How to Build High-Converting Landing Pages
Just like the mirror of your personality is your body language, the mirror of your brand reputation is your landing page.
It is the page a visitor lands on when they first reach your site. It could be through an email, a social media post, a paid ad, or through organic search. Landing pages are generally standalone web pages created particularly for an advertising or marketing campaign with the objective of generating conversions.
Before we discuss how to create a high-converting landing page, let’s understand what makes landing pages so important.
a. They help you to generate leads.
Many marketers overlook the significance of a landing page and direct the traffic from emails, social media, and search engines to the homepage. Doing this will often result in losing your chance to convert a lead. If you direct your users to a dedicated landing page, you will capture more leads. Furthermore, it makes things easier for you to segment and personalize your communications, thereby resulting in better conversions.
b. They work as a scaffold to highlight your offers.
You can use your landing pages to promote exciting offers that would entice the visitors to make a purchase and increase your ROI. You can track and analyze the traffic coming to these pages to monitor the conversion rate and see if the offers resonate with your target audience. If not, you’ll need to optimize your landing page further.
c. You can promote other marketing channels through the landing pages.
By including social media handles, you can inform the visitors about your online presence and get them to follow you there. As a result, it would enhance your brand visibility and increase your chance for conversions.
d. Landing pages are essential to launching a product.
If you are planning to launch a product, have a product landing page that informs the audience about the specific details that they would be looking for. You can even have a lead capture form to get the list of people who are interested in learning more about the product launch.
e. You can boost your SEO ranking with the help of landing pages.
A landing page optimized for search engines will bring the right traffic by winning the algorithm game. Just make sure you have the necessary keywords, engaging copy, and relevant visuals to woo the visitors.
That brings us to the question of designing powerful landing pages that would help you in winning over the visitors amidst the intense competition in the digital world.
How to build high-converting landing pages
1. Create a compelling headline
Your headline must be catchy enough to draw the visitor’s attention and compel them to read further. It should be clear without any metaphors or ambiguity. Try to be as straightforward as possible so that it instantly connects with the visitors that land on the page. You can create a sense of urgency through the headline if you are promoting a limited time offer or have a “how-to” headline that addresses a challenge that your target audience could be facing.
Take a look at this landing page by logomaster.ai. It lets the reader know that they specialize in logo creation right away without beating around the bush.
2. Include benefits rather than features.
Your landing page should not overwhelm the reader with the technical jargon of the features your product offers. Instead, it should focus on its benefits and how it will help to address the challenges faced by the users. The USP (unique selling proposition) of your product must stand out and convince the user to take the next action.
Here’s an example of a landing page by Disqus that highlights the benefits instead of getting into the technicalities of features.
3. Keep the copy concise.
Your landing page should have all the necessary information that you wish to convey but you must bear in mind that the user does not get overwhelmed with too much information. Divide the copy into consumable chunks of information with the help of subheadings and bullet points or numbered lists. By doing so, you will be able to convey your message to the target audience more effectively. Tell a story that would tap into the human instincts and tempt them to convert.
4. Add social proof.
It is human psychology that we trust user reviews more than the claims of the brand. We tend to believe positive feedback left by an existing customer and it influences the decision to purchase. Tap on this instinct by adding testimonials and customer reviews on your landing pages to build trust and drive conversions.
5. Incorporate a live chat feature.
By adding a live chat feature on your landing page, you can allow the users to resolve their concerns instantly, eliminating the need for them to email your support team.
Salesforce sets the perfect example of having a live chat feature on their ebook landing page to get maximum people to fill the form and download the resource.
6. Include a strong CTA.
According to the purpose of your landing page, you must have a powerful CTA that would entice the user to click-through and take the next action. It should be placed in such a way that it instantly draws the user’s attention. You can use directional cues to make sure that the CTA does not go unnoticed. (I’ll cover more about these cues in the subsequent section on “visuals”.)
That sums up the basics of creating winning landing pages. Now, let’s go a bit deeper and understand how you can add that visual oomph to your landing page.
Capture attention with the right visuals on your landing page
Pick the right colors.
Based on your brand personality and industry type, you should choose the right colors to reinforce your message. The shades you choose are likely to have a huge impact on the behavior of the customer and their decision making.
For example: If you are a non-profit organization or a healthcare facility, white would be a good choice to connect with the target audience, as it represents purity, sterility, and minimalism.
Consumer goods brands and media companies should consider using red as it indicates love, passion, power, heat, and intensity. Food outlets can also use a combination of red and yellow, like McDonald’s and Burger King does.
Blue is a great choice for legal services and social media websites. No wonder, Facebook, Skype, Twitter, and LinkedIn are all blue in color.
For brands that contribute to growth, green is the perfect color.
Another thing that is worth remembering is that you must use the colors opposite to each other on the color wheel to create better contrast.
Use relevant visuals based on the copy.
Many marketers use stock photos on their landing pages. Sorry to say, but that does not create the kind of impact you would want to make. Instead, you must use attractive images that have the ability to connect with people. Additionally, you must use visual cues to direct the user to take action.
Here’s an example by Bear CSS that uses the bear’s fingernail as a directional hint.
Remember that if you can convey something through an image, avoid using ‘words’.
Make use of GIFs.
Are you an e-commerce website or a business that has a complex product to offer? Consider using GIFs that are the perfect amalgamation of an image and video.
It would also help to reduce the loading speed of the page. According to the GIF-sharing platform GIPHY, 500 million active users spend about 11 million hours viewing GIFs on their channel which makes the popularity of GIFs pretty evident.
For example: district0x uses illustrative GIFs to demonstrate their products and services to their audience. It conveys the message effectively and increases the chance of a conversion.
Include explainer videos if relevant.
By adding videos, you can increase conversions by 86%. However, you can only achieve this if you use the relevant videos. As an example, SaaS companies use explainer videos to let the user understand more about their products and services. You can also include video testimonials and customer reviews on your landing page to have a positive impact on the customer’s buying decision.
You can even go a step ahead and make use of personalized videos on these landing pages. You just need to create a video template with a placeholder screen and you will be able to create an exclusive video for your respective prospects. Tools like Hippo Video and Vidyard can help you out with this.
Incorporate illustrations in your landing pages.
Sometimes it becomes difficult for companies to set up a photo-shoot or carry out video campaigns. This is quite often the case in startups and small businesses that are operating on a tight budget. For such a scenario, you can use illustrations and abstract art to convey your message graphically. Just bear in mind that you use credible images and designs rather than stock images or illustrations.
Utilize graphs to explain complicated statistics.
If you want to show complicated facts and figures, use graphical plots or treemaps. Line charts and bar graphs are good options to show information over a period of time.
For instance: Survey Monkey has a pie chart to demonstrate a 60% increase in sales. The visitor would instantly come to know about this as soon as he or she lands on the page.
Add innovation to your landing pages.
Put your thinking caps on and try to get out-of-the-box ideas for your landing pages. Do not limit yourself to the best practices or what your competitors are doing. Instead, keep the freshness alive in your landing pages.
Here’s an example to inspire you.
Moo sends out an email featuring an animated toaster with the CTA that calls the user to push the lever.
On clicking through the CTA, the user gets redirected to a landing page that displays a toast with 15% off grill marks. It is, indeed, a great way to promote an offer and draw the visitor’s attention.
High-converting landing pages
Landing pages are like the gateway to conversions that can either make or break or business. They have the power to take your business to new heights if done in the right manner. We hope these tips and the examples of high-converting landing pages provided have helped you to understand how to create a successful landing page that garners maximum conversions.
