Examples of Bad Landing Pages and Why

If it is important to know how to create good landing pages, it is equally important to know some examples of bad landing pages and why.  Knowing both good and bad practices will help you understand what to do and what not to do when it comes to landing page design. 

Experience would be the best teacher, and you need not experience bad practices for you to learn the best lessons.   It can be better and less costly to learn from others’ bad experiences and avoid these at all costs.

You can start your own investigation by looking at your competition’s landing pages to check out what they are doing.  Try to see if they have something that effectively captures your attention.  You can also look at the flaws of your competitors, which you should avoid doing on your own pages.  Those who are in the high dollar industry would usually have the best landing pages, though it could not always be the case, as there are big brands that can be examples of bad landing pages too.

Common Characteristics of Some Examples of Bad Landing Pages and Why These Can’t Perform

Examples of bad landing pages have some common characteristics which make them ineffective in making conversions.  Most of the poorly performing landing pages have very bad layout.  Bad layout could mean being unfocused, cluttered, with a call to action that is difficult to figure out or too complicated for the visitors.

If there is one thing that you need to avoid when you are designing your landing page, it’s causing confusion to your users by placing too many distractions on your page.  Some of these distractions include banner ads, too many links, or unnecessary popup windows.  A visitor that is annoyed or confused, or both, will most likely click away somewhere else.

If I visit one page that offers something but with too many things going on, I would definitely get too overwhelmed, I would not know what to do.  Simply because I got confused, I would just click on another section of the website, or worse, close the window and look for something else by searching on Google.  Even if the website attempts to have an email contact capture overlay, I’d most likely close the box and decide to completely abandon the page.  Had the message been clear and simple if the contents were concise, it could have spelled so much difference and I could have stayed to take action in the landing page.

Good Landing Pages vs Examples of Bad Landing Pages

On the other hand, good landing pages are clear and focused.  Websites are forms of communication and like any other communication medium, if it is unclear, it gets easily ignored or even forgotten by the target audience.  Good landing pages are able to deliver their message across using visual strategies such as using call to action buttons that easily catch users’ attention.  For example, a “BUY NOW” button that is large and has a high contrast against the background color would get noticed easily by the visitors.  Creating your action button in a similar fashion gives your visitors a clue on what to do next.

High performing pages also have high conversion rates due to compelling testimonials.  By presenting information, service or product which adds value to your audience, you are giving your visitors enough reason to take action on your landing page.  Such action could mean many different things to you, depending on your website’s goals: to make a sale, to increase your subscribers, or to capture leads.  Obviously, between good and bad examples of landing pages, the good examples always generate better conversion rates.