10 Tips for Creating Effective Landing Pages

Landing pages are a useful tool for getting prospects to do things like subscribe to your e-newsletter, download your white paper or buy your widget. Do you know how to create landing pages that get the job done?

Our friends at Copyblogger define a landing page as “any page on a website where traffic is sent specifically to prompt a certain action or result. … The goal is to get the prospect to take your desired action.” Success is generally measured by how many visitors to the landing page are converted into leads (or, if applicable, make purchases).

Here are 10 quick tips for doing landing pages the right way.

Here's a landing page for one of our e-books.

Here’s a landing page for one of our e-books.

1. Know your audience.
Who are you trying to reach with your landing page? What challenges might they want to address — and how can you help? Answers to questions like these should inform your messaging.

2. Focus on a single goal.
Like Copyblogger says, a landing page should have one goal: driving visitors to take a specific action. The headline, copy, design, layout, call to action, etc., should all be crafted with that in mind.

3. Start on a good note.
The headline (and subhead, if you use one) is your first and best chance to spark interest. Make it sing — or risk losing readers’ attention.

4. Don’t waste their time.
Keep the copy concise and scannable — short paragraphs, short sentences and bullet points. In most cases, especially if you’re promoting a free offer, keeping everything “above the fold” is a good strategy. If your landing page is selling something relatively expensive (e.g. B2B software or a medical device), though, you may need to include more information to convince prospects to buy.

5. Be clear about what’s in it for them.
Make a compelling case for why they should take your desired action. What’s so great about that e-book you want them to download or product you want them to buy? The benefits of doing so should be crystal clear.

6. Keep it clean.
The design, that is. Minimize the clutter, don’t include too many images and use lots of white space. All of which will keep users focused on the right things and, as a bonus, speed the page’s load time. (A slow load time will only chase off prospects.)

7. Stay focused.
Remove unnecessary menu items and other navigation links, except a logo pointing back to your home page and social sharing icons that let visitors spread the word.

8. Make it easy for them to get what they want.
Okay, a prospect is interested in what you’re offering. Don’t risk losing her by forcing her to fill out a long form asking for all kinds of details. Require the first and last name as well as email and/or phone number. Beyond that, only collect information that you need to qualify the lead. You can get the other details further down the road.

And here's a thank-you page.

And here’s the thank-you page.

9. Say “thank you.”
Once they’ve filled out and submitted the form, point them to a thank-you page or send them an automated follow-up email. With either of these options, you can include links to other pages on your site or branded assets that might be of interest.

10. Track and test.
Track your success rates (i.e. leads or sales) and tweak the page in an attempt to improve results. Also try some A/B testing, in which you create two versions of the page (e.g. with different headlines or design elements) to see which performs better.

Best of luck on your next landing page!

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