If you are interested in generating quality leads for a product, a service, or a business, it is important to know how to create landing pages that convert and make the audience perform the required action.
Whether you are just starting your business or you have an existing business and would like to get better results, this article intends to give out tips that would enable you to create landing pages that convert for you or optimise already existing pages that produce quality conversions.
The major mistake many people make in an attempt to create highly converting landing pages is focusing all of their attention on writing a great copy for the page. Now, it is essential to know how to write great on-page copy, however, other things matter too in your quest to build landing pages that curate the best results across the board.
In this article, I will share these steps into three parts:
- Pre-Creation Process
- Peri-Creation Process
- Post-Creation Process
These steps should form a basis for a strategy whenever you aim to create a landing page that gives more result than you can imagine. But before then, it is safer to shortly explain what a landing page that converts looks like.
What does it mean for a landing page to convert?
Landing pages are specially built to drive traffic for a specific goal, usually for marketing purposes. These marketing campaign goals can range from leads generation, app installs and even direct sales of a product. The intent is to let the audience focus on that page and the intended action without other options or any distraction.
A web page would usually have other navigation links to other parts of your website, your audience could easily navigate away from your “action page” and get lost elsewhere, on your blog or about-us page for example. However, a landing page doesn’t give room for this, as you can see in the samples below.
It is highly advised to use a landing page when:
- you want your audience to be totally focused on the goal you want.
- you want to avoid all possible distractions that may lead the audience elsewhere.
- your website serves another purpose from what you are currently offering.
- you have a single product you want to single-out from your numerous products and sell at that particular moment.
- you have a coupon/promotional offer available at the time.
A landing page is said to have converted when it can achieve the goal for which it was set up.
For example, if you set up a landing page for your audience to sign up for an offer, when they get to your landing page and successfully sign up for the offer, then that landing page did its job.
There are different marketing strategies to drive interested audience to your page using Facebook ads, Linkedin Ads, etc. However, your landing page has a lot to do to convince them to perform the required action, this is why it is important to learn how to build landing pages that convert.
Pre-Creation Process for Landing Pages That Convert
Your journey towards creating a highly-converting page doesn’t start on the page, you need to cross some Ts before you set to work on the page. These “before” processes help you figure out the rest of the journey and make it much easier.
Establish your goal.
“What exactly do I need my audience to do?”
You need to ask yourself that question and come up with a single answer. Yes, you need to focus on just one goal on your landing page for you to be able to measure your success effectively.
Do you need them to sign up for a newsletter?
Do you need them to download an ebook?
Do you need them to pre-order a product?
Do you need them to purchase a product?
Know your objectives and be convinced. This will help you maintain focus while creating the copy that converts on your landing page.
Understand your audience.
This is probably the most used clause in marketing, however, it’s still one of the least applied clauses in marketing. It is important to understand your audience since the page is for them, not you.
Successfully analysing and understanding your audience helps you make key decisions like words to choose, incentives to use, offers to bring to the table, etc. It helps you make your page more human to your audience, as you have factored their interests in.
Put measurement metrics in place.
How do you know what is happening on your landing page if you do not measure? You will be losing out on a lot of information if you don’t measure accurately.
For instance, if your landing page is meant to generate leads for you and you get 100 leads in one day. That may be a good or bad number, depending on how well you have set measurement metrics into place. For example, if you are able to measure the traffic on the page and you realised 10,000 people landed on the page, while only 100 filled the form, then there might be an issue.
Proper measurement helps you to figure out where your audience is tripping off in your marketing funnel.
Peri-Creation Process for Landing Pages That Convert
This is the main “on-page” stage of building the landing page, what happens during the creation process. There are different things to be considered here and I will highlight them.
Title/Headline
It is important to know the types of headline available and what to choose for your landing page. Most times, your headline is your only show at getting the audience to convert. It must grab their attention and encourage them to perform the required action.
Your headline should state the benefit the audience will enjoy, should use direct language, use active verbs your audience can relate with and touch their pain points.
The article below fully explains blog topic types and when you should them, which can be applied here too.
Subtitle/Subheads
The subtitle is the information given below the title, usually in smaller fonts. It’s an avenue to expatiate the advantages of your headline, which is an additional advantage in a bid to create landing pages that convert.
It should answer the questions that your headline may bring up in the reader’s mind. Questions like “why?”, “how?” “when?” etc.
