It doesn’t matter what stage of developing your business you are at – sooner or later, you will need to create a landing page.
Have you ever wondered what the difference is between a typical website and a landing page? They look very similar at first glance, but they are completely different in practice.
Imagine that you are a tour operator and you promise to take the participants of your trip to the Colosseum. Instead of doing this, you just take them to Rome and leave them there. They feel lost and have no idea how to get to this monument. It’s like you were the advertisement and brought your customers to a very big place – your homepage, where clients have no idea what to do or how to get around. You could take them directly to the Colosseum instead. Similarly, as an advertisement, you can do this by bringing them to a specific landing page.
Your website and your landing page are created for totally different purposes.
Why? What’s the use of building landing pages? How do you create them? What should you take into account when designing them? In which situations is it better to build standard websites?
Which one will be better to drive your company sales or make your brand stronger? We are going to answer all these questions in this article.
A LANDING PAGE – WHAT IS IT?
A landing page is a standalone website, which is created in order to achieve one, particular business objective. It is the place where your customers land when they click on a banner, sponsored link or Google AdWords advertisement.
It’s much different to a typical website – it doesn’t have any tabs, distracting divisions or categories. If your aim is to capture your potential customer’s emails, a landing page is an important concept in lead generation.
For example, selling an online course or eBook wouldn’t be very beneficial when you put the information about these somewhere on your website. There are too many different messages and the possibility that your potential client will do what you want (like buying your latest eBook) is very small.
What’s more, in many cases, creating a landing page is also the best way to test your idea before you start investing a lot of money in your fledgling business. In this way you can evaluate whether your assumptions regarding customer needs were correct.
For example, the founder of Buffer decided to test his innovative idea first. He created a simple landing page where people could find basic information about the product – how it works, pricing and the main features. His aim was to check if there was a demand for this kind of service. The product wasn’t ready at that moment, so he gave visitors the opportunity to subscribe to a waiting list. It was a part of the research. In this way he gained e-mail addresses. He used them later to receive valuable feedback that was very helpful to build the product that the market needed.
This is a great example of how creating a landing page helped the founder to verify the correctness of his assumptions. Time is money, the quicker you start the better! Don’t be a perfectionist – take a first step by building a landing page! Testing ideas is the best way to become successful.
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN STANDARD WEBSITES AND LANDING PAGES
When organising a specific marketing campaign, you should be aware that your homepage… will probably not sell. Why not? Because customers will be distracted by all the different elements that your website displays.
This is the perfect opportunity to create a… landing page. Depending on the situation, sometimes building a complex website is more profitable, sometimes a simple landing page will convert better. You should recognize your main objective and we will help you with that.
Your company website consists of many pages, categories, functions and has extended navigation. It should also contain all details about your business, like your company vision, mission, description of products or contact information.
Building your homepage has also one, specific goal – represent your company and products. By introducing your team members and writing expert articles for your company blog, you can enhance the credibility of your business and build a relationship with potential customers.
What’s more, your website will appear in organic search results and thanks to this, you will have the opportunity to attract new customers. So your website is an important tool in your SEO campaigns.
When your clients are already convinced about your brand, you can start selling them products. In order to do this, you will need to create a…
Landing page which is built for this specific purpose – to gain some data about customers, to describe a new product or special offer and encourage visitors to purchase items. Its main aim is to drive sales.
This website contains all the necessary information about a specific product or offer. It has limited navigation, few functionalities and consists only of a few elements like good content, images and a form.
Landing pages are perfect for paid traffic, like Google Adwords. They will help you generate more leads and increase your conversion rates. People who click on such a paid link land on the specific website, which provides them with the precise response to their question.
Nothing distracts them from achieving the objective – they get specific directions what to do.
Of course, the most profitable approach is building a main website, which your customers can always come back to and then creating landing pages for special occasions, like when you want to sell something or gain some specific information about your prospects.
HOW TO CREATE A LANDING PAGE THAT WILL CONVERT?
CHOOSE ONE GOAL FOR YOUR LANDING PAGE
Landing pages will be different, depending on the goals you want to achieve. Always remember to focus on one, precise objective. It is the only way to make your landing page beneficial. You should choose one, particular call to action. This means you should prompt the visitor to take a specific action, like:
– make a purchase - for example buy your latest e-book or online course,
– fill out a survey - and you will collect information about prospects in order to create the best version of your product,
– sign up for the newsletter – this way you can stay in touch with your clients,
– fill out a form – to help you collect demographic information about prospects. Then, your sales and marketing team will easily create personas, that converts,
– sign up for an event – and increase the attendance significantly.
No matter which objective you choose – your ultimate goal is always to increase your sales. Thanks to building landing pages, you will achieve your objectives and convert prospects into paying customers much faster.
CREATE A COMPELLING HEADLINE
This is probably the most important part of creating a landing page. A first impression really matters. Your headline should get people’s attention and make them want to discover more details. Depending on how good a title is, people will either read the rest of the text or leave your page without hesitation.
In the landing page header you should inform the visitor what the product or service is all about. Remember to use large text and keep it short.
COME UP WITH A CONVINCING SUBHEADLINE
Text on your landing page should be brief and perfectly thought out. Remember, that you don’t have a lot of space and in this case, every word counts. You should be persuasive and give users more details about the product or service, in a very encouraging and professional way.
WRITE CONVERTING BODY TEXT
This is the part, where you can explain a bit more extensively how the customer will benefit from doing what you ask him for later in the CTA (call to action). You should make it personal and speak directly to your client. Depending on your goal, your strategies will be different. You can use some proofs of your arguments, like statistical evidence, customer testimonials or authority badges. However, remember to keep it simple. Your client shouldn’t be overwhelmed by the amount of information when he finishes reading this section.
EYE CATCHING PICTURE OR VIDEO
The picture should follow everything you have written before. This picture should be large, high quality and relevant to your product or service. Help people visualize your product, it will definitely pay off. Remember that by using a human image, you will build a greater trust. And last thing: avoid including stock photos. They won’t work in your favour.
A SHORT FORM
Depending on your goals, the form will consist of a different amount of boxes. If you want to promote an eBook, you will need only a name and an e-mail address for your prospect. However, when collecting data for signing up for an event, you will need more precise information, like surnames and mobile numbers. But again – keep it simple. Don’t discourage your client from filling in your form and limit the information you want to get from him.
CALL TO ACTION
The button must be obvious, visible, and should clearly inform a customer what he is going to achieve. The color of the CTA (call to action) button should be distinct from the rest of the page. Consider using negative space, a “whitespace”, that is completely blank. The aim of creating these is to make a user focus on one, particular task. They will help you draw attention to a button.
Do you want to create your landing page?
We would be happy to help you. The steps we described in this article won’t match every situation – it’s just a general draft. Depending on your goals, every landing page will look different. However, one thing all landing pages should have in common is a minimalist and attractive layout.
There’s no doubt that landing pages can perfectly support your marketing strategies. Do you have any advice on how to create a landing page that converts? Let us know in the comments!