Landing pages are the number one way to convince your audience that your business is worth investing in. It’s difficult to get users to trust your brand and believe in it from the get-go, but an effective, well-designed landing page has the ability to pique their interest and convince them to take action on your website. Research by Unbounce found that the average landing page conversion rate was 4.02 percent, which means there’s plenty of room for improvement.
A landing page is a specific page on your website that has the purpose of converting visitors. It uses persuasive, well-written copy to convince users that they should take some sort of action, usually purchasing a product or signing up for an email list. A well-designed landing page will move customers further down the conversion funnel and bring more traction to your business.
If you’re trying to create your first ever landing page, here are few tips to help you get started.
Match the offer to your audience
Your product or offer must match your prospects’ needs as closely as possible. If your audience doesn’t want or need your offer, or if it doesn’t truly solve their problems or help them in any way, then the conversion rate of that offer’s landing page will remain dismally low. It’s essential that in exchange for the action your audience takes, they get something valuable in return. If not, there will be no point in them investing in your brand and they’ll disappear as loyal customers.
Create an attention-grabbing headline
Your headline is one of the most important pieces of your landing page. It’s the very first step to a user either clicking on your call to action or ignoring it completely. If the language doesn’t fit your target market or simply doesn’t resonate with viewers, you won’t see the conversions you want. Don’t be afraid to use bold language, numbers or statistics, and cliffhangers to persuade your audience to click through.
Beachway, a rehab clinic, used language directly from customer reviews on books about addiction to write their headline and saw a 400 percent increase in traffic.
Explain the benefits
The main point your landing page should make is that your products and services will bring your audience great value. A good landing page will emphasize the different ways that taking action on your website will bring contentment and satisfaction to customers. It’s important that you outline exactly how your product will be beneficial to users and it helps if you’re specific. If you have data about how many people your products have helped or other statistical data, include that in your landing page copy. Give users enough information so that they feel informed to make a wise decision.
Add a contact form
You can’t have a landing page without a contact form, the thing that collects your subscribers’ information and creates a connection between them and your brand. The main action you want users to take on your landing page is to give you their information so they move further down the conversion funnel and closer to a purchase. How do you convince them to do this? By making it as easy as possible.
Don’t give them ten different form fields to fill out and ask for information like street address or zip code. These are things you don’t need just yet. The main task to focus on is persuading them that handing over their email is a positive move. Keep your forms simple with no more than five fields to fill out. Make sure its design is responsive and not glitchy. The easier you make it for people to sign up, the more subscribers you’ll have.
You don’t need to know how to code to add a contact form to your site. You can use a tool like WPForms that makes it easy to design responsive contact forms.
Craft a compelling CTA
A call-to-action or CTA is an action you try to persuade your viewers to take that will benefit you both. It’s a huge opportunity to increase your conversion rate because something as simple as the color of your CTA button can affect your leads and purchases. Use specific, actionable verbs that tell users exactly what you want them to do, such as “Receive my offer” or “Create my account.” You can sprinkle a few CTAs throughout your landing page as long as it cluttered or too repetitive.
Use responsive design
If users have difficulty navigating through your website — especially your landing page — there’s a chance your bounce rate will increase and user engagement will go down. Your landing page should have a responsive, easy-to-use design that appeals to users. The easier it is to navigate, the better. It’s essential your website is optimized for mobile because there are four billion mobile users worldwide that search the internet through their phones. Make sure your site speed runs fast as this interrupts a smooth UX by using a tool like Google’s Test My Site.
Research by Google found that 53 percent of mobile users leave a site that takes longer than three seconds to load, so optimizing for faster loading times is essential for your landing page conversions.
Add social proof
You need to think about how you’ll appear credible enough to visitors that they’ll be enticed to purchase your product or sign up for your email list. Building trust is essential for any business that wants to grow its customer base, and a great way to do this is by displaying social proof up front. This can be anything from client testimonials and customer reviews to the number of sales you’ve acquired. Anything positive you can boast about in terms of your business’ success can be considered social proof so long as it’s legitimate. Showcasing social proof — that is, others’ approval of your business — increases your legitimacy as a brand and will help you acquire more leads.
Conclusion
It’s exciting creating your first landing page. It means you have something of value in your possession that you believe will be highly beneficial to your audience. All you have to do is show them how. By crafting a landing page that’s customer-centric and always keeps the user in mind, you’ll be able to better appeal to their needs and interests. It isn’t enough to tell visitors that they’ll love your product; you need to sell them on the idea that your business will add something positive to their lives. These tips should send you on the way to crafting a truly successful landing page that will boost your conversion optimization rate.