Imagine you have created a stellar landing page to promote your small business
It’s designed, created and live! Now, here comes the conversion part.
Are you satisfied with the conversion rate it brings? Maybe, you probably want it to do better.
The good part, it’s possible and you can really optimize your landing page for better ROI.
But here comes the question, what can you do to make it work more effectively?
Well, there are a whole lot of things that can be done.
See the fact is there are many landing page best practices that you can apply. So, there’s no limit to perfection.
But here’s the sad truth, all this takes time to experiment, learn and understand.
So, the trick is to avoid the experiments that have proven as a mistake for many.
By seeing what has worked well and what has proved to be a disaster for others, you can save a whole lot of time.
Remember, time is everything!
And you wouldn’t want to waste time experimenting with the landing page when its already live there and not performing well.
So how can you begin? Just read this blog to know landing pages biggest disasters that you can avoid. Plus, what are some of the landing page best practices that you can use instantly?
[click_to_tweet tweet=”The more you experiment, the more you understand the landing page and the better conversion you get.” quote=”The more you experiment, the more you understand the landing page and the better conversion you get.”]
Before you pick the right solution to understand a landing page and what stops a landing page to convert.
So here we go!
What is a landing page in digital marketing
Image Source: Unbounce
Landing page is a page created especially for your visitors where they “land” after they click your ad or similar.
In digital marketing landing pages are very important as it is created solely for the purpose of advertising campaign or marketing.
Now here comes the question, why the hell are landing pages so important?
Unlike website pages which have different goals, & objectives, landing pages have a single focus.
Why? It’s because landing pages are created with single minded focus.
This what makes landing pages so unique and important.
For instance, if you visit the homepage of a website can you tell what will click first? Not sure?
Well, how could you decide as there are multiple links and options to click.
Similarly with blogs there are different links and pathways that user can take. Result, you get clicks, traffic but what not sure about sales.
Well, here is why we have landing pages. Read below to know how landing pages helps you in lead generation.
Related Content:
What are landing pages designed to do
In one simple line, landing pages are designed to capture leads for your business.
A lead can be an individual or an organisation which are showing interest in the products and services you sell.
They reciprocate there interest by sharing there contact information: phone number, email id or even social media handle.
But wait, if you are new to the marketing world you must be thinking why you need leads at the very first plus.
Why aren’t you directly focusing on sales?
Well, it’s simply because landing pages help you to can’t convert visitors immediately into buyers.
It’s good to imagine a world where your targeted audience straight comes to you and wants to buy your services.
Plus, you would exactly know what they are looking for, how do they get there, and what information you need to win them before they leave.
This sound so good and dreamy.
Well, this sort of sale can exist only in utopia and not in the real life. So in real life you can streamline your overall sales process. That’s what landing pages are designed to do!
How Do landing pages work?
Landing pages can work effectively to generate leads for your business. But how does it work? Here are 4 easy steps to create landing pages that work effectively.
These are also some of the easy landing page best practices that people often ignore in the desire to create a perfect page.
Create a compelling offer
Before you even begin designing your landing page, you need to be give enough thought about the offer.
The offer should be compelling enough to make the visitor take the desired call the action. Wondering what the offer must be?
Well, the offer can be anything: ebook, newsletter subscription, checklist, online course, bundle of information that consists of relevant links or any video.
Image source: Netflix
Remember, your offer must interest to your user in which ever stage of buying they are in.
For instance, in the first stage of the funnel (awareness), the offer will be more of educational or research related.
Where as in the middle and latter stage (interest and decision making) the offer will be more focused on the purchase decision.
Related Content:
The 7 Elements of an Irresistibly Compelling Offer
25 Brilliant Examples of Compelling Offers that Customers Can’t Refuse
Create a high converting landing page
Now, once the offer is ready, you need to create a high converting landing page. The offer will connect the visitor to the landing page and guide them to become a lead.
When it comes to landing page best practices, there are several elements that are included:
A) Offer
The landing page will completely focus on the offer. The website navigation will also be removed to avoid any other distraction on the page.
B) A compelling headline and description
As soon as the visitor reach on your landing page he/she need to know what the offer is about. So a clear headline and description is needed that clearly explains the value of the offer.
It should be strong enough that compel the visitor to leave an email address and other contact information.
C) Image:
An high quality image showing what the offer may look like is another important element you can’t miss.
