A landing page is a specific website that new users, subscribers, customers, or visitors are directed to by various marketing tactics. A landing page differs from a regular, standard webpage as it serves a particular purpose.
Landing pages are unique to particular audiences and focus on compelling to take out a single action or make a specific choice. The decision can be anything like signing up for an e-newsletter, making a purchase, registering for an upcoming event, downloading a free e-book, and many more.
This definitive guide contains every critical aspect and landing page for best practices to help you quickly design and develop high-converting landing pages, giving you more conversions. If the first impression is good, then there are many chances of them going further and enquiring more about the particular business at a higher level.
What is a Landing Page?
A landing page is created to facilitate a single desired action. Actions can be making a purchase, signing up for a free trial, filling out a form, or entering an email address.
If stated in simple terms, then a landing page is a page where users “land” after clicking on a link from a source like a Google Ad, Facebook post, Instagram Ad, email, or any other traffic source.
A landing page is a web page where you send visitors to initiate a conversation and close a deal.
Focus: Landing pages are designed with a single goal and objective, known as a call to action or, in simple terms, CTA.
That focus makes landing pages the best option for enhancing your marketing campaigns’ conversion rates and lowering your cost of acquiring a sale or lead.
There’s a Difference Between a Landing Page and a Homepage or a standard webpage:
It’s a common mistake to get confused between a landing page and a homepage. Sometimes marketers assume that they’re the same. Sometimes they are, but mostly not.
The homepage: The homepage focuses more on informing and empowering the visitor. The homepage doesn’t have any goal, but the landing page does. It has multiple objectives and highlights a broad range of content to offer an overall perspective. It provides visitors access more profound into the website.
The landing page serves an entirely different purpose for the customers or visitors. Everything about the landing page, from links to images, works on a specific goal to turn these visitors into customers, paired with definitive ads that promote a single offer. It helps to convert the traffic on the website.
It focuses on a specific goal and delivers explicit requested content. It has one desired or a single call to action that drives sales and captures leads.
Why You Need Landing Pages:
A landing page’s main objective is to convert targeted web traffic into customers and email subscribers.
If you want to drive traffic on your website, don’t skip building landing pages, improve your SEO, and build your brand exposure.
Build a landing page:
- If you’re going to direct customers to buy a specific product.
- If you want to experiment and create a new product or try new products in different markets.
What makes a landing page great?
Two main reasons landing pages are great for increasing conversions:
- They’re targeted to a specific group.
- They have a focused Call To Action (CTA).
An excellent landing page is the one that clearly defines its value to its audience and generates leads. Research about your specific audience, brand, and industry, then you can do it effectively.
Types of Landing Pages
There are many variations, but they vary depending on the specifics of the business. The goals define the following types of landing page:
Click-through Landing Pages:
Click-through is frequently used by eCommerce and marketers. Clickthrough pages are primarily for sales or subscriptions. Usually, these pages have a simple button as the call to action that sends the visitor into the specific page.
Lead Capture or Generation Landing Pages:
These are lead capture or lead generation pages. These use a form as their call-to-action (CTA); this form collects lead data, like visitors’ names and contact details. Companies and other business websites sell items using this landing page to create a list of prospective customers.
Ecommerce brands also use these types of landing pages for list-building or offering free shipping or special deals. They sometimes provide something free in exchange for contact info.
Sales page:
While some of the most effective landing pages in the digital marketing dictionary, sales pages are the most commonly misused.
The most effective sales landing pages are large and can generate up to 200% more leads than landing pages with more CTAs. Always do A/B testing your landing pages before publishing them. However, functions and results can vary.
Splash page:
Splash pages are typically used to inform the visitors or something before giving them access to another landing page. It acts more like a welcome page of sorts and doesn’t usually ask visitors for any information. Other types of splash pages include short or quick forms to enable you to gather vital user data.
Squeeze page:
Squeeze pages are created to capture a visitor’s or user’s email address to build a brand’s email list. Squeeze pages usually pop up while scrolling through a website or blog, and they typically ask you to sign up for the website or brand’s newsletter to stay in the circle without having to search the site later. Examples of squeeze pages are:
- Squeeze page, or we can say pop up window appears as the visitor scrolls through the webpage and ask them to sign up to stay updated on trending stories of that page.
- Some are those that pop up after you’ve visited a website multiple times, and they need you to sign up before you move to other content.
What should be included in a landing page?
Landing pages should be ultra-focused on a single point of conversion. So don’t think about what to include; think about what you don’t have. Forget the extra slang, jargon, and excess of vivid images. Focus on the goal for the effective landing page; less is more.
