Maximizing Conversion Rates: Using Cognitive Biases to Design the Perfect SEO Business Landing Page

Introduction

Cognitive biases in marketing refer to the ways in which people's decision-making and perception can be influenced by unconscious, mental shortcuts or errors. These biases can affect how people perceive, process and act on information, and can have a significant impact on marketing efforts.

In this article, you're going to understand how I used cognitive biases in order to build the Rank Higher landing page and you will understand how you can use them yourself.

What is RankHigher?

Rank Higher is an SEO business. It helps small and mid-sized business all across America in their task to rank higher in services like Google or Bing. SEO is an important strategy for businesses and getting the right provider to give you insights on how to better your website, to find the right keywords and to provide your business with a technical analysis of your WordPress install is fundamental to be successful.

Rank Higher simplifies the process. After filling a simple Type Form and paying the fee, your business can get in only 1 day a full analysis of its website and insights they wouldn't have otherwise.

Rank Higher competes in a highly competitive marketing, but its main differential is the skilled expertise of its team, the resources it applies to SEO analysis and the results-oriented approach of the company's products.

In order to stand out, the Rank Higher team wanted a landing page that could say it all, was able to be implemented in a very short amount of time and had the Rank Higher branding highlighted.

Why use cognitive biases?

From the moment I got this task I knew I had to try this thing out: cognitive biases. They've been on my mind for a while, ever since I took a class on the theme and I knew this project was perfect to use them. After all, cognitive biases increase the conversion rates of pages and in a highly competitive marketing like SEO we will take what we can get, right?

But that's only one of the benefits of cognitive biases in UI/UX Design. Here are a few others:

1. Increased conversion rates: By understanding and utilizing cognitive biases, SEO services can design and structure a website in a way that appeals to the way people naturally think and make decisions. This can lead to increased conversion rates, as visitors are more likely to take the desired action (such as making a purchase or filling out a contact form) when the website is designed to take advantage of their cognitive biases.
2. Improved user experience: By understanding cognitive biases, SEO services can create a more intuitive and user-friendly website. By making it easier for visitors to find what they're looking for and understand the information presented to them, the website will provide a better user experience, which can lead to increased engagement and repeat visits.
3. Better search engine rankings: Search engines like Google use a variety of factors to rank websites, including the user experience. By using cognitive biases to create a better user experience, SEO services can improve a website's search engine rankings, which will lead to more visibility and traffic. Additionally, incorporating cognitive biases to website design can also lead to better engagement and more time spent on the website which are also important ranking factors for search engines.

But what are those cognitive biases and how do they work? Let's look into that next.

The 7 cognitive biases you can't build a landing page without

1. Confirmation bias

Confirmation bias is a cognitive bias that occurs when individuals seek out and interpret information in a way that confirms their preexisting beliefs or hypotheses. In marketing, this bias can play a significant role in shaping consumer behavior and decision-making.

There are a couple of ways to use confirmation bias in your favor, but one of my favorites are testimonials. This type of social proof is a sure way to guarantee your visitors will find your product credible.

Confirmation bias is used in a couple of ways in the Rank Higher web page: through social proof and by highlighting the benefits of the services offered. Both those strategies are used on the landing page to guarantee better user experience and increase conversions.

2. Representative heuristics

Another important point when building this landing page was organizing information in a way that was familiar to the user. There are a couple of conventions typical to SEO sites, like graphs and magnifying glasses to represent Search Engine Optimization.

And while it might be tempting to do something else, there are things that just work. This imagery is a proven way to sell SEO services and that's why we picked it. This is called representative heuristics.

Representative heuristics can be used in a landing page to help increase conversions by making the page more relatable to visitors.

Aditionally to the relayable structure and imagery, we also used familiar language to make sure our users were able to understand what kind of work Rank Higher does and how it differentiates from the competition.

3. Anchoring bias

The anchoring bias can be used in a landing page to influence visitors to make a decision in favor of the desired outcome. One of the easiest ways to put it in motion is by using a decreasing price table. Apparently, seeing the higher price first makes users feel more eager to spend on the lower price option.

Another way to make sure the anchoring bias is being used on your website is by creating a sense of scarcity. That's another technique used in this landing page in order to make sure not only we offer a great user experience, but we make our clients desire our product above all.

4. Halo effect

The halo effect is a cognitive bias that refers to the tendency for an individual's overall impression of a person or thing to influence their perceptions of that person or thing's specific traits. In the context of a landing page, one could use the halo effect by highlighting positive aspects of their product or service in order to create a positive overall impression in the mind of the viewer.

Another way to use the halo effect on a landing page is by highlighting the endorsements, testimonials, or positive reviews from other customers. This would create a positive overall impression of the product or service in the viewer's mind, which would in turn influence their perceptions of the product or service's features and benefits.

In here, we used the halo effect in the testimonials but also in the way we show our product. Rank Higher, after all, is not simply another SEO agency, but the coolest and simplest one you will ever have to deal with.

5. Self-serving bias

Another point I made sure to follow while building this landing page was using scarcity in my favor. Unlike other social media agencies, Rank Higher is a start up business and can't scalate its services to as many people as possible just yet. Why not use that in our favor?

We created a limited number of slots that can be bought by clients and there's a countdown showing how many hours are left in that offer. The scarcity makes clients more eager to close the deal on the spot and that's what we hope they will do.

6. Optimism bias

There are two different frameworks one can work with: a negative or a positive bias. But isn't it more nice to talk about what you can do, instead of what others can't? That's why we picked a positive bias in order to build the webpage.

Optimism bias, also known as the "planning fallacy," is the tendency for people to overestimate the likelihood of positive outcomes and underestimate the likelihood of negative outcomes. When used in a landing page, this bias can be leveraged to create a sense of hope and positivity in the user.

By highlighting the potential positive outcomes of using your product or service, and downplaying potential negative outcomes, you can create a sense of excitement and anticipation in the user that can lead to higher conversion rates.

Additionally, by highlighting the benefits of your product or service, you can create a sense of urgency and encourage the user to take action.

7. Framing effect

Last, but not least, I chose to use the framing effect. The framing effect in cognitive bias refers to the way in which the way information is presented (framed) can influence people's decisions and perceptions. Essentially, the way an issue or problem is framed can affect people's reactions to it.

That's why, in order to build this landing page, we had to invest a long time in researching the illustration pack we'd use. These cool vector illustrations serve to show our user how simple and intuitive our services are and illustrate the whole process of buying from Rank Higher.

The results

After applying all this cognitive biases, we got to the final landing page. Check it out!

Conclusion

In conclusion, cognitive biases play a crucial role in shaping our perceptions and decisions. That's why it's a good idea to use them when you're building the landing page for your business.

As marketers, it's essential to understand these biases and use them to our advantage in creating effective campaigns and landing pages. The use of cognitive biases can help increase conversions, boost engagement, and make the user experience more satisfying.

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Did you enjoy this post? This is the first collab I will be doing with ChatGPT. Part of it was written using definitions and examples created by the AI tool and the rest was written as a case in order to explain how cognitive biases work and were implemented in this project. Cool, isn't it?

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