A landing page is a dedicated page on a website to showcase products/services to all visitors with an objective to convert them to customers. It is specifically used for paid marketing channels.
Landing pages are modern-day pamphlets/brochures with content optimized to drive the visitors to take a predetermined action. Many digital marketers use landing pages in SEO to boost their conversions via search engines.
Landing Pages Vs Web Pages
A landing page is a web page where the user lands after he/she clicks on your link from a paid/social media post/search engine listing. The content of a landing page is optimized towards a specific goal such as sales/lead generation with a dedicated Call to action. On the other side, a website is designed more towards providing information to the web visitors about your business.
Here’s an example: A website explains all your services and helps the buyer to know more about business & your services. It is the initial stage of your customer’s journey. Whereas landing pages are dedicated to converting visitors to customers with a dedicated call to action. It targets the visitors who are in the advanced stage of their buyer journey, someone who already knows about your business, and convert them to your customer.
4 Must-Have Elements of a Perfect Landing Page
If you have been looking into digital marketing, then you must have come across the “AIDA” model. It shows the 4 stages of a buyer’s journey to becoming a customer: Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action. The landing page content should cover all these stages. To make this simple, I have created a list of 4 must-have elements:
- Hook: A hook is designed to gather the attention of your potential customers. You can use a big bold headline to grab their attention, also you can add your product/service USP to the headline. Use words like top, best, save, sale, etc. It caters to the attention stage, where you make your potential customers aware of your product/services.
- Benefits: Understand your customer’s needs and create content that mentions the benefits of your product/services. Most importantly, it should show how your product/service will solve their problem. This caters to the second stage of the AIDA model, which is “interest”. The benefits might vary from product to product but the main intent here is to provide a solution to the challenges faced by customers.
- Social Proof: Add reviews from previous customers to your landing page, it builds confidence in your customers. It gives your product/service social validation. Customers are more likely to buy a product with reviews other than the products which do not have any reviews at all. Social validation contributes to the “desire” stage of the AIDA model.
- Call to Action: A call to action can be a button or text that encourages your visitors to perform certain tasks. This caters to the final stage of the AIDA model, which is the action stage. This is the part where you get your lead/sale and the visitor finally converts!
Creating the right landing page that gets you conversions might take some time because you will have to test headlines, call to action, understand your customer’s challenges, etc. To make this easier, I am going to mention a complete landing page checklist.
A Complete Landing Page Checklist for 2021
Establish a connection with your audience:
The language of your landing page should be engaging and you should focus on creating a connection with your audience. Call out your audience directly/indirectly. If you have an audience base available then make sure to filter out all the customers that convert and target the ones with similar characteristics to your converted customers.
Don’t do too much!
Be clear and specific about your motive for creating the landing page. If you have multiple services/products. Then target your customers with different landing pages dedicated to every service/product. Make sure to write a clear and compelling headline and mention all the steps of operation along with a direct call to action towards the next step of your buyer journey. Cut down all the clutter and jargon, do not confuse your potential customers with technicalities or lengthy processes.
Tip: To make your content concise, think of all the questions that your customer might have and add a dedicated FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section for it!
Address the pain points
Make a list of all the pain points of your customers, and make sure to include them in your landing page content. Write clear headlines and maintain easy-to-understand language throughout the content. Remember that the main point of creating a landing page is to address the problems of your customers and present your service/product as a viable solution for the same.
Include your call to action towards the top of the page
Give visitors a chance to take action without scrolling, add your call to action towards the top of the page. It is something that you need to check before you publish your landing pages. One popular way to do this is to add an inquiry form towards the top of the page. But, if you cannot add a contact us form, you also add one pop-up form with your offer.
Also, make sure that you have a clearly specified call to action throughout the content, do not add multiple CTAs, if you want to get leads then, “add a free quote” or, if you have an offer, then add “buy now” button.
Follow a theme for your landing page.
Create a theme for your landing page with colors that complement each other. For example: Use a dark background and place a high contrast color button to make it visible to the visitor at a glance. Also, make sure that you add persuasive text to your button and add your personal touch. Using generic text such as “submit”, or “contact us now” will not attract much attention. On the other hand, button text such as Free instant access, get a free quote might be more attractive to your buyer.
Add your social proof
Add dedicated social media share icons with logos, testimonials, and eye-catchy numbers with your existing clients. If you have clients, then request your clients if they can record a video or write a personal message as feedback for your services. Mention your client’s designation & business name, as most visitors will try to validate the claims made in testimonials before buying. Adding authentic testimonials will help you to establish the initial trust needed for conversion.
Clear & concise navigation
Too many people make the mistake of adding more and more links to their menu section, and a sub-menu is a big no!
Instead, I would say that you should avoid adding a menu option as the landing page is dedicated to pitch your product/services as an ideal solution for your customer’s challenges. Summarise your business information on the landing page itself and make every piece of information readily available.
One more way to create an effective content flow is to use graphical objects such as arrows, boxes, circles to take the buyer through the landing page content and eventually guide them to take action on your CTA.
Add your Hero Shots
A hero shot is an image/graphical representation of a happy person who has availed of your services. Make the page visually appealing for your visitors & create a lead magnet. Use images and graphics to give visitors an insight into your product & build excitement.
Optimize your Landing Pages for Mobile Devices
Work to optimize your website for mobile devices. Make sure that all the images, text are displayed properly on the mobile view of your landing page. Also, keep the page load speed under check, as slow pages can make your buyers leave without viewing your landing page resulting in high bounce rates.
Show your Privacy Policy and Terms of Service
This is something more relevant to the people running paid marketing campaigns using Google, FB, or any other PPC platform. Including a privacy policy and terms of service allows you to boost trustworthiness and conversions for your campaigns. The most common place to link to them is at the footer of your landing page.
I hope this checklist helps!
Thanks for reading! Looking for help and don’t want to do it yourself, feel free to reach out to me at raicheltotherescue.com
🌺Raich
