What Exactly Is A Landing Page?
Landing pages are distinct places on a website where visitor information is collected in exchange for resources. It can also serve as a place to encourage the sale of goods or services, ask people to take specific actions, or build brand awareness.
A landing page’s goal is to create and convert lead generation opportunities into eventual conversions. This marketing asset works best with personalised marketing efforts through direct mail, email, and other targeted marketing to keep a brand at the top of consumers' minds.
5 Benefits of creating high-quality landing pages
When thinking about how the Internet operates, every post and page on a website could become an entry point. In other words, we shouldn’t take for granted that website traffic only arrives on certain pages of our site, instead, they could land anywhere. The only way to create consistency in how visitors enter a site, a specific page or product page is to funnel traffic to a designated landing page.
The benefits of creating a high-quality landing page go beyond interaction consistency. Here are some of the outcomes to expect with this design option.
1. Landing pages boost conversions.
A landing page’s goal is to set forth a clear, precise action for visitors to follow. It delivers a straightforward plan that communicates value to someone if they decide to complete the suggested activity. These calls to action push people toward a specific outcome, producing more conversions when initiated correctly.
2. A landing page can improve paid search results.
Many landing pages work with paid advertising campaigns to direct a visitor through specific steps. The goal is to deliver the information someone wants to find after encountering an ad they felt was valuable. Creating a final navigation path that is easier to complete for users makes them more likely to complete each step.
3. Landing pages help brands establish new relationships.
Even though we are operating in an online sales environment, the need to build relationships with potential customers still exists. Landing pages deliver the same result as a smile and a handshake because they establish expertise and credibility. Without those two assets, there is no way for a website to build trust in the brand or business.
4. A landing page can be structured around specific activities.
Businesses can have multiple landing pages available to searchers and consumers based on goals, values, behaviours, or other metrics. One landing page might encourage people to sign up for an email list with contact information, while another might ask visitors to sign up for a free estimate. Although the focus is often on sales, this resource can be designed to achieve virtually any valuable objective.
5. Landing pages deliver target audience insights.
A landing page designed with segmented offers can track the topics a business's audience feels are important. This information delivers insights into the demographic's interests to create personalized strategies. It is also possible through tracking to tell which channels are preferred and if content preferences exist with this benefit. That’s why landing pages are often essential components of A/B testing.
Effective landing pages catch the traffic from a marketing campaign investment. It targets a specific audience, calls them to take action, and offers something valuable as an enticement. That is why it is an essential ingredient for any lead generation recipe.
What is a good landing page conversion rate?
It is generally thought, that while conversion rates vary from industry to industry there is an average of about 2.35% for the majority of websites, reaching as much as five percent for well-performing websites and ten or eleven percent for very high performing sites.
Landing Page conversion rates based on website performance
6 Tips to creating better landing pages
1. Get clear on your goal before you start your landing page design.
As with any marketing exercise, there is always a desired outcome for your efforts. The more simple you make your goal and the more clear you are about what your goal will do for your business, the easier it is to start designing persuasive content that resonates with your audience.
An example of a simple and clear goal could be: “I wish to gain more email subscribers for my zero waste home and garden business by producing a free eco swap guide ebook, in which I will give my customers ten easy swaps they can make to transition to a plastic-free home. These ten swaps will include product ideas from my range.”
2. Decide where your landing page is going to live.
Not all landing pages necessarily need to be hosted on your website. You could use third-party services if needs must. Why do I say ‘needs must’ here? Because ideally, you’d like the landing page to sit in the same place as all of your other site essentials, product pages, blog posts, etc. This makes tracking the insights much easier and increases dwell time on your site; great for your Google SEO.
There may be times where third-party apps are worth considering. Mailing list software is a great example of this. Often sites like Mailchimp offer landing page additions in their packages, which include lots of different design templates for you to choose from.
3. Always set up your landing page with a tracking mechanism.
Regardless of where you host your landing page you need to include tracking information, that gets picked up with each visit, or when an action is taken. This allows you to measure out your conversions more easily.
A simple way to track visitor activity is using your Google Analytics and sales results, or subscriber information. But what if multiple campaigns link to the same landing page, or you have several landing pages that have the same end goal, or you are A/B testing two landing page designs? This is where tracking codes or tags are important, particularly for the desired action taken. Using this method you should be able to distinguish which page or campaign is giving you the most return on your investment (ROI).
4. Use your landing page design as a traffic funnel
I have a couple of really useful tips here for you:
Capture your traffics attention through empathy
Include only one clear call to action button, or form (for longer pages I would choose buttons and have two or three versions of the same button cascading down the page at each content highlight point.)
Cut out all other distractions
Creating copy that resonates with your audience on an emotional level is key here, otherwise, they simply won’t feel like you understand their needs. Clearing any distractions from their path is also important because it brings focus to the task at hand. You want to gain their attention, keep them reading and ultimately take the one action you want them to perform.
5. Measure your ROI by checking your statistics.
At the moment you set a goal for your landing page you should also include dates for points of measure. This will allow you to regularly check the performance of your campaign, which will, in turn, inform any changes you need to make to gain more traction.
Looking at your statistics will also help you establish things like cost per click if you are using paid ads, or attribute acquisition values. This is crucial for maintaining your marketing budget and working out which of your strategies is giving you the best results versus campaign spend. Remember to factor in your time as a cost if you are not hiring in staff; freelance, or in-house.
6. Get comfortable making more effective changes regularly.
Marketing is fluid. It starts with a goal in mind and ideas on how to achieve it. Ideas, even at their best estimation and with the best of platform understanding can sometimes prove lesser results than planned. It only takes Instagram, or Facebook to change their algorithm and suddenly past ad formulas don’t prove to be as effective. It is important therefore to get comfortable with the feeling that your marketing is always a work in progress. Being adaptable and experimenting over time becomes faster and easier, but it is always something you need to do.
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