What Is A Landing Page?
A landing page is a separate web page designed expressly for a marketing or advertising campaign in digital marketing. It’s the location where a visitor “lands” after clicking on a link in an email or ads from Google, Bing, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or other websites.
Unlike web pages, which usually have multiple aims and promote research, landing pages have a single emphasis or goal, referred to as a call to action (or CTA, for short).
Landing pages are the ideal alternative for raising the conversion rates of your marketing campaigns and minimizing the cost of gaining a lead or sale because of this concentration.
As you can see, the landing page is created when prospects at the top of the funnel click a link in an advertisement, an email, or anywhere else on the internet. It is here that the conversion (such as a purchase, signup, or registration) will occur.
Why Are Landing Pages So Good At Converting?
A homepage and a landing page are displayed side by side below. Notice how the homepage offers many links, but the landing page only has one? That’s very standard.
The landing page is laser-focused, whereas the homepage offers dozens of possible distractions—you could call them “leaks” instead of links. Fewer links on a landing page boost conversions since there are fewer tempting clickables to distract visitors from the call to action. Professional marketers constantly direct their traffic to a specialized landing page.
Yes, the homepage is stunning. It promotes the brand, allows users to browse various products, and provides more information about the company and its beliefs. A visitor can go anywhere from here, including applying for a job, reading press releases, examining the terms of service, and posting on the community boards.
However, they are unlikely to make a purchase. That is precisely the point.
This customer’s landing page has a completely different purpose. Everything about it works hard to convert these people into consumers, paired with incredibly slick ads that promote a single deal. It converts more of the traffic that the brand already receives. That’s how effective landing pages can be.
Types Of Landing Pages
There is a lot of variation out there depending on the type of business, but there are really only two classic landing pages (defined by their goals):
Lead Generation Landing Page
These pages, often known as “lead generation” or “lead capture” pages, feature a form as their call to action. This form always captures lead data, such as visitor names and email addresses.
This form of a landing page is used by B2B marketers and organizations offering high-ticket items to establish a list of potential consumers. They may provide anything for free in exchange for contact information, such as an ebook or a webinar. Ecommerce businesses can also utilize these pages to expand their mailing lists, offer free shipping, or offer special bargains.
Click Through Landing Pages
Click Through pages are commonly used by e-commerce and SaaS (software-as-a-service) marketers to drive sales or subscriptions. As a call to action, they usually contain a basic button that directs the visitor to the checkout flow (such as the app store) or completes a transaction.
Driving Traffic To Your Landing Page
You’ll need to fill that funnel with visitors for your landing page to operate. You have a lot of options, fortunately. Let’s take a look at some of the most prevalent traffic sources for landing pages.
Paid Social Traffic
Running advertising on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, or LinkedIn is a great method to reach out to people and communities who will be interested in your business, regardless of whether they’re in the market yet.
Instead of those searching for “cheese of the month club,” you could target people who have “cheese appreciation” on their Facebook profile as an interest. The beauty of it is that you can engage with customers before they ever think about looking for your product—or even wanting it!
Aside from advanced targeting options, each social media platform has its own unique traits. Instagram, for example, is ideal for visually appealing items and lifestyle firms. B2B advertisers, on the other hand, prefer LinkedIn to look for professionals in certain industries.
Email Campaigns
Because of its massive reach (and inexpensive expenses) compared to other platforms, email is sometimes hailed as the most effective marketing channel available.
Customers may be nurtured and new ones acquired with the help of a potent combination of emails and landing sites. Your properly crafted email lets you entice readers with your offer after you’ve built a list of contacts, while the landing page fills in the details and directs them to a call to action.
Organic Search Traffic
Any visitors who come from an unpaid source, such as the bottom half of Google or Bing search results, are referred to as “organic traffic” (SERPs). You can ensure that your business shows more frequently in related searches by generating appealing, truly valuable information on your website or landing pages. It’s preferable if your material is ranked higher.
Calling it “unpaid” is deceptive. It doesn’t mean money hasn’t been spent on ranking. There’s a whole industry dedicated to squeezing organic traffic from Google using a combination of smart strategy, technological expertise, and excellent content production. In a nutshell, that’s search engine optimization (SEO).
The Anatomy Of A Landing Page
A core handful of items makes up every successful landing page. These “building blocks,” as they’re sometimes referred to, should be used as a guide while developing content.
This will irritate some readers. After all, isn’t it the goal of successful marketing to stand out from the crowd? Why would you want to limit yourself to a pre-designed landing page? Isn’t it possible that your content will become… formulaic?
We understand. However, there is an old adage that applies here:
Know the rules inside and out so you can efficiently break them
It turns out that nearly every landing page that converts well does so because the essentials are in place. Regardless of their conversion objective. Regardless of who they’re trying to reach. Regardless of the cost of what they’re selling. And this is true regardless of the type of campaign they’re running. This is because the structure of a landing page is designed to persuade, and there are components that aid in convincing.
Understanding the anatomy of a landing page and adhering to these rules will ensure that you convert. Then you’ll be able to develop innovative and ingenious ways to make the most of it.
Take a look at the image below. Though your pages may change slightly, the same core landing page construction pieces apply.
Components Of A Landing Page
There are no two landing pages alike. However, five essential aspects must be present on every high-converting landing page:
- A distinct selling point (USP)
- A Hero Image or Video
- The advantages of your service
- Some type of social proof is required.
- A single conversion objective (or your call to action)
Your Unique Selling Proposition
The sizzle that sets your product or service apart from the competition is your unique selling proposition. It responds to the nagging question, “What makes this offer so unique?” Don’t get too caught up in the word “unique.” Consider your USP as a way to distinguish your product (and make it better!) from the competition.
