Your website is here and it’s a thing of beauty. The home page is *chefs kiss*. You’re posting consistently on social media, your email marketing is the best it’s ever been, and you’ve even set up Google Ads; you’re flying! But where is everything pointing to? Are all your efforts paying off?
The foundation for any good marketing strategy is a landing page that will convert your leads. But where do you even start designing a high converting landing page? Pop a good call to action button on there and you’re set, right? Not quite…
To create a high converting landing page you need to craft copy your target demographic can connect with, curate visuals that pack a punch and a compelling call to action they simply can’t resist!
The goal? To show your web visitors why they need your offering more than they’ve ever needed anything before… Oh, and you need to do it in 0.05 seconds or less (I’ll explain this later!). Your initial impression needs to be big, huge, unforgettable. There’s definitely an art to creating the perfect landing page, but get it right and you’ll see the leads pouring in!
A landing page is a web page you point your visitors to, usually from an advert, but often a mailer or social media. A compelling landing page has one job, and one job only: to convert. Whether that’s to sell a particular product or convince people they really need to sign up to your newsletter, the ‘why’ is personal to every business.
So, what’s the difference between a designated landing page and the homepage on your website? Well, a landing page is specifically crafted to receive campaign traffic (whether that’s organic or paid for). The page’s content should be a reflection of your campaign. Without getting too dramatic, the landing page’s call to action (CTA) is your whole campaign’s reason for being.
And unlike your home page, a landing page is not something you can find on your website navigation. This separation is to make the analytics more insightful and easier to track; people aren’t just stumbling across these beauties, they’re purposefully placed and pointed to.
According to Hubspot ‘48% of marketers craft a new landing page for each campaign’. There are lots of different reasons to create standalone landing pages, but at their core, they’re there for one thing: opt-ing in. Whether that’s submitting an enquiry form, signing up to your mailing list or pre-ordering a product; landing pages coax those leads gently down the sales funnel.
The benefits of an epic landing page go far beyond just converting leads.
People make snap judgements; we’re all guilty of it. Google studies have confirmed that most web users take about 0.05 SECONDS to decide whether they’ll stay on your website or leave. An epic landing page will hook users from the start, and this is crucial.
Bounce rates are just one of the ways Google determines how useful your website is to web users. Simply put, the bounce rate is the length of time a user stays on a page of your website before they decide ‘nope, this isn’t for me’. Let’s say someone clicks through an ad to your landing page, takes one look, sighs, and hits that back button. That’s a bounce. And Google will 100% judge you for it! We need landing pages that will make users want to stick around and pop the kettle on.
Any page of your website is prime real estate for compelling copy, but a landing page? This is where copy shines. When you’re crafting your text try to include semantic keywords as well as your priority keywords, the more context for Google the better. 48% of top landing pages ranked in organic query results, organic exposure and the possibility of generating more leads? Oh go on then!
Of course, content isn’t just words: a landing page is an extra space on your website to include optimised imagery and video. Take full advantage of it! I’ll share a little more info on why content is so important further down in the post.
Because landing pages are standalone, they’re perfect for highlighting any key products or offers your business wants to promote. Popping this offering on an individual page puts it on a pedestal above your other products/services. Not only highlighting it, but making it easy to track key metrics and conversions.
Personalised marketing is experiencing huge growth right now, so if you haven’t hopped on board, now’s the time! But what exactly is it? Let’s say you’re setting up some social ads, you decide to target people specifically in your industry, you set your age range, maybe even some recent life events, or job title. The depth you can go with targeting is pretty crazy, but all very helpful from a marketing point of view!
You can use targeting to create a very particular lead persona. You can then craft your ad and landing page around this persona. It informs the copy, tone of voice, the imagery, even the product or offering itself. Persona based marketing is a great way to supercharge your conversion rates; personalised CTAs convert 202% better than generic ones! And landing pages are at the core of these conversions.
We get asked this one all the time, so what does make a good landing page? There’s no one-size-fits-all: your dream landing page is completely unique to your business! But there are a few key elements you should definitely consider before you start creating yours:
Reel them in and keep them hooked! Your copy is so important, it’s the why, it’s your persuasion. It’s what leads visitors to ultimately take the action you want them to take. Your tone is always going to be different depending on your industry and personality… but the key word here is engagement. You want to keep them on the page as long as possible, so engaging copy is crucial. If you’re wondering where to start, have a little look at my how to optimise your content SEO strategy blog for a few handy tips of what you should be including!
A good image can make or break a landing page. There, I said it. Not only does it set the tone for your brand, but it’s also the main way to grab a visitor’s immediate attention, before they even have a chance to read one word of copy. Whether it’s an original photograph, a graphic or illustration, or even a stock image; their purpose is all the same, to convince the visitor to stick around.
