Landing pages are specially designed pages on your website that convert your website visitors to leads and are a critical component of inbound marketing. They have one specific purpose and that is to collect information from your website visitors in exchange for access to a compelling offer. There are a few guidelines to follow to ensure that you maximize the effect of your landing page.
Remove Primary Website Navigation
The purpose of your landing page is to get your website visitors to complete the form on the page. All actions that distract visitors from the process should be removed. This means removing the primary website navigation to help website visitors through the form completion process. The idea is you want to create a process that requires completion before the visitor can return and view the rest of your website.
Use Action-oriented Headings
The landing page heading is going to be one of the first things your visitors see. The text should be action-oriented and consistent with the text they saw on the call to action button to get to this step. This helps visitors know they’re in the right place, and it reinforces what they are supposed to do. ”Download the free marketing template” or “Register for the upcoming social media for small business webinar” are good, relevant headings.
Describe the Benefits of the Compelling Offer
The landing page needs to contain a clear description of the benefits the compelling offer will provide to the visitor. The call to action button, the landing page headline, and any landing page graphics can provide a good summary, but you have the opportunity to specifically spell out how the compelling offer will help them. Use bulleted lists to be as specific as possible.
Use Graphics to Reinforce Benefits
Besides the heading, graphics will be one of the first things your visitors see on your landing pages. Use graphics to summarize the problem your compelling offer will solve. Language that makes the visitor realize he’s in the right place as well a description of the intended outcome the compelling offer provides will help the visitor want to complete the process.
Minimize the Number of Form Fields
Finally, balance the number of form fields you want visitors to complete prior to receiving the compelling offer with how many leads you want to capture versus how qualified you want those leads to be. You may want to start with using a very short form and capture name and email address only.
If you’re being swamped with irrelevant leads, then increase the amount of information you’re collecting in your form. This will help your lead qualification, but will most likely, reduce your conversion rate. You’ll need to experiment to figure out the optimal number of fields to require.
What other guidelines do you have for creating landing pages that convert?
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