8 Quick Tips to Double Your Newsletter Landing Page Conversion Rate

Getting traffic to your landing page is difficult. Converting that traffic into subscribers is even harder. But with minor tweaks to your landing page, you can increase your conversion rate significantly. Here are eight tips to increase conversions.

1. Optimize your landing page for mobile

According to Statista, nearly half of the web traffic comes from mobile devices. Here are a few tricks to make sure your landing page looks good on mobile.

The font size shouldn't be too small or too big for a cramped mobile screen.
Mobile landing pages should load really fast. Having complicated plugins like Adobe Shockwave, Flash, or PN-24 images can slow load times.
You can improve page speed by caching via CloudFlare which offers a free plan.

2. Write clear and concise copy

A huge part of landing page optimization is copywriting. Your copy should be concise, clear, and create a sense of urgency. The Hustle is the perfect example. It's landing page tells visitors exactly what they will get by subscribing to the newsletter.

‘’Less is more’’ is key here. Tell subscribers what you're writing about, and leave it at that. Generally, a landing page with sharp, brief copywriting will see higher conversion rates than a page full of text.

3. Highlight your subscription box

If you are asking people to sign up for something, keep it as simple as possible. Having a subscription button right in front is an excellent strategy to ensure page visitors don't miss it. Make the subscription box attention-grabbing and prominent.

Checkout MorningBrew’s landing page for inspiration.

4. Add a social sign-up

Give folks the option to subscribe with a social account rather than their email. Click-to-sign in is easy and frictionless. The most popular social accounts are Google, Facebook, Twitter and GitHub (used by programmers mainly). There are two ways to implement it, depending on your level of technical knowledge.

If you are a technical guy, set up OAuth or Auth0 on your landing page.
And if you are non-technical like me, use MiniOrange WordPress plugin or use boost.link. Fortunately, you can grab the Boost lifetime deal for only $49. It integrates with many other types of email marketing software as well.

Here's an example from the TLDRnewsletter.

5. Setup auto-focus for desktop

Pre-populating the cursor in the right area is an excellent way to encourage conversion. It’s like giving a gentle nudge in the right direction.

Let’s get into the technical details. The autofocus cursor in the email input field is a boolean attribute. When present, it specifies that an <input> element should automatically get focus when the page loads fully. To implement it using HTML, checkout W3schools guide, or copy the code from StackOverflow page if you want to use Jquery for this purpose.

Tip: Only apply the auto-focus for desktop users. If you add it on mobile, it will automatically scroll the page to the email input field and the user may get annoyed.

6. Add an exit intent pop-up

Pop-ups are one feature that, if used wisely, can really raise your conversion rate significantly. An exit intent pop-up is a great way to prevent website visitors from leaving the page without subscribing to your newsletter. When a user is about to exit the website, a useful exit-intent pop-up can stop them from doing so by displaying a pop-up with some lead magnet that is useful for the user. Here's an example:

To get more conversions from pop-ups, add a lead magnet, something free you give away to subscribers. Here are a few ideas:

Checklist
Cheatsheet
Swipe File
E-book
Course
Webinar

7. Add Testimonials

The fear of missing out is a real thing. Use it to your advantage by sharing some social proof. Ask a few of your loyal readers for testimonials about why they like your newsletter, and show them on your landing page. It's simple and effective.

8. Add a floating subscribe bar

Floating bars or sticky sidebars are similar to pop-ups, except they are sticky and less intrusive. Generally, these are displayed on the top or bottom of the web page and remain in the same position as visitor scrolls.

It's a great way to capture visitors' attention without disturbing or annoying them. The best place to add the floating bar is your content pages like newsletter archive and blogs. That way even when the user doesn’t land directly on the landing page, he can still subscribe by using the floating bar.

Morning Brew uses a floating subscription bar on every content page.