Landmark’s website was failing to meet their goals for lead generation. They turned to Starling to develop and implement strategies for increased website conversion.
The Client + The Problem
Landmark is a CPA firm that provides tax, audit, and business consulting services to clients nationwide from their 6 offices across Arkansas and Arizona.
Landmark isn’t just a numbers business, it’s a people business. The firm’s focus on client care is one of the reasons they are consistently rated as one of the top CPA firms in Arkansas and the Southeast region.
But Landmark’s website wasn’t doing a great job converting visitors into leads: with only a 0.5% conversion rate over a 10-month measurement period in 2022, exit rates far outpaced contact form submissions.
The Post-Launch Wins
Data from our 5-month post-launch audit shows:
🎉 28% increase in monthly average of “Work With Us” form submissions
🎉 61% decrease in bounce rate
🎉 46% increase in overall website traffic
🎉 96% increase in organic search traffic
🎉 Significantly improved core web vitals, performance, accessibility & SEO
“I was updating my analytics spreadsheet and our January and February analytics this year are more than DOUBLE on sessions and users and the bounce rate is EXTREMELY low! Excited to see how it continues to play out.”
Business Development Director at Landmark CPA
The Solution
All website projects go through our 3-step optimization process:
- Analyze
- Strategize
- Implement
Before we put together a strategy, we want to know the WHY behind a website’s current conversion rates. All project engagements begin with a comprehensive audit — including data and heuristic analyses — to understand how users are currently engaging with the site.
From this, we build out an Optimization Opportunities Report: a customized implementation framework for overcoming the conversion roadblocks identified during the audit.
Audit insights included:
1. The homepage and main nav items were incongruent with what users ACTUALLY were looking for.
For example, the Teams page was the second-most visited page on the site (behind the homepage), indicating a high level of interest for team information. However, the main nav menu and the homepage did not offer an easy path for users to reach this page.
Using this insight, we included a CTA for the Teams page in the homepage hero section. We also included “Our Team” as a standalone main navigation item.
Before
After
Since our January 3, 2023 launch, data shows that “Our Team” in the main nav has received the highest click-throughs on the new homepage.
2. The website copy lacked cohesive, conversion-focused messaging.
The current website copy featured weak messaging that didn’t speak clearly to the prospect’s pain points. The homepage hero section — one of the most important sections of copy on a website — included an unclear and generic value proposition: “Your guide to business success.”
Using voice of customer research, we wrote and tested new copy based on conversion copywriting principles.
Data shows a 29.24% drop in the bounce rate on the homepage — a strong indication that the messaging and navigational items users are seeing above the fold are matching the expectations of the user, instead of sending them scrambling for the exit button.
Heatmaps and session recordings have also revealed an increase in conversions from service pages.
3. There were no search tools or filters.
We added both a search tool to the site, as well as a filter option on the Teams page. Since implementation, we’ve seen extremely high engagement with the Teams page filters.
Looking for your own website wins?
Is your website serving as a sales tool? Or is it just more Internet white noise? Let’s chat to see if we can help you land more leads, mark more wins for your marketing team — and, ultimately, gain more clients for your firm.