If your recent marketing campaign is not resulting in the high conversion rates you were expecting, your landing page may be the culprit.
The entire point of a landing page is to convert your prospects into leads and potentially paying customers. However, you need to ensure your landing pages are designed and optimised to drive more conversions.
What’s a Landing Page?
The landing page, a standalone web page, is the heart of any conversion-focused marketing campaign - whether it be an email marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) marketing, organic traffic or social media. Prospects are driven to the landing page when they click on a call-to-action link embedded in the campaign messaging to learn about a specific offer, product or service. A landing page has one sole focus - driving visitors to act – by providing a means to capture the visitor’s information (usually an email address).
Why is a Landing Page Important?
While it might be tempting to send traffic to your homepage but landing pages capture leads at a higher rate than from your homepage. According to HubSpot, landing pages have a 5-15% average conversions rate.
Homepages are usually cluttered with information and there are many possible actions a visitor can take, and the most important one might be missed. Since you want visitors to stay on the landing page as long as possible and take action, a landing page is just one page with no other links and contains one offer – limiting any distractions.
What Makes a Landing Page Effective?
To be effective, a landing page needs to be strictly-focused on its goal and created to optimise conversion rates. Visitors form an opinion in less than a second and their first impression will influence all actions on the page. The landing page is the last thing a lead will see before they are converted and guided to becoming customer who will pay for a product or service.
When you set up landing pages for unique campaigns, audiences, events, or promotions, you can target your audience, offer something of value (downloadable content, webinar, giveaway, free trial, demo or coupons) and convert a higher percentage of your visitors into leads.
Optimise Your Landing Page
1. Attention-Grabbing Headline
Your headline is the first thing your visitors see on your page so it needs to capture their attention entice them into staying on the page to learn more. The headline needs to be straightforward, concise and easy-to-digest while summing up the offer as clearly as possible.
Ensure reader can instantly understand how your offer will benefit them
Shape headlines around your target audience’s desires and concerns
Add urgency and energy by starting with an active verb – “Go”, “Save”, “Own”
Closely match to headline from the source messaging
Keep short (no more than 20 words, preferably round 10
Use same headline from the source messaging
Consistent with call-to-action
2. Compelling Content and Design
Landing pages with a clean design and easy-to-read content are more effective and generate more leads.
Break your copy up into major sections, led by a headline with large type.
Use bullet points to discuss benefits of your product.
Keep paragraphs short (under five lines)
Content needs to be engaging, persuasive and relevant
Consistent throughout entire conversion path
3. Captivating Pictures
The brain processes images 60,000 times faster than words. The first thing your visitors see and process on your landing page will be the picture. You want their first impression of your product or brand to be positive. If you are selling a physical product, it is essential that your landing page contains an image of the product.
Large and high-quality
Relevant to your product and service
4. Powerful Call to Action
Calls to action can be the difference between a conversion or a bounce. Without a strong call to action, your landing page will be meaningless.
Must have verb or action word and implied sense of urgency (Download Now vs. Download Here).
Clear and accessible
Defined place for visitors to take action (use buttons)
5. Mobile Friendly
Mobile landing page optimisation is more important than ever with more than half of all internet traffic coming from a mobile device and 62% of smartphone users mademademade a purchase online in the last six months. To optimise your landing page for mobile:
Create easy-to-click targets
Craft short headlines
Use a font your visitor can read without squinting, enlarging etc.
Avoid harsh backgrounds
Use click-to-call for your call-to-action
Keep forms short – aim for 50% of desktop form fields
Focus on one goal
Use action verbs
Create single column layout
Optimise for speed - small file size for faster loading
Ensure the site is mobile accessible
Summary
Landing pages are the key to any online marketing campaign. A good landing page will target a particular audience and focus on one promotional objective – to generate more leads. In order to be high-converting, your landing page needs to provide a clear, direct call-to-action and enables visitors to easily make a purchase, sign up for a list or download an eBook.