This proposition must be communicated succinctly on landing pages so that visitors understand what makes your product or service desirable right away. The story of why your offering is special is told through a sequence of page elements:
The Main Headline
The first thing your visitors will see is your headline. As a result, it must explain exactly what a visitor can expect from your product or service. Keep your title short and sweet, and be straightforward about your USP—this isn’t the place for surrealism poetry.
A Supporting Headline
Because headlines must be concise, you may add subheadings. Shorter is better, just like the headline. A supporting headline can be written in two ways:
It can serve as a natural extension of the headline, effectively completing the notion. (However, your headline should be able to stand on its own.)
It could also add value or send a compelling supplementary message that’s still relevant to your headline.
A reinforcing statement (optional)
If your landing page is lengthy, it’s good to reinforce your USP with a remark towards the center of the page.
Consider what your reader knows now that they didn’t know when they initially clicked when creating one. What have they learned that they didn’t know before? How do you make your USP stick now that they’ve been pushed and primed enough?
Concluding remarks (optional)
A closing statement reinforces your unique selling proposition and provides one last opportunity for your visitor to convert. Make it count. It’s your mic drop, the conclusion of the story you’re telling about your offering.
A strong concluding message can add a sense of urgency or remind visitors of why they came in the first place. To avoid having to scroll back up, a clickthrough page should also repeat your call-to-action (see below).
Your Hero Image
First impressions matter, and your landing page’s hero picture (or background video) is likely to be the first visual element visitors view.
A hero image should, in theory, show the context of use. If you own a SaaS company, this might be your killer software, running on a sleek modern gadget. It may also be someone blowing a huge bubble of your vegan chewing gum if you’re in e-commerce.
(If you can express emotion with real individuals, that’s even better; otherwise, avoid utilizing cheesy stock photos that will come across as phony.)
Benefits
To persuade the majority of consumers, you’ll need more than just the title on your landing page. The key is to describe specific advantages as well as qualities.
What’s the difference between the two? A feature highlights a specific quality of your product or service, whereas a benefit describes the feature’s positive influence. (For instance, that lemonade you’re selling may be ice cold, but the fact that it keeps you cool on a hot day is a benefit.)
Some individuals will tell you that you should write benefits rather than features. If you want to increase conversions, though, combining features and benefits is usually best.
Social Proof
Social proof is the influence that individuals in our immediate environment have on our decisions. It’s why everyone suddenly wants an Instant Pot, or why you could come to regret that WuTang Clan tattoo Cindy convinced you to get.
Social evidence can take several forms on a landing page:
- Customers’ direct quotes
- Case studies are used to illustrate a point (or links to case studies)
- Testimonials or video interviews
- Company logos of customers
- Scores from review sites such as Yelp, Amazon, and Capterra
Although social proof is undoubtedly the most effective weapon available, there are two best practices to remember.
You can’t fake it, first and foremost! You’ll have a hard time regaining their trust if they scent a rat. Second, be as explicit as possible. Give them the who, what, when, why, and how of your customer’s experience whenever possible. It will be most successful if your prospect can relate to the individual offering the testimony.
Your CTA
Finally, a landing page should only have one conversion goal—otherwise, it’s not a landing page. This is provided to your visitor as a call-to-action (CTA), which can be a solo button on a clickthrough page or a form on a lead-generation landing page.
There are a plethora of advanced tools available to help you create the best CTAs, but here are three basics to get you started:
Avoid using “CLICK HERE” or “SUBMIT” in your button content. Use conversational language to let your visitors know what they’ll get for their time and money (“START MY FREE TRIAL” or “GET 70% DISCOUNT”).
Shorten forms as much as possible and include a privacy statement to reassure users that their information is secure (and comply with GDPR regulations).
CTAs are always good candidates for A/B Testing because little differences can impact your conversion rates.
Why Use A Landing Page?
Why wouldn’t you?! is the actual question
Landing pages can help you boost conversion rates and minimize your acquisition costs.
The fact that promotional or product-specific landing pages focus on a single aim is the major reason they’re excellent. This purpose corresponds to the ad’s intent or email that brought visitors to your page.
Furthermore, your website isn’t built to convert.
Close your eyes and imagine a typical software company’s homepage—it may be your own if you have one or someone else’s.
What do you think you see?
Many things, most likely. This is because most homepages are created with a broad, exploratory aim in mind. It refers to the company’s brand and ideals.
And it’s probably jam-packed with connections and navigation to other places, whether it’s information about your team and organization, SEO-friendly editorial content, or other marketing materials like press clippings, white papers, case studies, and social network feeds.
In short, the standard homepage has a lot to offer. All of these links are undoubtedly a necessary evil for most firms. They will, however, harm your conversion rates.
On the other hand, a landing page serves a single purpose: to convert visitors to customers or leads on your website.
What method does it use to achieve this?
When it comes down to it, just two elements distinguish landing pages from the rest of your website: attention ratio and message match. Let’s have a look.
Attention Ratio
Every link on a page that isn’t related to your conversion objective is a distraction that dilutes your message and lowers your conversion rate.
The attention ratio is the difference between the number of things you can do on a page and the number of things you should be doing to convert.
An effective landing page will obtain as close to a 1:1 attention ratio as feasible. In contrast, a homepage can have a ratio of 30:1 or higher—basically, 30 flashy objects fighting for the visitor’s attention.