D) Form:
A form that captures the relevant information of the visitor including email address
E) Closure page:
A thank you page or email. Once the visitor has taken a desired action it’s a good practice to send a thank you note to them. It will give them a sense that they are valued customers and reinforce their purchase decision.
What Stops Most of The Landing Page To Succeed?
By now, you know what a landing page is all about.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”The ultimate goal of the landing page is to convert the visitor into a lead. ‘ username” quote=”The ultimate goal of the landing page is to convert the visitor into a lead. “]
Pretty simple, Right?
Well, I wish it was that simple!
Making a landing page is simple but in order to make it succeed you need some more efforts.
Consider the example below:
Here is a landing page:
Now guess yourself, if you are looking for a golf course instructions and land up on this page.
What are the chances that you will immediately click for the e-book and start reading it?
And your eyes won’t roll to the “subscribe to blog section” or “video” that’s right there on the landing page?
What will you click first? Not, clear? Confused?
Yes, there are too many options on this page!
Well, if you are confused why won’t the user be?
Imagine such a small thing can make your landing page not work.
Too many options can distract the visitor to take the desired decision.
This was just one of the many issues landing pages face.
So now you know the issue can you think how can this landing page be made better?
Consider these two tips:
Firstly, landing pages needs to have one clear call to action.
Why?
See, today most people are stressed.
They are working round the clock. No surprise they want quick things done in minimal time and effort.
Your landing page shouldn’t make them think a lot.
Image source: Transferwise
Tip No. 1:
The landing pages might not be effective if there are too many CTAs. Avoid multiple options.[click_to_tweet tweet=”The landing pages might not be effective if there are too many CTAs. Avoid multiple options.” quote=”The landing pages might not be effective if there are too many CTAs. Avoid multiple options.”]
Tip No. 2
If you want to use more than one CTA, use two max. Also remember to distinguish your CTAs with lots of style and contrast. So that visitors are able to distinguish both.
So here you got some basic landing page optimization tips that you can instantly apply. But I am not here to give you basic tips.
I have researched intensively, and then found some tried and tested landing page best practices that work superbly.
But remember not every trick will work for you.
The right solution depends on the right problem. So identify the problem first. Once you know the issue, don’t delay further to rectify the issues.
Here are some of the roadblocks your landing page might have.
Roadblock: Landing page isn’t engaging!
On the surface, landing pages seems to be really easy to create and work.
It’s a single page with one picture, form, some content and one or two CTAs.
Simple?
Well, I wish it was that simple.
There are lot of elements that make your landing work. For instance landing page needs to be simple but highly engaging for your users.
Wondering why?
So Imagine this, you are in a party and a strange man or woman come to you and propose you marriage.
Now, what are the chances that you will likely say “yes”.
Rare?
Well, of course you will refuse the offer. Because you don’t know that person.
But what if that same person starts talking to you, meets you frequently and you develop a connect.
What then? You may after some time say “yes”. As now you know the person well enough.
That’s how it happens in real like and that’s how it should happen for your website!
If you create a landing page and run behind people to become the lead for your business without engaging them, they will refuse.
Why? Because they don’t know anything about your business and whatever they does that is not enough to convince them
Rule No. 1 Engage Your Audience.
Now, you know the roadblock, wondering how can you overcome it? Read below.
The best way to make the landing page engaging is by creating a quiz.
Quizzes are one of the most underrated form of marketing strategy.
It is difficult to believe but all those quiz you have seen on social media platforms are hard to ignore.
Many people love taking quizzes online and they are excited to know their score.
So instead of simply placing an email capture form (which visitors will likely ignore).
Why not create a quiz that is engaging and hard enough for the user to ignore?
Create on your own a lead generating quiz with just a few clicks and engage your visitors to stay on your landing page for more?
Once, they have taken the quiz they want to see the results.
Now just make a simple exchange of the visitor’s contact information to see the results. Congratulations you have got the information!
Roadblock: Irrelevant Headlines
You are spending hundreds of hours and dollars to make your landing page work.
Sure, you would hate if your visitor comes to your site and bounce back immediately.
Though it happens quite a lot. Isn’t?
Wondering why?
Because remember first impression is the last impression! And your landing page first impression wasn’t impressive enough.
But what captures the first impression on your landing page?
