Crafting landing pages that convert is not hard, but the key doesn’t lie in creating these pages but making them effective. One must understand that it involves more than just simply designing something that looks good and gives customers what they want. It takes some hard research and creativity to build a successful landing page, especially one that converts viewers into customers.
Before we get started on building a good landing page, let us first understand what exactly is a landing page and what purpose does it serve.
What are landing pages?
In the world of online marketing, a landing page, which is also known as a ‘lead capture page”‘ or a ‘static page’, is the single web page that appears for a person when they search for a term in an engine.
When you click on a search ad on Google or come across one on Facebook, you are directed on a special web page which contains all the details about the product or service along with a form. These web pages are called landing pages.
Importance of landing pages
For any business website or blogger, an impressive landing page is a must have as it is a great way to drive traffic to the rest of your site and to improve your SEO and build a brand for yourself.
According to WSI, approximately 68 per cent of online B2B businesses use their website landing pages to generate leads and create future conversion.
Further, good landing pages lead customers to a more specific product or services of their need and then encourage them to take action by providing lucrative offers.
Elements of a good landing page
Now that you have understood what exactly is a landing page and why exactly is it important for any business, let us look at a few key elements that a good landing page has.
1) Focus and purpose
Like any and every job, a good landing page has a clear focus on the job that needs to be done and a purpose to have such a landing page in the first place. Remember customers come in all shapes and size, from all aspects of life and from various industries. We thus need to understand clearly what is the purpose of our landing page and who do we want as our target audience.
While we might just have one product, it may carter the needs of many industries and thus have a split but many target audience. Thus the first thing you should do is get a clear and detailed understanding of your audience, their needs and what exactly would they be looking for.
You also need to understand what creates demand for your product and what will attract your customers’ towards you.
Creating a landing page that converts will only be possible by keeping in mind what exactly are people are searching for when finding your product and what USP would you have so they hire you for that job.
2) The message
Make sure you remember what message you want to send out with your landing page and make sure that is exactly what your landing page is portraying.
Don’t oversell or undersell your self and make sure this message is not lost in translation. Set certain guidelines for your landing page and make sure you stick by it. Don’t blur the lines so as to get a few extra sales or customers.
Remember, if you blur these lines to gain a few extra customers, you might get a few and lose hundreds more if the product you offered is not what they were looking for and they think they were tricked into buying/using it.
One bad word will go a long way to ruin your reputation and in turn effect potential customers.
3) Optimize your SEO
You can create one of the best and most creative landing pages there is, but it would be useless unless you optimize it well and your target audience is able to find it.
Your landing needs to be easily accessible to your audience and it also needs to be visible organically when they search for certain products on any search engine like Google.
For this, you need to identify your keywords well and find the right focus keyword which helps your customer find the product they are looking for. You then need to identify those keywords and not only place them in your page URL but also headline and anchor words. This will help you improve your page’s organic ranking and thus drive more traffic to your site.
4)Â Talk about your product
It’s important to illustrate your product well and the content on your landing page should reflect exactly what it is.
You should also not forget the end-goal of getting the user what they want and directing them towards it. According to Intercom, it takes just eight seconds for any site to make an impact and capture a visitor’s attention and then clearly direct them towards your product.
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5) Remove all the distractions and make it less intimidating
It is important to remove all possible distractions from your landing page and make it as simple as you can for your customers. If your page is lengthy and has many options, it will become too daunting for visitors and they may move on to other options than move towards their final goal.
So keep your landing page as simple as you can and offer options on supporting pages where they are required.
For example, if you are a travel website promoting a certain location, its important that your landing page focuses and directs your audience to that location first and other locations later. Doing otherwise can distract your audience and rather give them options that in turn change their mind towards a new place.
They would then take advantage of whatever opportunity you are offering and look for options that they didn’t even come for.
Also, if possible, avoid having links on the landing page because you want users just to take one action i.e. fill out the lead form. If you have outbound links, people might click on it and go to a different page, thus resulting in a potential loss of leads.
6) Design to convert to your segmented customer’s need
It is important to create your landing page keeping in mind your segmented customer’s need and making sure that it speaks to your base audience. Be clear about your base audience and their specific needs, and customize campaigns keeping them in mind.
For example, if you have a base audience is drawn towards eBook and discount on those books, give the option of buying the book on your landing page. Moreover, a built-in segmentation that offers a discount on the side would further attract people.
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The landing pages that convert into buying option with a discount on non-ebooks should thus be on following pages, not on the landing page itself.
7)Â Be clear with your directions
At times, even though you have one of the most straight forward landing pages, for a newcomer it might still be complicated and they would thus require some guidance. Thus, give them suggestions and guide them towards the end product.
Further, people don’t need every feature of your product. Thus offer them an option where they get to know that they can get the product even though they want the additional feature and vice versa, that they can get a certain feature if they require it along with their product.
Thus, it’s important to have an option that guides them to the end and they know how exactly to go about it.
8) Highlight key customers to establish credibility
In this day and age, being socially accepted is really important and thus it is important to highlight your key customers and promote their reviews. This will not only build a good reputation for your company but also make your key customers feel important and needed.
They will thus, recommend your name to others and having their names highlighted on the landing page, will give you even more acceptance in their social circle.
9)Â Tell people what it costs with no hidden charges
It is important to be clear about the price since the start and not lead them on into believing that it will cost lower. If the customer knows what they are expected to pay, they don’t mistrust your site. Even after they have bought the product, they stay back and explore other options.
This can get them to buy more products, than being put off by hidden costs and leaving the site altogether. Few tools that one can use to create great landing pages easily are InstaPage, GetResponse, Unbounce, Hubspot, and OptimizePress among others.
Conclusion
It is important to not only create landing pages that convert but one that is free of distraction, tell people exactly what they want and sends the message it is supposed to give without misleading the people.
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