To successfully generate sales from your site, you need to have well-optimized landing pages. For starters, a landing page is a specific page on your website that is tailored for a single conversion objective. This is the page where potential customers are redirected to from various platforms such as search engines and social media sites.
Let us look at the essential things that you need to include on your landing page.
Image
The image is the first thing that prospects will see when they land on your page. It should be visually appealing and related to the product or service that you are selling.
Headline/USP
USP stands for Unique Selling Point. This is the single element that will convince the visitors that they are in the right place and the product will resolve their problem or satisfy their needs. It should be a catchy single sentence that spurs positive emotions.
Bullet List of the Benefits
The list of benefits that the customers will get by using your product will add tremendous value to your landing page. It should comprise of 3-5 specific things that you offer to successfully convince the landing page traffic that you have what they are looking for.
Form Fields
The form fields in your landing page need to be balanced and strategically positioned as they will help you collect personal information about the clients.
Customer Testimonials
Testimonials from other customers will motivate new customers to make a decision on whether to purchase your product. They act as prove that indeed the products you are offering delivers on their promises. Apart from text testimonials, you can include the logos of companies that you have in the past worked with as well as awards that you have won or partnerships.
All the above elements will help you win the trust and confidence of potential customers, but unless you have a place where they can take the desired action, the chances are that they will just move to your competitor’s site. Avoid that by including a CTA button that they can click on to take a particular action such as download a free trial or eBook.
CTA Confidence Booster
CTA confidence booster is a short sentence or phrase that spurs engagement. It should be positioned under or next to the CTA button.
Determining Landing Page Layout Using AIDA System
AIDA system was initially developed in 1898 to describe the customer journey. We all go through these four steps before making a purchasing.
1# Awareness
Customers use your landing page to compare your brand with your competitors. They will not stick on the page or take the desired action if it does not communicate quickly. One of the best ways of knowing if your landing page is on point is by showing it to a friend who is unaware of your company or the new product you are offering. Allow them three seconds to look at it and then ask them if they can tell which product you are offering from the content on the page.
2# Interest
The landing page has to provide value rather than just need satisfaction. The visitors expect that your product or tool will address their specific needs and it is not always easy to tell their desires. Therefore, the page should be designed with the interests of the audience in mind.
3# Decision
Already, the page has shown the prospect that you have what they are looking for. Now, they have to decide on whether to purchase your product or move on to the next provider. To win this game, you have to cover your bases and make sure that you offer as much information as possible.
4# Action
The customer is aware of our product and is now ready to convert. Convince them to place the order by making sure that the page looks clean and professional. Trust symbols such as customer testimonials and awards will help you achieve this goal.
Three Types of Landing Pages
Lead-Generating Landing Page
Lead generating landing pages have fewer visuals and more content. Research shows that they record the highest conversion than all other types of landing pages because they garner traffic from prospects that click on content-specific links and are already interested in the topic.
Here is a simple layout of a good lead generating landing page.
Sales Oriented Landing Page
This kind of landing page provides the benefits of the product to the target customers. It is packed with trust symbols such as brand logos, awards won, customer testimonials, and reviews. The primary focus is on the CTA and this page rarely has social elements.
Relationship-Building Landing Page
This kind of landing pages is specifically designed for customers who have already engaged with the company and submitted their details in the past. It offers the company an opportunity to interact further with the client and building a lasting relationship or continue with the conversation. You can use a personalized letter or a short video to achieve this goal.
Below is a layout of a relationship building landing page.
7 Simple Tips for Optimizing your Landing Page
1# Make it Customer Oriented
Your landing page should be customer oriented. That is, it should focus on the customers and offer information that is valuable to them. Show them the benefits not the features of the product and make it as easy to navigate as possible. Don’t be too pushy lest the customers will run into the arms of your competitors.
2# Smart Forms
Forms are great as they help collect information about the potential customer. However, you need to be careful about the information that you request using the forms on your landing page. For instance, requesting prospects to provide their location can help enhance your marketing strategies but requesting for their zip code will low the chances of the prospect engaging with you further.