Landing Page Navigation
When it comes to producing leaks on your landing page, navigation is the most common cause. Whether it’s at the top or bottom of the page, it’ll draw attention away from your CTA and flip the invisible switch in their heads from “purchase” to “explore.” As a result, whenever possible, keep navigation off your landing page.
Yes, this implies that your visitors won’t be able to navigate directly to the rest of your site. That is, however, a good thing if you want them to convert.
Matching Messages
Have you ever stepped into a restaurant that seemed promising from the outside only to discover that you don’t want to eat there? (Does that look like a cockroach?)
The ability of your landing page to precisely reflect the ad copy that brought your visitor to the page in the first place is known as message match. When their expectations aren’t met, people commonly leave restaurants before being seated, doing the same on the internet.
If you don’t reinforce their purpose within a few seconds of arriving, most visitors will leave your site; thus the buyer’s journey must flow seamlessly from ad to page. You’re letting them know they’ve made a “good click” by ensuring a strong message match.
This example shows a comparison of good and bad message match on a landing page for a typical PPC campaign:
An example of a bad message match
Ad: Get 50% Off Nike Air Men’s Shoes
Landing page message: Welcome to Jill’s Sporting Goods
An example of a bad message match
Ad: Get 50% Off Nike Air Men’s Shoes
Landing page message: Get 50% off Nike Air at Jill’s Shoe Store
High Conversion Rate Sample
Low Conversion Rate Sample
Another Reason Why You Should Choose A Landing Page
If you have the necessary development resources, you can easily construct landing pages that follow the outlined guidelines.
The difficulty is that adding new pages to a traditional website takes a lot of time (and money), and someone outside of your marketing team will likely have to do it. Frequently, you run the risk of getting something you don’t want in a timeline that isn’t feasible.
You can design and publish pages in a matter of hours without the help of a development team if you use a landing page builder. Using drag-and-drop tools and numerous connectors, you can develop, track, and optimize your pages for optimum impact.
You may also develop promotions quickly by cutting down on the lead time.
When Should You Use A Landing Page?
Most inbound digital advertising strategies benefit from landing pages. Marketers have been successfully employing them to enhance conversion rates and cut acquisition costs for over a decade. You may also develop promotions quickly by cutting down on the lead time. A succession of tailored landing pages aids these (totally hypothetical) businesses in getting the most out of their ad budgets or email marketing campaigns by delivering the correct message to the right prospects.
ADVICE: It can take a lot of effort to create ads and landing pages for every imaginable Google search. To customize for various search queries, use Google Ads’ Dynamic Keyword Insertion and Dynamic Text Replacement functionality.
Segmented Promotional Offers
Not everyone is eligible for every promotion. The simplest method to communicate with different categories of consumers is to create separate landing pages. You could, for example, build separate pages for folks who have signed up for your free trial and those who have purchased your top-tier subscription. Copy, design, and the offer itself will all be tweaked to match.
Multiple Products
Merchants and e-commerce marketers with multiple SKUs on the road will benefit from landing pages. Even though they just have one product, different contexts may be better described on separate pages. (“It dices and cuts!”) It takes care of your taxes!” At the very least, there are two landing pages.)
Multiple Traffic Sources
If you’re running a campaign across many channels, you’ll need to create landing pages with messaging that fits the source. For example, text-based search advertising may benefit from a different headline, hero, content, or call to action than the appealing graphics you run on Instagram.
Landing Page Best Practices
It’s deceptively simple to create a landing page. You don’t need to be a developer to publish something professional, and you can accomplish it in a matter of hours if you use a drag and drop builder like Elementor.
However, going in blind is not advised. Here are some best practices that have been shown to increase conversion rates and lower cost-per-acquisition time and time again to give you a head start.
11 Quick Landing Page Best Practices
The first guideline of landing page best practices is that they should be used as a starting point for creating your best initial landing page. After that, you should experiment and let the customers pick which page converts the best for the job.
Ensure Your Messaging Matches Your Ads
One major reason you should be using landing pages in the first place is to ensure you’re sending people to a page that matches their expectations. Ensure that you signal that visitors have made a “good click” by checking your landing page copy (and design) to the ads you’re running in search or social.
For example, an ad for retirement communities that brings visitors to a landing page focused on luxury condos is likely drive more visitors away than one that stays on message. If running many ads with different headlines, consider creating variant pages to ensure message match.
Keep The Action Above The “Fold”
The upper half of a newspaper’s front page is referred to as “above the fold.” However, these days, it usually refers to what is shown on a screen before scrolling down. In either case, it’s precious real estate, and you’ll want to make the most of it.
Place your title, distinctive sales pitch, and, most importantly, your call to action above the fold to keep them visible. Don’t cram more information onto the screen than you need—too much above the fold can make it harder to view your CTA—but make sure everything a visitor requires is displayed right away.
Use Directional Cues To Direct The Eye
Because it’s uncommon for a landing page to be so short that nothing displays below the fold, using visual clues to lead the eye downward is a good idea. These signals can be physical markers such as arrows and various shapes, images, animations, or even copies that keep visitors scrolling and reading enthusiastically.
Prospects should be guided to your call to action using similar directional cues. To make the CTA stand out from the others, use bright, contrasting colors and an instantly recognizable shape, buttons should look like buttons. To draw even more attention, you can add arrows, animations, or even a picture of people pointing.
Show Your Product / Service In Action
Visitors can imagine themselves as your consumer by seeing your goods or service in a real-world setting. It’s also a good way to describe how your product or service operates in a short amount of time. Visuals may help you capture and hold their attention whether you employ still images, step-by-step animations, or demo movies. This is something you can accomplish in your hero image area.
