If you’ve spent any time in online marketing, you’ve probably heard about the the NSAMCWALP principle.
Never Start A Marketing Campaign Without A Landing Page.
Simply creating a landing page, however, is not enough to guarantee conversions. One common question marketers face is, Should I incorporate links into my landing page? If so, how and how many?
Generally speaking, the answer to this question is that you should limit the number of exit points (ie, hyperlinks) on your landing page.
The more ways off of your landing page, the less likely your traffic is to convert.
Some Link Statistics
All of this makes sense, but, unfortunately, most marketers fail to follow this principle.
Here are some landing page statistics that might surprise you:
- 96% of landing pages have at least one off-page link
- 40% of landing pages have 1-3 off-page links
- 28% have 4-6 off-page links
- 14% have more than 10 off-page links!
- 67% of off-page links lead to another company page
- 15% of off-page links lead to a social media page
What’s going on here? Let’s take a look at where these landing page links typically go:
Logo
Of landing pages with at least one off-page link, 56% have a logo link back to the website’s home page.
It depends.
A logo link can add credibility to your landing page and increase your overall conversion rate. However, if you don’t have tracking set up right, it can be difficult to properly attribute the lead source for leads that click off your landing page and later convert on your website.
Rather than assuming that your logo link is necessary, consider testing whether or not hyperlinking your logo actually affects your conversion rate. If you don’t really need the link, nix it.
Privacy Statements
Running a close second to the logo link, 48% of pages with off-page links have links to some sort of privacy statements.
Links to privacy statements or other legal disclaimers are often necessary in certain industries for the protection of the advertiser. However, privacy statement links also increase the risk of a potential customer getting lost (or overwhelmed by the size or implications of the statement) and bailing.
Talk to your legal team and see if there is a way to exchange your off-page legal statement for on-page verbiage that meets the same requirement. If that’s an option, try putting the verbiage in your footer and see if it improves your conversion rate.
Contact Us
After the logo link and privacy statements, 21% of landing pages with off-site links have a link to a contact us-type page.
Generally speaking, you should probably avoid this on most lead gen landing pages. Lead gen pages are essentially marketing-driven “Contact Us” pages, so diluting their effectiveness with an off-page link to a page that does the exact same thing is somewhat self-defeating.
For landing pages that sell a particular product, a contact us link may have more value, but it’s still a distraction from the primary goal—selling the product. If the only way they’re going to buy is if they call you first, their odds of buying after they call probably aren’t that good anyways.
About Us
Similar to the contact us link, links to an about us page are also fairly common, with 16% of landing pages with off-page links having a link to an about us page.
Here again, the actual value of a link to your “About Us” page is debatable. If knowing more about your company and/or employees is an important enough factor in your potential clients’ decision-making process to warrant a link, just put the information directly on your landing page.
That way, you make your page more convincing and eliminate the need for a potentially distracting off-page click.
What About Social Links?
Taken together, links to Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are found on 35% of landing pages with off-page links. However, the value of social media links is debatable.
Although social media links can help with brand perception or credibility, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are notoriously distracting websites.
Unless your audience really needs to see your Facebook page to convert or you are in desperate need of extra Tweets, it’s usually best to leave social links off of your landing page. If they love your product or service, they’ll find your page and like it later.
Conclusion
In spite of conventional wisdom, off-page links are found on over 90% of landing pages. Are these landing pages links ruining conversion rates?
For some, probably. For others, they may actually be improving conversion rates.
While it’s usually best to limit the number of off-page links on your landing page (or eliminate off-page links entirely), there are often reasons why an off-page link is helpful or necessary.
That being said, if you are considering an off-page link, it’s probably a good idea to test whether or not it is actually producing value for your page. See if there is a way to put the off-page content on your landing page. Or, if you can, eliminate the link and see how your conversion rate fares.
How have you seen off-page links affect your conversion rate?
