Winning Landing Page Designs

Creating a strong landing page is essential in securing new customers through your website. A good quality website can collect information and move people further down your sales funnel.

There are several elements which make a top quality landing page. Check out this article to find out the important aspects of a landing page to achieve the best results.

What Is A Landing Page?

A landing page is a page on your website on which clients arrive from marketing avenues like social media, newsletters and from other pages on your website. The landing page’s main objective is to encourage visitors to perform a certain action. Most of the time businesses use a landing page to persuade visitors to sign up to a mailing list. However, landing pages can also be used for selling a specific product.

Landing pages have been around since websites began, yet their development continues. Some landing pages can be very successful whereas others achieve very little.

Why Use A Landing Page?

A landing page is necessary because generally your website on its own is a poor sales avenue. According to some researchers, 80% of traffic your site receives will never return unless you have them subscribe to something.

Therefore having a landing page will help you to generate a mailing list and lead them down your sales funnel.

Further to this, when you are mailing your list, you will want to send them to a landing page to take specific action, e.g. add a product to their basket. Therefore a landing page can increase your conversions and sales, with only the original effort of writing the landing pages.

In fact, several landing pages can be highly useful. Research has demonstrated that when businesses increase the number of their landing pages from 10 to 15, there is a significant increase in the conversion rate.

These are the key elements which make a strong landing page:

1. An Offer

A landing page must have a valuable offer on the page for the visitor, in return for their details or a purchase. This offer could be a free ebook, test product, whitepaper, a chance to win something or a discount.

Without a strong offer it may be hard to achieve the results you want.

2. A strong headline

A strong headline is a must for any landing page. The best headlines describe what the page is asking the customer to do; while also enticing the audience to continue reading. One of the major problems with headlines is that they are often not related to the original referring content. This oversight confuses customers who then won’t convert.

3. A supporting subtitle

The second part of a landing page is a supporting subtitle. This should describe the main point of thelanding page. It should also relate very carefully to your main headline, the page copy and the referring content. To encourage a positive emotional response, use strong customer action words which demonstrate the benefit for them (i.e. discover, find, realise).

4. Strong Copy

For the next part, you will want to provide your customers with strong reasons why they should subscribe to your mailing list or buy a product. Selling benefits over features, good grammar and keeping the length just right are all important issues for effective copy.

It is also a good idea to use three to four bullet points to highlight specific benefits. Bullet points are easier to digest by the customer, especially when they are skim reading.

5. A Strong ‘Call To Action’

A ‘Call to action’ is simply the text and button the user will click on to take action. Using the right call to action will convert more of your visitors to take the specific action you would like them to. For instance, Mozilla changed their Firefox download action from “Try Firefox 3” to “Download Now – Free”. The change resulted in a 3.6% increase in the visitor conversion.

Other sites have also seen increases in conversion of up to 200% after changing their call to action. Therefore, the correct call to action can have a significant effect on your business.

Another aspect to consider is how the call to action and the button for the visitor to click on look like online. Ideally they should stand out from the rest of the page and draw the attention of the visitor. A contrasting colour is all you might need for this.

6. Internal links

There is an ongoing debate whether or not menu links should be included on your landing pages. Some authors will state that customers should be allowed to visit any page on your site. Others feel that internal links are distractions which will allow visitors to move away from the page, lowering conversion.

You could go either way; so perhaps experiment to see which is more successful for your landing page.

7. The Use of Images and Pictures

Pictures are worth a thousand words – therefore include a strong photo demonstrating a benefit or feature of your service. A good picture will engage your audience much better, especially if there are happy smiling people in the image.

8. Keeping it above the fold

One of the most important elements of your landing page is to ensure that everything is above the fold. If the customer doesn’t have to scroll down the page to find your call to action or the benefits of the product you are offering, they are more likely to complete the action.

9. Always Continue to Test

An essential aspect of making sure you have a winning landing page is to continually test it. A great method for this is A / B testing where you have two identical landing pages apart from one detail. This detail can be either the call to action, the colour of the page or something else. You need to run tests, sending visitors equally to each page and monitor the results.

However it isn’t just the first conversion which matters, other long term considerations are also needed. Look at the conversion of the mailing list to paying customer or how many unsubscribe before they receive three emails as well as the landing page statistics. You might receive more on your mailing list with one version, but if they all unsubscribe quickly, you’ve gained nothing.

Conclusion

Landing pages are a vital feature of any website for gathering information and selling products. Ensure your landing pages are optimised and make it easy for customers to move through your sales funnel.

Action Steps:

• Create a number of landing pages using the above design tips.
• Test those landing pages using A/B testing to discover what is optimal for your website.