A Checklist for Building High Conversion Landing Pages

Landing Page Design

By Howard Oliver,  VP Marketing, CRE Collborative

 

What is a landing page? A landing page is a standalone web page created specifically for a marketing campaign. It is where a visitor “lands” after they click on a link in an email, ads, Google, Bing, and other search engine listings, social media, and elsewhere. Landing Pages address a single focus or goal, one well thought out call to action. A well-built landing page is the best option for increasing the conversion rates of marketing campaigns, lowering the cost of acquiring a lead or sale.

85% of B2B marketers say lead generation is their most important content marketing goal yet. A staggering 80% of marketers also say their lead generation efforts are only slightly effective. Designing a landing page that converts is a challenge. Landing page design is hard to do well.

The biggest hurdles companies have in Landing Page design is creating a core compelling value proposition; the second is communicating it.  It would be best if you asked, “So What’ to get it right. Use the following best-practices checklist to build High Conversion Landing Pages.

 

  1. Purpose:
    1. Dedicated to one campaign, buyer persona, or channel
    2. Start with a Sparkling Value Proposition
    3. Quickly communicating the main benefit of your product/service

 

  1. Value Proposition:
    1. Fine-tuning your value proposition can be tricky.
      1. Why do customers choose you over the competition?
      2. Pay attention to the language customers use on review sites, testimonials, and when you interact with them 

 

  1. The Headline:
    1. Sells the sizzle, not the steak
    2. Describes the benefit of its product, reinforce its value proposition by explaining how those benefits come about
    3. Instantly acknowledges the target audience and explain how the offering is significantly transformative – you will be a rock star!

 

  1. Structure:
    1. Optimized for all devices, especially mobile
    2. Optimized for voice search
    3. Consider using Webchat and Webbots
    4. No navigation bar
    5. Blocks
      1. Social proof within the copy 
      2. One link only
      3. Lively multimedia elements
      4. Short, multiple-choice sign-up forms

 

  1. Design:
    1. Colors and psychology are deeply linked.
    2. Use warm colors – red, yellow, and orange 
    3. Buttons - make sure they stand out from the rest of your page.
    4. Visually appealing with a simple, clean design without too many bells and whistles
    5. Ensure that your landing page entices your visitors to act, use benefit-driven points to explain exactly how your product or service features add value.

 

  1. Copy:
    1. Lean on copy
      1. Only essential information
      2. Just enough information to get the buyer interested and asking questions.
    2. Bullets, headers, and spacing to break up large blocks of text
    3. Resonance
      1. Relevant tailored content, highly personalized, specific messaging that speaks to target personas’ needs and preferences.
    4. Strong ad copy and a compelling call to action 
    5. Time-related words will create a sense of urgency
    6. Call to Action words
      1. Now
      2. Hurry
      3. One time only
      4. Last chance
      5. Before it’s gone
      6. Clearance
      7. Today only
      8. Limited time
      9. Instant
      10. Do not miss out
      11. Bonus Incentive
      12. Numbers
        1. Facts and figures
        2. Numbers are a great way to get people’s attention and make an offer more attractive
  2. You can use numbers to push a sense of scarcity – for instance, “Just 3 more in stock!”
  3. Or you can boost your social proof with numbers by telling customers how many other people have bought your product or service.

 

  1. Call to Action:
    1. Supporting information to encourage acting sooner
    2. Button clicks to help reduce the emotive level required
    3. Change text from “Buy” or “Buy Now” to something a bit gentler, such as “Continue.”
    4. Offers
      1. Personalized, compelling urgency-driven offers
      2. Use URGENCY in moderation.
      3. Do not try to put pressure on your potential customers all the time, or they’ll stop taking your offers seriously.

 

  1. Forms:
    1. Asks for minimal information
    2. Clear
    3. Easy to complete
    4. Functional
    5. Responsive by design
    6. Provide trust signals and support information.
    7. Create a sense of urgency
    8. Offer Something People Want
    9. Set a Deadline
    10. Use FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)

 

  1. Search Engine Optimization:
    1. Use On-Page SEO best practices tools such as SEMRush and Yoast
      1. Key Word Research
      2. Link Building
      3. For more, see further SEO best practices
    2. To improve your landing page loading speed:
      1. Run speed audits with Google PageSpeed Insights or other tools.
      2. Optimize media files like images and videos.
      3. Use a content delivery network (CDN)
      4. Remove unnecessary landing page plugins
      5. Switch to a faster hosting provider

 

  1. Testing:
    1. Read through your features and landing page; ask yourself, “So what?
    2. Use SEMRush, Google Analytics data with mouse click data, scroll maps, and heatmaps to discover barriers to conversion
    3. A/B test key changes to discover a winner that continually drives more leads and revenue 

 

We would like to help you create your next landing page or evaluate the landing pages you have right now.   Let's connect  Howard Oliver, howard@creco.ai, 4165685254.

 

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