Your landing page should speak to your target audience. When someone arrives on your website, do they know the purpose and what action to take next? You likely have a goal for your business, such as converting them into a customer. But, do you pay attention to what the customer needs?
Hubspot found companies using a strong middle-of-the-funnel approach increased their conversions between four to 10 times. Knowing where users are in the buyer’s journey and focusing on their needs results in more success.
If you want to make your landing pages more customer-focused, here are some things you can do today!
1. Have a Single Offer
One mistake many businesses make is cramming all their offers into one page. It’s much better to have multiple landing pages than to confuse the visitor. Hone in the goal of each page and get rid of anything not moving the user toward the objective.
Lyft is a ride sharing service that caters to both riders and drivers. They feature two separate landing pages, depending on the reason you’re visiting their site. If you want to sign up to drive for them, they have a page with a clear focus on working for the company.
They talk about the company, the benefits of driving for them over competitors and answer frequent questions potential contractors have.
2. Tweak Your Subheaders
You likely spent a lot of time with your headline. After all, it’s what people searching for a phrase see in the search engine results pages (SERPs) and what catches their eye when they land on your page. However, your subheaders can have a secondary impact that drives users toward converting into leads.
3. Know Your UVP
What is the unique value proposition (UVP) for your page? You must understand not only what your UVP is but how it benefits your customer. They don’t care if you have the highest revenue in your industry, but they do care if you offer the best prices or some other perk that matters to them.
Zen Payments shares their UVP of how they are the go-to provider for high risk merchant accounts. By explaining they are experts in the industry, they highlight many benefits without coming right out and listing them above the fold. As the user scrolls down, they can see the specific situations that apply.
4. Revamp Your Headline
Is your headline catchy enough? It should immediately grab and engage your user. If it doesn’t use action verbs, it’s time to rethink what it says.
Pay attention to how many people click on your title from SERPs. If you aren’t getting much traffic from Google and Bing, then it may be time to rethink the phrasing.
Try to work a keyword phrase into your titles, as well. People will better understand what the page is about and whether it applies to them. You don’t just want a ton of traffic, you want highly targeted leads who convert into customers.
5. Move Your CTA
Your call to action (CTA) can make or break your landing page. You can make it more customer-focused by thinking about where to place the button. If the user has to hunt for it, then it isn’t going to be as effective. Consider moving it to above the fold or having more than one.
Nauto offers fleet safety equipment and consultations. Their landing page features an offer for a free ebook on how to improve stability of your work vehicles. The CTA reads “Get the ebook” and is placed above the fold.
6. Know Pain Points
What are your customers’ pain points? What is the problem driving them to seek your brand as a solution in the first place? When you understand the issues they face, you can show how you solve things.
Take the pain points and make them the benefits of doing business with your brand. List out the key features of your product and service as they apply to the customer’s needs.
7. Use Video
Video offers high quality images and a way to engage site visitors. People can rapidly absorb a video where they might not have time to dig into endless strings of words.
Adding video to the header of your landing page allows you to say a lot without any words at all. Think about what you wish to show your users and share that in your footage.
Airbnb has a landing page for people thinking about offering short-term rentals to travelers. They add a video to the right side of the hero section featuring different hosts in different areas of the world opening their homes to travelers.
8. Establish Trustworthiness
People have no reason to trust you when they land on your page. Unless they have an established relationship with your brand, they don’t know if you’ll stand behind your word. Adding trust factors helps show you stand behind your products.
Add customer reviews, testimonials and make your return/exchange policies clear. Include contact information, so users know they can get in touch if they have a problem they need to resolve.
Ask for Feedback
Ask your regular customers if they’ll send you feedback on your landing page. What elements work for them and what don’t? Ask them which features they care most about and which points made them choose to buy from you versus a competitor.
You can try to see your landing page through the customers’ eyes, but you will still have your own prejudices in favor of your company. Getting outside feedback is vital to running a truly customer-centric site.
Author
Eleanor Hecks is the editor of Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.
Companies spend a lot of time planning out how to best reach customers online. Creating a landing page for your website is just one step in a massive process that drives the consumer from mildly interested to raving fan of your brand. You likely have a budget to drive traffic to your pages, but once the consumer lands on your page, what does he or she see?
Seventy-five percent of brands have trouble finding expertise on how to build a landing page. That means you have to be proactive and figure out what works for you and your company. The five tips below are a good place to start when figuring out the best ways to present a landing page.