It’s also crucial for you to keep in mind these five essential elements:
Offer details:
The offer details should combine both special features and benefits like descriptive summaries, benefit statements, bulleted lists, etc. Successful offers are easy to understand if expressed in both features and services that draw a unique audience.
Unique Selling Proposition (USP):
A unique selling proposition makes your business stand out from others in simple terms. It is what your brand stands for. The USP should be apparent throughout your page, within its primary headline and sub-headline. Make your page’s headline unique because it tells a visitor why they’re on the page and gives them the extra push to keep reading. Excite their curiosity and make them want whatever you’re offering.
Visual Representation:
Any multimedia you add should provide context and push a visitor to take action. Use specific images and graphics representing your offer in detail and give information on your landing page. Focus on minimalism and a clean design.
Call to action (CTA):
Call-to-action on the landing page is typically in the form of a button. It guides visitors towards a specified page directed to it. It’s essential to be specific with the sign. Be brief, and include an eye-catching color to ensure your CTA button is visible.
Social proof:
Increase the trust factor and further convince your audience by including credentials, reviews, trust seals, social signals, and rewards. Reassure the customer that you’re selling is worth the opt-in or purchase.
Analysis of a Landing Page:
- Headline: Most crucial part. It should match what has to be clicked and support headlines providing additional information.
- Logo: Brand recognition
- Multimedia (image or videos): To show what you’re offering
- Call-to-action
- Benefit statements
- Description of your features
- Social proof: customer testimonials, logos, reviews, etc.
- Repeated call-to-action or reinforcing closing argument.
A few simple steps for creating a high-converting landing page:
- Choose a high expert-designed landing page template.
- Name your landing page.
- Customize your page with unique content and branding.
- Add a strong call-to-action.
- Preview your page for multiple device sizes.
- Prepare your page with SEO settings.
- Publish your page.
Adaptive web design on your landing pages:
Keep these essential points in mind while creating your landing pages (It will help a lot):
Images and colors –
Consider how your landing page’s background looks on different devices. Make your landing page device responsive so that it shows its content definitively. Choose a solid color to enhance readability.
Button and text sizes –
Most of your page call to action will involve links or buttons. Consider making your buttons larger or increasing their height for mobile devices so they are easier to click.
Input Fields –
If you are using an opt-in form on your page, then make that page clear for your visitor to fill in. Create the text input fields larger to make these on a mobile device visible.
It would help if you considered the sequence in which these elements accumulate. Often it will pile your content with blocks in the wrong order, which will make your content harder to read.
Strategies to Build a High-Converting Landing Page in 2021:
A landing page is created exclusively to boost conversions. There are specific strategies that it needs; otherwise, your conversion rate will go down.
Create an Attractive Headline:
An eye-catching and attractive headline is the very first thing a visitor sees when they arrive on your landing page. A compelling headline attracts them to look further as it’s hooked them directly. It sparks their initial interest and keeps them on the page for several seconds.
Put your audience in mind while designing:
That means designing for the visitors, including images and graphics, breaking large text blocks, and making the CTAs easily actionable and identifiable.
Use Pictures Effectively:
Images convey direct meaning and show people what your product looks like or works. They add a crucial visual representation and also split text to your landing page.
Pictures are more expressive than words, so you must tell some things but show the rest. Combined, the image and the headline connect the importance of collaboration and how the Landing pages will help businesses out.
Use Images:
a. Large
b. Attention-grabbing
c. Relevant to their service
d. High-qualityBe specific:
Be specific with what you’re offering and creating. It is vital if you have multiple offers running individually at the same time. Remember, you must have a landing page for every active campaign. That way, you’ll be cleared with the offers and no confusion for visitors and your customers clicking on links for a specific campaign, deal, or product.
Focus primarily on the benefits of your audience:
The pain points you’re addressing, The page, service, product features, etc., are the main points to keep in mind while designing a webpage. Don’t just focus on the specific features; instead, outline how your landing page will address the problem they’re seeking.
Give away a relevant offer:
The relevant offer is the thing you give in exchange for your lead’s personal information. It should be compelling for your visitors to provide their contact information and relevant to your business.
Ask for what you need:
Ask for a bit of information as you need in your form to create a low bar to entry. A name and an email are sufficient to sustain a new lead.
Remove all navigation:
The landing page should have one objective only, and that is to convert visitors into leads. Any other links, like internal links to other pages that are competing on the website, will divert from that goal. Remove any other links on your page’s call-to-action to draw all of your visitors’ attention.
Make your page responsive:
Like we mentioned before, the landing pages need to be responsive to fit every viewing experience. Give your visitors a relevant viewing experience and every possible opportunity to convert.
