As you begin the planning stages for building a new landing page, there are a few best practices to keep in mind. We have compiled nine best practices for designing an effective landing page. Following these guidelines will help to improve your page’s user experience and turn bounced traffic into valuable leads.
THE 9 ELEMENTS OF A HIGH CONVERTING LANDING PAGE
1 Your Logo & Digital Marketing
Start by including your logo in your landing page’s header. This will help to establish authority and build brand consistency. The branding in your ads should match the logo on your landing page to avoid any confusion and create a consistent experience.
2 Contact Info
Add your contact info to the header and footer of the page. Keep the majority of contact info in the footer. Any essential contact info like your contact number and conversion link can be added to the header. You want your leads to visit your location without any confusion over where you are. If the business serves a service area, be sure to include that info as well.
For your location pages, consider embedding a Google Maps section with your content. This will help any mobile users easily find your location. Utilizing Google tools on your page can also send positive signals to Google’s page crawlers and help to improve your search rankings.
3 Title Tags & The Big Explainer
“The Big Explainer” is the title tag element, also known as “The Hook”, used to grab the attention of your page’s visitors. You need to answer exactly what your visitor is looking for right at the start of the page. If you are targeting users searching for a specific service in your area, make sure your content engages those visitors.
Having your service and location in your top heading makes it clear to the user what your business offers. This is the single most important on-page element to keep your bounce rate from skyrocketing.
To make sure your title tag does your page justice, ask yourself this key question. Can a user understand what the page is about within 4 seconds of loading the page? If not, you may need to adjust your title tag.
4 Desktop and Mobile Page Speed
Your page speed impacts more than user experience. A slow-loading landing page can lose your visitor’s attention and cause your bounce rate to increase. Also, Google now favors websites with fast page speeds over slower ones and it can impact your rankings. You can find out your page’s loading speed by using the PageSpeed Insights Tool. Sites that rate lower than 50/100 may contain major problems that need to be optimized ASAP.
Start by optimizing the images on your landing page. Often, uncompressed images as large as 15 MBs can slow your page load speed to a crawl. Resize your images with easy to use sites like Canva and tinyjpg. CMS platforms like WordPress offer site speed optimization plugins that can make speed optimization fast, easy and efficient.
Look into your site’s backend for any elements that aren’t being used for the page’s mobile version. Check your site speed often; as Google continues their algorithm updates, you will want to stay ahead of the game and your competition.
5 Contact and Conversion Forms
The contact form is the main point of capture for conversions. It can be a simple contact form or a shopping cart sequence, if you are running an e-commerce page. Think critically about what information you need to collect now rather than later. Keep your form fillers from bouncing by asking for only the bare necessities to complete the conversion.
This would include their name, phone, email, and address. Avoid requiring character counts and more open answer fields. You want to keep the form filling process short and concise.
Consider how you want your contact form to appear for your desktop and mobile users. Having your contact form as a sidebar allows your desktop visitors to see the CTA as they read your content. For your mobile users, having the form appear at the page’s bottom or by popping up after scrolling can turn your visitors into leads. By understanding the needs of your audience, you can anticipate their behavior and provide conversion opportunities at ideal junctures.
It is wise to use easy-to-click call buttons for your forms; these buttons are essential for an optimized mobile UX. Mobile users often make up a large portion of your page visitors, making mobile experience a top priority. Small changes to your mobile contact form can mean big improvements to your conversion rates.
6 Product or Service Explanation
The core purpose of your landing content is to explain who / what / where / when / why. Think about the demographic you’re seeking to target and what appeals to them. Your content should address what separates your business from your competitors.
Learning a potential customer’s pain points can help you market your product to match their interests. Use your content to explain how your product or service can help your consumer or make their life better.
7 Trust Builders
Build authority by adding trust-building elements to your content. These could be glowing testimonials from other customers or unique certifications. When a consumer buys from a new company online, they are taking a risk with their money. Use trust builders to reduce the implied risk and secure your conversions.
8 CTAs and Social Proofing
Your call-to-action (CTA) is your opportunity to tell your audience to act now. Good CTAs are short, easy to read, and persuasive. Create a CTA that addresses your target audience’s pain points. This will help you find out which messaging works best to boost conversions. A/B testing can be a powerful tool for fine tuning your CTA messages.
Similar to a CTA is Social Proofing. This is a powerful method of establishing your brand authority in social media through proven testimonials. Examples include user reviews and recommendations from popular entities like businesses or celebrities.
Utilize social proofing as best you can to gain the authority that you need to stand out from your competitors. Learn more about social proofing and find the type that would work for business.
9 Terms of Service / Privacy Policy
If you have an e-commerce landing page, you need to include a link to a Terms of Service page. This page offers info on shipping, returns, and requirements. For a landing page that is just collecting leads, a Privacy Policy page will suffice. A privacy policy is required if you are using paid traffic like Google Adwords to drive traffic to your landing page.
You can find privacy policy templates online to create your own. But in general, a privacy policy should cover cookie policies, disclosure of collected info to third parties. Some sites, like medical sites, should also show legal compliance with policies like HIPAA.
Before You Start: Identify Your Audience
To start converting visitors, you need to identify your target audience. Your target audience is who your service or product is made for and it will be what your landing page is suited for as well. From key demographics such as age, gender, location, spending range, and more, finding out about your new and potential customers will be essential to creating an effective landing page. Identify which aspects of your product/service may appeal to different audiences and who you want to target.
Some audiences are looking for a premium product and aren’t considering a price as a factor. Other audiences may be looking for a service or product that appears fairly priced for them. Often, a location reveals a lot about a potential customer.
Locations reveal average salaries and other key demographics such as age, gender, location, and more. Take the time to learn about your target audience and then compete with the best landing pages in your market.
We Build Landing Pages That Convert
Creating an effective landing page will greatly benefit your business. But it’s important to get it right the first time. Creating a fully optimized landing page is a long-term investment that requires the analytical expertise of a digital marketing veteran. That’s where we come in.
Contact us at Geek Powered Studios, where we’ll educate you on the impact of SEO, PPC, design, and all things digital marketing for your site or landing page!
