An effective landing page is the cornerstone of a successful online marketing strategy. You can have outstanding offers and perfectly optimised PPC ads, but if your landing page isn’t up to scratch, you can expect your campaign to suffer.
It’s important to note that a landing page isn’t necessarily a homepage. In fact, it can be a mistake to run an ad that directs a user to your website’s homepage. This doesn’t always provide a quality experience for visitors following through on a targeted ad. It’s far better to have a specialised page that drives conversions with a message that matches the specific user need.
"The goal of any great landing page, whether it’s your homepage or a standalone one, is to increase conversion rates to support your marketing and business growth objectives."
The goal of any great landing page, whether it’s your homepage or a standalone one, is to increase conversion rates to support your marketing and business growth objectives. To do this, it needs to grab the attention of visitors and compel them to take a certain action.
And this all begins with asking a few simple questions:
- What is my goal?
- Who is my audience?
- Who am I competing against?
- How did they get here?
Make sure you’ve fully defined what you want to accomplish and then plot the best way to do that. Base this on your target audience and understanding of what they’re looking for.
How can what you have to offer – whether it’s a product, a subscription to content, a service – solve their problem?
From there, you can start your keyword research. Then with your goal, message and keywords in place, it’s time to start pulling together that all important landing page.
Crafting your landing page
There’s no ‘cut and dry’ template for the perfect landing page, but there are several elements you’ll need to include. It takes approximately eight seconds it takes for a user to decide whether they’re interested in what you have to offer. Here are six of the critical elements:
A clean, crisp design
Your landing page needs to answer all the questions your visitor has without inspiring any new ones. Don’t overwhelm the page with information. Keep it short, sweetsweet, and tidy.
This should be an enjoyable (and easy) process for the user, so it’s important that all elements of your page work towards the conversion objective. Whether that’s completing a form, downloading a resource or entering an email address.
The overall look and structure of your landing page will have a huge effect on whether the messaging comes across the way you want it to. Make it easy for the user and don’t overwhelm them with information.
Clear and eye-catching headings
The overall look and structure of your landing page will have a huge effect on whether the messaging comes across the way you want it to. Make it easy for the user and don’t overwhelm them with information.
A good landing page should have a strong offer and be able to explain its value proposition in clear and concise terms.
The landing page headline and subheadings give a key opportunity to promote an offer, then confirm and elaborate on it. Your headline and subheadings should be easy to scan, and with a clear information hierarchy.
Kiss Metrics suggest using specific, ‘hypnotic’ words to pull visitors in. Words like “You” can make your copy feel more personal and direct. “Imagine” inspires the reader to visualise your product or service, and encourages engagement. Use hypnotic words in your headers to increase their efficacy.
Trust signals
The best landing pages make good use of trust signals – little indicators that your brand is reliable. They can take several forms:
- Testimonials
- ‘Like’ counters
- Logos of brands you’ve worked with
- Awards or recognitions
- Groups that you’re a member of
These small additions serve as endorsements of your trustworthiness, skill and raise your value to the visitor. By reassuring visitors that they aren’t making a mistake, they are more likely to convert with confidence.
Make the page mobile-friendly
These days, around half of all web traffic comes via mobile, so it’s essential that your website is optimised for mobile navigation. It’s proven that having a mobile-friendly landing page (fast-loading with a clear user journey) can double your conversions.
There are lots of features that go into making a page mobile-friendly. One of the crucial elements for a landing page is not asking too much. There needs to be a call to action, but make sure you keep your forms short and only ask your visitor for what you need.
The more fields in your form, the less chance you have of your visitor completing your offer. In most cases, providing a name and email address is routine, Asking for a phone number or date of birth can cause your drop off rate to skyrocket to 50%. The goal is to make it as easy as possible for your visitor to convert, providing as little distance and as few barriers as possible between points A to B.
Match landing page copy with PPC ads
Repeating the same language and key phrases in your landing page as in the PPC ads reassures visitors that they’re on the right path and shows consistency.
Repeating the same language and key phrases in your landing page as in the PPC ads reassures visitors that they’re on the right path and shows consistency.
Conversions happen when a user’s needs are matched as closely as possible and the pathway is easy. For example, if they clicked on an ad for a fitness product, don’t drop them back at the homepage and hope they make it there themselves.
Give them continuity and keep them in the funnel.
Test and test some more
Testing and tracking results are essential for seeing what your landing page is doing right and what it’s doing wrong.
Running your landing page through an A/B testing process will help you to tweak elements of your page to make it the best it can be. This is probably the most powerful tip for creating a landing page you’re proud of, so don’t underestimate it. There’s always something that can be improved.
All these actions contribute to the same goal: being clear about the action you want your visitor to take and then making it as easy and engaging as possible for them to take it.
A landing page needs to convert, which means it needs to be created and built with the user firmly in mind. As long as you can keep that at the centre of everything you do, you’ll soon have a page that you’re proud of.