Did you know that 98% of first-time website visitors won't buy anything the first time they visit a website?

98%.

That's almost everyone.

So what's the fix?

Get these people to come back to your website again, and again, and again.

To do that you need to collect their contact information.

Over the next few weeks we'll talk about the different ways you can convince someone to give you their email address.

But today we're going to focus on two elements of a landing page conversion strategy.

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1. Eliminate Distractions

Let's say you find yourself on a website that's selling something you're interested in.

You're not sold yet... heck, you only heard about this company for the first time a few seconds ago.

What do you do?

Here's what I do: I bop around the site. I read through their "about" page, I browse their "careers" section, I read their blog, and I look at the photos of their leadership team.

‍But the company doesn't want me to do that.

‍Even though they put all that content on their website, they don't really want me poking around.They want me to buy something, schedule a demo, or give them my email address.

So what's the lesson here?

Remove distractions.

If you want a visitor on your landing page to do something specific – like download an e-book – don't give them any other options.

Remove links to your blog, your team page, and your FAQs. The only thing the visitor should be able to do is scroll through the landing page and complete whatever call-to-action you've designed for them.

Try it out. Does your conversion rate go up?

I bet the answer is yes.

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2. Simplify the ask

Just yesterday (literally, yesterday) I asked the designer on my team to do me a favor.

I wanted him to update the email signup form on our website so that we collect first names, last names, and email addresses.

"Why do we need last names?" he asked me.

I had to take a step back... because actually, we DON'T need last names.

This happens all the time. Businesses think they need certain pieces of information in order to optimize their sales funnels.That's why enterprise software companies ask for things like:

• your name
• your position
• the size of your company
• your industry
• your favorite flavor cookie
• what you would name a pet hippo

The list goes on.

Problem is, the more information you ask someone to give you, the less likely they'll give you ANY information at all.

So take a look at the call-to-action on your landing page.What would happen if you asked for 1 or 2 pieces of information from your web visitors instead of 4 or 5?

Would you still be able to contact those people? Would you still be able to engage with them? Would you still be able to drive them to your website again, and again, and again?

I bet the answer is yes.

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