If you have spent a fair amount of time practising digital marketing, then you probably already know what a landing page is. If you don’t, let me tell you.
In digital marketing, a landing page is a single web page that appears in response to clicking on a search engine optimized search result, marketing promotion, marketing email, or an online advertisement.
Let’s go with an example, you are browsing social media and see an ad. You feel that the ad is of your interest and click on it. In most cases, it will take you to a webpage where the details of the services, price, advantages etc are mentioned. This page is popularly known as the landing page.
Created specifically for the purposes of a marketing or advertising campaign, it’s where a visitor “lands” when they have clicked on a Google AdWords ad or similar. Landing pages are designed with a single focused objective – known as a Call to Action (CTA). When asking the question, “What is a landing page?” you need to understand that they are designed for paid traffic like Google Adwords as opposed to organic search results. Therefore, a landing page is a static page that acts as a catalyst to move leads through the buyer journey and closer to becoming customers.
Regardless of what you’re offering with your landing page, it must be convincing and engaging enough to motivate visitors to take that desired action. Landing page conversion rates vary across industries. Research reveals that the average rate is 2.35%, with the top 25% of companies seeing conversion rates above 5%. The top 10% enjoy conversion rates higher than 11%, which is what you should strive for. So how does one go about to create a landing page with a high conversion rate? Below are a few tips to ensure your landing page achieves its highest conversion rate possible.
1) Have an impressive headline for the landing page
A headline is where everything begins: the reader’s interest, attention, and understanding. It’s what compels a visitor to stay and learn more about what you’re offering, or not. The headline should grab the reader’s attention. It also should tell the reader what the product or service is all about. The headline should be short. Never make it more than 20 words, and preferably, if you can, limit it to 10. It’s also worth noting that if your headline complements an image that explains the product or service, then you don’t need to go into quite as much detail in the content.
2) Persuasive subheadlines
The next element you need in order to create an effective landing page is the subheadline. If the headline is what makes the visitor look, then the subheadline should make them stay. Together, these pieces of content make up the one-two punch of a landing page’s power. Normally, the persuasive subheadline is positioned directly underneath the main headline. The subheadline should have some element of persuasiveness. It can also go into slightly more depth and detail than the main headline.
3) Use a single CTA
The call-to-action (CTA) is arguably the most important element of a high-converting landing page. It is that which stands between your visitor and the action you want them to take through the CTA. That’s exactly why it’s so important to use just one of them. Otherwise, you might risk diverting their attention from the objective at hand. A good, effective landing page uses just one CTA for these reasons
4) Landing Page Pictures
Visual content is a quintessential component of landing pages that convert. It’s a fact that the brain processes images faster than text. 60,000 times faster in fact. This means that more visitors will be affected by the images you put on your landing page immediately. Few things to remember about images: the picture should be large, but not encompassing the entire space. The pictures need to be high-quality. The pictures should be directly relevant to your product or service. If you are selling a physical product, it is essential that your landing page contains an image of the product. If you are selling a service, the primary purpose of the image should be to grab attention and demonstrate relevance to the visitor.
5) Make your CTA stand out
When someone arrives at your page, you want them to immediately know how to take that desired action. There are a variety of tactics that you can employ to make your CTA stand out on the page and grab their attention. Use a contrasting color. Use action-oriented language on your CTA button. Use arrows or your imagery to point to it. Just make sure your CTA stands out among the rest of the items in your landing page. This will improve your conversion rate.
6) An explanation
Your landing page needs to be perfectly clear about what it’s offering. After all, if a potential customer doesn’t understand what your product or service is about, you’ve lost them. So a straightforward explanation is crucial. If your landing page is for a very simple product or service, you could get away with your headline and subheadline being the only content. However, most of the time, you need an explanation. Your explanation can be integrated with your headline, or completely separate. An explanation should be benefit-oriented. Explanations are functional, but functionality should be tilted in favor of the user.
7) Make your offer valuable
Typically, landing pages include some kind of lead form to capture contact information. Leads exchange their information for your offer, giving you a new name to market to, or additional data on an existing lead so you can personalize your marketing to them. No customer, potential or otherwise, will provide their contact information in exchange for something of mediocre value. Make sure your offer delivers real value or helps solve a common problem
8) Landing Page Speed Matters
When a customer clicks on the link that redirects to the landing page, the loading time here is very much crucial. If the landing page takes too much time while loading the chances of a customer exiting the landing page would be very high. Researches have shown that the improvement in the speed of the landing page has a positive impact on the conversion rate. So while you build the landing page for your campaign keep the speed of the landing page in mind
Conclusion
The tips provided above totally revolve around one goal, which is to convince a visitor to take your desired action once they come to your landing page. You need to think like your leads. Put yourself in their shoes. Ask yourself what would engage you most if you arrived at a landing page. The ideal landing page will be different for different businesses and yours will depend on your unique audience. Play around with various options, use empathy and understand what your audience wants or needs to see, and follow the rest of the tips above and you’ll be converting more leads in no time.