How to create effective landing pages

Wondering how to make your landing pages more effective?

In this post, I’m going to share how to make landing pages more effective in your marketing campaigns and various aspects you need to consider when building them. But before I do that, let me take you through some landing page basics.

In marketing terms, a landing page is generally a standalone page, which is different from other pages, including your homepage where visitors land and see your brand’s offerings:

The primary purpose of landing pages usually is to convert visitors into leads by offering something of value from your company to a visitor.

Various software exists to help you quickly create and host landing pages; one such software is SharpSpring. See some landing page examples below:
wittra
Paues ebooks

Landing Page Assets And It’s Process

Even though the landing page is an essential part of the conversion process, other multiple assets work together with the landing page to make your conversion successful.

Landing Page:

A page that showcases your offers and services in such an attractive manner that compels users to fill a form and click Call-to-action (CTA) buttons on the landing page to access the offer or service.

One way a landing page can encourage visitors to convert into leads, is by explaining the benefits of the offer being showcased on the landing page. Once the form is submitted, a visitor is redirected to a "thank you" page, which means the lead generating mission has been accomplished.

Thank You, Page:  

If the landing page is the primary showcase to display your offers and services to convert a visitor to lead, then the thank page can be used as a secondary showcase to show your other minor and secondary offers and services.

However, the thank you page’s primary purpose is to convey the thank you message to the new lead for submitting the form.

You can add some CTAs like download now, Get the videos tutorials, Download the PDF, etc. and also include other detailed, informative links regarding the offers and services so that it encourages the lead to convert into a buying customer.

Call to Action (CTAs): 

An image or line of text or button can act as CTA that prompts visitors to complete a specific action by clicking on it. CTAs tell the visitor where the visitor should click to access the offer, and most of the time the text and image on the CTA will clearly define what kind of offer the visitor will get after clicking the call to action button or link Example CTAs, download to get the PDFs, submit the form to get the offer, etc.

The text on the CTA should be clear, understandable, and it should describe the offers and services to some extent so that the user gets attracted to click.

The more the CTA resonates with the landing page and other pages it is promoting, the more likely it is that a visitor will convert to a lead.

Landing Page Conversion Process

Key Elements that make a landing page more effective

These are the key and essential factors that make a landing page useful.

Form

Lead capture forms are like a magnet for collecting visitors' information. These forms should be easy to fill, user friendly, and stand out visually on the landing page.
To accomplish this, the forms must:

  • Be specific and only include fields to collect essential information (the number of fields on a form depends on the marketing funnel stage your offer sits, the higher the funnel stage, the less information is typically requested, and vice versa).
  • Be appropriately organized and user friendly so that it's easy for visitors to complete the form.
  • Be placed strategically on the page in that way so that it will pop out more.
  • Avoid additional input fields that are not related to the marketing funnel.
  • Avoid fields for very personal information, which may make the visitors hesitate to fill the form.

Call to Action

This element should stand out compared to other elements on a landing page because this is the crucial element that visitors need to take action on. To make this element pop out and attractive, you should keep in mind the following factors:

  • Position
    The call to action button is normally placed after you've introduced and explained your offer and services; This is because it's more likely that visitors will be convinced and ready to convert. Having some white space around the CTA can help draw visitors' attention to it. It is better to use the right part of the page, whereas offers and services can be explained at the left part so that users can see both in one sight without scrolling the page.
  • Size
    Avoid making the CTA too small to spot, but neither too big that users get distracted and frustrated. Make it clear to communicate what you want visitors to do. It needs to be that much more prominent so that it stands out cleanly inside the page.
  • Color
    Just like size, color of the CTA is the most crucial and deciding factor to attract the user to click. That is the reason it needs to contrast well with the rest of the page. It shouldn't be too dull so that users can hardly see the CTA element. That doesn't necessarily mean choosing only bright colors, either. We can also use the branding color for the CTA element.
  • CTA Text
    CTA text is one of the most important and deciding factor for conversion. Instead of using incomplete, universal and usual copies, it is better to use specific, worthy, personalized and compelling copies in the CTA button, which will help to increase the conversion rate. For example, it is better to use “Get the offer”, “Save your earning” than “Submit”, “Subscribe”, etc.

