Rethink your landing page

Landing pages are a funny kettle of fish. Every recruiter or corporate hiring team knows it is important yet not everyone is equal in getting it right. A simple task could morph into a web of complex content or user-friendliness and most horrifyingly, difficulty to deliver the desired results for your business.

Candidates funnel towards landing pages that are clear with easy job application steps. The aim is not grandiose - build it to make them come, keep them long enough and convert to another successful application.

Sites that are insistently trying to confuse potential applicants with incoherent content, annoying drop-downs, confusing navigation or the most heinous marketing crime of all - unclear value propositions will eventually be weeded out. First impressions produce high impact in all areas of life. So, as an example, if you are investing your recruitment advertising budget looking for Sales and Marketing candidates, then you need to give potential business development managers, executives, marketers an impressive first impression when they come to your career site that connects immediately with their specific needs.

You may already be sending traffic to your landing pages with great SEO, social media, electronic direct marketing and job advertisements. However, bear in mind that if these landing pages are substandard, you will run a high risk of killing your lead generation effort.

KEEPING IT SIMPLE

If your landing page overcrowds with information, then your visitors will jump. A human's average attention span is seven seconds. A clean and attractive look makes it easier for candidates to find the most important information quickly. As a guide, your site visitor should be answering these questions profoundly clear and easily:

1. What does this site say?

2. Does it capture my interest?

3. What am I supposed to do?

4. Do I want to share this experience?

POWERFUL CALL TO ACTIONS

You need to compel your visitors to stay on your landing page and take the desired action. It is a balancing act as too many of these prompts could also confuse your visitors, resulting in fewer conversations. Stick with one or two interesting, significant call to actions. Most of these steps require small changes but could result in a big impact on your conversion, positively or negatively. So be warned!

AVOID THE LENGTHY DISCOURSE

There may be times that you do want to share relevant content with your audience. To avoid disrupting your audience's attention, try to vary the layout with bullet points, appropriate image or video. This small step helps you to share your message up front with your prospects, keep a consistent branding and better lead generation.

THINK HEADLINES

If you see these two headlines:

1. "Don't let inferior leads lose your money."

2. "80% of marketers believe leads are valuable."

Chances are, you will gravitate towards the first one. Your headline does not need to cover all of your landing page's elements, but it needs to lure your audience to continue the content journey, and ultimately follow through with your call to action. The great David Ogilvy said “On the average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar” - that is a hefty 80% of your committed resources to an initiative. This ties in consistently with our belief that you need to create a watertight first impression or risk losing out.

In short, give these recommendations a try to run a quick audit on your landing page. It is relatively simple to secure your audience's attention with a fantastic first impression. However, if you are still struggling, we love to chat with you to help. Contact us at #magic 02 9955 7170 or email us and let's discuss ways to optimise your digital recruitment marketing strategy.