Remove Navigation and Other Distractions
A great landing page concentrates on a single conversion goal, so keep additional distractions to a minimum. Avoid inserting extraneous links, such as site navigation, additional calls to action, or even links back to your homepage, on your landing page. Your landing page will perform best if it is self-contained.
Include (Authentic) Social Proof
The majority of your visitors are well-versed enough in marketing jargon to avoid it. (Unless you’re doing anything truly unique, they’ve heard it all before.) No matter how excellent you think your product is, integrating the voices of happy customers and community members may give your claims a level of legitimacy that even the best copy can’t match.
But glowing testimonials from Jane Doe, Anonymous, and Satisfied Customer aren’t going to persuade anyone. Personal details, such as full names, job titles, place of residence, date of purchase, biographical facts, photographs, or even video, might help to humanize these testimonials.
Use Clear Compelling Copy
A good piece of copy should not read like a piece of copy at all. It should be simple and easy to understand. It should be as easy to understand like the back of a cereal box. While some services necessitate longer material (and, as a result, longer landing pages), the majority of them benefit from keeping things simple. Consider fewer paragraphs and a greater number of bulleted lists.
Keep It Fast
If your pages are taking more than 3 seconds to load on a mobile device, you’re going to lose a lot of potential customers.
Avoid adding extraneous components to your landing page that will slow it down—everything you put should serve a clear function. Check that all of your photos are optimized and that you’ve followed Google’s performance guidelines.
Design For The Right Device
A large number of people are browsing on their smartphones during several promotions. (You might even be aiming for those who are on the move. As a result, screens will be smaller, interactivity will be limited, and load times will be slower.
None of these characteristics are helpful for your mobile conversion rates, so develop a mobile-responsive landing page that adapts to various devices to get better results. Images can be resized or eliminated entirely, and layouts can be altered. CTAs can also be made more obvious.
Test And Update Your Landing Pages
While following best practices is vital, A/B testing your landing pages is the most effective approach to ensure that you’re converting as many visitors as possible.
Have a feeling your problem-focused headline isn’t going to work? Do you want to arrange your questions on your form in a different order? Is your supervisor insistent on having a fluorescent pink CTA button?
Before committing, test it out and make decisions based on data rather than gut impression.
Consider Using A Template
Everyone aspires to be unique. However, if you’re just getting started (or have limited developer resources), starting with a template and tweaking it to meet your brand might yield spectacular results. Hundreds of professionally designed landing pages are available for purchase on sites like ThemeForest. Unbounce also offers hundreds of conversion-optimized landing page templates that were created with these best practices in mind.
Lead Gen Landing Pages Best Practices
Most of the tips above apply to all landing pages, but lead gen landing pages need a lil’ bit of special magic to work well.
Here are a few extra pointers that’ll make a difference in your nurture-based campaigns:
Reduce Frictions With Multi-Step Forms
Nobody enjoys doing paperwork. Long forms are the same way. When you have many questions to ask, it’s best to do it in stages. Instead of providing 15 fields on a single page, break them up into multiple steps. Start with the simple questions (“What’s your name?”) before moving on to the more delicate ones (“Are you an innie or an outie?”).
Avoid Manual Entry
Having visitors choose one choice from a list of five is less taxing than having them enter their responses manually, resulting in more conversions. It also makes processing data for purposes other than the lead follow-up, such as market research, considerably easier.
Include A Privacy Policy
Lead-gen forms collect personal information, which necessitates caution. A link to your privacy policy will reassure your visitors that their personal information is safe with you. A variety also requires the inclusion of national and international laws, such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Don’t have a legal staff on retainer? You may find a plethora of free privacy policies online.
Say “Thank You”
When visitors complete a form on your site, redirecting them to a separate thank you page (or a popup) can open up new possibilities. It not only informs them that the form has been submitted—a step that some landing pages overlook—but it also allows you to re-engage them.
You may, for example, ask if they want to join up for your newsletter or go to another section of your website. Alternatively, you can immediately begin upselling a trial user to a premium membership. You might also take advantage of the opportunity to sweeten the deal with a special offer. There are numerous post-conversion options.
The Benefits Of Using Video On Landing Pages
Beyond the initial click, videos allow viewers to experience your message with no effort. They also allow you to communicate ideas that photos, writing, and animation can’t—and they do so in a universally appealing way.
For all of these reasons, incorporating video into your marketing strategy is one of the most effective strategies to increase engagement and conversion rates. There’s a lot of evidence to back this up:
- Video marketing works. Marketers who incorporate video into their campaigns experience 34% higher conversion rates (Aberdeen Group).
- People consume tons of videos. According to Google, they’ve spent more time watching YouTube unboxing videos on their phones than it would take to watch “Love Actually” 20 million times.
- Your competition is probably using it. 60% of both B2B and B2C marketers use video for marketing (Content Marketing Institute).
What Are Video Landing Pages?
Video landing pages are exactly what they sound like: landing pages that employ video to convince the audience somehow. A video can be the focal point of your page, or it can function in the background alongside copy and graphics to entice visitors.
When videos directly promote the offer, they should be featured on your landing pages. That is, don’t just place your product description on a landing page that promotes a webinar. You’ll need a video that’s tailored to promoting that webinar registration in particular.
When determining what type of video to include, you can take a few various techniques. Video production usually necessitates a lot of resources—and it can take a lot longer than you think, trust us—so it’s better to prepare ahead.
Explainer Videos
An explainer film provides your visitors with the information they require in a concise, easily consumable manner that they can view while sipping their morning coffee. Do you have a brilliant idea that is much ahead of its time? You might just need a 90-second explanatory film to get people on board.
