Optimising Landing Pages

Landing pages have become a major part of businesses’ digital strategies for some time now. When done right, they can be extremely effective in converting visitors into customers.

While there aremany services that now provide templates and layouts you can implement for yourlanding page, it’s not just a case of plug in and play; nowadays, visitors arelanding on multiple pages a day, and so cheap tricks won’t work anymore.

You need toimplement the right strategy if you want to create an effective landing pagethat produces the right results. So, how do you go about that?

First, what is a Landing Page?

Before we get into the weeds of how to create an effective landing page, let’s make sure we’re all on the same one! While a landing page can technically be any page a visitor lands on, what marketers are talking about when they refer to landing pages are stand-alone pages that are designed to do just one thing – deliver a message and get the visitor to perform a specific action.

It’s importantto remember that landing pages aren’t just utilised by internet marketers;every successful company from Uber to Mint are using them to great success.

How to Create an Effective Landing Page

Design Does Matter

Yes, there aresome old-school marketers who will argue against this point, but we’ve seen aserious drop in effectiveness for landing pages that haven’t put any thoughtinto their design. We’ve all landed on sales pages that look like they weredesigned in 2003 and immediately hit the back button.

That is not thereaction you want; it’s easier than ever before to create aestheticallypleasing pages and websites with drag and drop tools. When they seeold-fashioned and/or badly designed ones, it makes visitors think you are abusiness that is outdated, unprofessional, and untrustworthy.

As a business in the financial industry, you just simply cannot afford to seem untrustworthy – you are dealing with people’s money, and that comes second only to their families on the list of importance. If you want your page to be effective, you have to pay attention to how it looks (on mobile, tablet, and desktop) and what it “says” to customers.

Keep the Page Streamlined

A landing page is not the place for sidebars, widgets, or even headers. The most effective landing pages are those that use clear and concise copy (the words they use) and a straightforward call-to-action.

In the past, we’ve seen essay-length landing pages prove effective; but, as attention spans shorten, many visitors are simply looking for the solution they need – so leave the helpful content for the blog posts and keep your landing page to the point. (If they’re getting there “too early” and aren’t well informed enough, are you directing the right people to the page?)

Use Social Proof

What do you dowhen you’re looking for a new book to read or comparing which new TV to buy?You look at reviews. A great way to ensure your landing page is effective, nomatter how short or long your landing page is, is to provide social proof. Thiscan be in the form of a full review, a snippet of one, or even just the logosof the companies you’ve worked with. When you use your social proof on yourlanding page, your visitors will trust you much more quickly.

Ensure it Stands Alone  

Remember what Isaid about not even including your website header on your landing page? That’sbecause you want your landing page to be a distraction-free environment. Thatmeans no extra menus, no links to other pages on your site (at least untilafter the call-to-action), and no straying off-topic. You should grab yourvisitor’s attention and lead them by the hand to the call-to-action.

If this landing page is going to be effective, it should be tailored to the visitors who are coming to it. Are they coming to you cold through an ad or warm after receiving an email newsletter from you? These audiences are going to require different language, even if the result is the same, so don’t be afraid to have a couple of landing pages that have different copy – any time or money you put into it will be worth it when your conversion rates skyrocket.

You can take this further by planning your customer journey from start to finish – our article 3 Ways to Build a Customer Journey that Converts is a great place to start. If you’re interested in learning more about how you can segment your audience and create different landing pages for those audiences, read Improved Audience Segmentation Can Boost Digital Marketing Success.

If you think that you could be achieving more with digital marketing then tell us more by using the live chat on our website or get in touch below.

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