How to Create a Landing Page that Converts

Landing pages are a great way to increase conversion rates for your SEM, social ads, and email marketing campaigns. Instead of directing the user to your general website where they can get confused and have trouble finding what they’re looking for, a landing page directs the user to a specific page that was created for that specific ad or campaign. We’ll walk you through what makes a landing page successful and why, so your next landing page project will be a game changer for your digital marketing campaigns. Without further adieu, here’s how to create a landing page that converts.

Stick to Your Brand

Landing pages act as an extension of your website, so it’s important that your landing pages follow your business’s overall branding and voice. One common mistake businesses make with landing pages is straying away from brand guidelines, which can confuse your consumer. While you do want to make your landing page engaging, using fonts, font sizes, colors, and images that aren’t consistent with your brand guidelines can hurt your company’s credibility. If you aren’t consistent across all platforms, consumers may not feel safe and reassured that they are dealing with a mature and established company. Keep your branding consistent on your landing page, and all pages, so your consumers know they’re on the correct site.

Include a Clear CTA

Most landing pages are created for the purpose of getting conversions. You’ll want to make sure the Call to Action (CTA) of your landing page is clear and consistent. If your ad has the CTA “Sign up for a free month of shipping!” and your landing page had a different CTA of  “Sign up for our newsletter!” your campaign will likely have a lower conversion rate. An inconsistent CTA can confuse consumers, and there is a higher chance they won’t convert. Consumers want clear direction with what is asked of them or they will not complete the task you pushed them there for.

Keep it Simple

The average time page visitors stay on a landing page is less than 30 seconds, and pages with an overwhelming amount of copy have a higher chance of frustrating a potential customer. Avoid clutter and congestion on your landing page by keeping the content simple. The most important and relevant information should be closer to the top of the page with headlines underneath that are clear and concise. Adding value propositions above the fold (preferably no more than five) is a great way to push web traffic down your conversion funnel. Pages with simple messaging, no more than a few sentences, keep people on your site longer and have a higher chance of converting.

Keep Forms Succinct

Including a form on your landing page is an efficient way to collect information about your consumer, whether it be a first and last name, email address, or business name. A common mistake that businesses make with their landing pages is including forms that are longer than needed. If you include a form on a landing page, be mindful of how much information you’re asking your consumers to give you. The information you ask for should make sense for your product, and what your consumers receive in exchange. For example, asking for a home address for a newsletter sign up CTA could seem excessive or suspicious. If you ask for too much information than deemed necessary, consumers could feel exhausted, shy, and even anxious about filling out your form.

Send Your Leads Somewhere

Make sure lead tracking is set up correctly on your landing pages so you know exactly where your data is being collected. Most landing page builders allow you to integrate third-party CRMs and email accounts so all the information collected on your landing pages is automatically entered into their database. Importing this data into a CRM is extremely valuable because it allows you to see who’s interacted with your page and follow up on leads quicker for a better chance of closing the deal. Collecting data into an email account is also useful for building email subscriber lists. By setting up automatic data collecting from landing pages, you spend less time manually transferring customer information from one system to the next. Over time the data you collect will provide you with valuable insight about your consumers and be useful for optimizing future pages and campaigns.

Optimize for Mobile

Before you take your landing pages live, make sure they’re accessible on mobile devices and AMP (Accelerated Mobile Page) optimized. Because consumers are doing more browsing and purchasing from their phones, it’s extremely important to have your pages optimized for AMP. Optimizing for mobile improves your page’s load speed and search engines will reward it with a higher Q score (quality score) for PPC ads (Pay Per Click ads used on the Google Ads platform). Your page’s Q score, among other SEO factors, can result in a higher ranking on search engine result pages which is great for growing organic web traffic.

A/B Testing

A/B testing is the act of running a simultaneous experiment between two or more pages to see which performs or converts the best. Testing is essential for growth marketing because it allows you to test different variations of your page, analyze its conversion performance, and optimize it to get better results. A/B testing allows you to find the right combination of CTA buttons, copy, etc. that maximizes the number of conversions you will get coming from the page.

We hope these tips give you a starting point for how to create a landing page that performs. Remember with your landing pages – ABT: Always Be Testing. There are no silver bullets in this game, but if you stick to the basics and keep testing, you will find more and more success.