A landing page is the first page that a website visitor lands on after clicking a link from another website, an email, a search engine, or another source. A landing page can be any page on your site, such as your home page, contact us page or a blog post. Creating the right landing page can mean the difference between having a visitor stick around and convert, or causing them to bounce right away.
Facts About Landing Pages
- 52% of companies never test their landing pages.
- 17% of emails sent out don’t send customers to a directed landing page.
- 35% of landing pages are inconsistently designed.
- 45% of landing pages don’t have a clear call-to-action (to learn more about call-to-actions, click here).
- You only have 7 seconds to answer your visitor’s questions once they land on your page.
Benefit From Others Mistakes
Take note of the above facts because you can greatly improve your landing pages by not making these common mistakes. By correctly testing and linking to your landing page, you can have a page that works and drives traffic. Through testing your page, you will also learn how long it takes to find the answer your user will be looking for. Make sure your user can quickly scan your page; keeping the page uncluttered will help with this. Aligning your landing page design with the rest of your website and including a clear call-to-action will also help improve your conversion rates and overall ROI.
Why Are Landing Pages Important?
The problem most companies have is they spend all of their marketing efforts and dollars on things that drive massive amounts of traffic to their site, like PPC ads, social media and email marketing. Even if the traffic they receive is relevant to what they’re selling, by not having a good landing page, they fail to provide the visitor with the necessary steps to actually complete the conversion. The purpose of a landing page is to convert your visitor, not just have them “look around”. In order to convert your visitor, you need to direct your visitors to a well-designed landing page that meets their needs and nothing more. This allows users to move smoothly along your sales pipeline in the desired fashion you have mapped out.
These ads will definitely drive traffic, but only a good landing page will complete the sale
How Landing Pages Work?
To learn how landing pages work, let’s look at an example.
Let’s say I own my own bakery and event planning business that specializes in making cupcakes and desserts for special occasions. Because I am the marketing manager, I maintain a blog online with baking secrets, ideas for events, etc. I also maintain eBooks on my website for baking and event planning.
When a mother goes online to look for ideas for her one year-old’s birthday party, she comes across my blog post, “10 Creative Ideas for Your Childs 1st Birthday!”, which another blog had linked to. Alongside my article, she notices my call-to-action for a free consultation to help plan her party, and a short form to fill out to get more information and 20% of her first purchase. After reading through my article, she decides that would definitely be a worthwhile thing to try and is able to immediately sign up by using the form right beside my blog post.
Even though she arrived looking for a blog post, with a clear call-to-action, good design, and good content, we were able to convert a visitor straight from the landing page.
Even a simple style gallery has a call-to-action just to the right
What Makes a Good Landing Page?
There are many key elements that make up a good landing page. Before creating your own or modifying your existing ones, think about these options to include:
- Include a Strong Headline – Your headline is the first thing a user will see when they land on your page. Make it clear and concise so they know where they are and it’s what they’re actually looking for.
- Write Quality Copy – Give enough information so your visitor gets what they need, but not too much, or else your visitor might get overloaded and bounce away from the page. Keep your writing simple and to the point.
- Include Social Sharing/Links – In order to promote your company, link back to other articles or information for your company. Also, include social sharing buttons to give your visitors an easy way to share your page.
- Include Lead Capture/Conversion Form – Once you have the visitor on your landing page, you want to turn them into a converter. Offer something of value to them – your product, service, newsletter, etc. – so they contact you or give you information about themselves to follow up on.
- Add Keywords – Add keywords to titles, text, and headers to maximize inbound marketing efforts. Visitors are drawn towards pages that match their search terms and will be more likely to stick around if they know immediately that your page is what they’re looking for.
Strong headlines and calls-to-action lead to strong conversion rates
When Are Landing Pages Needed?
Landing pages are an indispensable part of marketing. With that said, it’s amazing how few companies take advantage of well-designed, easy-to-convert landing pages. As stated above, a landing page’s purpose is to help convert users on their website. Why do so many not utilize landing pages the purpose for them is so important? According to MarketingSherpa, the number one reason landing pages are underutilized is because their marketing department doesn’t know how to properly set them up and are too overwhelmed.
Here are the 5 big reasons landing pages are needed:
- They give information to your online visitors.
- They connect users to your website.
- They convert visitors and prospects to customers.
- They capture information from your online visitors.
- They increase lead generation efforts.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Align your landing pages with your marketing strategy, and it will be easy to form a well thought out page. By focusing on creating great landing pages, even the overwhelmed marketing manager can improve conversion rates and get a better return on investment.
“There is no elevator to success, you have to take the stairs.” – Author Unknown