1. Know Your Target Market
Your first step to figuring out what your target audience wants is to know who they are and what makes them tick. There are a number of ways to figure this out. A good place to start is with website analytics. Figure out who is visiting your site, from where and at what times of day. Next, poll your current active users and figure out some additional specifics. Do they have families? Why did they come to your site? The deeper you can dig into the people who use your site, the more targeted your information becomes.
Shopify’s landing page gets right to the point. They understand that someone visiting their website is likely looking to open up shop, so they want to make it as easy as possible. Note the limited choices on the page. They are an e-commerce platform, so they point out how they can help you sell on a website, social media or even in a brick-and-mortar store.
2. Conduct Testing
Taking the time to perform A/B testing can mean the difference in conversion rates. Try different methods on your landing page or even different pages. Test not only when you first create the page, but throughout the life of your website. Your audience demographics can change from time to time. Be prepared to change with any audience shifts. Simply refining your landing page over time will bring your conversion rates up.
Bills.com seems to understand their target audience well enough to know that the average person landing on their page is concerned about being in debt and is looking for solutions. They get right to the point, inviting the user to choose their debt amount and “Continue.” Over time, Bills.com has changed the look of their landing page. This is most likely the result of extensive testing. Note the colors on the page. The blue is soothing. They’ve added trust factors to the bottom of the landing page. The invitation to continue is in a bright orange-red to draw the user’s attention.
3. Video
Users respond well to video for the most part. Today’s internet surfer has faster connections and is visually driven. Adding a video to your landing page increases conversion rates a whopping 86 percent. However, you do have to ensure the video is high quality and that it pertains to the topic at hand. Throwing just any old video up won’t work. The video itself needs to be aimed at conversions.
Readitfor.me takes books and research on the ways people learn and then provides the information in a highly personal and satisfying way. By presenting the books in video format, in smaller snippets, the information can be utilized in business meetings or for personal growth. Because their product is a video platform, it makes sense that they have a video when you land on their page. The video explains what Readitfor.me does.
4. More Information
Some site visitors will head to your website because they’ve already heard about your company and want in-depth information. While this is only a portion of your site traffic, you do need to have an option for these people who already have the basics and want more. Providing a FAQ section, a link to click on for “more information” and contact forms will allow this particular demographic to gain the information they want.
Note that Semcor has a “request literature” call to action button on the bottom left. The button is in orange to grab the user’s attention. One of the main reasons the company drives traffic to their landing page is to get their resources in the hands of potential customers. Adding a CTA button with clear instructions is an easy way for their audience to get in touch with them quickly and get the info they need.
5. Need for Speed
Is your landing page loading quickly enough? The average mobile user will wait six to 10 seconds for your page to load and then will simply leave. Studies show that every second you can speed up your website, your sticky factor improves. If your landing pages aren’t converting the way you want them to, one factor might be the speed of your page and how well that is meeting the needs of your audience. Improve speed by optimizing images, limiting elements on the page and paying for a fast server.
Note how Groupon loads at lightning speed, even though there are images on their landing page. They understand their users are as likely to shop on mobile devices as desktops. The page loads quickly even at slower internet speeds, such as on a cell phone in an-out-of-the-way location.
Meeting Your Audience Halfway
Fans tend to be forgiving of a few minor issues here and there. Use an orange button instead of a red one or have a small typo, and they will likely overlook it. However, if you fail to pay attention to what your target audience wants and to fix those issues over time, then you will start to lose customers and lose conversions. Taking the time to consistently test your landing pages will ensure that those who land on your page are engaged and happy.
About Author
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.
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
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
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
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
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.
Google pay per click advertising is the reason why some organizations are still alive. Google’s entire operation revolves around providing the best user experience for advertiser and end user. Dynamic Search Ads is just another advancement inside Google’s complicated advertising system aimed at providing advertisers a better chance at conversions. Right now this system is in beta which you can apply for. Should be a nice a addition to Google’s advertising tool.
Google Dynamic Search Ads Video
How does it work?
“Dynamic Search Ads target relevant searches with ads generated directly from your web site — dynamically. With Dynamic Search Ads, we keep a fresh index of your inventory using Google’s organic web crawling technology. When a relevant search occurs, we dynamically generate an ad with a headline based on the query, and the text based on your most relevant landing page.”