From the sample above, the landing page above has a subhead which answers the question “how?”. The audience definitely wants to start selling and the copy accurately told them how to get that done. Another page that did that so well is Evernote’s landing page which gives a good reason why the audience needs their app.
It’s always safer to make a concise list of the benefits of your products to your audience and the goal you want to achieve, this will help you decide on a better subtitle that will be centred on the audience, guiding them to your goal.
Body
There are landing pages that convert well with just a compelling headline, subhead and call-to-action, however, some need a body to add flesh to your page. If you must use a body, then you must ensure you do not stray from being audience-centred. The goal should be aimed at further convincing the audience towards performing the required action.
You need to convince them with social proof, speak to their heart using some strategies, people buy with their heart most times.
People don’t buy with their head but with their heart. The heart is closer to the wallet than the head.Mark Victor Hansen
Customer Testimonials
The truth is quotes and testimonies from your existing audience is quite magical for your conversions. This helps you build credibility for your product, especially when the quotes are from traceable persons. It is always advisable to add information about the customers providing the testimonies. Information like their name, location, even image help the testimonials sound believable.
Social Media Mentions
I would have said “positive social media mentions” but that should be obvious, right?
Influence your customers to give positive mentions on social media about your brand, then leverage it on your landing page. Your audience will connect more with it as it’s traceable and obviously real!
Numbers and Statistics
How many people have downloaded your ebook? …signed up for your newsletter? …downloaded your app? …bought your product? …tried an offer? Mention it. If there’s a way to show these numbers, show it.
This tells your audience that they are not alone and that they are not testing the waters. Remember what I mentioned about their hearts? Exactly.
These things should be leveraged in the body of your landing page to ensure you are taking full advantage of every opportunity to convince your audience to perform the desired action.
Call to Action (CTA)
It doesn’t matter how well you have explained what you offer and the benefits, if you don’t spell out what you want your audience to do at the appropriate intervals, then you have not learnt how to create landing pages that convert. People like to know exactly what to do.
Your CTA is not just a button, it must resonate with what the audience wants to do, having read your headline and other information you have given. Don’t give something contrasting.
If you have a landing page that’s quite lengthy and full of information, ensure your CTA is present at different intervals, using the copy that fits the information they have just read.
For example, you need your audience to download an application which enables them to send money to their loved ones.
Your first CTA under your headline and subhead could be “Download Now”. If you have a body which shows testimonials of your current audience saying how easy it was to send money to their loved ones, then your next CTA should be around “Send Money Easily Now”. If the next part of the body shows numbers of 1 million downloads, then you can use “Join 1 million Others Now.”
Also, CTAs that are more user-friendly convert more than the random ones. For example, “Chat with us” will resonate more with your audience than “Contact us”.
Finally, the colours you choose are important! Ensure you are using the right colour. Ensure you know the vibes you are trying to give to your audience. Check the chart below by ConvertKit.
Post-Creation Process for Landing Pages That Convert
This is as important as the other processes that have been explained above, yet it is usually paid less attention to. At this stage, you determine what happens after the user clicks on your call to action button; after they perform the action you want them to perform.
Except your job with the audience is done as soon as they click on that button, then your job with the landing page is not done. There are other things to make your audience experience a smooth journey, show your other products and ensure retention.
Be creative with your confirmation messages, appeal to their senses to ensure they have done the right thing, and also look forward to the next steps from you.
Share links to your blog posts, past emails or other products. This ensures they interact with your main website, get familiar with your posts and also, look forward to the next steps from you.
Utilise conditional CTA tags. This just means a line saying, “Now that you have…you can now…” If someone subscribes to your mailing list, you can say, “Now that you have joined the family, you now have full access to all past family discussions here. Check it out.” (Then add a link.)
Basically, you need to wow your audience, they just performed an action, let them be thrilled.
Be an Oliver; want more!
In Summary…
To learn how to create landing pages that convert optimally, you need to set a precise goal and stick to it. Understand your audience and choose languages that appeal to them.
Then, ensure you have properly used on-page measures that will encourage them to perform your required action. And no, don’t stop there. Give them a premium experience after you are done. Double points for you if you can make them laugh.
Do you have other tips on how to create landing pages that convert? or do you have a landing page you would like to show off? Do share, I would love to take a look.
