Originally published on December 1, 2015. Updated on June 29, 2020.
The term “landing pages” is one you will hear fairly often in discussions about websites and marketing techniques. There’s a very good reason for that: landing pages can be one of the most valuable assets in your digital toolkit. So what exactly are they? And why do you need them?
Landing pages are web pages that visitors land on when they follow an offer and click through to your website. Designed to convert visitors to your website into leads for sales, landing pages will gather information about potential customers using a simple form.
There are two key ways that landing pages will help you.
- Landing pages can gather information like email addresses as well as lead demographics, interests, and concerns. With this information your sales team can build strong relationships with leads and keep their focus on the most qualified contacts.
- They can lead to higher conversion rates, which means more customers for you and more profit potential for your business. Landing pages are your digital representative twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, helping your work as efficiently as possible.
Want to talk landing pages? Schedule a free consultation.
What are landing pages used for?
A perfect landing page is not a sales pitch asking for information that the visitor doesn’t want to give up. A well-designed landing page will convert at least 20% of its visitors into leads by guiding them and warming them up. Here are eight jobs landing pages can accomplish for you.
- Landing pages are an opportunity to persuade visitors that what you’re offering them has value equal to, or greater than, the information you’re asking from them.
- Landing pages offer grounded, real benefits. Not abstract features. When you have a problem, you need the solution and the features don’t really matter as much.
- Landing pages help your visitors feel like they’re understood. It can show them that you know about their problem, you understand their frustration, and you can help them. Understanding leads to empathy. Empathy leads to connections.
- Landing pages will give your lead something of value in exchange for personal information. But it won’t take a lot of their time. They can get a solution or learn something new and move on with their busy schedule.
- Landing pages provide social proof of your value. Your leads will feel safer knowing that other people have done what they’re thinking of doing and benefitted from it.
- Landing pages will trigger one of the six psychological principles that influence people – scarcity. Scarcity will encourage them to act sooner rather than later.
- Landing pages point out a gap in the visitor’s knowledge and then provide a way to fill it. Curiosity can be piqued and your visitors will develop a need to know more.
- Landing pages make your leads feel important. By showing them that what you offer is important information or a valuable solution you are telling them that by association they are important and valuable as well.
Read more: How to create a high-converting landing page.
How to design landing pages
Landing pages come in every different shape, size, and structure imaginable. There are no rules when it comes to design, but the best landing pages have a few important elements in common:
- Strong keywords to ensure the page is as searchable as possible.
- A simple layout that ensures visitors can find what they need in seconds.
- Educational and persuasive content that answers questions they may have.
- An engaging design with helpful headings and images that looks sharp.
- Clear calls to action that make it easy for visitors to take next steps.
If you’re new to the idea of landing pages, there are a couple of ways you can proceed.
If you plan to build the landing pages yourself, we strongly recommend A/B testing to see what design elements are most persuasive. Play around with the layout, color, and images. Try a couple of variations in the headings and text to see what resonates best with your readers. Be prepared to make a few adjustments here and there to ensure your pages are working as effectively as possible.
It’s important to remember that one size doesn’t always fit all. Running a variety of different offers, targeted to a variety of different demographics, will broaden your reach exponentially. Studies have shown that having more than thirty landing pages on your website will generate 7x the number of leads than websites with less than ten. Different people like different things, and keeping this in mind will ensure you target all the different elements people will find persuasive. The results can be huge.
You may also want to consider bringing a marketing agency on board. Marketing agencies design custom landing pages all day, every day, and they’ll have a pretty good idea of the types of things that work best in your industry. Outsourcing the design and development of your landing pages also means they can run things like A/B testing for you and make all the necessary adjustments, which means you can invest your time and energy into other parts of your business.
Read more: 5 website design trends you need to watch.
Why landing pages are important
As we said right at the start of this blog post, a landing page is essentially your digital marketing representative. It can help you convert leads every day of the year, even while you’re doing other things. Done right, they’ll become a key component of your digital sales funnel.
Within seconds of viewing a landing page, a visitor should have enough information to decide if they want to accept your offer and continue through the buyer’s journey with you. This split-second decision can mean more leads and conversions or it can mean more bounced visitors to your site.
If you don’t have enough landing pages, then you’re missing out on a plethora of opportunities to gather valuable information on potential leads. So what are you waiting for?
Ready to get started? Schedule a free consultation.