At some point in time if you run an online business you will need to have effective and profitable landing pages to optimize your online marketing approach. I have seen good landing pages and I have seen my share of horrendous ones as well. The folks over at Pardot put together this great infographic showcasing the right areas to address on your landing pages.
They break it down into 4 important categories:
- Design
- Forms
- Value
- Analyze
Everyone these days seems to be all about acquiring Facebook “likes” for their branded Facebook pages. Yes it is important but there are some important elements you need to understand before you become obsessed with growing this little number. Just setting up a basic FB page is nowhere near enough these days and you have to entice people to become a part of your community by offering something of value. Acquiring more fans for your page requires dedication and patience and you have to be willing to pour on the branding in order to get it done.
1. Don’t purchase bogus liking services
One of the biggest scams out there now revolves around “companies” trying to sell merchants more like button hits. Most of these services are bogus and typically result in nothing but fake Facebook accounts that have been set up in order to look like real people. Some of these companies even take your hard earned cash and simply disappear into thin air. Just because they have a nice website with a U.S address does not mean they will be doing a good job for you. Facebook likes have to happen naturally. If you need to force them or purchase them you are doing something wrong.
2. Start branding your business!
If all you have is a website with very little to no branding efforts implemented it will be somewhat difficult to build up a following on Facebook. When people follow a FB page they are not following a website, they are following a brand they have made a connection with. This connection comes in many different flavors you just have to figure out how to connect with your audience. Maybe it revolves around emotion or possibly discount but whatever it is there needs to be a connection some sort.
3. Get a Facebook box for your website
A Facebook Like box is a great way to build up those FB fans. By having it sit on your site template for every page of your website it will really give your audience a reason to hit the button. If this box sits in a strategic location on every page of your website you will increase the opportunity for someone to hit the like button and become a fan.
4. Custom Facebook fan page
The online space is growing exponentially every single day. With so much data and content being born you owe it to your business to try and stand out as much as possible. Using a custom Facebook landing page for your fan site will help you do just that. Custom pages can allow your brand to stand out just a little bit more than just dropping people off on your wall.
5. Give your audience a reason to become a fan
Unless you are a big household brand name you are going to have to entice your audience to become a fan of your Facebook fan page. If you are a dentist in Milwaukee don’t be discouraged because you only have a few fans on your account. Give your patients and audience a reason by offering discounts and coupons. If your business does not have the “sexy” factor some of the other larger brands do it will require a bit more work to get things rolling.
6. Offer a contest
Contests are a great way to build up your fan page because most people like free stuff, if you don’t you need help. Many brands will offer a contest but in order to be part of the contest you need to become a fan of the page.
Example:
7. Put it in your newsletter
If you don’t have a monthly company newsletter you should. I speak with people all the time which say that they have hundreds and sometimes even thousands of email addresses from current and past clients they don’t know what to do with. By placing a link to your company Facebook fan page in your newsletter you can and will significantly increase your exposure to your page.
8. Start writing content
A really nice way to build up your Facebook fan page is to connect your like box with some sort of content engine. Your blog is a great content engine that can help you achieve this. Include your like box on your blog and write as much as you can while engaging in social media. When you start to develop social media traffic over to your website that is when your like box will start to fill up.
Many business owners who have never depended on the digital space to attract new business have found themselves in an unfamiliar territory in recent years. With a rather large portion of off line marketing disappearing and shifting towards a new digital marketing era sites like Facebook have left them scratching their heads on what to do next. The media has flooded the web space with Facebook headlines causing website owners to realize that they need to be there but not necessarily understand how to do it properly.
Here are some of the different elements that are important when building a Facebook fan page:
The Logo
Always make sure your logo renders correctly. There is nothing worse for building your brand than placing logos that do not appear correctly on the fan page.
Photos
You always want to take advantage of your photo section within your Facebook fan page. This is a nice area where you can actually customize your photos or pull some images from your website to build the attractiveness of your FB page. Some people even take a very creative spin on how to fill this image section.
Custom Page
A custom landing page is a great way to set yourself apart from your competition. Many businesses large and small are really focusing on custom Facebook landing pages to help really brand themselves in a new light when it comes to how their audience perceives them. Some experts say that dropping visitors directly on your wall is “bad” but it really depends on what your goals are with your page.
The “Like” Button
This is probably the holy grail of the Facebook fan page. The goal is to get as many fans to “like” your page in order to get your status updates to appear in their wall stream.
