What are landing pages for? Unlike websites’ homepages or other pages that might have multiple purposes, landing pages are specially designed for specific marketing or advertising campaigns. These targeted pages have a single goal, often referred to as a call to action (CTA). This CTA could be anything that prompts the user to take a desired action, such as signing up for a free trial, making a purchase, downloading an ebook, subscribing to a newsletter, or registering for a webinar.
With so much competition around, it’s really important to keep yourself constantly updated with the latest ideas and hottest trends to draw the attention of a user without irritating them. Packed with some freshest strategies, we bring you some effective tips for maximizing conversions on your landing pages. Let’s get started!
What is landing page optimization?
Before jumping to the tips, let’s understand some basics. So, what do you think landing page optimization is? In the simplest terms, it’s making your landing page super effective. It’s like you have to sell cold drinks, but many people will overlook your advertisement, so you have to write a copy or create a design in such a way the user starts to feel like quenching the thirst right away.
But that’s not all; there is more to it. Optimizing a landing page is beyond just one element. It’s about optimizing the experience for conversions. The headlines, visuals, and call-to-action buttons are all tested to see what works best, and results are tracked by measuring data to see what’s working and what’s not.
When to create landing pages and why?
You can’t invest too much time, money, and resources into creating landing pages for every new campaign. So, when should you create them? Here are some key situations where creating landing pages is crucial and beneficial:
Running Online Ads
When you deploy your paid advertising campaigns like Google Ads or social media ads, you should create landing pages to ensure visitors clicking your ad ends up on a page super relevant to the product advertised. This can increase the chances of conversion.
Promoting specific offers
Special discounts, free trials, ebooks, or webinars all benefit from dedicated landing pages. These pages explain why the offer is good and get people interested in it.
Building an email list
Landing pages are excellent tools for lead generation. By offering valuable content like ebooks or whitepapers in exchange for email addresses, you can build a targeted list for future marketing initiatives.
Targeting different audience segments
Create landing pages specific to each segment if your marketing targets various customer groups with distinct needs. This allows you to create the content, message, and offer to resonate more effectively with each audience.
Capturing leads at events
Running a conference or webinar? Create a landing page to capture registrations beforehand. This allows you to collect contact information and potentially promote additional offerings.
Testing a new product or service
Unsure how a new offering will be received? Create a landing page to gauge interest. You can gather valuable insights before a full-scale launch by highlighting the product’s benefits and including a clear call to action.
Things to be clear about before you create your landing page
1. A creative brief is super important for making a great landing page for your marketing campaign. It connects what you want to achieve with what your users want so your page stays on track. Even if you’re just starting out, writing a brief can help you organize your thoughts before starting the digital stuff.
2. Understanding what your campaign aims to achieve, especially with the landing page, is really important. It helps create an experience that addresses visitors’ main questions and issues. Also, putting yourself in your audience’s shoes is important. Knowing their goals and motivations helps design an experience that focuses on what matters to them and avoids unnecessary distractions.
3. It’s important to have a clear main action button on your page to keep it focused. Starting with this button and working backward can help you stay on track and avoid distractions.
4. Understanding where your visitors are coming from is important to keep your brand experience consistent. This means paying attention to how they found you, what materials they’ve seen, and what devices they use. Matching your page to their devices helps make their experience better.
5. It’s important to check if your campaign domain name is available. A strong domain name can guide your design choices and impact how quickly you can launch your campaign. Learning from past campaign mistakes is crucial. Note down what not to repeat, learning from past mistakes.
6. Remembering and repeating past campaign successes can also help in building a personal best practices list. If something has been effective before, stick with it, as it can complement this approach.
7. Lastly, checking out what your competitors are up to can serve two purposes. One is inspiration, and the other is innovation. If you need inspiration, it can provide ideas, while if you’re trying to innovate and differentiate, it can help you stand out from the competition.
If you follow these steps, you can make a great landing page that matches your campaign goals.
