Your online presence is crucial for any marketing strategy. Your website, in particular, is often the first thing potential customers see when they encounter your brand online. It’s no secret your site plays a big role in driving conversions.
And yet, many brands neglect the holy grail of web conversions: landing pages.
Landing pages are essential for increasing brand awareness and driving revenue. But there are key elements that make or break whether they succeed or send people packing. If you aren’t optimizing your landing pages for conversions, you’re missing out on some big opportunities.
In this post, we’ll show you how to optimize your landing pages for maximum conversions so you can make the most of your traffic and turn web traffic into customers.
Defining Landing Pages
What exactly is a landing page, and what does it do?
In simplest terms, a landing page is a single web page that visitors “land” on when they click through from another source. This might be an advertisement, an email or a search query on Google.
You should design each landing page on your site to accomplish a specific marketing goal in exchange for providing some value to the visitor. What qualifies as something of value? It could be:
- A free e-book or printable
- A white paper with insights
- A webinar or free course
- A coupon, promotion or free trial for a product or service
When visitors land on these pages, enticed by your offer, they’re encouraged to take action. Common “calls to action” (CTAs) include inviting visitors to sign up for an email list or giving them the chance to make a purchase on the spot. If the user takes you up on your offer, your landing page has succeeded in converting them.
Remember, landing pages almost always have a singular focus. It goes back to what researchers refer to as “the paradox of choice.” When people are presented with too many options, they tend to get overwhelmed. Don’t crowd your page with multiple calls to action such as “Follow us on social media!” “Start a free trial!” and “Get 10% off!” If your page is cluttered, the user will likely take no action at all — and might even leave your site.
Why You Need Landing Pages
Landing pages aren’t a typical part of your website’s structure. That’s why you usually won’t find links to landing pages on a site’s main menu. Rather, each stands alone to serve a highly specific short-term marketing goal, such as:
- Improving the performance of a paid advertising campaign by responding precisely to the user’s need or intent
- Increasing conversions on a particular product or products
- Generating leads or driving free trial activations
- Encouraging mailing list signups
Aside from achieving these marketing goals, landing pages are important for a few other reasons.
For one, they boost your credibility. A good landing page provides a concise, crystal-clear message that explains the value of your brand, product or service. A great landing page tells visitors your business has their best interests in mind. For example, addressing buyer concerns on your landing page can increase conversions by up to 80%.
Great landing pages also build your brand. Even if your landing page doesn’t immediately convert a visitor, it can create a strong impression that will help them remember your offering in the future. Memorable landing pages also make it more likely visitors will refer friends and family to your offer, which is arguably the most important aspect of any marketing effort.
Because they help convert leads into paying customers, landing pages are a critical part of your digital marketing strategy. These pages help guide users further along their customer journey because they act as a nudge to take action. And the more optimized they are, the better they can serve their purpose.
Optimizing Your Landing Pages for Conversions
There’s a lot that goes into maintaining a strong digital presence. Fortunately, much of the work you probably already do also applies to landing pages. This includes things such as:
- Making your website mobile-friendly
- Improving page loading times
- Maintaining consistency across your website
- Focusing on technical SEO
If you’re already covering these bases, you’re halfway to optimizing your landing pages. But there are a few more things you need to know and put into practice to get the most out of your conversion machines.
Let’s take a look.
Make Headlines!
Catchy headlines entice people searching the web to click through and visit your site. This applies to your homepage, any content you create and — yes — your landing pages.
Since landing pages are typically focused on providing a benefit to those who click through, you should draw visitors in with a strong value proposition. Maybe it’s a limited-time offer, a free e-book or an exclusive webinar. Whatever the case, incorporating words such as “now,” “today” or “free” can pull visitors in.
When crafting headlines, make sure you match your meta title to the actual page title. They needn’t be identical, but they should definitely express the same idea. This assures users they’ve come to the correct location. Don’t risk jeopardizing your reputation and search engine rankings with misleading meta tags.
Make Content Appealing and Scannable
It’s difficult to strike a balance between enough material and the minimum amount of visual crowding. Effective landing page designs contain features that showcase how beneficial the product or service is without detracting from the calls to action or offer.
Look at a landing page as a potential customer would to optimize it. Ask yourself:
- Are your logo and branding prominent on the page?
- Are your CTAs clear and recognizable?
- Is the messaging concise and representative of your intended goal?
It’s also important to focus on the quality of the copy. Once you’ve hooked your visitors with a catchy headline and a visually appealing design, it’s crucial to keep them engaged with copywriting that’s compelling, punchy and succinct.
Break your content down into scannable chunks to encourage users to read all the way through your landing page. There’s probably more than one feature or benefit to what you’re selling, so use numbered lists or bullet points to make them more digestible.
Video content, in particular, is getting more popular on landing pages, since not everyone engages solely with text. This doesn’t imply your page should be devoid of words, however. Combining strong copy and compelling video is a great strategy to keep people engaged.
Leverage Social Proof
Look for places to insert reviews or testimonials about your product or service, which are an element of social proof. Social proof has been shown to increase conversions.
If you don’t already have testimonials to draw from, incentivize your past customers to provide them. You could also highlight how many individuals have already taken advantage of your offer if your product or service is popular. This could entice others to join the trend and try your goods or services for themselves.
A video or product demonstration may give context if you offer something unique or misunderstood. This also aids potential consumers in imagining themselves using your product or service.
Call Your Visitors to Action
One of the first things visitors see on your website should be your CTA. And while this may be a little more difficult if you’re designing for mobile users, it’s absolutely crucial for landing pages.
But don’t stop there.
Landing pages are unique in that they’re a mix of engaging content and continual calls to action. While you need a strong call to action at the top of your page, be sure to have one at the bottom too. And if your content can support it without things becoming crowded, add a few in the middle as well.
Also, make sure your CTAs are easily recognizable. Contrasting buttons, prominent arrows and even imagery that draws visitors’ eyes to the desired action are all excellent strategies.
Track and Refine
A big part of optimizing landing pages lies in the process of analyzing and refining. There are a number of great tools out there, such as Google Analytics, that help you track page interactions.
The best strategy is to use A/B testing. This involves looking at the statistics and creating alternate pages to figure out what elements help move visitors down your funnel. You can A/B test different visuals, copy, CTAs and just about any other element. This gives you the ability to polish each landing page to maximum efficiency.
Landing Pages and SEO
A big part of your marketing strategy and website is largely about SEO. And while it’s a discipline unto itself, effectively optimizing a landing page has some search engine-specific considerations you’ll want to pay attention to.
These include:
- Incorporating a strong keyword strategy
- Building landing pages based on target audience personas
- Focusing on backlinks in your marketing efforts
- Making your landing pages sharable
You’ll also want to create individual landing pages for each audience category to maximize your SEO. Since landing pages are focused on singular goals, you won’t want them to be too broad. Instead, build a specific page that speaks to smaller groups of your target market. As long as your landing pages aren’t competing with each other, you’ll see results.
In short, any SEO strategies you use across your main website should be incorporated into your approach with landing pages. Aside from generating more and more leads, the extra traffic will boost your search rankings.
Optimize Your Landing Pages With Great Content
While it’s tempting to toss up any old page and call it a day, landing pages are too important to your brand to skimp on quality. By taking the time to optimize them for your target audience, you can ensure you’re driving more of the right traffic to your site and converting more leads into customers.
If you need help polishing your landing pages, the Crowd Content platform gives you access to thousands of qualified and professional freelance writers, many of whom specialize in crafting compelling landing page copy. If you’re ready to start driving conversions with your landing pages, sign up today.
