Loading Form...
Ebook | 19 minute read
The digital landscape is littered with advertising. On average, people are exposed to anywhere between 6,000 and 10,000 advertisements a day, which is why you need to maximize their post-click experience as much as possible. It's hard enough already to get users to engage with your ad, so your landing pages better perform.
The catch? It's not as easy as it sounds to create killer landing pages that will help you cash in on that performance. You need to effectively convey your message and compel your visitors to convert. We can help you do that.
In this guide, we’ll cover:
Ready to grow your business? Let's go.
A landing page is a single webpage created to help with marketing campaigns, including SEO, paid ads, email marketing sends, and more. A landing page should always prompt the visitor to complete an action.
Here's an example of a CX Studio landing page:
In addition to copy and design elements, this landing page has:
Remember, your CTA is essential in building a conversion path that turns visitors into customers—but we'll talk more about CTAs soon.
Creating a new landing page for every marketing campaign is a lot of time and effort—but it’s worth it. Here are five ways that creating landing pages can help you meet your marketing and business goals.
Now that you know why you need landing pages, you’re ready to get your landing pages up and running. That’s great—but don’t stop reading now. Building a boring, bare-minimum landing page is one thing. Building a compelling landing page that actually converts is another.
Here are fourteen tips for creating your own high-converting landing pages.
Take a look at this headline from Guideline.
This is great because it conveys the message clearly. When visitors come across this statement, chances are, they won’t mistake its message for something else.
It says it right off the bat and leaves no room for confusion: Easy and affordable 401(k) for small businesses. So if you’re running a small business who’s after a 401(k) that’s easy and affordable, it’s where you can get it.
So if you want to create a great landing page, why not gear it up with a headline as good as that? Be sure to craft your headline by clearly stating your product or service.
Your headline may be irresistible. But building a landing page that converts means adding subheads, too. They’ll support your headline and make it more effective.
With a headline that’s short and concise, you’re heading in the right direction. Sadly, though, its briefness could work both ways. While it can make things clear, you can also say the same about how it can make things vague for your readers.
That’s why something that complements your headline should come to the rescue. Simply put, you also need to include additional information to explain what you’re getting at. And to do that, you should use subheads.
Let’s turn to Slack for winning examples of how subheads make headlines reach higher ground. Practically everywhere you look at its homepage, you’ll see headlines. And these headlines are all backed by a subhead that provides relevant information.
Check out this example:
This message (see what we did there?) is great. Plus, the statement is backed by a short explanation of how messaging can bring teams together.
So do you notice how clearer and more powerful it is after reading the subhead? Remember that when you're creating your landing pages.
Let’s be realistic. You wouldn’t get on a bus that doesn’t say where it’s headed, right? For all you know, he’s just about to drive you in circles and get you nowhere.
Well, that’s also how it is with your website. Your visitors don’t want you to drive them in circles. If they’re having trouble understanding your landing page’s content, they’re less likely to perform an action. Instead, make your visitors feel confident about what they can do on your site. And the way to do that is to present them with nothing but direct and easy-to-read text.
Try it yourself with a free 14 day trial of CX Studio here.
This is a tricky line to walk. Modern web trackers and ad technology can give you a huge amount of information about someone as soon as they land on your website. The real question is, what do you use that data for?
Some types of personalization are helpful. For example, this website spotted that I was visiting from the UK, and that I hadn't been on the site before. That's great: Now all the prices are in the right currency, and I'm even being offered a discount.
However, if you want to target more specifically, you need to be tactful. Retargeting ads and product recommendations can be a very powerful way to boost conversions. But most people don't like to be reminded explicitly.
So you can throw up a sidebar with "products that might interest you". You can offer a download that's relevant to the user's previous searches on your website. But you should really avoid phrases like:
While we totally have the technology to see exactly where each user clicks on your website, most people arevery uncomfortable with that idea. The usefulness of personalization is outweighed by the chill running down their spine.
When someone reaches your landing page for the first time, it's only the start of your relationship with them.While you might have some background data about them (as discussed above), you don't know much about what content they prefer, what exactly they're looking for, and how they'll choose to contact you.
One of the fastest ways to engage attention and learn more about landing page visitors is through interactive content. Interactive content can be as simple or as complex as you choose to make it.
Here are a few things you could use:
The goal is to immediately offer added value and entertainment, while collecting data that will help you sell better.
Whatever kinds of content you choose, the key is to give people options. Some people love watching videos; others find text easier to process or access.
You should also try to keep the interactive element relatively simple. You want to give people a feeling of control, personalization and engagement—without overloading them. Try to hit the sweet spot between easy access and a novel experience.
Out of all the ideas in this guide, I recognize that this one is probably the hardest sell. We marketers love our insider-speak and buzzwords. Once you've been in the industry for a while, you probably don't even notice yourself using jargon. Or if you do, you reassure yourself that you're just making sure you hit all the keywords.
But let's be real. No sane or normal customer has ever searched for "solutions," "inbound systems," or a "strategic staircase."
It is really hard to spot your own jargon. Even individual businesses build up their own ways of speaking and referring to products. This is useful for team meetings, but totally bewildering for customers.
Start by creating a list of terms to avoid in your copy, and if you still can't filter out the jargon, get someone from outside the company to take a look. And remember: Unless you're selling chemistry sets, you should never, ever use the word "solutions."
This is a big one. In order to create a high-performing landing page, be sure to acknowledge your visitors’ pain points. Assure them that you can hear what they’re saying and you can help avoid that pain.
The psychology behind it is simple. If you can make your visitors think about their pain, they’ll also be looking at you to help them find relief from that pain.