But that’s not the only reason! Images are a really great way for Google to learn more about the page content, which in turn determines how it will be indexed. Read my 7 ways to use images to boost your SEO ranking blog for a handy checklist of how to optimise your images. You don’t want to skip this step, trust me!
Why is white space so important? Think of the sales funnel we’ve talked about before, the one we’re trying to coax your potential customers and clients down. We’re trying to draw your website visitors down to one point, whether that’s the enquiry button, or ordering a product.
Imagine that funnel was littered with distractions; jam packed with images and text. Your potential customers don’t know where to look, and pretty soon that all-important button gets lost in the noise. Making sure your landing page has enough white space ensures the information they’re being given is effectively pulling them down the funnel. It keeps the page focused, prevents overwhelm, and helps to drive conversions.
Testimonials are so important for landing pages because they build trust. They show any new visitor that you’re actually pretty amazing at what you do! 88% of consumers trust customer reviews as much as they’d trust recommendations from a friend. In fact, the same study shows 72% of people will only take action (purchasing or signing up) after they’ve read a positive review. That’s a pretty powerful statistic.
But how can you make your testimonials stand out? Don’t be afraid to get creative! If Instagram’s algorithm shift to video content has taught us anything, it’s how important videos are. As consumers we love videos, don’t we? Honestly, we love anything that means less work for us. Someone telling us what they think of a business instead of having to read it? Sign us up! And there’s the added benefit that Google is in love with video content, so it would be a great addition from an SEO perspective too.
Okay, I had to give video its own subheading because it’s just that important. Video viewers retain 95% of a message compared to 10% when content is consumed via text. Not only is video an amazing tool to get your message across, but it’s gold dust for engagement and keeping visitors glued to your page. Whether you’re using video testimonials, a product video, animations, or even embedding a tiktok; any video will do the trick. But if you’re looking to really outshine the rest, make sure you add your video to a business YouTube account, before embedding it in your site. Google owns YouTube, so it really loves it when you use the platform. Biased I know, but you’ve got to play the game!
Not only are videos great for on-page engagement and SEO, they’re also little overachievers at driving conversions; 90% of users claim videos help them when making purchasing decisions. In other words, if you add one thing into your marketing strategy this year, make sure it’s video content!
Your landing page should be crafted around your call to action. Everything on that page should be purposefully placed to highlight the CTA button. But how do you make sure your call to action converts into a click? Prime placement and concise, compelling copy.
To break it down a little more, we want the CTA to stand out to visitors even if they’re just doing a quick skim of the landing page. Nothing should outshine it! The request it makes of the visitor should be clear and simple. This isn’t the place to dazzle them with your extensive business vocabulary. Tell your potential lead exactly what you want them to do, and let them know exactly where the button will take them; whether that’s to sign up to a newsletter, submit an enquiry or claim a promotion.
Your language should have plenty of momentum in it: don’t shy away from a more ‘salesy’ approach. Words like ‘now’, ‘limited supply’, ‘today’, ‘grab’, all create that sense of urgency that can push visitors to click that button.
Above the fold is the first area of the page users can see, without scrolling down. It’s your chance to wow your potential customers/leads. Now, it’s not as all-or-nothing as it used to be in terms of converting; with the shift to mobile and consumers now expecting to scroll as standard, 66% of attention on a normal media page is spent below the fold.
So, why is what you put above the fold still important? Above the fold content is where people judge your website. Those snap judgments that we love to make are made in that space. Above the fold is where a user decides whether to stay on a website or not. The same research found that ‘above the fold space focuses on building up users’ intent towards making a conversion’.
It’s crucial that your CTA is in this space; the purpose of the landing page should be up there loud and proud.
Why is making a landing page mobile friendly so important? 53.3% of all web traffic is now mobile, that’s the majority of all internet traffic, and it’s only increasing. And this statistic may very well be higher depending on the industry and demographic you’re targeting. Arguably the most important point though, is that Google indexes mobile first, so if your page isn’t optimised for mobile, you’ve struck out before you’ve even gotten started.
The simplest way to make your landing page mobile friendly is to, well, keep it simple! Keep your copy concise, don’t clutter the space with too many visuals, keep to a one column layout. The end result should be a clean smooth scroll, a mobile’s best friend.
Head to my mobile first blog to find more about the advantages of mobile first optimisation, and how it can affect your business in other ways.
We don’t want to brag, but we’re experts at creating landing pages that are conversion machines. We will work with you to determine what your campaign objectives are, and how your landing page will reflect that. We can either start from scratch and build a completely new killer landing page, or we can use a page you already have in place and give it a glow up!
My Elevate your Website package might be just what you’re looking for if your website is in need of a fresh perspective.
Ready to create the landing page of your dreams? Need a little more information? Just fancy a chat? Drop us a line here to book a call in, we’d love to hear how we can help!
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