What makes a landing page “work?” Find out 5 of the most important factors in this post.
First, let’s define a “landing page” because it’s easy to get confused:
It’s a page that you can only “land” on. You can’t click to it through your site’s navigation. And your goal is to get your visitor to take action now.
You could ask for an expensive sale, small sale, or even something as simple as an e-mail address. “Landing pages,” for your purposes, could also be the pages visitors enter in your PPC campaigns.
Now that you have that understanding, here’s what your landing page needs to do:
- Gotta Have A Goal
Everything in business has goals, and so should your landing pages. You can really make them have whatever goal you want.
But, the most common are asking for a sale, scheduling a consultation, or signing up for your newsletter in exchange for a freebie.
- Clearly Solve a Problem Relevant to Your Customer
Unbounce is a leader in conversion optimization. They clearly solve a problem here by “increasing the conversion rates of your campaigns.” Many “landing pages” simply have “more content” for SEO purposes. That’s a big mistake many SMBs make.
- Complete Focus on the Single Action You Want Your Visitors to Take
Check out this landing page by another unnamed SEO company:
The whole thing is dark – except for the one action they want you to take. They also have a “call us” option in the upper right, which may not hurt to take off.
But as you can see – it’s pretty obvious what action you should take. And every landing page needs to do that because it gives you the best conversion rate.
- A Headline That Peaks Emotion in your Visitors
Your headline should be short – around 10 words or so. It should get attention, and your readers should instantly know what your product or service does.
Check out some effective headlines:
- “I’m tired of being awkward” for a social skills course
- “Marketing automation for everyone” by a marketing automation company
- “What you see is what you test” for a company that sells an app that simplifies experiments
- “They used Pinterest to plan a dream trip. Join Pinterest to find (and save) all the things that inspire you.”
- Appropriate Language for the Audience
Think about who you’re writing to. Are you B2C? Keep it simple, casual, conversational, and fun.
Are you trying to convince engineers to buy your product? Load’em up with technical specifications. But still keep it fun. Remember, engineers are humans too!
So those are the most important success factors your landing pages must have. Implement those techniques…and watch your sales grow.