Tips for optimizing the landing page
Find out where you need to make improvements
Use heatmaps to understand where users are clicking. Warmer colours on heat maps show where users are clicking the most, while blue or purple colors indicate parts with the least clicks. It’s the best way to assess your performance based on traffic generated, clicks, scrolling activity, and users’ behavior.
Do you find any of your elements not working well?
If you find some important elements which were meant to be prominent but not performing well, refine them. By elements, we mean copy, designing, and development.
Common cases when users do not tend to convert:
- When heading, subheading, social proof, imagery and CTA are shown below the fold.
- When users don’t understand the benefit your product or service offers within seconds of landing on the page.
Conversions are more likely to occur when important information and calls to action are placed above the fold, where users see them immediately.
Above the fold
When users open your page it’s the first part that opens. Anything a user needs to scroll down to see is considered “below the fold” (BTF). This is where you need to pitch your service or product. Let’s understand what we can include in this part:
1. Choose a good title to explain them what you do
The header is the most appealing and prominent text on your landing page. The picture above has the perfect title that a user will find descriptive.
A good title will satisfy users’ search, hook them and make their work easier. Here are some examples of headers that reflect what they do and hook the reader:
Dropbox: “Get organized, stay focused, and get in sync with your team.”
Evernote, with the header “Remember Everything.”
To optimize your header, try to avoid jargon or generic terms. Present what’s unique about your brand and focus on providing value to the reader.
2. Don’t forget to optimize the subheader
With the help of a subheader, you can explain what you provide more specifically. If you are explaining what you do in the header in the subheader you should explain how you do it, just like how it’s done perfectly in the above-given image.
Make sure your subheader is not lengthy. Make it look skimmable.
A great example of a brand that has done this effectively is Slack. Their main header might say something like “Where Work Happens,” and the subheader would follow up with “Slack brings all your communication together in one place.” It’s succinct, explains how Slack facilitates work, and is easy to skim.
3. Showcase your product using imagery
When you use a generic image or GIF on your landing page it serves no purpose. Instead try to showcase your product using imagery.
4. Build social proof
Social proof can help you build credibility. Having it on the landing page reassures the readers that you are capable of providing what you promise in your copy.
5. Prompt the user to take action
The call to action (CTA) button should be optimized to clearly direct users to their next action. Avoid generic copy like “Start your free trial,” which can be overlooked by users. Instead, provide a valuable CTA copy that aligns with your title and subhead. Address potential objections to resolve users’ doubts, which can improve conversions.
Below-the-fold optimization
Conversions don’t happen just with a good “above the fold.” Even if the initial impression of your webpage is strong, users might not take the desired action (convert) if the rest of the page isn’t optimized. There’s valuable content below the fold that needs to be optimized to engage users and convince them to convert.
Features Section
Here is how to optimize the features section, which is likely located below the fold.
Hierarchical order: Features should explain the value proposition mentioned earlier (above the fold) in a clear structure (title, paragraphs, images).
Compelling titles and evidence: Feature titles should be clear and supported by details that address user concerns.
User-centric language: Use language that focuses on user benefits and addresses their pain points.
Images: Images break up text and make the content more engaging.
Use CTA other than primary CTA
Having a primary CTA at the top of the content is important, but users might not scroll all the way down. Including additional CTAs “below the fold” (the part of the webpage hidden until you scroll down) makes it easier for users to convert (take the desired action) without needing to scroll back up.
Include FAQs
People visiting the landing page might have doubts or uncertainties about the offer. By including a FAQ section, you can proactively answer these common questions and clear up these doubts. If visitors feel confident and their questions are answered, they are more likely to take the desired action on the landing page (e.g., convert into a customer).
Wrapping Up
This guide gave you some tips to build awesome landing pages! But don’t forget A/B testing and mobile responsiveness. Try out different headlines, pictures, and buttons to see what works best. This way, you’ll know exactly what makes people want to click and sign up. Make sure your landing page looks great and works smoothly on all devices, especially smartphones. This will keep visitors happy and clicking those buttons.