With only 22% of businesses happy with their conversion rates, looking at every aspect of your marketing, including landing pages, is a task that can make a huge impact. However, knowing just what to put on a landing page in order to up your conversion rates can be a real challenge.

 

A/B split testing can help, but you’ll also want to avoid basic landing page flaws such as too much text, not focusing on one topic, or making the conversion process too complicated. Once you have your focus and you’ve limited the text, you’ll want to make sure your landing page has these four essential elements.

 

1. Video

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Using videos on your landing page increases conversions by 80%. How you include that video can vary. You might use it as a background, a header or a small section of the landing page.

 

 

Bears Ears uses a beautiful video as an essential part of the landing page. The moment you land on the page, a video streams and is the main focus of the page. The rest of the content on the page is extremely limited. You have a short line of text explaining what Bears Ears is and an option to skip the video. That’s it. Quite simple, attention grabbing and effective.

 

While you might not include video in the exact same way, studying what Bears Ears has done will give you some ideas of how to incorporate video into the overall look of your landing page. The video should be high quality and directly related to your product or service.

 

2. Call to Action Button

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If you don’t ask your site visitors to take an action, they may not know what you want them to do. A simple solution to this is to create a strong call to action (CTA) button on your landing page. The CTA should offer a few clear elements:

 

• It should be easy to find.
• It should be a bold color that contrasts with the background.
• It should use action words.

 

Personalizing your CTA wording can increase your click-through rates even more. ContentVerve discovered that using first-person phrasing created a 90% increase in click-through rates.

 

 

Phase 1 Prototypes offers a good example of a strong CTA button on its landing page. The background on its landing page is a simple white. Big images slide in and out of different physical packaging prototypes. The CTA button is bright orange. The words are a simple action and say “work with us.” All of this comes together to strongly encourage the consumer to convert into a client.

 

To write your own compelling CTA, think about what action you most want those who land on your page to take. Now, how can you describe that action in just a few short words? Once you’ve worked through that information, you’ll have your CTA wording. You can then find complementary colors for your website design and perhaps do some split testing to see which colors and position work best for conversions.

 

3. Strong Headline

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Since 80% of online visitors go no further than the headline, it is easy to see just how important a captivating headline is to a landing page. There are many elements that make up a good headline. One important thing to keep in mind is that the headline should both grab the reader’s attention and describe what the page is about.

 

 

An excellent example of a page with a strong headline that gets right to the point is ACSL. The site has a big, bold font that reads “Autopilot Technology” with the CTA directly under it to encourage the visitor to try out a flight simulation of the drone it is advertising. There are very few words on the page, and they are all used to their best advantage, but the headline stands out.

 

For your own landing page, think of what headline will most easily grab a reader’s interest. How can you hook the reader but still keep the focus on the topic of your landing page? It is also best to keep your headline short enough to fit on a single line.

 

4. High-Quality Images

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People only remember about 10% of the information they hear, but if you add a relevant and high-quality image to that information, most people will retain about 65% of it. If you want clients to remember details about your landing page, beautiful imagery that relates to the information you want to get across is the key.

 

The internet is such a visual medium anyway, it isn’t surprising you need some beautiful images to bring a landing page to life. However, when designing a page, it is easy to forget this concept in an effort to make pages load as fast as possible. Simplicity is a good thing, but not when the quality of the overall design suffers for it.

 

 

A good example of a landing page that uses strong, relevant images to get a point across is NEORig. The company manufactures “high-quality automated land drilling systems and rig components.” It makes sense it would include images of this equipment on its landing page, but these aren’t just any old photographs. They are high definition with unique angles and views of the equipment that draw the eye.

 

When choosing strong photos for your page, always ask if they are relevant to the topic at hand. It doesn’t make sense to include a beautiful image of a sunset over a lake when you’re trying to sell bathroom fixtures. You must choose images relevant to your site.

 

Making sure your landing page has these four essentials will up the odds of your success. The better your landing page, the higher your conversions should be.

 

Lexie Lu is a designer and writer. She loves researching trends in the web and graphic design industry. She writes weekly on Design Roast and can be followed on Twitter @lexieludesigner.