A landing page can be the single most important place on your site.
However, if your landing page isn’t converting, it can be the hole that eats up your entire advertising budget.
That’s why you should make sure that you take your time while designing it. Create a landing page that meets the expectations of your prospects and gets them to take action at an acceptable rate.
You could be trying to get more subscribers to your email list, promote a special offer, or trying to get leads that you can nurture further. Your landing page needs to be able to convince the visitors to trust you with their contact info with a single page of copy, which is not an easy task.
The good news is, just as there are clear and actionable steps when using a simple business plan template to define your business, you can take proven steps when designing a landing page as well.
In this article, we’ll explore some of the most critical components of a successful landing page. By following them, you can get the most out of every single visitor that you get.
Figure Out Your Ideal Customer
There are many landing page mistakes that you can make. Perhaps none are as costly as not taking the time to figure out the ideal customer that you are trying to convert.
As an experienced digital marketing agency can tell you, even though you can create a landing page in WordPress in a few hours, it won’t matter that the page looks good. If it isn’t designed to address the most pressing pain points of your target audience, it won’t get them to take action.
Without a specific and detailed understanding of the ideal customer, it would be almost impossible to design a compelling landing page. It shouldn’t the only layout the most significant benefits of your offer. It should also tie them with the issues that the prospect is facing and shows why your product is the best solution for them.
And that’s where a lot of companies fall short.
They try to make their landing page appealing to their entire audience. The audience usually consists of many segments, all of which have their reasons for needing the product.
Therefore, it’s much more effective to have five, ten, or as many as needed landing pages. You can use them for each of your segments to get the most significant ROI for every dollar spent on getting visitors to your offer.
Focus on a Single Offer
Just as you need to design a landing page for one ideal customer that you want to attract, you also need to have one offer that is the best fit for his or her needs.
Many companies make the mistake of trying to play it safe by offering a few different options on their landing pages. You can see options such as different lists to opt into, multiple offers for deals, or even a navigation bar so that the visitor could explore further.
All of these decisions do little more than distract your visitor. Ultimately, they increase the chances of him not doing the action that you want him to.
If you want your landing page to deliver the results that you want, you need to focus on a single offer. Put all of your efforts into getting the prospect to say yes to it.
While it may seem logical to provide options, what you are instead doing is overwhelming him. This is making it harder to take action.
When there’s only one option that is clear, appealing, and logical for the visitor, he will have a much easier time saying yes.
Write an Eye-Catching Headline
When someone lands on your website, the first thing they see is the headline.
Often they will see the headline even before they stumble on your site. So, it’s a good idea to make your ad headline similar to the one on your landing page. Also, to you can support the credibility of the information you are offering, trying adding a backlink to Forbes, or any relevant authoritative media.
What that means is that the quality and relevance of the headline decides the success of your entire campaign.
Many failing campaigns have been turned around in an instant by even relatively small changes to the headline. So, if you get this part right, you’re well on your way to getting the visitor to take the action that you want.
But how to create a strong headline for your landing page?
Well, if you performed thorough research about who you’re trying to reach, you should have plenty of working materials to construct the headline.
Start by listing out the biggest problems that your prospect is facing. Look for those that have the most urgency and that prospect cannot delay solving.
Then, identify the most significant benefits that your offer can deliver. Focus on those that directly deal with the problems that you listed out previously.
Finally, you’ll need to come up with a hook or an idea that gets noticed, something that will instantly catch the attention of the reader and almost force him to learn more.
You should have a headline that is relevant to your audience, addresses their pain, and promises a solution. It should also have an element of intrigue that makes it irresistible to the targeted person.
Make the Entire Page Consistent
One of the worst things you could do when designing your landing page is not delivering on the promises that you made in the headline.
If you address a pain point, promise a solution, and entice curiosity, you need to fulfill on all three in the body copy. Otherwise, your offer will fail to convert and it will frustrate the prospect. As a result, he’ll likely never want to deal with you again.
It’s okay to make bold and powerful claims in your headlines, but you need to make sure that your message can live up to it. The reader is committing his time reading your landing page and expects it to be worth it.
Another thing to consider is the design. Make the layout consistent and straightforward so that there are no unnecessary distractions.
You should not include navigation elements on your landing page and only have one clickable button. It is the call to action that you want him to take.
Depending on the length of your landing page, you may want to add multiple call-to-actions for the same offer. The visitor can click on them at various stages of going through your page.
Finally, when sending traffic to your offer, you need to ensure that your site has stable DNS performance. It should be able to handle a sudden influx of traffic. One of the worst nightmares for a marketer is paying for traffic and then having his site go down at the worst possible time!