Is there an impact of text readability on the conversion rate, and conversion rate prediction on a landing page?

Conversion prediction remains a problem for most marketing professionals.

A landing page is designed to describe a compelling and enticing story that the page visitors willingly fill out the page’s form and provide the brands with their contact information, in exchange for the offer code, promotion, or free asset such as content (Guide, Ebook, Webinar, Case Study, etc.). The form becomes a source of a new lead that is eager to reap the information benefits after this personal transaction right away.

Not a day later! You don’t want to hear “I don’t remember filling out that form!”

When a digital visitor fills out a form on a landing page they are giving the brand personal access. The information the brands get allows them to know their leads in great detail and helps them understand if this lead, this person is truly a good lead, or still needs to be nurtured. The contact when the form is filled needs to be followed right away.

When someone visits the landing page, the page’s goal is to provide reassurance, credibility, and trust, that meets and exceeds their expectations, so that they will provide the brand with their personal contact information in exchange for the page’s content.

There is a wide set of variables that may determine the conversion rate (e.g., writer invariant, sentiment, elements of a landing page design, domain name, and product price). 

Is there an impact of text readability on the conversion rate, and conversion rate prediction?

Did you know that 96 percent of all visits to a website do not end with product purchases?

The text in an online store, on a landing page, in an e-mail, or in an advertisement must have the effect of increasing sales. According to a study by Hughes traditional advertising reaches only 0.06% of the target audience. High syntactic complexity within the text on landing pages may be harmful to the persuasiveness of the message. 

Why is syntactic complexity important on landing pages?

Syntax is important because the order of words and phrases within a sentence can greatly impact its overall meaning. If the landing page conversion is low, the syntactic complexity could be lowered in the next iteration of the landing page. 

Writing syntactically sophisticated sentences may enable complex ideas to be compressed within a single structure to show explicit relationships between various constituents in a sentence. lowering the syntactic complexity of a Facebook advertisement increased the click-through rate (CTR). It was found that CTR was significantly higher for a version of the same advertisement with lower syntactic complexity

(1.07%) than the CTR of the original advertisement created by the agency (0.76%).

Syntactic complexity refers to the complexity and structure of sentences used on a landing page. It is important to analyze and consider syntactic complexity on landing pages for several reasons:

1. Readability: Landing pages should be easily understandable for visitors, and complex sentence structures can make the content difficult to comprehend. By keeping the language simple and avoiding syntactic complexity, visitors can quickly grasp the message and benefits offered, increasing the chances of conversion.

For example, we analyzed the readability on WebFX and found out this landing page has a very low readability as seen below:

Another landing page example is from KPMG, WebFX calculates its readability at 39.8 – meaning the low score suggests the text is complicated to understand. A value between 60 and 80 should be easy for a 12 to 15 year old to understand.

2. Accessibility: Not all visitors may have the same level of language proficiency or familiarity with complex sentence structures. By using simple and clear sentences, landing pages become more accessible to a wider audience, ensuring that the message is effectively conveyed to all visitors.
   
3. Attention span: Landing pages typically have a limited timeframe to capture visitors’ attention and convey essential information. With increasingly shorter attention spans, complex sentence structures may lead to cognitive overload or confusion, causing visitors to abandon the page. Clear and concise sentences make it easier for visitors to quickly absorb the information and engage with the content.
4. Mobile optimization: As mobile devices become the primary means of browsing the internet, landing pages need to be optimized for mobile screens. Complex sentences can be harder to read on smaller screens, leading to a poor user experience. By using simpler sentence structures, landing pages become more mobile-friendly, ensuring a smooth browsing experience for visitors.
   
5. Search engine optimization (SEO): Search engines often favor simple and coherent content that is easy to interpret and understand. By using less syntactic complexity, landing pages can improve their search engine rankings, making them more visible to relevant searches and increasing organic traffic.

Overall, by emphasizing readability, accessibility, attention span, mobile optimization, and SEO, reducing syntactic complexity on landing pages can significantly enhance their effectiveness in engaging visitors and driving conversions.

We cover a lot more than readability or mobile optimization on landing pages. We look at attribution deeper, closed loops, analytics to tackle, and areas to test and change within landing pages to improve conversions. 

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