Explainer videos, when done correctly, allow you to make your elevator pitch and showcase your brand without forcing visitors to read large amounts of information, as shown in the example below.
Testimonial Videos
“Whatever she’s having, I’ll have.”
If you’ve ever said something similar, you’ve seen firsthand the power of social proof. Videos are an excellent method to include customer voices on your landing page, adding validity and human touch that printed testimonials lack.
Video Backgrounds
Replacing your hero shot with a video attracts your visitors’ attention and holds it. If your branding necessitates a splash of color, video background can help. And a video can do a lot more than a still shot when it comes to creating a certain vibe or ambiance.
Ways To Make Your Video More Effective
Add a call-to-action (CTA) to your video
This can be permanently visible, shown at strategic times throughout the video, or presented at the end.
Try short and long versions
Some products may need a detailed study, while others might be better suited to a 30-second “commercial” style.
Use directional cues within the video
Having their attention is nice, but point your visitors at your landing page’s conversion goal if you want them to convert. This can be a physical action (like a person pointing), an animation, or verbal instruction.
Write a script before recording
Everybody thinks they can just wing it, but having a script ready before recording your video will help it flow more smoothly and add a touch of professionalism. If you’re worried about scripting making you stiff, remember that you can always ad-lib a little to give it personality.
If you demo an online product, record a screencast first, then overlay audio later. This gives you more opportunities to make it sound professional. Using an external mic is a good idea too.
Reuse your landing page videos elsewhere
Making videos takes time and money, so maximize your returns by adding your video to YouTube or repurposing it for your social channels.
Don’t be afraid of autoplay
Usability guidelines say autoplay is an interruption technique that annoys people and makes them click the back button. But sometimes, it can also increase conversions. Test with it turned on and off to see its impact on conversion and the impression of your brand.
Don’t just use video
Play rates aren’t always very high, so don’t rely on video alone to convey your message. Instead, include the same points that you make in the video in the text on the page. There’s nothing wrong with a little repetition, and it’ll make your page more accessible too.
When Not To Use Video
When used in the right context and with the right offer, video can boost conversion rates (it’s compelling!). However, outcomes may vary depending on your conversion goals, audience, and even targeting devices.
As a result, videos must be well-made. And that you do A/B testing to assess if they have a beneficial impact (see the following part).
Video can have two undesirable side effects if it is not used properly:
- They may cause your landing page to load slowly. According to Unbounce’s Page Speed Report for Marketers, 52.8 percent of consumers are willing to forego video in exchange for faster loading times on mobile devices. Video landing pages might not be the best choice if you’re building for mobile or targeting a demographic with sluggish connections.
- They have the potential to detract from your call to action. Include a CTA in the video itself or use directional clues to ensure visitors know where you want them to click to avoid this problem. Furthermore, video backdrops should not be too captivating that your visitors lose concentration.
Landing Pages And Conversion Optimization
The majority of marketers have constrained resources, which means they don’t have unlimited time or money. If this describes you, you could wonder if it’s better to spend more money on more traffic or on raising your conversion rates.
It all boils down to one thing in the end:
Which method provides a higher return on investment (ROI)?
Investing more money in paid traffic (such as Google Ads or Facebook) is a tempting offer because the results are predictable and within budget.
However, your return on investment will remain constant and may even plateau. If your landing page’s conversion rate is 10% today, it’s not going to improve merely because you pay for more traffic. Sure, you’ll get more conversions, but at the same rate and at a larger cost.
Improving your conversion rate, on the other hand, allows you to achieve more conversions without raising your traffic spending.
Let’s do some quick math on a napkin:
We just paid for visits in the first instance. We put another $400 into the second to boost conversion rates. However, in the first month, both possibilities made a $1,000 profit.
So… uh… aren’t they the same?
Not at all. The $400 outlay cut into the earnings in the first month, but our efforts resulted in a 2% boost in conversion rate and a 40% rise in overall ROI, both of which will have long-term effects. So here’s what the next month will look like:
C: Paid Traffic + Optimization (Month Two)
PPC Budget: $1000/month + Conversion Optimization: $0
Visitors: 1000
Value of conversion: $20
Conversion rate: 12%
Revenue: $2400 ($1400 profit)
Creating and optimizing high-performance landing pages allows you to increase your profit with the same PPC budget. And you don’t need to be a “mathemagician” (or web developer) to make it happen.
What Is A/B Testing?
A/B testing is the process of testing two or more variants of a website at the same time to see which one performs the best.
Consider the case where you want to see if your hunch that one headline will generate more leads than the other is correct. You might simply make the adjustment and cross your fingers. But what if you’re completely wrong? Mistakes can cost you a lot of money.
You can gather evidence on which version of the page works best by sending half of your visitors to one version and half to another before making the change.
A/B testing, in essence, allows you to play scientist and make judgments based on facts about how visitors react when they land on your page.
A/B Testing Terminology
Assigning Traffic Weight in an A/B test
A typical A/B test assigns traffic to each page variant at random based on a predefined weighting. If you’re performing a test with two-page versions, for example, you may split the traffic 50/50 or 60/40. Visitors will always see the same variant, even if they return later, to keep the test’s integrity.
The most important issue in determining how much weight to give your page variants during a test is timing: whether you’re starting with numerous variants at the same time or testing fresh concepts against an existing page.
Starting From Scratch
You can develop a variant for each idea if you’re starting a new campaign and don’t know which way to go in.
