Perfect Landing Pages: The Art of Creating High-Conversion Lead Generation Forms

While there may not be such a thing as the perfect landing page, you can develop landing pages that are pretty close to flawless. The key is understanding which characteristics matter and which ones don’t. Once you hone in on these differentiating factors, you’ll discover that designing and leveraging lead gen forms can be exciting and offer good returns.

Characteristics of a High Converting Lead Gen Form

If you ever underestimate just how important a single element on a conversion form is, reference this real life case study from Expedia. It shows how a single tweak to a conversion form earned the company an additional $12 million in profits.

While you may not experience such profound results, what would an extra $200, $1,200, or $12,000 look like? Odds are, you’re probably doing something right now that’s preventing you from maximizing conversions. In order to identify where you’re falling short, let’s look at some of the common characteristics of high converting lead gen forms.

1. Minimal Friction. The number one killer of conversions is friction. If you want to increase conversions, you need to reduce the number of steps the target has to go through to sign up. This means using less than five information fields, and ideally three or fewer.

There’s a direct correlation between fewer fields and higher conversions in almost every instance. If you only ask for name and email address, you’re going to get a lot more leads than if you ask for name, email address, phone number, company, and position. That’s a fact.

On a related note, you shouldn’t ask for a phone number unless it’s absolutely necessary. One study shows an average five percent dip in conversion rates when a phone number field is included. People don’t like to be called and–unless it’s critical to the main objective–you don’t have much of a reason to call them either.

Here’s a good example of a conversion form that presents very little friction. It provides a value proposition, asks for two pieces of information, and then presents the call-to-action. As the popular KISS acronym reads: Keep it Simple Stupid.

2. Aesthetically Pleasing. Conversion forms need to be attractive. If they look out of place, confusing, or boring, they won’t get much attention. Things to think about include the layout of the form, the color scheme (particularly the color of the call-to-action button), and the graphics used.

The tricky part is that you want your conversion form to stand out, but you also don’t want it to compromise the existing color scheme and layout you have. It should fit in, but stand out (if that makes sense). Here’s a great example of a conversion form that does just this. The red ties the form into the rest of the page, but also allows it to pop off the page thanks to the white background.

3. Relevant CTA. The call-to-action is obviously one of the most important elements of a lead gen form. Unfortunately, many marketers choose a call and then never address it again. Ideally, you should create multiple calls-to-action and split test them against each other within the first 24 to 48 hours.

According to one expert, the highest converting CTA buttons are visually pleasing, compelling, logically placed, use contrasting colors, are close in proximity to the previous action, and don’t compete for attention with other on-page elements.

4. Social Proof. While you don’t have a ton of space in a conversion form to convey information, your accompanying landing page should provide enough value to push the user towards the form. One of the best things you can do is provide social proof.

Social proof can come in the form of data from case studies, reviews and testimonials, ratings from third-party websites, and more. The value here is that you’re able to help hesitant users overcome psychological obstacles to converting.

5. Above the Fold. Finally, remember to keep the form above the fold. While it may initially seem unnatural to put your lead gen form here with so much of the context falling below the fold, remember that you want the form to be the first and last thing the user sees. The average user will start at the top, scroll part of the way down, and then return to the top before leaving. Keeping the form above the fold increases the chance that it’ll be seen.

The Key to the Perfect Form: Ample Testing

In addition to the characteristics referenced above, it’s also imperative that you invest in ample testing. While the aforementioned features are generally considered valuable regardless of the industry, it is true that certain audiences respond differently. The only way to tell if your forms are working is to continuously test conversion rates. Keep this in mind as you invest in high converting lead gen forms.