Think like this, if you visit a landing page, you want to know what that ad is all about. So your eyes will start searching for headlines that will tell you everything.
That’s what you will do and that’s what your potential visitors will do too.
But now if your headline isn’t fulfilling the purpose, forget about the conversions.
Rule No: 2: Headlines are important
On an average, five times as many people read the headline as read the body copy. When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar: David Ogilvy
Now, ask yourself have you spent your 80 cents well?
May be? Not sure. Then get sure first: Test you headlines now.
Steps to improve landing page headlines
You know headlines are important. But here’s a question: what kind of headlines will convince your visitor to stay for long on your page.
There are hundreds of characteristics to create an engaging headline. But on a basic level your headline must possess these three characteristics.
Image Source: Khan Academy
Clarity, Relevance and Empathy
First, Clarity: A bad headline is vague and ambiguous. Your headline shouldn’t ever do that. It must be clear and on point.
Second, Relevance: The message on your ad and on the landing page should match.
Imagine, a visitor click on your ad after reading about the free trial but found nowhere the free trial mentioned on your landing page, then don’t be surprised if you get high a bounce rate.
You get the point?
Third, Empathy: Your headline need to empathize with your visitors. It needs to talk about their pain points and give assurance that it can be solved.
Roadblock: Unclear Call-To-Action
Look at picture below and guess which is the main CTA of the company?
I think it is the “Request a trial”
Which one do you think?
And may be the company’s main CTA is the third one!
But did you get the point?
Too many CTAs can divert the audience’s attention.
Rule No. 3: 1 or 2 CTA max
You need to understand, the main purpose of CTA. It is to either gather leads information or to buy the product.
Too many options can divert the audience’s attention and make them click on the wrong one. Result, you miss your lead! However, there are many reasons that can affect your CTAs, so check out few steps to improve your CTA.
Steps to improve your CTAs
Creating a perfect CTA is not about your creativity but about getting more clicks.
So while having a unique design and site structure is good from website design point of view but not good from user point of view.
So remember your CTA must have defined shape, and must have different color to form the border and have text on them:
Something like this :
But that’s not it, there are other many hacks that can get your CTAs clicked.
Good news? They can instantly be applied on your site. So learn and get your CTA clicked.
Road Block: Cluttered Design
After reading so much on landing page, you are ready to create a perfect one for your business.
You have created a beautiful engaging page. Your headline is attractive enough to hold the visitor, and your CTA is align with your goals.
So your landing page is ready to go?
May be you are yelling “Yes” in your mind, as now you know so many landing page best practices.
But, folks here’s the truth, there are few more answers you need to know.
Here it goes!
Who will make sure that your visitors see the the video you have given your hours creating it?
And, who will ensure that your CTA is being clicked?
Also, are you sure the colors you have used won’t give a color attack and distract your visitors, like this one?
You getting the point? I am talking about the design of your landing page.
Rule No. 4 design and layout is vital
Designing your landing page is really crucial. A good way is to use directional clues.
Direct your visitors in the direction you want them to go and make them click the button you want them to do.
Use F-Pattern and Z-Pattern directional clues to navigate your user.
Steps to design your landing page perfect
There are many landing page best practices that you can adopt. So when it comes to designing, you need to be particular. For instance take the example of this landing page: site savers
The image used on this page is really a powerful one which will impact (positively) the conversion rate of this page.
However, remember powerful images on your landing pages needs to be tested to ensure they aren’t impacting the conversion rate negatively.
Secondly, I like how they have turned out the donation steps in multiple stages.
But there is an issue, the layout is bit difficult to understand. The visitor might not able to see the amount of dollar clearly. Result, user experience will impact negatively.
So here’s what they could have been done to make it look better.
Step one:
Highlight the dollar sign by using bold color on white
Step two:
Instead of the visitor selecting the payable amount and then clicking to donate, wouldn’t it be better to just add a CTA to each donation amount?
Take a look:
Donate $7
Donate $14
Donate xxx
Looking better? And guess what this way one additional click has been removed that may have come in the path of conversions.
So, you get the point? No one makes a good landing page at one go. It’s all about testing, testing and a lot more testing.
You don’t need to change everything about your landing page if its not boosting conversion, rather just identify the roadblocks they are or may affect the conversions and work on them.
But don’t just limit to this, check out 10 best landing pages design that are really driving high number of conversions this year.
