Spencer PloesslAre you driving traffic to your website? My guess would be yes, but the real question is what are you doing with those visitors once they land on your homepage (or any page on your site for that matter)? Do you want them to arrive, poke around, soak up a few tidbits about your company, and call it a day? Or would you rather be generating quality leads or prospects from your website [which you probably spent a pretty penny on] that you’re able to call up, send an email to, or nurture down the sales funnel to make that sale? Great! Then this article is for you.
You’ve spent all this time driving traffic to your website… so you don’t want to lose them on your landing page. You’re here to figure out how to optimize your landing pages, but first let me provide a little refresher.
What is a Landing Page?
A landing page is a web page that allows you to capture a visitor’s information through a simple form. A good landing page will target a particular audience, such as traffic from an email campaign promoting a particular ebook, or visitors who click on a pay-per-click ad promoting a specific campaign. Therefore, it’s important to build a unique landing page for each of the offers you create. You can build landing pages that allow visitors to download your content offers (ebooks, whitepapers, webinars, etc.), or sign up for offers like free trials or demos of your product.
5 Essential Items Every Landing Page Must Have
- Headline
- Visual
- Benefits
- Form
- Call-to-Action
Now I’m not just going to leave you with this list because that wouldn’t make any sense. So, let’s unpack these items one by one to gain a clear understanding of how to optimize your landing pages.
Simple Headline
A clear, concise, and simple headline should convey exactly what the offer is that the user is about to input their information for. This headline, which most people do not put enough time into because they feel it is the easy part, is actually the MOST important piece of your whole landing page. If your headline is too long—or the messaging is not in synch with the call-to-action (CTA) that the user clicked on to get to your landing page—you’re going to lose them!
Keep it simple, keep it brief, and provide the user with just enough information to keep them focused on filling out that form.
Engaging Visual
Did you know that 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals are processed 60,000X faster in the brain than text. [via HubSpot]
That, my dear reader, is why imagery is so highly important.
If you’re not focused on the use and placement of engaging visuals, your user is going to become distracted and you’ll most certainly lose them. The images you use to optimize your landing pages should evoke feelings inside your user that drive them to a distinct call-to-action and ultimately convince them to fill out that landing page form and become a lead in your database.
Most people are visual learners. In fact, up to 60% of the population consists of visual learners, meaning they prefer watching or looking over reading. Images appeal to visual learners. Therefore, it’s important to feature images, especially high resolution images, to capture the attention of your users and make them feel the real life experience of your brand. [stat via HubSpot]
Positive Benefits
Many people believe that landing pages must have tons of information on them so the user feels like they know all there is to know about what they are getting by filling out that form. Sorry, incorrect!
The goal here is to provide the user with only essential information about the offer at hand so as to, once again, not distract them from filling out that form. The copy structure on your landing page should consist of a sentence or two to explain the offer in a bit more detail, a short 3-5 bulleted list of positive benefits about the offer, and a brief directional sentence to guide them to the form. Meshing together these three components will help create that successfully optimized landing page.
Essential Form
The best way to capture a lead or prospect’s information within your database is through the inclusion of that essential form. Why do I say essential? Well, because once again you’ve done all this hard work to get that user on your site and now onto your landing page. The least you can do is ask for some information about them before they leave and enjoy the offer they have just downloaded or await the content that they have requested.
Talking about how to optimize the forms on your landing page for higher conversion is going to have to be an article written at a later date and time. But to put it in layman’s terms…the more fields you have on your form, the more qualified the leads will be; but that also means a higher barrier to entry. By contrast, the fewer fields the user has to fill out on your form creates a much lower barrier to entry, but also means the quality of those leads may drop significantly as well. The best thing to do is test and see what works best for your landing pages.
Distinct Call-to-Action
This fifth essential item is by far the most shiny little gem that should stick out on your landing page. You’ve done a great job at optimizing your landing page with the other four essential items, but now you need to expressly tell people to wilfully send their information to you. At the end of that landing page form, create a distinct call-to-action button that does just that.
Don’t use boring and non-converting words like “Submit” or “Download.” Give that user a sense of urgency and personalization. Something like, “Get Me My Ebook Now!” or “Start My Free Trial.” Ensure that you’re going to get that user’s information by making the call-to-action feel like they just won a million bucks!
The Bottom Line
Optimizing landing pages is crucial for effective lead generation, but optimizing them doesn’t stop after creating that simple headline, using engaging visuals, including positive benefits, building that essential form, and delivering that distinct call-to-action. No, no, no, no, no. Once you’ve implemented these 5 essential elements, you can still take your landing pages to the next level.
That’s why I’ve got this beautiful little resource for you! It’s an ebook called, “Optimizing Landing Pages for Lead Conversion.” You can download it and begin your journey to a deeper understanding of how to further optimize your landing pages and develop a better strategy for lead conversion.
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