Avoiding external links

On the landing page, it is best to avoid any external links (including the menu links) except privacy policy and terms of service (if necessary) to prevent the user from leaving the page. Adding links to other pages in the landing page means you are somehow deliberately enforcing people to leave the page by clicking on those external links without submitting the form or clicking the CTA button.

Specific and Compelling headline

Here are some tips to improve your landing page headlines;

  • The headline is the topmost text of the body part of the page, so this should be very impressive, attractive and intend to explain the overview of the offers because this headline may be the deciding factor either to let the user go through the rest text or not.
  • The headline should look like the head of all the contents. Which means it should be different (color, font-weight, and font family if it if can) and bigger than rest so that user gets his first sight into the headline.
  • Get right to the point. Be specific to the objectives.
  • Be trustworthy and sensitive to fulfil your ad's promise to feel they are in the right place and happy to submit the form. 
  • Asking a question for a solution may be the better headline, and answering the solution in a sub-headline can make the user sticky inside the page.
  • Depending on the offer and purpose, sometimes making funny headlines, often win people over. At the same time, it may not always be appropriate or can use different and artistic font families for the headline.
  • Try to focus on those who are different and unusual than your competitor and be specific about why they should choose you over others because the user gets attracted to new, diverse, and unique things.

Effective Content

The first thing the users do when visiting a landing page is to see and read the page contents or watch the content (if there is video). So the content of the landing page is the first and primary impression for making a user submit the form or click the CTA.

Here are some hints to make the content compelling so that could convince the user to convert into leads.

  • Amount
    The amount of content should be neither too much - which makes visitors feel overwhelmed, nor too little - which leaves the users feel incomplete and confused. So the amount of content has an impact on your landing page. 
  • Presentation
    Your content should be present so that users can feel the offer is only for him/her. It should also show why your product or service is better than the competition and useful for your customers.
  • Formatting
    Some readers prefer to scan and look at the listed content rather than a paragraph. That is why it si good to use numbered or bulleted lists, rather than messy paragraphs. You can also highlight some parts of the text with different colors, italic, bold, etc. 

Meaningful and engaging media

People only remember 20% of what they read, but they remember 80% of what they see. Which means most of the users would be happy to see and watch engaging media, pictures, images, animations and similar instead of reading web page contents, long and vague paragraphs and boring explanations.

Respective Images
It is good to include images on a landing page, but before you do so, here are a number of things you need to consider:     

  • It is important that the image helps in the conversion process.
  • Used images should look good, eye-pleasing and pretty in the landing page.
  • Explain the offer and services relevant to the offer well.
  • Ideally, the used image should tell a story about your brand and your offering.
  • Images can direct attention toward an important element, like the CTA button.

Videos and video animations
A video presentation or a video explanation is a kind of revolution in the internet world. Almost all users would like to watch the video explanation, so videos on landing pages are even more effective than images to explain the offers, purposes, problems, solutions, etc.

A few factors should be taken care of while using a video:

  • Text content video should neither be too long to make the visitors feel bored, nor too short so that they don't get a complete overview of the offer.
  • The video should speak in a clear voice without any background noise, sound, or music, unless necessary.
  • The video should be relevant, to the point, easy to understand and try to cover all as much as in less time.
  • It should thoroughly assist the conversion process.


Gif and animations
Gifs and animations are also highly popular these days. Many offers and services are easy to understand if you explain this by simple animations and gifs. They much lighter than videos and more interactive than using images.

  • Just like the images and videos, gifs should be relevant and explanatory.
  • If relevant, using funny and cartoon gifs might be sometimes more attractive and useful. 
  • Gifs shouldn’t be large and heavy which could have a negative impact on the landing page loading speed.

Trust indicators

Using third party trust indicators will help you build trust in your offers and services which may be the deciding factors to convert the users into leads, so you might want to consider adding those into your landing page.

Here are a few common ways to add trust indicators to post-click landing pages:

  • Provide statistical proof (if you have one) on how your offer. The proof can be displayed so that the user can easily get his/her eyes and provide some relevant statistics based on trustworthy research indicating the source.
  • Include badges of awards, recommendations, etc. from other websites and authorized companies, and departments, ideally somewhere at the bottom of the page, which will help to convince the user that your offers are genuine.
  • Testimonials that showcase recommendations from satisfied and happy customers, are popular trust indicators for new page visitors. Try to provide as much information in your testimonials as possible (full name, business, title, picture, address, etc.).
  • Using third party seals and badges can build up trust with users. Visitors always want to make sure that their information won't be shared before filling up the form. Security badges confirm users, clicking on the CTAs and submitting the form is not harmful.
  • Privacy policy and terms of service link help to understand the user about the rules and regulations, company policies etc., which will generate trust and convert to leads.