Roadblock: Lack of Trust
Are a you selling a new product that needs validation from your past customers? Or,
May be your deal sounds too good to believe! (eat this pills twice a day and reduce your weight to half in two days)
Well, in either case, by displaying testimonials you give a credible aspect to your product and services. Result, customers will spend 31% extra on your business with positive testimonials.
Rule No. 5: Add Testimonials to Your Landing Page
Testimonials can be a potent aspect to increase sales on your landing page. But remember they need to be the honest ones.
Reach out to your past customers and ask how your product or service has made their life better.
For instance: If your landing page is one substance addiction recovery program then your testimonials should include why your buyers like your products over the competitors one. Rather than just stating “the program is good and it changed the life”.
Steps to Gain Credibility By 4 Simple Ways
Testimonials are important for your business.
[click_to_tweet tweet=”A good positive testimonial can boost your conversion rate.” quote=”A good positive testimonial can boost your conversion rate.”]
But what if you are short of those good testimonials? (Yes, let’s be honest, there aren’t many good reviews).
So don’t miss any chance to get the best testimonials from some of your extremely satisfied customers.
But before you reach out to help, compile a list of questions that will make your testimonials look in the right direction.
Here are some questions you can use to get a great testimonial.
Q.1 what were the issues that our products and services helped to solve?
Q.2 What has been your favorite part of our program/service/product according to you?
Q.3 what will you particularly recommend for our services/products?
There are many questions you can be ask, but only you would know what is best to build trust for your product and services.
Trick: scan your competitors landing pages and see what’s making them excel.
How to create high converting landing pages for your website?
You know landing pages are vital for your advert success. You have probably created the one but the results aren’t exciting enough. No worries, you are not alone.
See the thing is landing pages demand continuous experimentation and changes till you strike the perfect one which brings the dollars.
Yes, test, test, test your landing pages after your launch it to make it better.
But wait, you have to create a decent one at the very first place.
In fact now that you know the roadblocks, you can easily create a far better one.
But how?
So there are two options to create a high converting landing page.
Firstly you can hire a designer: But remember this will be time consuming and costly as well.
But what if you don’t have the time or money to get the one?
You wish you had a technical knowledge and you could have easily create it on HTML or word press. Right? Well, trust me even if you have had that, it would be a pain.
Trust me, its real difficult, you are hearing from horse’s mouth!
The good news you can still create a high converting landing page without spending your too much time and money.
Here are list of some tools that you can use to create a high converting landing page.
How to Create Mobile landing pages?
Mobile landing pages have become very important in driving sales.
Why?
Research says, more than half of every nine out of ten mobile web searches ends with sale.
Awesome, isn’t it?
But here’s the sad part, nearly most business have failed to optimize their mobile conversion rates.
So what happens when your mobile audiences visit your standard landing pages designed for websites and desktop reading community? They will bounce back immediately.
Now, imagine in an era where mobiles are bringing more sales than desktop, why not optimizing your mobile landing page is a huge loss.
In simple words, businesses need mobile conversion rate optimization solution as soon as possible.
Luckily there are dozens of solution that you can apply straight.
The potential of mobile marketing is huge today but only if you optimize the offer well for your mobile visitors.
Wondering how to go for this?
Simple, all you need to focus and work on mobile landing pages.
So rule No. 1 don’t assume one landing page is enough for all devices.
A separate mobile landing page with separate goals, structure and call to action will bring rocking results for your business.
Worrying about how can you create such mobile landing pages?
So here’s the good part, it’s way more easy than you might think. Here are few best mobile landing pages practices.
-
Remember, Mobile screens are small
If you are assuming your beautiful desktop landing page will work on mobile devices, burst the bubble right now!
Mobile screens are smaller than desktop screens.
So when you squeeze the desktop landing page content for the mobile audience, you are making a mistake.
This will simply kill the flow, layout, and design of the landing page copy.
So creating a short copy while keeping the size of mobile screens in mind will be a good mobile landing pages practices.
-
Be careful with the images and videos
Images are crucial to any landing page. In fact images are regarded as landing page best practices that you shouldn’t miss.
But when it comes to mobile landing page you need to be careful.
Why?
Because images demand high data connections.
Result, low data connection will distract your user!
So don’t forget to compress the images as per the mobile friendly size before you upload.
Similarly be careful with the videos.
