Tips for Creating an Effective Landing Page

Whether promoting an event, webinar, or new product or service, landing pages are an effective inbound marketing tool. Considered by marketing, sales enablement, and customer service platform HubSpot as one of the most critical methods of driving leads and website traffic, landing pages average between 5 and 15 percent conversion rates, while homepages drive just 1 to 3 percent.

While any homepage should proactively convey an organization’s products and services, marketers must also utilize additional targeting tactics such as relevant calls to action (CTA) discounts, product demos and trials, and other pertinent information. A landing page is the perfect home for these.

This useful explainer discusses important best practices for an effective landing page, such as persuasive headlines and copy, striking design elements, strong CTAs, targeted lead capture forms, and more.

What Is the Purpose of a Landing Page?

In short, a landing page should entice potential customers toward the next step in the buyer’s journey. Whether visitors are in Awareness, Consideration, or Decision stages, it helps tie every component of the HubSpot flywheel model together—attracting, engaging, and delighting—and ultimately, driving marketing success via the inbound methodology.

Landing pages should do so with relevant offers, including discounts, product demos, or other value-add content. This helps build trust between prospect and your brand, as well as convey true value.

What Should Be on a Landing Page?

With the right amount of optimized content and design, a well-strategized landing page can increase lead generation and build customer loyalty. Through strong calls to action, a landing page should also provide clear direction on how to claim a relevant offer or move to the next stage of the buyer’s journey.Here’s a useful rundown of some key elements of an effective landing page:

Headline & Relevant Subheads

Headlines and subheads should be compelling, engaging, and enticing. They should include target keywords or phrases and clearly define what you’re offering and promising.

Persuasive Copy

Consider using you and your, rather than our and us, so visitors envision themselves using your product or service. The content should be accurate, free of grammatical errors, direct, and provide meaningful value to potential customers. It should succinctly answer common questions about the product or service, and demonstrate genuine authority about the subject matter.

Images & Video

According to HubSpot’s resource guide “The Ultimate List of Marketing Statistics for 2021” outlining the findings of its annual “State of Marketing Report,” the most common content types include brand storytelling and promotional videos. These can further convey how your product or service offers real-life solutions to a customer’s specific problem.

Customer Testimonials

Peer-to-peer reviews are a powerful way to convey trust and loyalty. The best recommendations result from happy, long-term customers with positive experiences.

Strategically-Placed CTAs

Position CTA buttons further along the landing page so visitors understand what you’re conveying and why they should take action. Similar to embedding relevant hyperlinks, use common sense when adding. Try to view the offer and page from the perspective of a visitor and determine where such a request may feel most natural.

Lead Capture Forms

Ask visitors to provide the least amount of information, but enough to conduct a follow-up discussion, such as their full name and company, and how they prefer to be reached.

Effective Landing Page Best Practices

Here are some best practices for creating an effective landing page resulting in conversions:

Target a Specific Audience

This includes traffic generated from email campaigns, ebooks, white papers, webinars, and other promotional materials.

Keep Offers Consistent

Ensure landing page copy corresponds with your offer, such as free trials, product demos, or on-demand webinars and podcasts.

Consider Design Elements

Visitors will find an aesthetically pleasing landing page more enticing and less confusing. Utilize compelling imagery and photos, user-friendly structure and layout, engaging graphics, and clearly defined sections. Remember: Think as a user. Do not overcrowd the page or make it unnecessarily busy. Convey its messaging clearly and succinctly, without needless complication.

Keep Your Audience Engaged

Headlines, subheads, body copy, offers, and CTAs should remain consistent and aligned with your offers and requests.

Include an Eye-Catching CTA

Consumers want to immediately know what they’ll receive and how to obtain it. Again, employ straight-forward design that leaves no confusion about how a user must proceed. Your CTAs should catch the eye and be easy to use.

Employ Smart Rules & Location Services

Learn more about your prospects’ behaviors and needs. Content and design should speak to these, and promote convenience.

Landing Page Optimization Checklist

To drive prospects from consideration to decision, consider the following tips:

1. Include a headline with an actionable request.
2. Create copy that’s easy to read, optimized, and speaks to particular pain points experienced by consumers.
3. Include images, videos, and other relevant visuals.
4. Optimize your page for mobile devices.
5. Consider removing the top navigation menu for additional focus.
6. Include a direct CTA.
7. Feature a clear and well-placed lead capture form.
8. Ensure all messaging provides clear and concise direction for next steps.

Landing Page A/B Testing

There’s always room for further insights when implementing the aforementioned best practices. Known as A/B testing, this data collection process helps improve metrics by testing several variations to identify the most effective elements—messaging, CTAs, and other components—and improve targeting for better results.

Consider the following four questions when conducting landing page A/B testing:

1. Where are visitors clicking?
2. How much time are they spending on the landing page?
3. How many have dropped off, and where?
4. How many visitors converted to actionable leads?

Testing items such as headlines and subheads, body copy, CTA placement, and even how the page is designed and planned, can make significant differences in attracting, engaging, and delighting visitors and transforming them to loyal, long-term customers.

A New York-based Diamond HubSpot Partner Agency, Morey Creative Studios specializes in inbound marketing, sales, and customer service strategies for B2B companies across a diverse range of industries. Contact us today to learn how effective landing pages can help your organization cultivate and convert relevant leads into customers.