Landing Page Essentials
Landing pages typically allow qualified visitors to sign up to receive additional information, download content offers, or redeem other marketing offers. Through their content, landing pages allow you to target a specific audience, offer them something of value, and convert a higher percentage of visitors into leads.
According to MarketingSherpa’s Landing Page Handbook (2nd edition), 44% of clicks for B2B companies are directed to the business’ homepage, not a special landing page. Furthermore, of the B2B companies that are using landing pages, 62% have six or fewer total landing pages.
Landing pages are the heart and soul of an inbound marketer’s lead generation efforts, so why are they still so underutilized? MarketingSherpa cites that the number one reason businesses don’t use landing pages is because their marketing department doesn’t know how to set them up or they are too overloaded. We’ve outlined some key essential components for landing pages below.
- A killer headline and compelling subheading(s): the first 3 seconds belong to the headline and this will decide whether your prospects would like to stay on the page or not. Your subheading should be short but offer a few more details to how you can solve a need.
- Clear copy: use bullet points to demonstrate clear takeaways and break up large blocks of text, and keep it brief and to-the-point. What will the person get out of your offer? Will they learn how to do something? Become more knowledgeable about a specific topic? How will the information be presented to them?
- Solid Design:
- Color: The psychology of color is real, and it does affect viewer perceptions. Red indicates warnings, blue is serene, etc. While it’s useful for a landing page to match your company colors, it doesn’t have to.
- Whitespace: Do not cram every inch of your landing page full of text, graphics, or numbers. Leave ‘breathing room’ between items. It makes the page more attractive, and easier to read.
- Images: A good landing page mixes text and imagery. Too much emphasis on either will go awry, although we’d say if you’re going to err, err on the side of more graphics rather than more text. The right picture is worth 1,000 words.
- Video: No other element on a landing page will do more to increase conversions than a short video highlighting the benefits of the offer – even if that video is just summarizing the page’s own copy. Putting a video on a landing page increases conversion by 80%.
- A clear, bold Call to Action (CTA): it’s important to understand that your landing page should be focused around one single offer. Make your CTA very clear and feel free to get creative. Instead of a simple “Learn More”, try something more catchy like “Get a Free Assessment” or “Start Saving Time”.
- Proof (testimonials, statistics, etc): testimonials serve as a trust raising factor for your prospects. Insert real testimonials to boost the conversion rate. Statistics are easy to reveal and understand if they are clear.
- Signup form: as a best practice, only ask for information you need from your leads in order to effectively follow up with and/or qualify them.
- Reduce the noise: eliminate headers and navigation and keep the footer links to a minimum (i.e Privacy Policy, Disclosure, etc) – the idea here is to eliminate distractions and keep your potential lead from jumping off the page to something else that catches their eye.
- Contact Information: at a minimum an email address, ideally also include a phone number. Try Live Chat for an instant contact tool.
- Mobile Friendly: today over 52% of internet users are browsing from smartphones. Having a mobile responsive landing page is absolutely crucial.
- Social share buttons: make it easy for users to pass your information to others to the most popular social media channels. Don’t miss out on this simple opportunity to extend the reach of your landing page and the content it offers beyond your direct network and reach.
Still need help? The Apis team is ready to assist!
