16 Hot Tips for Converting Landing Page Visitorsinto Callers

When running ad campaigns on Google (or Bing), it is important that you build your landing page
with mobile visitors in mind. You’re targeting people who are using their phones to reach you, so
you need to make sure the landing page looks and works great on mobile devices.
We’re going to look at some very useful tips that will help you convert landing page visitors into
callers:

1. Write ads with your landing page in mind. It is very important to write your ads while
   keeping in mind what is being offered on the landing page. Your ad copy and the landing
   page are complementary to each other and the copy will work best when it is aligned with
   its relevant landing page. Many advertisers make the mistake of either sending potential
   customers to the homepage or creating a generic landing page for all their ads, instead of
   using separate landing pages for each ad. To ensure consistency, make sure you highlight the
   benefits and features in your landing page that you mentioned in your ad copy.
2. Keep users focused on one page. With any landing page, including those targeting phone
   calls, don’t give users too many ways to get off the page and browse around. Try to give
   them all the information they need to call on this one page so there is no need to go
   elsewhere. This means removing top level navigation and slimming down footer navigation
   to the bare essentials.
3. Put less emphasis on forms. Something else that people often forget if you want to
   emphasize calls, then don’t put a form above the fold. When a form is put above the fold
   and overemphasized, it oftentimes reduces the number of phone calls. If phone calls are
   more valuable to your business than form fills, then be sure to put the form option lower on
   the page where it will be used as a last resort option for those who are unwilling to call. This
   also applies to live chat – try to prevent the chat box from loading until after the user scrolls
   down the page. This way it is less likely to cannibalize on calls.
4. Emphasize and sell the call, not necessarily the product or service:

• Create an emotional appeal if possible.
• Underline a low-pressure and stress-free call process.
• The call-to-action (CTA) should encourage people to call in, not to commit to anything.
• Tell users that they’ll get immediate benefits from calling, like receiving answers to
  questions as well as other important information.
• Include the operator’s name and a friendly face that will encourage visitors to call.

Use a click to call button for mobile users. If you want people to call, make it as easy as
possible by including a call button.

6. Test the size, color and position of your phone number. The number needs to be as visible
   as possible, both by its appearance and its position on the page. Make it easy to read against
   the background color, larger than regular content, and placed wherever it would seem
   natural for a visitor to want to call you, like after a list of reasons to choose your products or
   services over the competition’s.
7. Use a phone icon next to the phone number as a visual cue. Again, you want to make the
   number as visible as possible and images help catch visitors’ attention.
8. Ask for the call. Use CTAs that focus on calling and explain how easy and beneficial it would
   be to call and talk to someone.
9. Assure users that calls are confidential. People want to feel safe and secure when calling you, they want to know they can trust you before telling you about their needs.

10. Use call tracking software. You should also use call tracking software (Call Rail, Invoca, etc.)
    for the phone numbers on your website. This software presents visitors with a phone
    number that will dynamically mask your main phone number, and that number changes
    depending on how your visitors found you. Visitors dial the new tracking number, the call
    gets forwarded to your main number, and you answer the phone just like you normally
    would. They also use cookies, so if a visitor returns to your site within a year, they’ll see the
    same number. The software forwards calls to your main number and in the background, it
    records the conversation and gathers statistics, which you can check on in real-time. The
    whole point of this is to tell which keywords bring you high-quality calls. This is critical data
    that can’t be left out – you need it to do anything else.
11. Create a sense of urgency that compels visitors to call. Don’t be afraid to create a sense of
    urgency, suggesting that the sooner they call, the better. Getting people to take action now
    rather than at some time in the future is very important and good marketers figure out a
    way to build urgency into their offer.

12. Use a local phone number. Using a local area code can really pay off for location specific
    services that are a good fit for call-only campaigns. There are a lot of national service
    providers and it can be confusing for someone trying to find a local company. The local area
    code allows them to see that you really are local. Toll-free is the old standard but most
    people have unlimited calling plans. For those looking for local services, local area codes are
    more trusted.

13. Reassure visitors that you serve their area. This can make a big difference and you can do
    this with a script that echoes the local city or state, or by building landing pages based on
    each targeted area.
14. Track call quality. Track not just calls but be sure to follow through and track post-call
    outcomes to get a sense of the quality of calls. Some keywords generate a lot of calls, but
    they are people just looking for general information or are not qualified. Tracking quality of
    calls and not just quantity of calls can make a major impact on your business results.
15. Optimize your landing page for mobile devices. Apart from the content of your landing
    page, design and functionality can also influence whether a potential customer trusts you
    enough. Since your visitors will primarily be using mobile devices, make sure that your
    landing page is correctly optimized for mobile and that you’ve used click to call functionality
    on it.
16. Improve your landing page’s load time. Our final tip is one of the most important ones and
    we’re going to go into a little detail about load times. A major aspect of call-focused landing
    pages is the load time. Many people don’t have fast internet connections on their phones, so
    you need to make sure the page is as clean and quick as possible, otherwise you risk losing a
    large part of your mobile visitors due to slow loading times.

The landing page should also use a responsive design so that it adapts to all screen sizes and ideally
it should be coded in AMP HTML for even faster loading times.
To check your page’s loading time, you can use Google’s own testing tool over at
testmysite.thinkwithgoogle.com.

Let’s look at a few general tips that will help with overall loading times:

1. Minimize HTTP Requests
   HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) Requests are counted whenever a browser fetches any type of
   information from a web server, and these requests can take up to about 80% of a page’s load time.
   Fortunately, there are several things you can do to limit these requests:
   ● Combine CSS/JS files – instead of having visitors’ browsers retrieve multiple CSS or JavaScript
   files, you can try and combine them into one larger file.
   ● Use queries to only load what is necessary – if you only need to load certain images on
   desktop devices or certain scripts on mobile devices, using conditional statements to only
   load what’s needed can be a great way to improve loading times.
   ● Use less images – if you think you’re using more images than is necessary, try removing
   some of them, especially if their file sizes are big.

2. Use Browser Caching
   Browser caching allows assets from websites to be downloaded to visitors’ local drives (or phone
   storage) so that the next time they visit a website they’ve visited before, or even when browsing
   other pages on that website, it will load faster. Cached resources can expire anywhere from one day
   to within a year.

3. Compress Images
   Images on websites usually take up about 60% of the average bytes loaded per page. As mentioned
   earlier, it’s best to get rid of any images that aren’t essential, and in some cases consider using CSS
   to replace an image – for example, if you’ve got a simple colored background, you could replace the
   image with a little CSS that will make your page load faster.
   After you finish removing any non-essential images, look at all the remaining ones and see how large
   their file size is. People often use photos without first optimizing them for the web, and that can
   sometimes mean big files that visitors have to wait to download.
   If you find yourself using large image files, go ahead and run them through optimization software
   like Compressor.io. In some cases, you’ll find reductions of over 60% in file sizes, and depending on
   how large the images were initially and how many images you’ve optimized, the difference in
   loading times could potentially be huge.

There are a lot of things you can do to improve you landing page’s loading time and luckily, Google
comes to the rescue again, this time with PageSpeed Insights. This tool analyzes your website and
gives you specific tips on areas that can be improved, and it considers both desktop devices, as well
as mobile devices.