It’s not that you must avoid adding videos on your landing page, but here’s what can go wrong. Even videos in the background demands high data and it may distract your audience.
So think, what action you want the audience to take when they visit mobile landing page. Remember it’s a landing page and not your website, so avoid distraction on the page.
- Mobile landing page should have Fast load time
Speed matters hugely on mobile landing pages.
Don’t forget people surf mobile internet while they are on their way to home, office, doing shopping and waiting in queue.
Their patience is limited and don’t forget not every mobile user have endless data connection or WIFI.
Result, your slow landing page loading might affect your sales.
-
Make Use of High Contrast color
Due you know using the right contrast on your mobile landing page can increase your percentage of conversion?
It is discovered that high contrast colors can increase your chance of conversion.
It’s small but one of the smartest landing page best practices that you can use .
High contrast colors serves dual purpose to landing pages:
Firstly, high contrast colors are eye catching and people find it difficult to not click the button.
Secondly, don’t forget mobile devices are used in natural outdoor light.
As a result, it can be hard to read the screen texts and links. This is the reason, apple the biggest company uses a dark color text and images on white background.
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Use hamburger as a best mobile landing pages practice
Do you recognize this sign? Of course you must have seen it on lots of web pages. Right?
This navigation sign is called hamburger which have become a crucial part on landing pages. But why? See the thing with landing pages is that they need to be short, crisp as possible.
You don’t want the visitor attention to divert with too many options.
This is the reason many marketing leaders think that navigation on landing pages should be completely be omitted.
The focus should be to move the visitor to the CTA. so most landing pages use this hamburger navigation to save space on mobile screens.
There are you have it . These were 5 mobile landing page best practices that you can’t miss.
But if you are looking for more landing page best practices, check out 19 proven ways to increase your mobile landing page performance.
Landing Page URL Best Practices
Your landing page headline, ad copy, layout, content, form, load time, everything matters
When done rightly, you know your landing page can give super rocking results to your business.
We have discussed these factors in detail. But wait there’s one more thing that can boost your online business results, urls.
All you need is some landing page url best practices. So here we go!
Many people don’t think it while setting up the page. But here’s why you need to not just think about the landing page url but also act accordingly:
Research reveals that some landing page url best practices can help you rank higher on the SERPs. Secondly, it can help you convert more visitors into buyers.
All good? But here’s what you need to worry about.
Poor framing of urls can affect your marketing campaign negatively. Result loss of leads and sales. Wondering how can you get your landing page url right? Read below
Keywords matter a lot in the URLs
When it comes to digital marketing, keywords matters a lot.
Unfortunately many businesses fail to choose the right url and can affect the visibility of your landing page in search engine result pages.
Yes, despite all the google algorithm latest changes for the keyword stuffing, keywords still matters. When used properly and strategically they can work on the ranking.
Not clear, consider this: if you are the owner of a chinese restaurant named “The Grill” in las vegas which url from the below will benefit your business more?
Example
http://mywebsitexxx.com/n 2635878999&gdf=2&khj
Vs
http://mywebsite.com/chinese-restaurant-las-vegas-thegril
Now, what do you think which url would the user is more likely to click if he/ she is looking for a chinese restaurant in las vegas?
Did you get the point? Better customized landing page url can help you get more clicks. So rule no: 1 create a url for the people and for Google.
Want to adopt more landing page url best practices? Here are top 4 landing page url strategies that you shouldn’t miss.
Final Thoughts
So coming back to the main question, “How do you get the right landing page for your business”.
By now, you know there’s no one single formula to create a landing page that converts well.
There are lot of factors that goes in creating a landing page. as the experts say, its both an art and the science.
There are factors that may work well for your website while lot of factors that may affect the conversions.
But here’s the good news, there are certainly proven tactics that you can’t miss. For instance:
By just adding testimonials you can increase credibility of your product or service.
Plus, one single quiz page will make the user stay on your page for long and eventually become lead.
Or, by tweaking the design and layout of your page you can get the desired clicks from the user.
And Lastly, if you can create a deal that your visitors just can’t resist, your conversion will surely boost.
So what are you waiting for? Apply these proven tactics that will work for you business.
Also, tell us which fix helped your landing page conversion rate to increase in the comments section below?
If one factor is working on your landing page, chances are you can do that even better. We will tell you how to increase it even further.