Muzzle gets this. It’s a Mac app that silences notifications. Its landing page is a marvel because it offers an easy answer to a customer’s problem. And the evidence you need can be yours just by visiting its website.
In the upper right area, you’ll be welcomed by an animation that perfectly shows how distracting notifications can be. And to its left, you’ll find the solution to this problem: Download the product.
I spend a lot of time telling people to simplify their landing pages. Fewer pop-ups. Less jargon. Less overt personalization. Fewer CTAs—we'll talk more about that in a minute.
There's one aspect where you probably need to add something. How's your privacy policy doing?
Landing pages that ignore privacy laws or don't offer contact details are really off-putting for customers. So before anything else, you should make sure that you have an active privacy policy and adjustable cookie settings on all your landing pages. This is especially important if you want to reach customers in the EU (and, increasingly, everywhere else). I've seen too many websites where the cookie settings are frozen, hopelessly complicated, or lead to an endless loop of irrelevant pages. Consumers hate this, and so do privacy regulators.
You should also have actionable, up-to-date contact details. Again, this is a basic part of building trust. If consumers can't figure out where you're based or how to contact you, then they won't feel confident doing business with you. Whether it's a contact email address or a contact form, there should be some way for people to speak to you directly.
When you're creating a landing page, you're setting up a webpage that visitors will see first. They'll read it after, yes, but the visual is key. That's why you want to make sure it's compelling.
Teambit features an illustration-heavy landing page. And it’s an impressive example of using compelling visual content!
Its short and sweet message gives way to an office of lovable animals that are all pleased with Teambit’s operations. The above-the-fold section comes with a simple sign-up form. And below are statements about Teambit that make it stand out from traditional people processes.
So if you want to create a landing page that also stands out, the technique is to follow Teambit’s lead. After all, not every person out there likes to stay on a site without any amusement to offer.
This works wonders even for social media networks. For one, Facebook posts with images get 104% more comments.
Compared to text alone, adding visually-appealing elements to your landing page is more effective. It makes you likable and worth paying attention to. And more than stealing attention, images can entertain your visitors.
Remember, your landing page should always offer clarity and not confusion. You should be straightforward when giving statements, keep your language concise, and make sure your content is clearly separated.
So how do you create a landing page with clearly separated content? By providing visual separation when you present them!
That’s another ingredient of a great landing page. It’s about clearly separating content sections. This way, users won’t feel overwhelmed during their stay.
Wistia, a company that supports brands with its creative content, is worth looking up to in this department. Its landing page couldn’t be clearer in its message: It wants to accommodate visitors who want to create an account. That’s why its sign-up form is etched on the upper section. And if you scroll down, you’ll find a section with answers to FAQs.
Let's talk about accessibility—because we don't talk about it enough. An estimated 1 in 5 people has some form of disability, so if you're not building accessibility into your landing pages, then you're ignoring up to 20% of your potential customers.
It's not hard to get the basics right:
I love fun landing page designs, but you should never sacrifice simple navigation, load speeds, or accessibility for the sake of doing something cool.
Here's an example of a landing page that combines interaction with a personalized experience.
Looks great, right? It's a colorful, modern design. The header and CTA button are visible to screenreaders, so full marks there. But something's not quite right. I ran a quick color palette analysis of the landing page, using Image Color Picker and Who Can Use. (Bookmark those; they're amazingly useful!) And guess what? This failed.]
That combination of pink and white is difficult for pretty much anyone with color blindness (about 1 in 12 men) or a visual impairment to see. It's difficult to engage someone with your landing page if they can't see what's on it.
Running that color palette test took me less than two minutes. If you want to get a rough idea of where your landing page is at, most browsers now have built in text-to-speech tools.
The main purpose of landing pages is to encourage visitors to take action. And this purpose should be unmistakable to them.
Want them to subscribe to your email list? Click a link? Buy a product? It’s up to you, really! Regardless of the specific action you want them to take, your landing page should have a CTA that helps them clearly understand what you want them to do.
A fine example is the landing page of Nauto, a platform for self-driving cars. You see, the landing page caters to companies who oversee fleets of self-driving cars and make these companies feel safe about self-driving cars. And its CTA is all about asking people to take home this e-book with useful safety information.
A visit to this landing page will make you see why its campaign is a success. It had two well-designed buttons that asked visitors to download the ebook. Plus, it filled its landing page with relevant facts and statistics.
If you're seeing a lot of landing page visitors, but comparatively few conversions, then you may simply be asking too much of people. I see a lot of landing pages which have stacked up several different CTAs. They're bursting with information, but they leave web visitors a bit confused.
To prove my point, I decided to compare a couple of email marketing services, or EMSs. One EMS I checked out had a single CTA on their homepage.
That's great.
Then I hopped on over to another EMS and, well...I was overwhelmed.
That's seven CTA buttons from a single landing page!
In other words, that is way too many CTA buttons. As an absolute maximum, I would have two CTAs on a single landing page. If I only have one CTA, I might repeat it throughout the page. But I wouldn't offer people seven different options, and then expect them to make a decision quickly.
Throughout this guide, I've been trying to look at landing pages through the eyes of ordinary consumers. Most people don't care about the marketing theory behind pop-ups, personalization and multiple CTAs. All they know is, most websites give them a miserable experience.
Which brings us to my last and most important tip: Test your landing pages on real people. They'll see things you won't, like typos and jargon. They also won't discount the things that you discount.
Yeah. Trust me, your website visitors will not be that forgiving. You need an objective pair of eyes that will notice and, inevitably, get annoyed by every tiny flaw.
To start creating landing pages that convert, get started on elasticpath.com.
Build faster, convert higher- Try CX Studio for free, today!