Landing pages: You hear about them all the time. Clients ask for them, marketing asks for them, SEO asks for them, the list goes on. It’s important to deliver a well working, goal-oriented design, so here are a few points that can be used to better plan out a well working, ideally successful landing page:
- The goal of your landing page
- The focus of your landing page
- Tips when creating the landing page
- Basic anatomy
- Simple ways to increase conversion
The goal of your landing page
Think about the big picture; your end result. What do you want this landing page to accomplish? What are your buyer personas? What is the reason you’re starting this campaign? Becoming familiar with your campaign’s objective will bring clarity to the process.
Some goals for your landing page may include:
- Sell a Product/Sales
- Include features, benefits, pricing, terms, trials (if available)
- Final transaction checkout option
- Testimonials
- Lead Generation/Email Capture
- Newsletters, whitepapers, downloads
- Give them info, why should they sign up? How does it help them?
- Simplified, tailored form
- Brand Awareness
- Your mission/Brief about that communicates the the persona you’re trying to reach
- Videos
- Testimonials
This is the foundation of your landing page. Without knowing what you want to accomplish, you can’t create strong messaging or design. Once your goal is set, it’s easier to focus on the message and deliver a solution.
You have your goal. Now focus.
“Deep understanding of who your customer is and what fact about their lives has lead them to your page today” – Patrick McKenzie
The focus of your landing page is your customer—not how amazing your service or product is (that’s only part of it). Your customers are there to solve a problem and something pointed them to your page to find a solution. Chances are the landing page is a part of a larger campaign and the customer has arrived there from another source. Whether they clicked an ad on google, social media, or arrived from email, keep them focused and engaged. Understanding your customer and the problem your product or service can solve is the core purpose of your page.
Try to answer your customer’s question quickly.
Remember the important things:
- Your customer
- Their problem
- The solution you offer
Creative Tips to Use when Building a Landing Page
Your audience is there to take action. They’ve arrived to your page from an email, a display or facebook ad, their attention has been grabbed now they’re ready to take an action. Ut the basic anatomy of your landing page can better keep the message clear and your target audience engaged and increase conversion.
Basic Anatomy of a Landing Page
It’s important to include fundamental elements to your landing page to keep viewers engaged and deliver the message quickly. A CTA, optimized image, or video can greatly impact on how long visitors stay on your page.
- Clear call to action
- Compelling, yet brief copy
- Clear headlines
- Relevant images or video
- Mobile friendly
- Limited exit pages
Never leave your customers with nothing to do apart from closing the browser window.
Simple Ways to Increase Conversion
Clear headlines and call to action(s):
Keep the user engaged and interested with clear, simple headlines and c2a conversions. Keep it simple, don’t overload them.
User Testing Example
Consistent message from ad to landing page.
The landing page offers clear, simple headlines along with brief information about the report, grouped next to the form to download the report. The page isn’t long-winded or putting too much information in your user’s face.
Increase engagement with video:
Video can increase conversions by up to 80%. Video is a great way to engage with the user without much demand or effort on the user’s part. Video also provides the opportunity to tell your story and build trust in your brand.
Quick benefits to video:
- Build brand trust
- Increase engagement without demanding too much from the user
- Lowers bounce rate by engaging with the user
Use hierarchy to your advantage
The human brain is wired to see structure, logic, and patterns. Our eyes are trained to follow hierarchies. This should be used in design, including landing pages. Using similarity, proximity, size, focal points, and more. Using some basic design theory and hierarchy can easily direct your customers to the right place, in less time. Keeping these principles top-of-mind will help you keep the user at the center of your design process.
Twilio Example
Utilizing clear, bold headlines and an obvious call-to-action, your eye can quickly gather the information on this page. This layout has two clear paths on this page: See Use Cases or go ahead and get a free API key.
Final Thoughts
With a simple process, landing pages as a whole are generally easy to assemble. With the goal and focus set, understanding your customer and the problem your product or service can solve will deliver successful results.
Intrigued?
If you think a landing page is a good option for you or want to learn more about what we do, then get in touch with our team of experts!