Online marketers tend to look around for ways to land customers. One of the best ways you can do this is by learning all that you can about a landing page, and we are here to help you with that.
A landing page is a standalone web page created to market a specific campaign or product to increase the conversion rate for your business growth. The single objective that a landing page is made for is called Call to Action or CTA. People usually arrive at a landing page by clicking an ad. A landing page was first made back in 2003 by Microsoft to sell its most iconic tool, the Microsoft Office.
There’s a common confusion that exists between a home page and a landing page. People think they’re the same when they’re not. You can design your homepage to be a landing page, but they are not always the same. A home page usually is designed to introduce the user to a website and shows the user multiple paths to follow. However, a landing page gives users a single option to act on.
If you’re looking to improve your website’s traffic and SEO, having a landing page is the best way to go about it. Almost 68% of B2B businesses use landing pages, whereas 44% are directed to home pages. These stats are proof of how much people practice this activity.
Landing pages are tailor-made, after market research, and understanding the user to achieve a specific campaign’s goals. Further, in the article, you’ll learn what you need to do to make a landing page.
Prior to Creating a Landing Page
You need to have explicit knowledge of certain things before you start working on your landing page. These aspects include understanding your goal, your audience, and your competitors, which give you a direction.
By understanding your goal, we mean what you want your user to do once he reaches your page. Some of the things that you can expect your user to do are:
- Sign up
- Buy something
- Fill a form out
- Download something or more
Identify what task you want your user to perform, and it will guide you to shape your landing page.
Now that you have identified your goal, all you need is to figure out your audience. Find out what they want? The more you understand their needs, the better you can address and entertain them. You will know what exactly to give out on your page.
Finally, you have your competitors already in the market winning or failing their goals but leaving out a trail for you. If they are successful, you can see and learn what to do, and know what not to do if they are a blemish.
How to Create a Landing Page?
To make a successful landing page, you need to ensure that your user has a smooth, easy, quick, and seamless experience.
Content
Start with a persuasive headline followed by an uncluttered, short landing page with minimum yet rich content. Your user should not have to read through paragraphs, but get the message at a single glance. Just the vital information that your audience will be interested in.Â
Easy Conversion
Make the conversion easy and time-saving with minimum or no hurdles. If you require a form to fill, make sure it does not require a lot to type in. Moreover, if you want the user to purchase something, make it a matter of a few clicks. The more convenient it is for the user to complete the conversion, the more likely he is to do it. There is a greater possibility of increasing the conversion rate if it is possible with a single click.
Design
A straightforward, unidirectional design is a must for any landing page. From the way you design your landing page to how it showcases the user path, everything counts. Always ensure that the user does not have any unanswered questions; it should have all the required information. You can even add graphics as part of the message you’re trying to deliver, and further reduce the content requirement.
Call to Action
There should always be at least one clear Call to Action that you can present in the heading or the clickable button. For example, instead of “buy,” your button can say, “purchase the nutrition program.”
Mobile Friendly
Since many users visit landing pages using their mobile phone devices, it is essential to make your page mobile-friendly. Users often end up at landing pages using their phones to swipe around to figure out what’s going on; this can cost you conversion loss.
Responsive CTA
Since many users visit landing pages using their mobile, tablets and laptops etc devices. It is essential to make your page responsive so every device user can see it comfortably and friendly according to their screen size.
Types of Landing Pages
Here are a few types of landing pages you can go ahead with:
Lead Generating Landing Page
Lead generation landing pages are there to extract information from a customer. Using a data capture form, you gain information like customer name, company name, email address, job title, contact information, etc. You can now further use this information to convert this lead into a customer by email marketing or other means.
Click-Through Landing Page
The Click-through landing page does not require a form. It is usually used as a middleman between your ad and shopping cart to present information about a promotion or a discount. Click-through landing pages are made with the intent to convince the customer for immediate purchase.Â
Infomercial Landing Page
An Infomercial is a landing page that requires detailed content. This page could entail a list of benefits or features that it shows instead of relying on graphics or discounts. Such campaigns also usually require detailed information from the user. Infomercials are also called the Explainer landing page.
Product Detail Landing Page
The product detail landing page is used to describe a single product’s details and is preferably used in the retail industry. Some people prefer keeping product descriptions as part of the website, while others offer a landing page to reduce distractions and navigation.
These are only a few of the most commonly used types of landing pages. There are other options line microsites, viral landing page, splash page, squeeze page, sales page, etc.Â
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What Software to use to Create a Landing Page?
A landing page software assists you in creating a landing page of your choice. Landing page builders were first introduced back in 2011. There are several landing page builders that you can choose from, but here we have shortlisted the best three for you.
Unbounce
Unbounce was the first-ever landing page software and is one of the most commonly used landing page builders. It is a software with an easy-to-understand interface that lets you make a landing page using a drag and drop editor. It offers you to choose from more than a hundred templates and to make your page mobile-friendly too. With features like A/B testing, it ensures quality, but its payment plans starting from $80/month can be considered a little costly.
Hubspot
Hubspot has multiple marketing tools to offer, one of which is their landing page tool. Hubspot makes your work faster, enabling you to create a landing page in a matter of minutes. This software is easy and fast to use with basic templates and allows you to add videos.
A/B testing is also offered along with other features like SEO and content strategy, and Facebook leads ads. It only costs $50/month, which is very affordable compared to other software.
Leadpages
Another easy to use software that costs only $25/month is Leadpages. Also offering drag and drop use to make the process quick, Leadpages allows you to choose from more than 160 templates. Although the software has an old-looking interface and poor customer support, it is good enough to get the job done. With a reduced price, you might have to compromise on these details.
If you don’t find any of these suitable, other notable software programs you can look up are Instapages and Getresponse.
Additional Tips to Improve Conversion
- A/B testing can improve your design and make you aware of the flaws and drawbacks.
- Using videos on landing pages has recorded an 86% increase in conversion rate.
- Limit navigation and keep full focus on CTA.
- Add a follow-up thank you page where you can share additional promotions.
- Make sure your page processes fast; too much wait can push a user away.
- The use of hypnotic words like ‘you’ makes the user feel relatable.
- Provide special offers that make it difficult for users to refuse.
- Keep it simple and to the point.
- Smartly choose your landing page builder to find befitting templates.
Landing pages are a tested way to successfully help you with pay-per-view marketing, content marketing, email marketing, etc. So if you are looking to enhance your marketing results and techniques, using landing pages is the path to follow.
