Landing pages play a pivotal role in your overall sales and marketing campaigns. They’re designed with a single goal or focus in mind, known as a call to action (CTA). So, in order for conversion rates to be high, you need your landing page design to be as attractive as it possibly can be.
As with a lot of marketing practices, there are various approaches that you can take to landing pages. Plus, there are many best practices that you need to ensure are included in your designs. If you’re not sure where to start, this post will explore all things landing pages and how to seamlessly implement them within your overall campaigns.
We’ll cover:
What is a landing page?
Landing pages are standalone web pages that are built and designed for single purposes. Visitors will land on this page after they click a link in an email, other web pages or social media and Google ads. These pages contain a CTA that is an instruction to the viewer on the next steps that they can take.
A landing page is designed to convert your visitors into leads. They differ from other pages as they contain a form that allows you to record vital customer information in exchange for the desired offer. These can be infographics, ebooks or other sources of deeper researched information.
Simply put, a landing page is a specific page on your site with no distractions. The sole purpose is to convert leads, therefore, it’d be contradictory to include further information to distract the attention of the visitor.
How do landing pages work?
A visitor will be directed to the landing page after clicking on an external CTA. From there, the visitor will fill out the form which converts them into a lead. The information that they input into the form is then stored on your database as a contact. Once saved, you’ll then be able to target your contacts more effectively based on what you know about them.
Marketing automation software can help you identify where the visitor was directed to the landing page from. It’ll also show you when they converted and any other interactions that they’ve had with your website. So, based on this information, you’ll be able to put the right type of content in front of them that they engage with the best.
You’ll be able to nurture leads a lot more effectively once you have these details. By taking the appropriate marketing actions, you can target your leads in the most effective way tailored to them. So, this approach will be far more effective than casting a wide net and hoping for the best.
Nurtured leads are more likely to become a marketing-qualified lead (MQL) a lot faster and will move through the funnel more smoothly. This will help show the return on investment (ROI) and will keep your sales team happy with the quality of leads being passed to them to close.
What makes a great landing page design?
They’re ultra focused
A good landing page has one objective - and ONE objective only! You want your visitors to convert the form on the page, not get distracted and move elsewhere before handing over their details. You won’t find many external links on landing pages - or any at all for that matter.
Keep scrolling to a minimum
It can be easy to get carried away when designing your landing pages. You want to display all the information possible to draw in your visitors but don’t fall victim to bombarding them with too much. Your message and CTA should be clear and concise, so that the visitor doesn’t have to scroll for days.
While long-form landing pages can work for complex and large investments. It’s often usually only the really technical stuff that needs that level of depth in explanation. Provide too much information and you run the risk of users getting all confused, bored and giving up before reading everything.
Use relevant and engaging visuals
Landing pages can’t rely on being 100 percent text. Who’s going to want to read through chunks and chunks of text? Not many people. They need to be striking and attention-grabbing - and to achieve this you need to include high-class visuals.
Your images, GIFs and videos should be brand consistent, relevant and highly engaging. Otherwise, there’s no point including them within your landing page. Your message will lose its clarity and your brand could lose its credibility if you start adding random visuals.
Maintain consistent branding
Your landing pages should be designed in line with the overall branding of your business. After all, you want them to be instantly recognisable to your business, don’t you? This means using the same colour schemes, fonts and design elements as you’ve used throughout your website and other marketing efforts.
Examples of effective landing pages
Shopify
Shopify keeps their landing pages nice and simple - yet they’re so effective. The page relies on bulleted content so that’s it’s easily broken down and consumed by the visitor. Bullet points are easier to read than massive amounts of copy and big blocks of text.
Plus, their form is simple too. It only requires a few fields of information before you get started. This means that it’s minimal effort for people to sign and sell their own things with Shopify - which is exactly what the landing page is designed to do.
Image Credit: HubSpot
AirBnB
As one of the hottest businesses in the world right now, it’s only right that AirBnB has amazing landing pages too. To help convert visitors into hosts, they use personalisation to target their potential leads. The personalisation comes in the form of an earnings tool, which calculates how much you could be making from renting out your property based on the area.
Personalisation allows the visitor to see themselves in a tailored situation, so it’s easier for them to relate to it. If they can make an emotional connection to a scenario, the chances of them converting are increased dramatically.
Image Credit: HubSpot
Slack
Slack is making waves in the B2B app market and their marketing is currently as hot as their product - which is no surprise! They only use one form field, which makes it super easy for the user to fill in. If there’s one thing that users love, its convenience, so that’s a great way to further persuade your potential leads to fill in their details.
Their CTA buttons are short, snappy and straight to the point. Meaning that users will not be confused as to what they have to do. It also contains the word “free” - which we know that everybody loves. Nobody can turn down a free deal, can they?
Image Credit: InstaPage
Nail your app design too
So, you now know how to put together the perfect landing page - but it doesn’t stop there. You could have the most perfect web pages in the world, but if the rest of your branding and styling is wrong then it won’t matter at all. Especially your app.
Your app is one of the places where your audience will be interacting with your brand the most. So, it needs to be designed flawlessly. Not sure how? Well, don’t worry. We’ve put together a free guide on how you can perfect your app design and launch the perfect product.
Unfortunately, it’s not quite ready yet, so in the meantime, why not pick up some best practices on how you can perfect your overall marketing approach? Grab your copy below.
