Build high-converting landing pages
Build high-converting landing pages
1. Understand the problems, needs, and wants of your target audience.
If you intend on driving traffic via advertising and running many ads, create many versions of your landing page. They can be mostly the same, but tweak the headline and copy to suit the specific audience your ads are targeting.
2. Define the most-wanted action (MWA) users should take, based on your product and strategy.
If your product is somewhat expensive and complicated, it’s better to just get their email address and grow the relationship via email. If you’re selling cheaper or more straightforward products like wine or socks, go directly for the sale. If your product is software, focus on a free-trial.
3. Create an easy-to-understand message based on your audience, their problem, and the solution you offer.
There’s no way to know in advance what will work, so create a few hypotheses and split test them.
4. Before working on the design, be clear about what you want to include and leave off of the page.
Elements you need on your landing page: A prominent headline that summarizes the offering and its primary benefit. Clearly presented list of ways the product helps the visitor overcome their problems or achieve their goals. More detail lower on the page about how it delivers on the benefits, through the features of the product. Social proof to reinforce the value of the product. A clear and simple call to action. Copy that addresses any objections the visitor might have that prevents them from taking action. Elements you should leave out: Navigation menu. Focus only on your offer. Links to other parts of your sites, like your About Us page. Distracting images unrelated to the product or offer. Hard-to-read text. Anything less than 12px. Long, scary forms with unnecessary fields, such as title or fax. A Clear fields button. Links like Click here to subscribe or Click here to read more. Let the user scroll down, scrolling is almost always better than clicking to another page.
5. Put the page layout and copy together, and upload it to your site using simple URLs that users can easily recognize.
Simple URLs often generate better click-through rates, and users looking for specific products or offers are more likely to click on a link or ad with a keyword-rich URL. For example, if your landing page is about job offers to work on an oil rig, your URL should be something like example.com/oil-rig-job-offers/.
6. Carry out some qualitative testing with users on the page, before launch.
Although A/B testing will be an invaluable part of optimizing your page over time, putting the page in front of a handful of users before launching, will give you insights into how people may emotionally respond and any unanswered questions they might have. It provides you a chance to see and hear how people will respond.