How Landing Pages Can Convert Leads
Designing the perfect landing page is like baking the perfect cake. You need the right balance of ingredients to get the taste and texture just right, and you need to add them at the right time. If you follow the recipe, you get a delicious cake that everyone is happy with. The more you bake the cake, the more you can tweak the ingredients to improve its taste. And the more people that like the cake, the more fans you’ll have!
Landing pages may not be as tasty as home baked cakes, but they do require the right balance of elements. The better landing pages you create, the more conversions you’ll get. And this is good for business.
What recipe should you be following? There’s tons out there, and it’s hard to know which one to add to your recipe book. Thankfully, we’ve done a bit of research and applied our own two sense to provide you with practical, helpful advice for building out successful landing pages.
Let’s take a look at some of the best practices for landing pages that will lead to crazy good conversions.
Before You Begin
What’s the first thing you would do before you baked your cake? Set out the ingredients. You need to do the same thing for your landing page. Ask yourself the following questions:
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What is the goal of the landing page? Are you asking visitors to fill out a form, subscribe to your email list or buy a product?
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Who are you competing against? What are your competitors doing that’s working, and how can you apply these strategies to your landing pages?
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Who is your audience? The better you understand your audience and their motivations for buying, the better you can speak to them in a voice that they will feel connected to.
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How did the visitor get to your landing page? You may want to use a different message depending on where visitors come from. For instance, are they coming from Facebook, Twitter or Google+? You can understand why their experiences may be different.
Asking yourself these questions helps you build more meaningful pages right from the start.
Now let’s get started with simple yet effective strategies for making your landing pages convert.
Keep it Sweet and Simple
Just like that cake you’re baking, you want to keep your landing pages sweet and simple. Don’t add a bunch of fluff or fancy frills that will end up distracting your user. Provide them with essential information that will interest them and nothing more.
Present a Great Offer
You aren’t going to wow anyone if your offer isn’t awesome. In order to get leads to convert, you need to offer something worth converting for. In other words, something your audience will find valuable.
Users appreciate three things:
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Information that will enhance their lives in some way, such as by making them smarter, richer or healthier.
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Exclusive information that only select people know about such as industry secrets or insider tips.
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Free stuff such as free trials, free webinars, downloadable ebooks and whitepapers and discount codes.
Include a Clear CTA
Call to actions are very important on landing pages because they instruct users on what you want them to do. Action words are best, so choose CTAs that start with words like “download”, “submit” or “fill out”. Your call to action should always include big, bold text that won’t blend in with the rest of the page. For more tips on how to write the perfect CTAs that convert, check out our post on ideal CTAs.
Provide Worthy Content
Just because you don’t want to smother visitors doesn’t mean you should have cheap content. In fact, your content counts even more because you don’t have much of it. Think prime real estate. Provide relevant, useful content that inspires trust and instills confidence.
Create Catchy Headlines
Yes, headlines matter for landing pages too. We know you get tired of writing crafty ones, but they can make all the difference on whether or not users choose to continue on their journey with your brand. Use the main headline to tell users why your offer is worth checking out. How will it improve their life? Can it make them smarter, richer, healthier, etc?
Allow for Easy Conversions
People like easy. Why do you think the Staples Easy Button has done so well in corporate America? When you want people to convert, you must think in terms of easy. Here are some ideas for keeping things effortless for visitors.
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Make the distance between Point A and Point B as short as possible.
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All desired actions should be obvious.
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Choose buttons that prompt users to click.
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Select form fields that are large and easy to type into.
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Keep form fields short and simple.
Limit Exits
In most cases, it’s important to have exits. This isn’t one of them. Exits are available to give people a way out, and you don’t want to encourage people to leave. Limit hyperlinks and instead funnel your visitors down the desired path.
Build a Seamless Design
Design matters when it comes to your landing pages. The design should be clear and concise, answering all questions a visitor may have. Navigation should be obvious and simple, with nothing coming in the way of the user and their journey. In fact, users should be able to convert in one click, so choose your steps carefully. Other smart design tips include:
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Have clickable share buttons. People won’t hesitate to click a “share” button if they found your product to be helpful.
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Make smart use of color. For instance, red is energizing, yellow is cheerful and green signifies “go”.
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Keep things simple. Only ask for the information that you need for the offer, such as a name and email address.
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Include relevant images. A high-quality graphic can make your landing page more classy without being distracting.
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Be mobile friendly. You want users to be greeted with a mobile-friendly website that provides a positive experience.
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Display trust symbols. Trust symbols, such as logos of companies you’ve done business with and awards you’ve won, instill trust in visitors.
Conclusion
Just by looking at a landing page, you wouldn’t be able to tell how much work goes into creating one. Yet in order to build a successful landing page that leads to crazy good conversions, you have to put in some effort. Landing pages that are given the right attention typically perform better than those that are thrown together. Why? Because they understand the user, present an enticing offer and take visitors on the right path. By following the tips above, you can build landing pages that are on the fast track to success.
