You’ll spend a lot of time, effort, and money driving traffic to your website. In most cases, you’ll naturally want these visitors to become customers or subscribers. After all, every business needs to capture leads and gain customers to stay profitable. To effectively convert traffic on your website, you need a landing page.
A landing page is a page on your website designed to guide visitors into completing a specific action.
This action will depend on the type of business you’re running and the goals you’ve outlined in your marketing campaign.
Some typical examples of such actions include signing up to an email marketing list, buying a product, or downloading a resource.
As marketing guru Neil Patel explains, “A high converting landing page can be the foundation of a successful online business.”
First impressions count. This is especially when it comes to landing pages. Studies have shown that the average user forms an opinion about your website in under a second.
So if their first impression isn’t immediately positive, there’s a good chance they will leave the website very quickly.
Therefore, you need an attractive, well-designed landing page to effectively convert your website visitors.
If you’re not a marketing expert or graphic designer, though, this can seem very challenging. Luckily, there are some simple steps you can follow that will help to keep you on track.
If you want, you can always use landing page builders to make the process easier.
In this guide, we’re going to be explaining some steps you can take to easily create high-converting landing pages.
But First – What Makes a Good Landing Page?
Before diving into how you can design a great landing page, it’s essential to understand what makes a good landing page.
There are three key elements that every successful landing page will have:
Simplicity – your landing page should be as simple as possible, with no distractions to take the focus away from the point of the page.
It should be easy to follow, straightforward, and clean. Unnecessary elements, in terms of design and text, should be removed or minimized.
Trust – your visitors need to accept your landing page as trustworthy and capable of delivering your promise.
If they have any doubts or worries about your business, there’s a good chance they won’t convert.
Clarity – you should be clear about what you’re offering your visitors. They need to know instantly what your product or service is about without digging into the details.
Any confusion or vagueness will drastically reduce your chances of converting visitors.
With that said, let’s get into some ways you can ensure that your new landing page has a high chance of converting visitors.
1. Craft a Concise, Attention-Grabbing Headline
As you may have guessed, the headline is the very first thing most visitors will see on your landing page.
Therefore it should be what sparks their initial interest and keeps them on the page long enough to consider the other content.
Upon seeing the headline, visitors should instantly understand that the website provides what they need or want. It should hook them in and entice them to look further into what you offer.
Writing the ideal headline isn’t an exact science, and while it only contains a few words, it’s still very easy to get it wrong.
Most visitors will be asking themselves, “so what’s in it for me?” and your headline should answer that question. It should be clear how exactly you can benefit them.
In other words, the elements of a compelling headline are that it should:
- Inform the customer exactly what the product or service is about
- Be relevant to the rest of the content on the landing page
- Ideally include empathy, or some way of conveying that you understand the problem your visitors are having (that your product or service can resolve)
- Be crystal clear, get straight to the point, and not be vague
Here’s an example of a great landing page headline that incorporates most of the elements we’ve listed above.
2. Write Compelling, Original Copy
When writing the text for your landing page, remember that visitors aren’t usually going to stay on the page for very long.
Therefore you should make sure not to use too much text. Otherwise, you may bore your visitors, which will cause them to leave your site.
Ideally, you should structure it so that under your headline, you have a subheading that reinforces the benefits, a short paragraph that explains the offer in more detail, and then some bullet points detailing the main features or further benefits.
You should ask yourself: is my text compelling enough to convert my visitors? Is my copy clear enough about what we offer?
Avoid being ambiguous in any form. The last thing you want to do is turn visitors away. Similarly, if you have a stand out feature or benefit that your product excels at, now is the time to include that.
3. Use Strong Visual Content
As with any web page, exceptional design is the key to holding the attention of your visitors.
I’m sure you’ve heard the saying “a picture says a thousand words”, and this is especially true with landing pages.
Images and videos are significantly better at drawing people’s attention than text. When used correctly, they can effectively help guide your visitors towards taking a specific action.
Your visual content should reinforce the message that your landing page delivers and add to the page’s overall design rather than add clutter.
Where possible, you should try and stick to any design guidelines for your brand and incorporate a consistent visual style across your website as a whole.
Here’s an example of good visual content in Codeacademy’s landing page:
As you can see, the visual content matches the style used throughout the website and helps draw attention to how their product can benefit you.
It also highlights the Call to Action, which is what we’re focusing on in the next section.
4. Include a Clear Call to Action (CTA)
Be sure to include a CTA on every landing page. A CTA is something that users interact with to perform a specific action.
This action is something that you want the visitor to do, and typically this is included below the body text of your landing page.
Your CTA will vary depending on your landing page’s goals and the type of service you’re providing.
If you’re selling a product, usually the CTA would be a “Buy Now” button. If you’re building a mailing list, your CTA would usually be a “Subscribe” button. If you want your customers to book an appointment, use an online scheduling app with a Book Now button.
When designing your CTA, make sure that it stands out from the rest of the content. You want it to be immediately noticeable.
So it’s worth trying out different colours, designs, and placements, to see what works best. It’s essential to use exact, short text, and it’s a good idea to use simple phrases like “BUY NOW” or “TRY FREE NOW.”
5. Add Testimonials and Social Proof
Trust is a critical cornerstone of building a solid customer base. You want your visitors to believe in your business, trust the information you’re giving them, and ultimately put their faith in your product or service.
A great way of building this trust on your landing page is by using testimonials or social proof. Showing how other people have benefited from your business will help other potential customers see how you can benefit them too.
Several of the ways you can implement social proof are:
- Testimonials from satisfied customers/users/subscribers
- Reviews from customers/users/subscribers (also including comments)
- Counters displaying the number of social media likes or shares
- A count of the number of people who have purchased/subscribed
- Logos of partner brands that use your services
Here’s an effective example of how partner logos are used to represent social proof on Magento’s landing page.
Final Thoughts
Designing the perfect landing page can certainly seem challenging. Still, if you remember some of the key points we’ve explained in this post, you should have the foundations of an effective landing page that actually converts.
Remember that it’s worth testing different versions of your landing page to see what could be improved in subsequent iterations.
Trial and error are often an excellent way to determine what works for your landing page and what doesn’t.
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