3# CTA Should Resonate with the Goal of the Landing page
Your CTA button should resonate with the main goal of the landing page. Here are the best CTA practices that you should adhere to always.
- Each screen section should have one CTA button
- Use color contrast to make it stand out
- If the content on the page falls below the fold, include multiple CTAs
- CTA should be positioned in a centralized and visually distinct location
- The CTA button should be clear. Customers should not guess what to click on
- Use visual such as arrows and images to draw their attention to the button
4# No Footer, External Links or Top Navigation Bar
These elements will distract the landing page traffic thereby hindering them from taking the desired action. They will add no value to your landing page and should be avoided at all cost. Ideally, anything that does not help you achieve the set goal should be wiped off the landing page.
5# Customer Testimonials
As mentioned earlier, customer testimonials will show that your product delivers on its promises. You can use them to showcase specific benefits of your product or service. Testimonials can also be specific or showcase real results achieved. A good example of a KPI based testimony is “We increased our organic site traffic by 83% and achieved an overall ROI of 300% is just three weeks.” Such a testimonial will give prospects a clear idea of what to expect after using your service or product.
6# Number of Followers on Social Media
Displaying the number of followers on various social media platforms will encourage prospects to convert by showing them that your business is actually real and social. Join the various social media platforms and don’t be shy to use social follower count buttons to show how many fans you have in each of the platforms.
7# Show Results
Customers need to know that they will get positive results and value for their money by using your product. Concrete numbers are more effective in convincing prospects than general stock figures. For example, 120% increase in ROI is more effective than “most clients doubled their income”
Optimizing the Landing Page for Traffic Source, Desire, and your Audience
The success of your landing page is not only determined by the design and its elements but also the sources of the traffic. Online companies know that they stand a better chance to sell winter jackets if they promote them before and during winter than in summer. On the other hand, B2B companies are aware of the fact that exclusively posting a service or product related content on social media platforms will result in some of the fans unsubscribing from their fan pages.
Here are examples of how traffic sources can affect your landing page conversion and design.
Google Ads
The landing pages and Google ads should be related. A cohesive ad and landing page campaign will help boost conversions of both. One of the best ways of connecting the two is by matching the keywords. Here are tips on how to optimize the page for PPC ad traffic.
- Make sure that the content on the landing page is in line with the main agenda of your ad. You should not use a high performing ad to channel traffic to an unrelated landing page.
- The header on your landing page should match or be similar to the Adword headline
- The subheaders (H2) in your landing page should match the PPC ad keywords
- The landing pages should not be keyword stuffed, otherwise, Google will lower the efficacy of your ads
Facebook Posts
It is harder to convince social media users to visit your landing pages by using posts only. That is why it is recommendable to include a Facebook landing page tab in your fan page. Doing so will ensure that prospects are able to make purchases from the lead-generation page or take part in a contest without having to be redirected off Facebook.
Facebook Ads
Facebook ads are effective in driving traffic from this huge social media site to your landing page especially if your main goal is to generate leads. You can target specific potential customers using the ads by specifying the kind of audience that the ads should be displayed to when creating the campaign.
Here are tips on how to optimize the landing page to collect as much traffic as possible from Facebook Ads.
- 1 in every 10-25 words in your landing page should be a keyword
- Some of the keywords in your landing page should be included in the URL
- Include a keyword in the landing page image meta-tags
- Make sure that it loads fast by not using long videos, complicated code and heavy images
- Google cannot read Javascript and Flash so avoid them
- Prioritize keywords by using headers
Email Marketing
Email marketing is still the most effective online marketing strategy in the world today. Studies and experiments have proven that it offers the highest ROI than all other digital marketing strategies, especially when combined with a professionally optimized landing page.
One trick that you can use is sending out audience segmented emails with links that direct the recipients to segment specific landing pages.
Conclusion
Optimizing landing pages is possible by first understand the audience and then coming up with a page layout that resonates with the goals that you want to achieve. Be sure to carry out A/B tests regular to know if the pages are delivering the expected results.
