A landing page has exactly one job: guiding visitors to an action. Yet most landing pages convert badly – and almost always for the same reasons. The three biggest conversion killers: an unclear value proposition, competing calls to action, and forms with too many required fields. Here are all the typical landing page mistakes, and how to fix them.
Mistake 1: The Value Proposition Stays Vague
Visitors decide within seconds whether to stay. If the headline does not immediately answer what is on offer and why it is worth their time, they are gone – no matter how good the rest is. Fix: the first screen answers three questions. What do I get? Why here? What is the next step?
Mistake 2: Too Many Calls to Action
Newsletter, download, phone call, contact form and social buttons all on one page – offer everything and you get nothing. A landing page has one goal and one repeated call to action. Every additional offer measurably lowers conversion.
Mistake 3: The Form as a Hurdle
Every required field costs you enquiries. Company name, phone number, budget – all dispensable for a first contact. Name, email and message are enough; everything else gets clarified in conversation.
Mistake 4: No Trust Built
Claims without evidence do not convert. References, concrete project examples and real numbers belong on every landing page – ideally right next to the call to action, where the doubt arises.
Mistake 5: Distraction Through Navigation
A campaign landing page does not need the full main navigation – every menu item is an exit. Reduce the escape routes, especially with paid traffic: if you are paying for clicks from Google Ads, you cannot afford leakage on the destination page.
Mistake 6: Mobile Not Thought Through
Forms that cannot be operated on a phone, buttons outside the thumb zone, load times over three seconds: most campaign traffic is mobile – the landing page has to be too.
Frequently Asked Questions About Landing Pages
How long should a landing page be?
As long as it needs to be to address objections – offers that need explaining need more room than simple ones. What matters is the order: benefit first, details after, CTA always within reach.
Landing page or regular subpage?
For campaigns with one clear goal: a dedicated landing page with no distractions. For lasting organic visibility: structured service pages. Both follow the same ground rules – the overview is in our article on common web design mistakes, the implementation in our WordPress web design service.
How do I measure whether my landing page works?
Through conversion rate: enquiries divided by visitors. Anything under 1 percent on paid traffic points to a problem in the value proposition, the form or the load time.
Is A/B testing worth it with low traffic?
Below roughly 100 conversions per variant, test results are statistically worthless. At low volume, getting the fundamentals right beats fine-tuning button colours.
Published on
