Think about the purpose of a landing page. In most cases, you are trying to get visitors to the page to convert: to sign up for a webinar, to download a whitepaper, to subscribe to a newsletter, to sign up for a demo of software and so on. People are coming to a landing page in order to perform some sort of action. They have clicked through from an email, a social media page, an advertisement or somewhere else. Whether or not these visitors do actually convert (take the action you want them to) depends on how effective your landing page is, in both design and copy. Here are four tips to help you make landing pages that will convert visitors.
1. Have a Clear Goal for Your Landing Page
It sounds simple enough, but many landing pages do not make their goal clear and instead try to get visitors to convert through indirect means or suggestions. Vague, indirect landing pages do not work in general. If a visitor is not sure what action they are supposed to take on a landing page, or why they should take it, it is unlikely that they will convert. Be clear about what you want visitors to do on the landing page (sign up, download, subscribe, etc.) and show them exactly how to do it. Make it simple for your visitors to convert.
2. Present Brief, Tangible Benefits on Your Landing Page
Why would a visitor want to convert? What benefits will they gain? You know what is great about your product, service or demo, so use that knowledge to show visitors why they should convert on your landing page. Be careful not to get too complicated or wordy. Landing page visitors want brief explanations. You can always include links to more information if you think that a longer explanation is necessary. However, on the actual landing page, keep it short and direct. Focus on the most important benefits. Think about this: if you only had thirty seconds to convert visitors, what benefits would you list?
3. Understand Your Audience and Create Specific Landing Pages
Who are you trying to reach with this landing page? Focus on the industry you are going for, the age range, the location and any other relevant information. The same landing page will not appeal to every visitor so it is often very effective to create multiple landing pages with the same goal but different focuses. Use information and terminology that will appeal to specific groups of visitors, rather than trying to reach everyone. Targeted landing pages are much more effective than landing pages that try to appeal to a mass audience.
4. Landing Page should be Consistent with Starting Point
Your customers clicked through to the landing page from a starting point (such as an email newsletter or a banner ad) in order to find some very specific information. Give visitors exactly what they want to find on the landing page. If you told subscribers in your email newsletter that they should click through in order to sign up for an automotive webinar, don't take them to a page that lists all the possible industry webinars they can sign up for. Take them to the automotive webinar signup landing page! It is strange how many times you click through to a landing page and it contains vague information, rather than the specific information you were looking for. If you do not immediately show visitors the information they are looking for, they will simply leave the landing page and you will lose that conversion.
Stay tuned for Part 2! Want to make your own landing page? We have hundreds of professionally designed templates to get you started. Sign up for a free SimplyCast account and try out our landing page generator.
