Many marketers set up email, advertising or social media campaigns and direct their prospects and customers to the landing pages of their website. However, if you don’t properly showcase your products and services on your landing page, those pages don’t convert. And that means you might as well throw money right down the drain. It is simply a waste of hard-earned marketing dollars.
The purpose of a website page is to display general information about your business and your products and services. Each page has several links encouraging the visitor to explore. This is why landing pages are so significant. There are mainly 2 types: lead generation pages allow you to collect email addresses in order to launch a nurturing program and informative pages, on the other hand, aim to provide enough information about a product or service to encourage the purchase.
Landing pages can also be used for event or webinar registrations, newsletter subscriptions, content downloads or any other marketing initiative.
A landing page is created for one goal, one post, and one potential click. Remove all distractions so your visitors have a clear view of the action to be taken. Create a landing page for each campaign with a specific objective.
A successful page takes more than putting together some pretty pictures, some text, and a call to action. Think about your goal, your strategy, add a little creativity and make sure to monitor your performance indicators.
What is a landing page for and what is it for?
A landing page is mainly used in the context of an advertising campaign. It is, therefore, a page specifically created to welcome your visitor and quickly strengthen the offer you are advertising.
If the visitor is on this page, your ad has piqued their interest. It, therefore, remains to complete the argument and finish convincing him.
A landing page is essential to the success of your campaign
The major goal of a landing page is adaptation. All the elements of this page must therefore be designed in order to get the Internet user to take a defined action: buy a product or a service, subscribe to a newsletter, fill out a form, watch a video, etc… It is therefore essential to clearly define your objective before starting the design.
Even today, I too often hear goals based on the number of visitors. A landing page will be a success if your target engages. Even if you manage to get your page to 10,000 people, if you convert 2, it will be a failure.
Why?
For a page to be displayed in the results of a search in search engines like Google, the text that composes it must be considered relevant to the research.
Basically, if you want your site to show up when someone searches for the term “Home Spirit sofa”, you need to have a page that talks about Home Spirit sofas. It’s the minimum.
The basics: characteristics of a sales page that converts
In theory, creating a sales page should be pretty straightforward. The goal? Provide enough information to the customer to persuade them of the effectiveness of your product and allow them to justify their purchasing decision. Rosara Joseph, a content strategy expert at Venture Web, elaborates:
“The ultimate goal of your sales pages should be to give visitors confidence and provide all the information required to make an informed buying decision and make the process as smooth as possible.”
At this point, you probably need some practical information to get a better idea of things.
Here are 4 tips for creating landing pages that convert.
1. Create a good first impression!
Did you know that it only takes about 50 milliseconds (0.05 seconds) for a human to form an opinion on your website? This means that your overall design, structure, colors, font, spacing and amount of text should be developed with short intervals of visitor attention in mind.
When it comes to landing page design, clean and elegant are goals to achieve. Don’t fill every empty space on your page with text and graphics. Keep it simple and clutter-free. Remember, you want visitors to remember ONE message and take ONE action.
2. Use a simple and interesting message!
Landing pages are not the right place to display all your different promotions or try to quote all the possible and imaginable features and benefits of a product.
Match your message – that is, your headlines, writings and calls to action – with the precise intent of the visitor. For example, if a visitor clicked on an ad to get an eBook, promote the value of that book.
What will the visitor get from his reading? Compelling text is key, no matter how spectacular your design is. Pique the reader’s curiosity with an inspiring or intriguing headline. The body of the text must be relevant, clear and oriented towards solutions. Avoid using “we” and focus it all on “you”.
3. Limit content above the waterline!
Although some experts claim that people hate scrolling a page, this is not necessarily true. Evidence to the contrary exists everywhere. People have no problem scrolling if the page is designed for it and the content is eye-catching.
That being said, above the waterline is still the place readers will go first. Make sure to include a headline, subhead, call to action and a strong image to engage visitors. You can always add benefits and recommendations later in your page.
4. Use calls to action!
If you add multiple links and buttons, visitors will inevitably be attracted by the call-to-action. Ideally, use two to three calls to action on your page. However, give readers only one option: subscribe, subscribe, download, buy, etc. Make sure the button text is clear. Now is not the time to show that you know the more complex words in the dictionary.
Indeed, make sure that what will happen after the click is clear, both from the point of view of the design and the message. For example, if the call to action indicates registering for a webinar, the next page and/or email should detail the next steps and include the date and time as well as the link to log in. Make the process as easy as possible so that visitors are rewarded for their action with an enjoyable, hassle-free experience.
Your landing pages have a big impact on the success of your overall marketing campaigns. After all, you invest a lot of resources in attracting leads and upselling your existing customers. Encouraging these initiatives with attractive landing pages can only be beneficial.