Why Landing Pages Outperform Your Website for Ads
You’ve worked hard to get visitors to your website. Now, you need to convert them into leads.
One of the best ways to do this is with a landing page: a dedicated web page customized for a specific marketing or advertising campaign.
Sounds simple enough, right? But even today, many businesses are still sending traffic to their home page instead of landing pages. Either they’re too worried about the investment to design an effective landing page or are (more likely) just too busy to do it right.
But with a little help you can learn what to look for in an effective landing page and know why your company cannot afford to ignore them when it comes to lead generation.
What’s the Difference Between a Landing Page and the Rest of My Website?
A landing page is a standalone web page specifically created for a marketing or advertising campaign.
It’s where a visitor ‘lands’ after they click on a link, like in an email, a search ad from Google and Bing, or a social post from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms.
Now, you might be wondering “why do I need a landing page when I have a perfectly functioning website already?”
Why not just send people to your Home page, your Contact Us page, or one of your product/service pages?
Here’s why:
- Most of the pages on your website offer general information about your business. You’re the focus, not your customers. And these pages are all linked together, with a menu that lets people jump around unfocused and unmotivated.
- On the other hand, landing pages are solely dedicated to getting people to take action on one specific offer. It’s all about generating leads or sales. No links, no distractions. Just a single, simple offer.
That singular focus makes landing pages extremely effective when converting leads ‒ and research backs this up. Studies prove that landing pages with just one call to action will get you more conversions than pages with two or more.
And not only does a landing page get you more leads than a home page, but it also:
- delivers a higher ROI and gives you valuable information about your prospects.
- generates leads that you can segment, nurture, or distribute to your sales team with ease.
- lets you track the marketing performance of your offers and how visitors become leads over time.
To put it simply, sending people to a landing page instead of your home page is one of the most effective ways to increase sales, leads, and revenue from all your digital advertising and email campaigns. A successful landing page asks prospects to take a single action, whether it’s making a purchase or signing up for a quote, consultation, or lead magnet.
10 Critical Elements of an Effective Landing Page
So now that you know why your business should use landing pages, what should you do to create a high converting and effective one?
Below are some of the most critical elements of a landing page that every business should be incorporating.
- Don’t Underestimate the Power of a Great Headline
Your headline is the first thing people will read when they land on your landing page. It should sum up exactly what you’re offering and how people will benefit in a few words. - Write Concise and Compelling Copy
Tell a concise yet compelling story that makes an irresistible offer and nudges people to convert. Focus on the reader, not on yourself. Use short sentences and paragraphs. - Use Strategic and Natural Keywords
Using commonly searched keywords throughout your landing page (in the headers, body text, and page title) will help to optimize the page for Google search and ads relevancy. Avoid the temptation to keyword stuff. - Embrace a Mobile First Mindset
Over half of all website traffic is now from mobile devices. Make sure your landing page loads quickly, is responsive and looks good on mobile, tablet and desktop devices. - Seal the Exits and Hide Navigation
By hiding the top and side navigation, you reduce distractions, minimize friction, and lower bounce rates on your landing page. This means more visitors stay, stay longer and convert more often. - Use a Lead Capture Mechanism
A landing page isn’t complete without a lead capture mechanism, such as a form. In general, a shorter form will generate more conversions, but from leads of lower quality. Inversely, a longer form will generate fewer conversions, but from leads of higher quality. - Add Some Social Proof
Fear of missing out is a powerful tool to use when building social proof behind your landing pages. Testimonials and reviews add credibility to your product or service. This demonstrates that customers trust you and that business is in demand. - Help Explain It with Images
Using images that relate to the copy on the landing page allows people to visualize what it is that you are trying to say about your business, products, and services. If a picture is worth a thousand words, an image is surely worth a few hundred characters of copy. - Don’t Forget the Thank-you Page
After the visitor has put their information into the lead capture mechanism a thank-you page should pop up to confirm with the visitor that their information was received properly. If the page includes a specific deal, the visitor should receive a message that guides them to their next steps and prepares them to be contacted by the business. - Follow-Up with an Email Autoresponder
Many thank-you pages are accompanied by email autoresponders. These emails offer more information on what’s next for the visitor after converting on the landing page. Email autoresponders serve as a type of ‘receipt’ for the lead capture mechanism to confirm opt-in consent with the visitor. It also acts as a prompt for your sales team to check-in with your new lead.
Get More Leads at a Lower Cost with Landing Pages
Setting up landing pages is time well spent, and the results from conversion to leads will be all the proof that you need.
