A landing page’s ultimate purpose is to get a visitor to answer a specific call to action. To do a single thing.
Whether you're a business owner looking to increase conversions or an aspiring blogger looking to grow your audience, creating effective landing pages is essential.
A good landing page will engage your readers and convince them to answer your call to action, whether that means signing up for a mailing list or making a purchase.
This blog will discuss how to create a landing page that converts.
What Is a Landing Page?
A landing page is a single webpage that has a very specific goal. That goal is to get the visitor to answer a call-to-action and nothing else.
There’s a bit more to it than that, but in essence, they exist as a specialized tool to fulfill a specific purpose for your business or brand.
They are often the first step in a sales funnel, but they can also be a brief journey all on their own.
So, how do you go about creating one?
There are a few steps involved.
Planning Your Page
Planning is everything when creating a landing page.
Remember, the point of a landing page is to get a visitor to do something specific. While this sounds simple enough, to create a streamlined page that converts, you need to plan well.
Part of that involves research. From the start you must know what you want—Do you want the customer to buy a bicycle?
Do you want them to sign up for your mailing list? Keep this in mind and direct your research towards it.
What type of wording should you use?
Which keywords?
What color should the landing page be? That can be important.
Is there a certain design that your target audience tends towards? All of this plays a part.
It’s easier to figure out how to make a landing page once you know what you want to achieve, and roughly what your design will be. Then you can move on to the next section.
Building the Page
A landing page can be divided up into multiple sections, but ideally, you should stick to one.
Each new environment increases the risk of a user bouncing.
Now it’s time to create the page. “Landing pages” can be made up of multiple pages, but we recommend keeping it as brief as possible. The more your visitor must click, the more likely they are to give up and click away.
Landing Page Templates and Builders
While it’s possible to build a landing page from scratch, there’s no need.
There are a wealth of landing page builders out there that make the process quick and easy.
These are fully browser-based tools that enable you to create and customize landing pages. They offer hundreds of tried and tested templates that you can customize to your liking.
They differ in price and in terms of just how customizable they are. Unbounce is a top-of-a-range landing page builder, while LeadPages is a more budget option.
Once you have the builder and template, you can make a landing page basic layout of the landing page.
Write the Copy
Next, it’s time to write the copy visitors will read. Remember to keep it brief and to the point. Landing pages are quick-fire tools.
The visitor should be able to understand what you’re offering within a few seconds of landing on the page.
It’s crucial to include just one or two keywords too, to catch your demographic’s attention.
Construct a Call-To-Action (CTA)
The CTA is the main part of the landing page. It’s what you want the user to answer.
It should be in a prominent position on the page, with the other elements, like the graphics and the copy pointing towards it.
When building a landing page, the CTA takes the form of a button or a text box with a button.
The button should be eye-catching. It should be in harmony with the rest of the page, but also stand out. If it isn’t clear what a user needs to do, they may simply close the page.
SEO Settings
You want your landing page, as every part of your online presence, to be search engine optimized.
The SEO settings for a landing page are relatively simple. A title and a meta description will suffice.
Make sure the title is catchy and a keyword relevant to your CTA.
Just so, when creating landing pages, your meta description should briefly describe the purpose of the landing page, and contain a keyword.
Ensuring Follow Through
Lastly, you must set a destination.
When the user clicks the button, it should take them to the goal, for example, a checkout page, or otherwise send them a confirmation link via email if they’re signing up for a newsletter.
You need to make sure the landing page follows up by delivering on its promise.
Some marketing solutions offer landing pages as a package deal. For example, MailChimp allows you to make landing pages with built-in email marketing functionality. This makes using landing pages for email marketing easy.
With all that done, the final step of how to make a landing page is to preview the page and launch it, but your work isn’t finished yet…
Monitoring the Page
With your page launched, it's important to monitor it to see how it is performing.
You can do a few things to monitor your page, including tracking the number of visitors and conversions and analyzing user behavior on the page, through the use of tools like Google Analytics or heat maps.
By monitoring your page, you can check how it’s performing, and optimize it based on real data.
Many landing page builders come with built-in A/B testing, so you can try a variety of designs and see what’s working best.
Supporting the Page
So you know how to build landing pages, and your first one is out there, but you can’t leave it be.
You have to support it by directing traffic towards it.
Blog Post
If you have a blog or are affiliated with some blogs, you can get a link to a landing page included in a blog post related to a landing page’s goal.
Maybe you’re selling seeds? Look for a gardening blog that may be willing to promote it in exchange for a small commission.
Landing pages are perfect for contained affiliate programs.
Each affiliate can get their own variation of a page, so you know who’s converting the most.
Email Marketing
If you already have a mailing list, perhaps through a subscription landing page, an email marketing solution, you can include a nudge to your landing page in a newsletter.
Maybe you have a specific product you’re selling or a flash sale. A landing page can be a quick way to get a customer to buy if you include it in an email
Paid Advertising
Of course, you can use paid advertising to link to landing pages for quick snappy conversions.
Rather than leading to your store at large, this way the visitor can come straight to the item being advertised.
Conclusion
Now you know the basic principles of how to create a landing page that converts.
There’s a lot to consider, but it’s well worth the process.
Landing pages are versatile tools that can either be the start of a funnel, a journey on its own, or a way to gather leads and boost your conversion rate.
Garan is a writer interested in how tech reshapes the environment, and how the environment reshapes tech. You'll usually find him inoculating against future shock and arguing with bots.