In this case, you’d probably give each variation of the landing page equal weight. That’d be a 50/50 split between the two types. It’d be 33/33/34 for three. And so forth. You should treat them all the same and choose a champion as quickly as feasible. Because you don’t have any conversion statistics on any of the sites, start your experiment on a level playing field.
Testing Existing Landing Pages
If you currently have a page on which you want to try out some new ideas, it’s usually advisable to offer your new versions a lower percentage of traffic than the current champion to reduce the risk of introducing new ideas.
This will be a more gradual process. However, you shouldn’t try to speed up an A/B test by favoring new versions, as they aren’t certain to perform well. (Remember, the goal of A/B testing is to reduce risk.) Test carefully!)
What Should Be Tested On Landing Pages
When it comes to selecting what will work best for their customers, most marketing departments rely on a combination of expertise, a gut sense, and personal judgment. It works out occasionally, but not always. When it comes to A/B testing, be prepared to chuck out all of the boardroom speculation: the data (properly analyzed, at least) doesn’t lie. This is something you should tell your boss.
In your testing, you can concentrate on a limited number of landing page elements. You can choose the different types and materials for the test, but the customers will decide which one works best (whether you like it or not).
Split testing should include the following elements:
Headlines
Your main headline is usually a succinct rendering of your core value proposition. In other words, it sums up why anyone would want your product or service. There are many approaches you can try when testing your headline:
Try a longer versus shorter headline
Express negative or positive emotions
Ask a question in your headline
Make a testimonial part of your headline
Try different Unique Selling Points
Call to Action (CTA)
The call to action is a button that represents your page’s conversion goal. You can test the CTA copy, the design of the button, and its color to see what works best. Try making the button bigger, for example, or make it green for go, blue for link color, orange or red for an emotional reaction.
Hero Shot
The major photo or image that appears above the fold is known as a hero shot. It should ideally depict your product or service in action, but how do you know which hero shot would work best for which landing page? Do you side with the happy couple? Or perhaps a close-up of the product? Experiment and see what happens.
Forms
Depending on your industry, you may require more information than just a first name and an email address. If you have a pressing need for information, try conducting a test using a variety of forms of varying lengths. As a result, you’ll be able to make an informed judgment regarding what abandonment rate is acceptable in light of the additional data generated.
Copy
Long copy vs. short copy is frequently the most important element. Although shorter is normally preferable, information is critical in the decision-making process for particular products and industries. You might also try rearranging features and benefits, or changing the tone of your writing.
There are many different perspectives on what works and what doesn’t, so why not put it to the test and see for yourself?
Layout
Is it possible that a CTA on the left will outperform one on the right? Is it best to post that testimonial video at the bottom of the page or at the top? That is an excellent question. Changing the layout of a page can have a significant impact on conversions.
Is A/B Testing Worth It?
A/B testing your landing pages can help you get more conversions (sometimes a lot more conversions) out of your current efforts, boosting your overall return on investment. If you’re not careful when setting it up—for example, updating more than one aspect of a page at a time—you can make mistakes, but with a little reading, you can set yourself up for success.
However, there are a few obstacles that might make A/B testing your websites more difficult for small teams and businesses in particular:
Statistical Significance Must Be Awaited
Assume you’re flipping a coin in the air. It’s a heads up. A second time around, you flip it. Heads triumphs once more. That’s odd, you think as you flip the coin one last time. It lands on its feet once more, this time with its head up.
Are you ready to say that any flipped coin has a 100% chance of landing heads up after three flips? (Breaking News: Local Marketer Says Probability Laws Are A Waste Of Time.)
Most likely not. Imagine going to Vegas and believing that a coin flip will always result in ahead.
When you A/B test a landing page, something similar happens. You shouldn’t use your learnings until you’ve tested your versions with enough visits to attain statistical significance. Instead, you should remove as much doubt as possible before choosing a champion variant. The quantity of visits you require varies based on your objectives, but it’s usually a large number.
You Will Require Enough Traffic
Another issue for small teams is the requirement for statistical significance. You can’t (or shouldn’t) stop the A/B test if you don’t have enough traffic to be confident in your results. Landing pages can take months to produce the necessary results for a single conclusion for small organizations. And sometimes you’ll come to the conclusion that the adjustment you made (say, moving a button from red to green) had no effect on your conversion rates!
A/B testing without a lot of traffic can be too slow to be useful if you’re running a time-sensitive marketing campaign or simply want to see results immediately. Waiting a year for a 5% conversion increase on a single landing page is unlikely to be enticing, and it’ll be difficult to justify. It will not be worth your effort, given the manual headaches necessary in getting it up.
It’s a “One-Size-Fits-All” method of optimization
This is one of the drawbacks of A/B testing: you choose the version of your page that is most likely to convert a majority of your visitors when you crown a champion variant. This isn’t to say that there weren’t other categories of visitors who would have converted more on the losing variety. (It’s possible that these forgotten visitors are more valuable to your company than the ones you’ve optimized.)
A/B testing takes a blunt, “one-size-fits-all” approach to optimization by design, which is unlikely to be suitable for anyone. Yes, it can significantly increase raw conversion rates. However, it doesn’t always have the nuance that growth-oriented marketers who are obsessed with segmentation, personalization, and targeting might expect.
Alternatives to A/B Testing: Using Smart Traffic
Let’s imagine you want to improve your landing pages to increase conversions, but you can’t get past one of the roadblocks we just covered. What are your options?
Thankfully, machine learning can help you enhance your conversion rates without the high barrier to entry that A/B testing imposes. Using certain tools, small teams may automatically (or, as computer scientists like to say, automagically) improve their landing pages by letting Artificial Intelligence perform the job that a human marketer can’t.
