Landing Pages? Do they work or are you missing out on leads?

Your landing page or pages are the most important parts of your website. These are where your customers land after being directed from a Google ad, search term or via your own website. 

Your landing page has one job to do and that is to prompt prospective customers to act either by buying your service or product or providing their email address in exchange for some sort of benefit to them, such as an eBook or freebie. 

Many people mistakenly believe that a landing page is the same as the home page but this is not so. Your home page is there to provide information about what you do and it should have plenty of information and engaging copy but it is not there solely to convert customers. 

If you rely on customer leads from your home page you may find that the visitor becomes overloaded with information and distractions so fail to hit the buy button.  Directing traffic to your home page is a rookie mistake made by many inexperienced marketeers and it will negatively impact customer engagement. 

So what is a landing page? 

 A landing page is there simply to convert customers into leads. It will convey a very simple message and a form that enables customers to subscribe with their email address in return for some sort of benefit to them, whether they are looking to buy something now or later. 

Before you construct your landing page, you need to be clear in what you want to achieve. What do you want from your landing page? Do you want visitors to sign up for a newsletter, buy something or download a freebie such as a guide or eBook? Once you have decided upon the purpose of your landing page you can create the message to suit. 

Keep it simple and understand your target audience

A landing page needs to be simple with a powerful message because after you have attracted a visitor you don’t want them slipping through the net and getting away without acting! 

As with all marketing, understanding the needs of your potential customers and who they are is important. If you can get into your customers mindset you will best know how to persuade them to act. 

Best Practices for building a successful landing page. 

The first thing that your customer will see when they land on your page is your headline so make this compelling enough to engage their attention and keep them on the page. 

You should also include a sub -headline that condenses the offer into a few short words that can be read in a couple of seconds. Keeping within the “blink test” – the time it can be read before a customer has time to blink, is crucial and this should between 3 to 5 seconds and no more. 

Use bullet points to get your information across

Information should be clear and concise. Avoid long blocks of text and instead use bullet points so that your customer can skim read without missing out on vital information. This doesn’t mean you have to dumb down but it does mean that you need to keep it short without waffle or compromising on vital information. This will give the customer confidence that you know what you are talking about. 

Create the call to action form 

The call to action is where your customers will act in the way that you want by giving their email address and details so this should be high up on the page where it can’t be missed. 

Creating some urgency with words such as Free Offer or Act Now will help customers decide to subscribe. Whether you are using your landing page to sell a service or you are trying to raise awareness of your brand by offering some sort of free gift, this area is crucially important so make sure that the form fields match the journey of your customer. 

Keep the next step instructions very simple and clear and mention how customers should act in your text on your landing page copy. Adding this towards the end of the text such as in the final bullet point will make this even clearer. 

Don’t provide any escape routes! 

Once your customer is on your page, you want to keep them there, so remove all navigation links so they don’t become distracted and move on to other links on your site. Remember the landing page is there for one purpose and that is as a call to action. If they start browsing your site, you may find they give up and leave. 

Including the social media icons is an exception to this rule. These will enable your customer to instantly share your landing page with Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or other sites, creating free advertising, but without giving your visitors an exit route from your landing page. 

Design tips for your landing page

Using a powerful image will help customer conversion. As the old saying goes a picture says a thousand words so a great picture on your landing page will do the same. 

Customer testimonials can also be effective. These days we are all accustomed to reading product reviews before we buy so including some positive customer recommendations will strengthen your page. These can be situated at the foot of your page and will create added confidence in your customer. 

Basic checks

Once you have created your landing page, make sure it is working correctly and has no typos or other errors. Your credibility will be ruined if you make spelling mistakes and it will not only cheapen your brand, it suggests untrustworthiness, making people doubt your integrity. 

It is also important to test your page so fill out the Call to Action form, download the offer and see what happens. Does it work?  If it doesn’t, you can take action now before it goes live.

Finally…

A good landing page is one that creates customer conversions and the secret to success is to make customers see how your product or service will benefit them personally.  After all nobody signs up to anything if it isn’t in their best interests so creating this impression in the easy to understand format of a landing page will definitely improve your whole business.