. Make sure your content is well-written and formatted correctly. Double check any spelling and grammar to avoid mistakes. Remember, your landing page should be tailored to your customer's needs. Why should they take the next step? What's 'in it' for them? Keep these in mind when writing the copy for the page. Your page visitors need a good reason to engage with your CTA.

Don’t go overboard with form fields

Form fields are tiring to fill out, especially from a mobile device. Only ask for information that is absolutely necessary. Email, name, and phone number are common fields but if you can, keep it to just name and email. Even better, if you can allow social-signup from the page visitor’s social profiles, you might be able to collect more information.

Remember, less is more when it comes to asking for additional information from your potential customers. Below is a good example of a compelling, simple form:

Don’t clutter the page

Make your page all about the goal you’re trying to get your visitors to accomplish. Eliminate links to additional unrelated content, sidebar widgets, ads, and other websites. These can distract your customer from what really matters. The CTA should be the logical choice for the visitor.

Also, since your customers don’t want to come across an extremely lengthy landing page, an ideal length of a landing page should be clear, short, and straight to the point. Simplify anything that might appear too long. Below is an example of a great, clean landing page design.

Don’t forget a “thank you” page

Once your users complete the action you want them to, there should be a page where you can thank them for completing the action, encourage them to take the next action you’d like them to take, or offer some useful content.

Chances are, you’re spending money to drive traffic to a landing page. Because of this, it’s so important to build a good landing page from the start. Study the rules of a good landing page and look at some of the examples that work as well as others that don’t.

Don’t forget to test your landing page

Finally, the last step in the process of making your landing page is testing it. Always be sure to test your landing page to see if everything works the way you want it to. Testing is crucial since you are able to notice any possible mistakes or simply see what is working or what isn’t. Take it one step further and have a trusted friend or colleague look it over and give feedback. Remember that another set of eyes will pick up key points you might have missed.

Also, be sure to check out the AdWords Landing Page Grader which is a free and useful tool to show how effective your landing page will be.

Ideally, you want people to complete an action on your website, not just visit it. Just like any marketing activity, landing pages should be iterative. While these best practices can help guide you in the right direction, it’s key to always continue to improve your landing pages so your audience continues to resonate with your brand.

‍Freddie Tubbs is a digital strategist at Ukwritings and Boomessays. He regularly takes part in online marketing events and contributes posts to the Vault and Essayroo blogs.