Why an Effective Landing Page is the Missing Link Between Curiosity and Conversions

A forgotten step in the marketing process of turning visitors into conversions is the landing page. The purpose of a campaign-specific landing page is to funnel users into completing a call-to-action, typically involving filling out a form, after those visitors click on a link in an email, social post, google ad, or any other asset driving them to the page.

Landing pages differ from typical website pages in that they have one clear goal. They can also be tailored for users to take general action or a specific action based on their response to a particular product or service ad. Website pages often include multiple different CTA buttons, white papers, informational guides, and a myriad of other resources that are intended to either drive views or actions. Landing pages instead have one goal in mind and are an effective way of funneling traffic towards that goal.

While there is no one-size-fits-all solution for what a landing page should look like or how frequently your business should use them, these best practices are helpful to keep in mind as you start building them out.

What Are Some Landing Page Design Best Practices?

Ultimately, your customers are the only people who can determine if your landing page is effective. Bearing this in mind, these pages should be constantly evolving as you compile data on what pages are converting and which ones aren’t. Here are a few helpful tips when designing your initial pages:

• Keep it simple. Always ensure your landing page is free from clutter and avoids unnecessary information that distracts from the ultimate goal. Whatever that CTA is, don’t bury it “below the fold” or else the visitor will be more likely to leave the page without taking an action. 
• Leave out the navigation bar. While this is a helpful organizational tool for your website, the navigation bar on the landing page would just serve to distract visitors from taking action. As Safwan Rahman writes in his Linkedin article Should You Use Navigation on Landing Pages? A Data-Driven Consideration, “Navigation links on landing pages don’t make sense, and yet only 16% of landing pages are free of navigation bars.” Bottom line–keep the page simple and direct.
• Write direct, clear copy. A good landing page should minimize the amount of copy as much as possible. When it boils down, landing page copy should really only do one of two things:
  • It should briefly describe a product or service being offered or
  • It should guide the visitor to the form itself.

The descriptive copy should be nothing more than a couple succinct sentences that provide the visitor with a snapshot of what is being sold. Leave the more detailed product information to the website.

• Make sure the landing page matches the ad content. The most cardinal rule in ensuring the success of your landing page is verifying that visitors see what they want to see. How do you do this? Personalize your landing page to match the ad content a user clicked on. Since your visitor has already positively responded to your ad content, you know that gearing the landing page with a similar theme and content should yield positive results.

For example, let’s say you are an insurance company. A user looking to purchase home insurance isn’t going to want to fill out a quote request form with fields asking for the make and model of their car. Landing pages should be made individual to the product or service a visitor is interested in.

• Build the right form. At the heart of every lead generation landing page is a form that users can fill out to take some sort of action. But how many fields should this form have? The answer to this question needs to strike the correct balance between simplicity and getting enough information out of your visitors. According to LinkedIn, 3-4 fields are ideal, keeping the form as short as possible. While this isn’t the one-size-fits-all answer, it points towards the fact that simplicity can lead to a higher quantity of submissions, even at the sacrifice of some quality information. Bottom line here is you want to make sure each form only contains fields that are vital to the success of your campaign. Eliminate all the fluff, and only include the fields that will take your lead gen campaign to the next level.

How Often Should I Be Using Landing Pages?

In short – this answer really varies on the business. While some research indicates that 10-15 landing pages increase conversions by 55%, it truly depends on the number of individual campaigns and products or services you have running. For the best results, each product or service your business offers should have its own individualized landing page. As Unbounce CEO Oli Gardner put it, “Never. Start. A. Marketing. Campaign. Without. A. Dedicated. Landing. Page.” Doing so could mean running the risk of losing valuable leads as they struggle to find where to take an action on your website.

You may be wondering if having too many landing pages could be detrimental to their performance or be hard to keep track of. Both of these perceived issues are not actual problems at all. Increasing the number of landing pages only serves to benefit your business as it means the pages are going to be more tailored to the advertisement the visitor engaged with. Platforms like Unbounce and HubSpot also offer easy-to-use organizational tools to easily duplicate and track your pages.

Final thoughts

While seeming like extra work initially, taking the time to make strategic, personalized landing pages will end up being time well spent and will help your lead generation campaign gather more qualified leads.

Extra Tip: Unbounce offers a wide variety of resources to make the landing page process simple. See here for a complete guide on landing page anatomy, best practices, and more! For more inspiration, also check out Unbounce’s gallery of successful landing pages.

Still a little unsure about how to start building your landing pages?

Reach out to a TribalVision representative today to discuss landing pages or to ask any other marketing-related questions you may have. Our experts can ensure you have all the tools necessary to turn prospective customers into conversions!