So, you need a new landing page. Great! Landing pages are the perfect opportunity to encourage website visitors to convert into leads.
The design of a landing page can be used to massively increase your conversion rate by providing a smooth experience for your user. To ensure you can achieve that smooth user experience, keep these landing page top tips in mind or consult a web development agency.
Determine your goal
The purpose of a landing page is to promote conversions. With this in mind, you need to consider the conversion type you want to achieve. The most common conversion types are
- Building Brand Awareness
- Lead Generation
- Sale
Making sure you are defining your goal is essential to the planning process, as it will inevitably influence how your landing page is designed.
Plan your layout
Regardless of the goal that you have outlined for your landing page, a helpful landing page should consist of these five elements:
- A headline
- A short description of your product/service/offer
- Relevant imagery
- A lead-capture form
- A call-to-action
Okay, now that you know the critical elements of a landing page, we can look at how you can utilise them.
Make your copy concise
When you come to writing the copy for your headings and description, ensure that your message is succinct.
A study has shown that the average attention span of a human is only 8 seconds. With this in mind, you need to focus on discussing how your brand and its offerings can benefit your viewer with plain, simple language.
You can then go into more detail below the fold. Speaking of folds…
Prioritise above-the-fold positioning
When you are creating a landing page, you need to focus on the top of the page (or above the fold) with the most essential information and your call to action. Putting all of the crucial information at the top means that your customers aren’t miss anything they may need to know and don’t need to scroll down the page to find your call-to-action.
That said, it doesn’t mean you can’t go into further detail or provide additional information below the fold. With the information about the fold having a primary purpose of capturing your customer’s attention, you still want them to keep scrolling and see more.
You will need to include regular call-to-actions below the fold for those customers that continue to read further. This can really help increase your conversion rate.
Visuals Visuals Visuals
We spoke earlier about how you have 8 seconds to make a great impression on your customers; this ties in nicely with visuals. Generally, people tend to process images much quicker than the written word, so it’s recommended that you incorporate them into your landing page.
When you are using images on your landing page, especially a banner or header image, it should quickly grab your audience’s attention whilst also complimenting your offer/service/product.
Visuals also include video elements as well. They are a great way to showcase a demonstration of your offerings.
It doesn’t matter what kind of visual elements you decide to use on your landing page; it is recommended that you include at least one above the fold, such as a header or banner.
Top tip: when using visuals, you need to ensure that they are responsive to mobile devices. You don’t want to spend a lot of time creating a fantastic video demo, and then it doesn’t display correctly on your customer’s phone.
Limit distractions and exit opportunities
A highly recommended practice for the design of your landing page is to limit the exit opportunities.
The best ways to do this are to remove your navigation bar, excluding internal and external links and avoid mentioning related offers or products. You want to ensure that your customer’s primary focus is on the offer you are presenting them with and driving them to complete your desired conversion.
Regarding sharing buttons for social media, there is a mixed opinion among the marketing companies. On the one side, some marketing companies recommend including them below the fold or towards the bottom of the page so that your content can be shared seamlessly across social platforms. On the other side, other marketing companies recommend excluding them altogether in line with the rule of limiting exit opportunities. Including or discluding social sharing buttons is down to your discretion as this will depend on your customer base and desired goals. If you are unsure, maybe try an A/B test to see which is more beneficial for your business.
Get Ready to Stick the Landing (Page)
Once you’ve read through our tips for creating the perfect landing page, it’s time to get it live and start driving your conversions.
While this might feel like a lot to do for one landing page, the ROI for a well-crafted page will make the hard work worth it in the end.
Good luck, and go get those conversions!