Guiding your website visitors to focus on your current business offer will steer them towards action and turn them into customers.
If you’d like to learn more about landing pages and how they can benefit your business, or if you’d like advice from an industry professional about the next steps reach out to us to chat.
Landing Page Optimization: How to Create a Landing Page that Converts
Driving traffic is only half the battle. Once people have landed on your website, it’s time to turn those curious web users into clients or customers. That’s where landing page optimization comes in.
What is a Landing Page?
A landing page is the first page people see after arriving to your site from a web ad, social media post, or search engine results page. But unlike your home page, which gives a general overview of your products or services, a landing page is tailor-made to motivate visitors into acting on a specific call to action, like:
- Signing up
- Making a purchase
- Downloading a software trial
- Filling out a form
- Sharing your content on social media
…And so on.
A landing page can serve one-time events, like weekly promotions, or “evergreen” offers designed to generate ongoing leads, like a newsletters or email lists.
In either case, the landing page is optimized to achieve a single conversion goal.
While the term ‘landing page’ may be new to you, chances are you’ve seen one before. For a visual reference, check out this landing page round-up by Hubspot — this will help you along as we cover the ins and outs of landing page optimization.
Why Create a Landing Page?
Landing pages are designed to respond to nudge curious visitors towards becoming paying clients or customers. The power of landing pages is their versatility: different landing pages can be crafted and optimized to cater to buyers at all different stages of the marketing funnel or buyer journey.
Take cold prospects who are only just learning of your business for the first time. Instead of pitching your products or services outright, you could optimize a landing page to encourage those prospects to sign up for your email newsletter; later, you can direct that person to another landing page designed to nurture warmer leads.
Beyond lead generation, landing pages can be used to gain tons of useful information about your prospective customers:
- By analyzing the performance of your landing pages, you can learn more about the types of offers most interest your customers.
- You can create separate landing pages for the same campaign and audience to A/B test different offers, images and copy.
- With a Facebook Pixel, you can retarget landing page visitors with highly relevant Facebook ad campaigns.
Landing pages are also a valuable part of the search engine optimization equation.
Relationship Between Landing Pages and SEO
Each landing page is another opportunity for your site to rank for relevant, desirable keywords. Although they may be somewhat separate from your main site, search engine crawlers will pore through landing pages the same as any other page on your site, and they have an impact on your search engine ranking.
The relationship between landing pages and SEO is another reason why it’s important to optimize your landing pages to convert; if visitors who land there are quickly closing the window or bouncing back to the search engine results page, it reflects poorly on your site as a whole.
So, how do you convince people to share, sign up, download, or buy?
Using Lead Magnets
One of the most tried-and-true landing page tactics is the lead magnet: a freebie offered to landing page visitors in exchange for their contact information. You can then utilize that contact information to build an effective, highly-targeted email marketing list.
In the words of digital marketing geek Russ Henneberry, lead magnets are designed to be an “irresistible bribe.” It’s something that makes prospective customers feel like they are getting the better end of the bargain.
What makes a lead magnet irresistible? The specifics will depend on your industry and your customers, but in most cases, successful lead magnets are:
- Highly relevant and specific, answering a specific customer need and tailored to a specific buyer persona.
- Polished, effective, and well worth giving up one’s contact information.
- Immediately useful or gratifying.
Popular items given away as lead magnets include eBooks, reports, case studies, templates, checklists, and coupons.
Landing Page Optimization: What Makes a Great Landing Page?
The purpose of landing page is to entice visitors to complete a specific conversion goal, like signing up for an email list. One of the best ways to do this is to offer something in exchange for that action. An effective landing pages are concisely and fine-tuned towards achieving that goal, with:
- Clear, action-based headline that tells visitors exactly what you want them to do.
- Subheadings that provide a bit more information to generate further interest.
- Eye-catching but minimal visual elements, like a single gorgeous photo or catchy graphic.
- Concise but keyword-rich copy that explains the lead magnet, answers potential questions and tears down any barriers that might stop customers from converting.
- Prominent, impossible-to-miss action button that completes the exchange between you and the customer.
Creating Landing Pages That Convert
There are a lot of ingredients that go into creating a landing page that works: copywriting, coding, graphic design, advertising, and more. But when it all comes together and leads start coming in, it is well worth the effort it took to plan and execute. Don’t leave landing pages as an afterthought — a well-designed and optimized landing page is an essential part of a winning digital marketing strategy.
Contact TrafficSoda to Help Optimize Your Landing Page!
Image: alfaphoto