What Makes A Great Landing Page

Landing pages are usually the first (and sometimes only) page a user will see after clicking from a marketing campaign. The campaign could be something like paid search ads, a display advertising banner, or a promotional email. Landing pages also usually direct users to take a specific action, like signing up for an email, registering, or completing a purchase.

If you have a good landing page then you’ll have a good ROI. But, if you have a bad landing page, well you guessed it - bad ROI. I want to help you identify a good landing page vs. a bad landing page and what better way than to show you how to create a great landing page.

Start With Data

Have you ever been on a webpage that seems like it was talking to you? The product seems to solve a very real problem in your life and as soon as a question pops in your head, the answer is there on the page? If so, it’s likely that the company started with data and you’re their ideal prospect.

If you want your landing page to speak to a target audience, step 1 is to understand them. If you can empathize with who's visiting the page you will know what drives them and what their concerns are. Have a Google Analytics expert take a look at your instance and analyze things about your audience, like:

• Who they are - age, job, country, etc
• What are they using the product for - is it to increase pleasure or reduce pain?
• What competitors have they looked at?
• How will they look at your site? Desktop, tablet, mobile?

Landing pages are not the place where you show off how creative and smart you are. It’s about connecting with the user and communicating the value you offer in the way that resonates. Clarity trumps persuasion here.

Understand The Goal Of Page

Now that you know your user you can create the perfect landing page right? Wrong. This is where a lot of businesses get it wrong. They create a custom landing page and send all their traffic there. That’s as bad as sending campaign traffic to your homepage.

The second step is determining what you want the user to do once they reach the landing page. Is it to sign up for your email list, register for a webinar, place an order? Just to reiterate, keep the number of goals to a minimum. Landing pages are not designed to have a dozen goals and if they do, your conversions will suffer.

Finally, Create The Landing Page

With the solid foundation of knowing your user and the goal of the page, now you get to create the landing page. First, you should know all the ways users get to the page and make sure the messaging matches or is a logical progression of the conversation. You can tell a bad landing page when you land on the page and think, “Am I in the right place?”

Once you solve for continuity from the marketing campaign, next you’ll need to make sure the whole page is congruent. Congruence comes from all the elements communicating the same goal. Remember each and every element either adds to the goal or distracts from it.

Good landing pages also have a clear, concise, benefit-driven copy. Use the data from step 1 to help create the most compelling reason the user should take action. Compelling value copy contains the following:

• Speaks to the user in their language
• States what the product or service does
• Tells the user why they should use you

The final and most important element on the landing page is the call to action. Without it, you will have zero conversions and no ROI. So to create a good call to action it will clearly tell the user what’s next like “Get Our Custom Excel Reports”. Another good approach is to only ask for what’s necessary. Using the previous example, we can ask for only an email address. It’s unnecessary to ask for their name, address, and phone number. Remove as much friction as you can to help maximize conversions.  

Now whether you’re making a new landing page or working to optimize some of your old ones I hope I’ve provided you with enough examples on how to get the most ROI from them.

If you have more questions or need more landing page Conversion Rate Optimization tips, feel free to reach out to the experts here at Marcel Digital! We'd love to hear more about your business goals and how we can help you achieve them!