There’s never any need to crown a champion because the AI routes each and every visitor to the landing page variant that’s most likely to convert them—based on their own unique context. No more “one-size-fits-all.”
What’s the Difference Between a Homepage and a Landing Page?
It all boils down to the purpose for which they were created. The main distinction between a homepage and a landing page is the emphasis. And the increase in conversions that results—sales, signups, leads, or whatever action you want visitors to take.
The effectiveness of landing pages in marketing is due to their focus. Unlike homepages and websites, which are meant to be explored, landing pages are tailored to a single campaign or offer and direct users to a single call to action. In a nutshell, landing pages are created with the goal of converting visitors into customers.
Because the focus of a landing page pertains to numerous aspects of a visitor’s experience:
- There is just one goal, or call to action.
- On the page, there should be as few distractions as possible.
- Design and messaging matched precisely to a campaign or ad
- Audience targeting
What is the Purpose of a Homepage?
Homepages are useful for providing general information and encouraging visitors to explore.
A homepage, as the primary entry point to a website, serves as an introduction to the company’s brand, product, services, values, who and what it’s for, who to contact, and so on. Its purpose is to make a “first impression,” to contain everything a firm has to offer and to drive users to other sections of the site to learn more.
Because a site is responsible for that high-level introduction, it must communicate to a wide range of people, even those who may have never heard of the firm, let alone know what it does or why it’s valuable. All of this results in rather generic language, several page goals, and a plethora of links, buttons, and navigation for visitors to use to complete various tasks.
While this is perfectly matched with the purpose of discovery on a homepage, it is less so for effective marketing.
Exploration is a form of distraction. When it comes to marketing, such distraction dilutes your message, creates competing links, and allows you to stray from a certain conversion target. In other words, if a PPC ad for 15% off hamster bowties directs people to your homepage, the chances that they’ll buy something are slim.
Simply put, homepages can’t do it all. Let them focus on informing and directing traffic—and landing pages focus on turning traffic into conversions.
Why Do Landing Pages Increase Traffic Conversion?
We’ve discussed how the difference between a homepage and a landing page is determined by focus. But first, let’s talk about why focusing on conversion is so vital for converting traffic into sales, leads, and customers.
A brilliant headline or a clever website design, on average, isn’t what gets a visitor to click the “Buy Now” button. From the initial ad, email, or social media click, it’s all about the complete experience. The more personalized and, yes, targeted an experience is, the more appealing it is.
Let’s return to the example of the hamster bowtie (if only for the mental image). Your expectations are aligned with the offer if you receive an email offering 15% off hamster bowties. Clicking through to a landing page dedicated to that specific campaign, complete with a gallery of bowtie designs and a call to action to purchase before the sale ends, not only matches those expectations but also directs you to the deal you’ve already expressed interest in by clicking through. If you’re directed to the Clothe Ur Rodent homepage, that personalized, streamlined experience is immediately destroyed, and you’ll have to go through all of the other information, links, and calls to action to find the deal. This resulted in a loss of momentum and a lack of focus makes it way more likely you’ll abandon the offer out of confusion, frustration, or simple distraction.
Again, there are several elements of focus that give landing pages their conversion power.
A Single Call To Action Or Purpose.
Consider a web page to be a bucket, and the traffic you send it to be water. A single hole is drilled into the bottom of a landing page bucket, allowing a trickle of water to flow naturally through that hole (call to action) and to be guided to a specific location. The bottom and sides of a homepage bucket have many holes. You can select which tap that water comes from—Instagram, email, or a Google Ad—but you can’t control which hole it’ll flow through or where it’ll settle once it’s in the bucket. Those extra holes are conversion “leaks.” Landing pages zero in on one chosen conversion goal, giving you more control over where traffic flows, and ultimately, where your marketing efforts and ad dollars go.
Keep Distractions To A Minimum
What’s required for a homepage, as previously said, is inherently distracting in the context of a marketing campaign. Website navigation, extra links, unrelated content, and numerous distinct calls to action to promote exploration compete for attention and divert it away from your conversion goal.
You don’t want to leave it up to chance that visitors will pick a particular action despite the numerous possibilities available to them. With a clutter-free page dedicated solely to your offer, you want to direct people straight to it.
A Customized Experience
The ability to completely customize a visitor’s experience from ad to click-through to conversion is one of the most significant differences between a homepage and a landing page. As a result, you can apply the required focus at a very fine level, right down to the last pixel.
Sending people to a landing page that’s tailored to match the ad, email, or social media post—with targeted messaging, a consistent design, tailored information, and a single call to action—harnesses the interest they’ve already expressed and gives them the exact experience, or better, the experience they subconsciously expect from that first click.
That concentrated, fluid experience eliminates pauses and distractions, gives you more opportunities to promote your service, and reminds visitors that you value their time and attention by offering them exactly what they want. As a result, the overall experience is significantly more engaging. Plus, the more personalized and relevant your landing page is to your ad, the higher your Quality Score and cost-per-click will be.
Targeting A Certain Audience
This personalized experience also allows for more exact audience targeting. To communicate to different members of your audience and narrow in on what’s relevant to them, one landing page can be copied, altered, and even A/B tested.
For example, if you’ve established an e-commerce landing page to promote a deal on running shoes, you can further segment your audience by creating landing pages for women’s, men’s, or children’s shoes, type of running shoe, brand, or whatever your audience is looking for. (Dynamic Text Replacement is designed to match the copy on a landing page to a visitor’s search query.
The bottom line? The difference between a homepage and a landing page comes down to focus. And that focus is what will turn more of your traffic into sales, leads, and customers.