Optimize for search:
Ensure that you optimize the landing page with target keywords for your organic search and paid campaigns. It should be a catch-phrase that they should find your landing page whenever someone searches for your key phrase. Similarly, ensure the targeted keyword should be on your landing page as on the paid ads.
The Landing Page Metrics You Must Track:
Creating a landing page and running it on different platforms isn’t enough; measuring its performance against specific critical metrics to see if it’s helping you fulfill the intended goals is equally vital. While various businesses use different metrics to measure the performance of their landing pages, the following are the most commonly used metrics across many websites’ landing pages to get the measurements:
Page Visits:
Page visits typically refer to the number of visitors who’ve visited your page over a specific time. If this number of visitors is lower than you’ve anticipated, try to optimize your paid strategy, use social media platforms or emails to get the desired visits, or improve the keywords to draw more users to visit your page. The higher the number of visitors on your landing page, the higher is the probability of conversions.
Bounce rate:
Bounce rate is typically the next most important metric to consider after page views when interpreting a landing page’s performance.
Bounce rate defines the percentage of visitors who left your landing page without visiting a second page. A visitor can drop off your page due to plenty of reasons, like:
- Your content may not follow with your claimed offer.
- The copy of the landing page’s may not be catchy enough to capture the attention of a visitor.
- Your landing page’s overall visual hierarchy might not be informative or appealing.
- Your visitors might find what they were looking for and then leave the page.
An excellent bounce rate of a landing page typically consists of three categories. These are as follows:
- Excellent rate: between 26 & 40%
- Average rate: between 41 & 55%
- Decent rate: between 56 & 70%
In the lead capture landing page, a bounce rate higher than 65% is considered flawed. Thoroughly checking them for leaks is probably the best way to reduce your page’s bounce rate.
Traffic Source:
Research which traffic sources bring in high-converting website visitors that drive more conversions and help you channel your marketing efforts better. The better you research the various traffic sources drawn for your business, the better you will be targeting.
Some examples of traffic sources to look well at how visitors land on your page or from where:
- Direct Traffic: Visitors who land on your landing page directly by typing the URL.
- Social Media Traffic: Visitors who land on your page by clicking on a link present from a social media post or profile.
- Email Traffic: Visitors who land on your page by clicking on a CTA button or a link present in one of your marketing emails.
- Referral Traffic: Visitors who land on your landing page by clicking on a link present on other sources, pages, or websites.
- Organic Traffic: Visitors who land on your page by entering keywords or search queries on search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.
- Pay Per Click Traffic: Visitors who visit your landing page by clicking on a Pay Per Click ad.
Form Abandonment Rate:
The name suggests that the Form abandonment rate is the percentage of visitors who landed on the page and began filing the form but left without submitting it.
It can happen for several reasons.
- Maybe your form is too long.
- Throws the questions to visitors, it may be hesitant to answer.
- Raises data security concerns.
- Too difficult to attempt, etc.
Ensure that the information you’re seeking through the form matches the noted value you’re offering to raise your form’s value. Don’t add such questions as credit card details, residential address; why would someone insert such information in your opt-to form.Submission Rate:
Submission rate defines the percentage of visitors who filled and submitted your lead-generation form(s) and arrive on thank you page. The higher the submission rate, the better optimized your landing page is.
Conversion Percentage:
Measuring conversion percentage, i.e., lead-to-customer, is also critical. This metric helps you understand the rate of leads generated through landing pages that are converted into customers.
Let’s take the example that you created a landing page, you spend much time promoting it on different sources on the internet, and the analytics report shows how many users are signing up for your offer. However, your conversion rate will turn into a vanity metric if you’re unable to convert these leads into paying customers.
Sometimes, landing page optimization involves re-evaluating your sales and nurture programs or redefining your target audience. The lead-to-customer rate provides insights for you to examine the efforts and make smarter decisions.
A reasonable conversion rate varies on your offers and business, where it lies in the quality of leads generated through the landing page and your conversion or sales funnel. Generally, 2.35% is the average landing page conversion rate, where an excellent landing page conversion rate is between 5 to 10%.
Use a thank you page:
A “thank you page” is the webpage or where you lead once users or visitors completed your form. For that, you could show a thank you message on the same page too, but there are many reasons why that’s not the best option.
A “thank you page” serves significant purposes:
- You can entertain your new lead in additional relevant content.
- By thanking them for their interest, it could go a long way in promoting them to a customer down the line.
Conclusion
Landing pages play a specific role in digital marketing strategy. It’s crucial to understand that not every landing page is created or works equally. You must learn various aspects of it to handle the landing page properly. This guide for landing pages focused on the varying landing pages like Click-through pages, Lead capture pages, Squeeze pages, Splash pages, and Sales pages that should incorporate your marketing strategy thoroughly.
