What Do I Need To Create A Successful Landing Page?

What Do I Need To Create A Successful Landing Page?

For many web designers or SEO experts, the biggest problem can be their landing page. The harsh reality is that its design and content need to be top quality. Otherwise, all of your search engine optimization is wasted, as your visitor will simply leave the site. Over time this will also mean your bounce rate will suffer, which could in turn affect your SERPs rankings.

What Is A Landing Page?

A landing page is the first page your visitor is directed to from a search engine. A lot of thought and effort should go into its planning, organization, and look. You need to grab hold of your visitor’s interest, and not let go. This means you need to have excellent and interesting content, which is very relevant to what the visitor was searching for. The aim of any landing page is to convert your visitor into a customer. In order to do this, you need to have a clear and precise idea of what your customer is looking for.

Look At Your Competition

Before I go any further I am not recommending you copy directly from your competition. However, analyze closely what the top sites are doing, visit their landing pages, and learn which tactics they are employing to convert customers. There is no point in reinventing the wheel, look at what your competition is doing, and then work out a way to improve on it and make it even better.

Build A Picture Of Your Ideal Customer

This might sound strange but trust me, it works. Set aside some time and write out the profile of your perfect customer. Are they male or female? How old are they? What motivates them? What are they passionate about? Once you have a clearly defined picture of your ideal customer, it is then much easier to design your landing page for them. You will know exactly what key points to cover, and all of the buttons to press and you will see a drastic increase in your conversions. This is something that very few people dedicate any time to, which is one of the reasons that so many campaigns fail. People then give up with frustration, when they simply were not laser-focused on providing exactly what the customer wants.

Explain The Benefits To Your Visitor

Your readers are visiting your website for one reason and one reason only. They don’t want to read a lot of fluff and baloney. You need to ensure your content is punchy and informative and gives the visitor exactly the information they require. And they need to see that information within seconds of landing on your page. Think about it, they are actively searching for information. In its simplest form, your job is to provide that information and close the sale.

Have Different Landing Pages For Different Readers

There are many different ways that people can end up on your landing page, and it is important to consider having a different one for each type of visitor. Someone who ends up on your landing page as a result of Google Adwords may be ready to buy instantly. On the other hand, if they have arrived from an organic search they may need a little more information. All good marketers will be forever split testing to find the perfect solution. It could even be argued that perfection can never be achieved, and tweaking and testing are a constant part of the process.

Direct The Reader To Do Whatever You Want Them To Do

Every landing page should be designed with a sole purpose in mind. You want to grab your visitor by the hand, and take control. He should be ready to make a purchase by the time he finishes reading your page. and as the website owner, it is your responsibility to give them that final push. Always ensure that your landing page has a strong and clear call to action. Don’t leave your reader in any doubt about what they should do next. A well-written call to action can drive your sales through the roof.

Walk Them Through The Maze Of Their Objections

The fact that your visitor has landed on your site, is a strong signal that they are keen to read your information, or even buy your product. An important part of anyone’s buying process is overcoming objections. When writing your page, try and work out which objections people might have that would stop them from buying. If you have done your research and know your ideal customer, you will also be in a stronger position to negate their objections.

Be confident and bring those objections front and center and then dismiss them one by one. Demonstrate the return on investment buying your product will bring them. Talk about the positives of your product and how it solves their problem, and point out the risks they are taking if they don’t buy. Explain why your product is superior to everything else out there on the market. Literally, smash every objection they could possibly have and make them rush to get their payment method entered.

Build Trust And Confidence In Your Product

Forget the internet for a second, think about real life. If a random stranger was to approach you and recommend a movie, would you go and watch it? Possibly, but that recommendation alone wouldn’t have you rushing to the movie theatre. But if some of your friends, the local radio station, the national newspaper and everyone you met couldn’t stop talking about the movie, you would be much more inclined to go and see it. People love to feel confident in their products, which is why the reviews on Amazon are so valuable. If you have positive customer reviews on your landing page, maybe even video reviews from real people, that will help to inspire confidence and trust in your product, and close the sale.

Provide All The Information Your Customer Needs

The hardest part of any sale is closing the deal, convincing your reader to part with their cash. That is the sole job of the landing page so you need to throw everything you have at the customer. You will probably recognize some of these tactics from sites you have visited before.

  • Remind the reader of everything they are getting, and all the positives they will gain from buying the product
  • Throw in some freebies or bonuses to sweeten the deal
  • Consider invoking a sense of urgency. Encourage visitors to purchase by announcing limited-time offers, or price increases.

Your Landing Page Should Look Great And Load Quickly

The experts will tell you that most people need have their interest piqued within eight seconds of landing on the page. This means your page needs to not only be full of quality information relevant to the reader, but it needs to look fantastic. It is also essential that your page looks good regardless of the platform. An increasing majority of people browse the internet on their cell phones or tablet.

Google will soon penalize sites that don’t format well on mobile devices so ensure your site looks great regardless of platform.  It also needs to load quickly, even if they are not using a fast connection. If the page loads slowly or freezes people will give up and move on, particularly on mobile devices.

It may seem like there are a lot of things you need to take into consideration when creating a landing page, and quite simply there are. But a good landing page can make you a lot of sales, so take your time and tweak your page continually. If you follow the points above, you will be well on the way to a successful promotion.