What Is A Call To Action?
A call to action (CTA) is a short phrase that directs visitors to execute a particular action on a landing page. Your CTA is the site of conversion, with one concentrated, action-oriented button, while the body copy displays your unique value proposition (you know, all the delicious benefits to the visitor).
Your CTA should be clear about how to convert and what users can expect by converting, even if it’s only a few words or a phrase.
Let’s imagine you want to increase the number of people who join up for your yodeling lesson. “Register for a yodeling class” plainly states that people will register for a yodeling class by clicking the button. It’s that simple. Everyone benefits from a clear and direct CTA. You convert interested prospects into paying yodelers, transforming them into the coolest cats on the street.
Why A Call To Action Is Important
Your landing page’s call to action is a crucial component. You may be able to articulate your value offer effectively, but you must provide a call to action for your prospect to convert. Consider how your prospects would float around the rim of your marketing funnel if your landing page lacked a CTA. CTAs give clear, simple instructions on how to convert.
How a CTA Helps You Achieve Your Conversion Goal
The purpose of CTAs is to promote the act of converting, whatever your conversion goal may be.
That said, you can’t expect your conversion rates to skyrocket simply by slapping a huge, bright button on your landing page. Every campaign will have its own set of CTAs. As a result, you must first establish your aim in order to optimize conversions.
Identifying Your Conversion Objective
A conversion goal is a measurable aim based on the action you want visitors to perform when they arrive at your landing page. Some frequent conversion goals, depending on your campaign and industry:
- Increasing sales
- Attracting high-quality leads
- Acquiring new members
- Gaining subscriptions
- Booking consultations
- Increasing registrants
Get the idea? Once you define your objective, it’ll be much easier to write copy and design a button that supports your goal.
What is the Best Way to Write a Call to Action?
The request for writing a great call to action is actually rather simple: write with intention. Because it’s usually simply a few words, many marketers skip this responsibility. While that is accurate (“Sign up for our noon-hour webinar to learn about 2021 marketing approaches”), let’s make sure it isn’t overly simple—to the point of ambiguity. Every word should contribute to your conversion goal.
Are you leaning in expecting another word or two when you read CTA buttons like “get started” and “try now”? What should you begin with? Try…what? Your audience should have no more queries by the time they reach the CTA—they’re so close to converting that you can smell it. But if you leave room to question what they’re committing to, you also leave room for them to bounce.
We know CTAs ain’t easy to piece together in a few words. To help you check off the boxes, consider these questions:
- Does my CTA reflect my value proposition?
- Does my CTA include the action needed to convert?
- Can a visitor easily convert with my CTA?
- Is it clear what the users are committing to by clicking my CTA?
- Does my CTA align with my conversion goal?
What Is A CTA Button, Exactly?
A call to action is usually in the form of a clickable button. Why? It reduces the amount of time it takes to convert. “To sign up, click here.” (That’s all there is to it!) There’s no bother, no fuss. It takes your leads through the marketing funnel and converts them into valuable conversions once they’ve been clicked.
CTA buttons are used to direct the reader’s attention to the CTA and persuade them to convert by clicking on it. So, while you’re developing your landing page, consider how you can draw attention to the button. This could also imply that other components are toned down so that it doesn’t have to fight with them.
When it comes to CTA buttons, there’s no need to be elaborate. Stick to the fundamentals and make certain that:
- They have a defined shape or border.
- They are a different, contrasting color from the background.
- They have an intentional, action-oriented copy on them.
- The link works! (Seriously, this is important.)
Where Should Your CTA Buttons Be Placed?
Consider how users will consume and browse through your material when placing your CTA button(s), and place them in a convenient location for them to click. It’s safe to assume that most people will continue reading down the page if the reading flow is followed. As a result, having one at the top (near your title) and one at the bottom of your landing page is a good idea. It doesn’t harm to sprinkle them across your landing page if it’s long. It’s perfectly acceptable to repeat yourself in this situation.
How To Optimize Your Call To Action
It’s time to look into CTA optimization once you’ve mastered the basics. You’ve already put in the effort, so why not obtain as many conversions as possible? Furthermore, if you’re paying for visitors, the success of your CTA could have a significant impact on your cost-per-lead or sale.
In marketing, optimization is the process of improving your content so that more people engage with it and you achieve more conversions at a lower cost. What modifications can you make to improve the conversion rate of your CTA?
The response varies greatly depending on the campaign. To find your way to optimization, we propose doing some A/B testing. Create different variants of your landing page instead of testing two buttons on the same page so you can isolate each CTA you test. This will give you a better idea of which one is doing the best.
What exactly should you be testing?
Copy
Believe it or not, there are a lot of ways you can tell someone to make a purchase in a few words. Play around with different pronouns, verbs, fonts, and sizes to see how you can inspire the most action!
Color
Bright, contrasting colors are great for your CTA button. Red? Green? Yellow? Orange? Try them all and see what’s attracting clicks.
Shape and size
Changes to shape and size may not be as grand as a color swap, but trialing different options is worthy to explore. You want to make sure it stands out from the rest of the copy and design. Don’t forget to see how it looks on mobile!
Click triggers
Although these may not actually be on the CTA button itself, it’s worth testing the surrounding copy and design as well. Calling attention to limited supplies or timed offers, for example, are two copywriting tactics to get people to click right away
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Dentistry
Food & Beverage
Healthcare & Medical
Heavy Equipment
Home Repair
Industrial Companies
Legal
Local Consumer Services
Professional Services
Recreational & Entertainment
Tourism & Hospitality
Veterinary
