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3 Popular Conversion Tactics That Can Blow Up In Your Face

Conversion dead-certs are a popular talking point amongst marketers and designers who are always looking to increase the performance of their landing pages. Not to mention the endless sources of information that can be found on the subject if you go trawling through the web. But the important thing to remember here is that there is no such thing as a dead-cert.

Sure, there are plenty of conversion tactics that might prove to be more effective than others, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll always work in your favor. In fact, some conversion tactics commonly thought to be ‘absolute fool proof’ can do more harm than good when not properly implemented.

The three conversion tactics listed below have great potential to improve your conversion rates. But poor execution can quickly turn them into conversion killers. Read on to find out how to get them right.

1. Be careful with that icon, you’ll have someone’s eye out!

Many landing page marketers make use of icons in order to help illustrate their point quickly and more clearly. This does make sense after all, you’ve only got a limited time to effectively get your point across – and icons are a great way of summarizing and emphasizing the meaning behind a hefty portion of copy text.

So how can this be a bad thing? Well, used correctly, icons are a great tool for communication and this can massively improve chances of conversion. It’s only when landing page designers get over zealous about the use of icons that they can start to cause you grievances. Let’s take a look at an example:

    Image: Landing page icons that draw attention away from the CTA (source. GiffGaff)

Here you can see that the icons being used are just as prominent as the call-to-action, if not more so. This can lead to confusion about which element of your landing page is ‘most important’ and result in visitors abandoning your page out of frustration.

Now let’s take a look at how icons should be used:

    Image: Landing Page icons that do not draw attention from the CTA (source. ZOHO)

Here you’ll notice that the icons being used are less eye-catching and don’t draw attention from the call-to-action. Here’s your checklist for using icons correctly:

• Greyscale your icons to ensure they don’t conflict with the color of your CTA Button in any way. Even if your icons are not the same color as your CTA Button, this can still water-down the gravitas of what should be the most important element on the page.
• Keep your icons small and flat. Visitors are instinctively drawn to the biggest, most obvious elements on your page – and this should always be your CTA first, followed by your headline. Larger icons can disrupt the way in which your content is consumed by the visitor.
• Avoid using icons if they’re not altogether necessary. Bullet points work just as well at effectively consolidating large portions of text, and are nowhere near as distracting.

2. Trust seals don’t always guarantee trust

Another conversion dead-cert (and another example of bad icon usage) would have to be the implementation of trust seals/badges. Third-party badges (such as Paypal, Norton, McAfee, etc) are a great way of signifying high security standards, reassuring visitors that any information shared is done so safely. Whilst credible logos, perhaps from other companies previously worked with, are also a notable sign of trustworthiness.

Establishing trust is imperative if you want to boost conversions. People are far more likely to fill in forms and hand over personal information if they’re not worried about it being misused. Heck, they’ll even stick around long enough to find out more about what you’re offering, so long as they spot a seal of approval somewhere on the page.

But there are cases when these seals won’t do you any good, and could in fact reduce your chances of conversion. Here’s how to avoid that happening to you:

• Make sure to use trust seals people recognize. It can be awfully tempting to slap any old badge on your landing page so long as it’s trustworthy, but if your visitors don’t recognize it then they won’t value it’s authentication.

      Image: Study into the perceived security of various trust seals in the market, 2013 (source. Baymard Institute)

• Avoid peppering your page with too many trust seals at once. This could have the opposite effect and raise alarms about ‘security’. Too many icons can also draw the eye too much and distract from more important elements on the page. Either way, it’s going to cause people to abandon your page without completing a conversion.
• Be mindful of where you place trust seals. Third-part security badges should be in plain sight, preferably at the top of the page and clear from the CTA area, as trust badges are typically associated with payment and can deter users from filling out a simple lead gen form. Whilst company logos of previous clients/partnerships should be included in your sales pitch or testimonial section.

3. Including a contact telephone number (and then not tracking it)

For a lot of industries outside of basic e-commerce, the vast majority of sales and leads are generated over the telephone. This is why many marketers include a contact telephone number on their landing pages, it’s a great way of ‘selling’ to a customer while their interest is peaked. It’s also useful to speak with a potential customer directly, as you can better assist with any questions or concerns they may have regarding your services.

But unless telephone sales and leads are actively being tracked, then there’s no clear indication as to whether your online marketing efforts are a success. This could result in misleading performance data, and that can be costly when the time comes to maybe reinvest in traffic or make changes to your landing pages. You don’t want to make these kinds of decisions under the advisement of inaccurate info.

There’s really only way to get around this problem: if you’re going to include your telephone number on your landing page (and if landing page performance data is crucial to the future of your campaign strategies) then you need to implement call tracking.

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Main Image, Buckleupstudios