How to Make an Effective Landing Page

by Emily Banks, Guest Contributor

The goal of any online marketing campaign is to convert your leads into customers. The key to achieving your conversion goals is not the promotional email content or the PPC ad design, but rather the landing page you direct visitors to from a link in the campaign messaging. 

A landing page is a standalone web page separate from your website designed to entice visitors to take a specific action, such as making a purchase, completing registration, or subscribing to your mailing list, and drive them further down the conversion funnel.
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If you are thinking of driving visitors to your company website, think again. While your homepage provides a general overview of your business, a landing page is designed to work with a unique offer and to serve traffic from a specific place. Each campaign needs a unique landing page.

Home pages are usually cluttered, providing many different actions a visitor can take. Because of this, the most important one is likely to be missed. Every link on your landing page not related to your conversion goal is a distraction and will reduce your conversion rate.  

To be effective, a landing page needs to be strictly focused on its goal and created to optimize conversion rates. If your landing page is not engaging and lacks a clear call-to-action, visitors will leave your page without leaving their email address and you lose a lead.

High-Conversion Essentials
Visitors form an opinion on your landing page in less than a second and their first impression will influence all actions they will or won’t make. If the goal is to capture your audience’s attention and compel them to remain on your page and take advantage of your offer, you must create landing pages specifically designed to convert into clicks.

What makes a landing page engaging and effective? It’s not the design, it’s the copy.  Your landing page will tell your story to the visitors to drive them to take action. You should ensure it contains the following response-oriented copy elements:

• Engaging headline -Your headline should be short (no more than 20 words) and should communicate your offer and unique value proposition.
• Simple and specific language – Landing pages are more effective (and generate more leads) when the design is clean and content is easy-to-read. Use simple statements so readers can read quickly and make a snap judgment. Some words effective in driving action include; You, Easy, Guarantee, Save, New, Proven, Results, Free.
• Offer benefits – If people know what benefits they will get from your offer they are more likely to convert. Ensure your messaging focuses on the benefits rather than telling them what the product does
• Clear and compelling proof – Prospects feel more comfortable doing business with you if they trust your brand. Proof demonstrates you are worthy of their trust because other people have bought what you are offering. Proof can be Better Business Bureau Trust Badges, industry awards or customer testimonials. A customer testimonial does not need to be long, detailed or even grammatically correct. It should, however, be genuine and honest, as seen in the example below from the homepage of Arnett Credentials:

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Have Engaging Photos
The humans process images incredibly fast. In fact, our brains process images faster than text, meaning the images and colors you use are the first things a visitor will notice on your landing page.

Studies have shown images are the best way to help convey feelings that drive conversions. Images evoke different memories and experiences than written words. Images can resonate better and people will recall information paired with an image better than text.

Use a large, high-quality image to serve as a visual representation of the offer and the benefits they’ll get by filling out the lead capture form. If you are selling a service, the primary purpose of the image should grab the visitor’s attention and be relevant to them. If you are selling a product people want to see what the product looks like. CanvasPeople’s homepage does this well by providing vibrant, high-resolution photos and simple, relevant text beneath them:

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Powerful CTA
A call-to-action, or CTA, is what converts your visitors into customers. The CTA tells people what you want them to do and what they will get if they take action.

When creating your call-to-action button, use personalized, compelling copy. A call-to-action which simply says “Submit” will not be as persuasive as something resonating with the visitor.

The wording of the CTA is important but so is having a clearly defined place to drive visitors to action. Buttons are extremely useful for this purpose as they come in all shapes and sizes. All buttons should have:

• A defined shape or border
• Different color from the rest of the page
• Contain text

Experiment with different colored buttons and ensure they create a contrast on the page so a viewer’s glance will turn into a click.  The Screen Tenant Page on SmartMove’s website is a great example of a page that has a clear, concise message with a prominent yellow button.

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When designing a landing page, SEO optimization is not as important as an essential call-to-action. While SEO may drive traffic to the page, a call-to-action is what will convert the visitors.

Test Landing Page Variations
To ensure your landing page is optimized to drive a higher conversion rate, you need to know what your visitors want and how they navigate around your help. Testing allows you to see what works and what doesn’t.

The goal of your landing page is higher conversions, but how can you ensure your landing page is optimized to drive a higher conversion rate? Testing allows you to find out what your target audience wants so you can deliver it to them.

A/B testing is used for landing pages as you can see which pages work best with your audience. After some experimenting, be concise when combining successful characteristics to create one powerful landing page. Consider testing variations of copy wordage, images, CTA button colors, page format, etc.

Summary
The key to boosting leads and conversions is a highly-effective landing aimed at your target audience. By using the information in this article to create effective and high-converting landing pages, you are setting your company up for continued digital success by converting in more leads.

Author bio:

Emily Banks is a Bay Area native who got tired of San Francisco’s cold beaches and decided to move to San Diego. She is currently the HR editor for 365 Business. When she is not typing away on her office keyboard, she can be found eating street tacos in the sunshine.

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