Landing pages are the backbone of most websites, serving as the entry point for users who have clicked on a search result or advertisement. Although landing pages come in several shapes and sizes, their main goal is usually to create conversions.
By navigating to the page, users have already shown some form of intent, and the way in which you go about creating your landing pages can have a significant impact on your ability to use that intent to your advantage. Let’s take a closer look at how to create a successful landing page that converts.
Consider What Brought Users There
As briefly mentioned earlier, most users will navigate to a landing page for a specific reason. Although this may seem obvious, it can become all too easy to lose sight of this fact in your attempt to create the ultimate landing page. For this reason, the very first step in creating any landing page should be to consider what it is that brought them there, what it is they’re looking for, and how you can provide it to them.
If the user has landed on your page by clicking on a certain search result, you should already have a good idea of what they intend to find there. Once you have a clear idea on their intent, it’s time to match their goals with your own, which leads up to our next point.
Match Your Goal With Theirs
When creating your landing page, it’s likely you will already have a specific goal in mind. In most cases, this goal will be centred around selling a specific product or service. A successful conversion will require your goals to converge perfectly with that of your customer, and that’s just the beginning of the story. From there, you can start to think about the more practical aspects of creating an effective landing page.
Balance Content and Design
Experience shows that the best landing pages are able to strike a delicate balance between content and web design. On the one hand, you will want to provide the user with the right amount of content to address their query and maximise the chances of creating a conversion. At the same time, landing page design is crucial to presenting content in a way that is digestible and visually attractive.
The ability to capture and maintain users’ attention is one of the most important aspects of a strong landing page, and keeping this in mind can help guide you through the balancing process. If you’re able to make users digest significant amounts of engaging content without them even realising it, you’ll be well on your way towards striking that elusive balance.
Avoid Distractions at All Costs
Maintaining the modern customer’s attention online is hard enough without needless distractions getting in your way. Distractions are public enemy number one in successfully guiding your customer’s journey towards a conversion, and you should scrutinise any possible on-page distractions accordingly.
This inevitably raises the question – when can a page element be deemed distracting? Although the answer to that question is far from an exact science, there are a number of common mistakes to avoid. These include using complicated design elements that do not serve a clear purpose, unattractive images, inconsistent copy and the use of too many call-to-actions.
Say the Right Thing
Landing pages are all about communication, and you’re unlikely to be able to communicate what you have to offer without using the right words. For this reason, making use of engaging copy is crucial to the success of your landing page. This is your opportunity to speak to your customer about why they should make that conversion in the first place, so make sure you get it right.
Although the style of copy is likely to vary depending on the specific brand, subject and customer, experience shows that there are a number of things you can do to maximise its potential for making a conversion. Keeping things simple, addressing the user directly, writing eye catching headlines and focusing on the benefits all play a crucial role in driving conversions by way of copy.
Make Landing Pages Easy to Navigate
Although you may well have gone through a lot of effort to perfect your on-page content, the simple truth is that not every user will be looking to take it all in. Given that most users already know what it is they’re looking for, some customers will want to take action sooner than others.
Making your landing pages easy to navigate is one of the most important things you can do to ensure you serve the needs of this specific kind of user. Ideally, your landing page should clearly signpost which content can be found where. If customers are having to make an effort to find what it is they’re looking for, they will simply navigate away from the page and take a look at the competition instead. In any case, having a clearly visible call-to-action is one of the most effective ways of driving up your conversion rate.
Cater to Mobile
According to figures provided by Statista, the percentage of website traffic coming from mobile devices has been hovering around the 50% mark for several years now. In practical terms, this means that businesses are having to optimise their online presence for mobile users or risk losing an incredibly vast customer base. Landing pages are by no means an exception to the rule.
Optimising your landing pages for mobile requires you to take action in several different areas. From considering the way in which your landing page is displayed on mobile to improving page loading speeds, each of these steps is crucial to winning conversions from mobile users.
Use Testimonials
There’s a good reason why the use of testimonials has become a staple of many successful landing pages. Much like we value recommendations from the people around us, making use of testimonials online is a great way of improving the success of your landing page.
As well as adding a human element to your website, testimonials help to build the credibility and trust you need to drive up conversions. Happy customers help to showcase the success of your business, which can then attract new customers in the process.
If you would like to learn more about landing pages, web design, or our other digital marketing services, don’t hesitate to get in touch with our team via [email protected]. Alternatively, speak to a member of our team directly on 0845 331 30 31.