Few important factors that increase landing page quality in terms of search engines

In the marketing world, search engines are the backbone of getting more leads. Only creating a landing page won't help collect more points. It should be presentable for search engines to crawl to the search engine’s first list.

By optimizing these factors, you will be able to significantly enhance the quality of your landing page for search engines by increasing your overall Quality Score, AdWord ad position, and, more importantly, qualified traffic.

Considering these factors will help to increase the landing page quality.

Secure and Safe

Any elements inside your landing page shouldn't harm your consumers' computers or contain any kind of auto-installing spam links. You shouldn't be using your page to change your consumers' browser settings, disable their back buttons, or any unauthorized changes can't be done via spam script or any other background running software. If your landing page is the cause of any of these changes, then your ads will get disapproved, and your web page will quickly be indicated as an untrusted page.

That is why, as explained above, it would be excellent and trustworthy if you can add badges of protected seals to verify the page is not harmful to click and submit the forms.

Respective and Relevance

All the contents, images, videos, and any other elements on the landing page should be relevant to your ad copy. The reason why any user would visit your landing page usually is because he/she thought your offer and services would help him/her in some way. If your landing page isn't relevant to your ad copy, you'll disappoint your consumers and waste your ad because you will be generating unqualified leads.

You can test whether your landing page is relevant to the ad copy or not according to google’s standards via AdWords Keyword Tool, and you can make changes or rewrite your content accordingly. The higher percentage of relevance implies a higher percentage of chances to convert to leads. 

Clear, Trustworthy and Transparent

Transparency means that your landing page content should be transparent and trustworthy to the search engines. In other words, it should display the same offer as in ad copy; otherwise, the search engines won't be able to find your landing page to crawl. Your offer and promotions should be placed at the place of the landing page where visitors can immediately see it, as soon as they land on your landing page.

Easy to Understand

Your landing page has to be readable and detectable for the search engine to give it a Quality Score. If search engines like Google can't read your landing page, it can't determine your page's adequacy.

To read your website, Google uses two types of robots (more than 75% of Internet users use Google for search) Adsbot Google and Googlebot. Robots are used to crawl your landing pages to see if it's respective to your ad copy, safe, easy and transparent. If you don’t use or block the robots, then Google will ignore your command and never crawl your page. This means a robot acts as an open door through which Google enters your landing page and crawls in the search engine list. Google then gives your landing page a Score which decides the quality of the page, i.e. Quality score. The better the quality of the page will help it appear higher up the search list.

To examine your landing page's readability, create a free Google Webmaster account, and use its tools to assess your page's readability. Using relevant keywords, decreasing the loading time of the landing page can also increase the quality score.

Some interesting facts about landing pages

  • You don’t need a website or domain to create a good landing page, but a useful landing page can act like a small and simple website.
  • There is no hard and fast rule for how long a landing page should be. According to quora's conversion Benchmark Report, the behavior of more than 74 million lead-generation landing page visitors, pages with less than 125 words typically has a 15% higher conversion rate. Whereas pages that have between 250 - 750 words, the conversion rates only varied slightly, which shows conversions shouldn't be based solely on how long a landing page is.
  • Keep the friction to a minimum to increase your conversions better to use only one CTA on your landing page. If you have multiple marketing objectives, you can use multiple ones but keep the most important at the top of the page.
  • Both A/B or split testing is an approach to compare different versions of landing pages to determine the most effective one. Finding out the effective version in this way helps to boost your conversion rate. A/B testing is to compare two versions A and B of the landing page by changing very few or one element, whereas split testing may have several versions to compare for effectiveness.

Conclusion

In short, landing pages help increase your business by converting the users into leads, but it is important to be careful and attentive during the landing page creation. The landing page should have a deep focus on your goal. It's not that a good and effective landing page should have all the elements. Including all the elements will make the landing page bulky and huge, which may increase the user's confusion. It is better be very specific according to your offers and services so that users can easily understand it.

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About the Author

Uttam Kumar Gurung

Uttam is a frontend developer, specialising in building landing pages and email templates.

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