So you’re launching your new website, or maybe you’ve been online for a while. Hopefully, you’ve noticed a common theme among great web pages – they have a focused, purposeful, and dedicated landing page. We’re going to talk about why you need to have a landing page for your site!
3 Great Reasons You Need a Landing Page Now
- Top performing landing pages capture 80% or more of traffic
- Multiple landing pages can increase sales by more than 50%
- Correctly targeting your landing page can increase conversion up to 300%
What is a Landing Page For?
Navigate over to Amazon.com and check out the first things you see when their page loads. Regardless of whether you’re logged in or not, you’ll begin to notice some themes about the page that loads on your screen. This is called a landing page – the very first page which loads when you visit a website or link.
In our Amazon example, you might notice some suggestions of things to purchase; their goal is clear here, to help you find items to purchase and make revenue in creating a sale. You may even notice that part of the page is dedicated to leading you to log in, or create an account.
Landing pages are meant to help the viewer focus on a single action and to take action based on that focus. This is known as conversion – does the viewer actually click or take action in a way you want them to? In our Amazon example, their landing page is hoping to convert you into a logged-in customer or cause a sale.
How Do I Decide What I Want Viewers to Do?
Many first-time website creators or small business fail to identify a goal of their website or web pages. This is a fatal mistake. In order to decide on how best to create your new landing page, it’s critical to know what purpose that landing page has.
If you’re a small business, that landing page may be focused on leading the customer to your “Schedule an Appointment Now” button. If you’re a writer or blogger, that landing page may be focused on leading the viewer to a “Start Here” or “Archives” button to help them convert into readers.
Good landing pages take times to develop and, according to impactbnd.com, just about half of businesses using landing pages fail to test whether or not they’re actually working for them.
Hypothesize the most useful strategy for your landing page by thinking about the goal of your website. Is it informational? Are you trying to make a sale? Give away an e-book to navigate readers deeper into your sales funnel?
Why Your Landing Page Must Have a CTA
Once you decide on the goal of your landing page, it’s easy to build a landing page which begins to convert viewers to your intended action. This action (“Buy Now” or “Read More”) is known as a CTA or call to action.
Use a Video as Your CTA
You can even get creative and put your CTA in a video which may increase your conversions by as much as 86%. Videos are a great way to stand out from the crowd with a landing page that says, “Hey, look at me! Take action now!”
5 Rules to Follow for a Great Landing Page
There is so much information out there about landing pages, conversions, and CTA’s that it’s overwhelming. I’m going to boil down a few good rules to get started with as you consider what your goals and objectives are on your page:
- Include only one CTA on your landing page
- Keep your landing page clean, simple, and focused
- Experiment with ways to visually lead your viewer to your CTA
- Minimize links unless they lead to the CTA
- Keep the style and formatting consistent with the rest of your site
Why Your Landing Page Needs to Stand Out
Marketing personality and expert Seth Godin will tell you that it’s pretty important to be a purple cow. In the world full of black and white cows (bland, boring landing pages) purple cows tend to attract a lot of attention (a landing page which differs greatly from the flock). Oh, by the way, if you haven’t read the book Purple Cow, you’re missing the game big time.
If every landing page in your niche has a video as the focal point, then try using an infographic or gif. If every page in your niche is focusing on earthen colors and tones, try taking a radically different approach.
Create Your Own Landing Page
If you don’t already have a landing page (or multiples) on your site then you’re convinced by now to do so. You’re probably already one eager step ahead of me and beginning to wonder: “How do I make my own landing page!?”
Ready to take advantage of the huge potential of landing pages? Alright let’s get into it:
Far and away my recommendation for the free best landing page creator is Deal Fuel. With this handy software, you can easily create your new landing page using advanced web tools in a simple way.
Sure, there are tons of landing page creation tools out there and we encourage you to look around – find the right one for you. It’s easy to get lost in all the options, however, so try to avoid spending days research just which one is perfect. Avoid stagnation of your business and keep your head above water with Deal Fuel.
Whatever you do, avoid programming your landing page unless you’re an expert web developer. Web programming has become so advanced that it’s no longer worth your time or effort so just hire a pro or use a great landing page creation tool!
Testing Your Landing Page
The statistics are staggering here – more than 20% of businesses using landing pages report a lack of testing strategy [source]. This is a fatal flaw, so don’t let yourself fall into this trap.
Far and away the most popular way to test a page’s effectiveness is to A/B test or split test the page. What is split testing?
Split testing involves showing a different landing page to different viewers. By using two or more variations of the same landing page and tracking the statistics of each one, it’s easy to see which is the most effective.
Good split testing is not random, in order to be effective you must test a hypothesis so you might follow this pattern:
Hypothesis: “I think that writing the first paragraph in a more friendly tone would cause more sales.”
Test: Set up a second copy of your page which is identical to the first except for the first paragraph which is rephrased to sound more inviting. Present either page to half of your viewers at random and test the results of your hypothesis.
This is how split testing works! Once you’ve split test you’ll have an answer to your question and you’ll be able to make a decision to improve the effectiveness of the page you’ve built.
Again, there is a lot of software and third-party apps on the market right now which can take care of this for you! If you’re a larger budget company, you might even hire a firm or a consultant to do this testing for you.
Be careful how deep you dig into split testing as you may soon find it consumes all of your time! Don’t lose focus.
Conclusion
Let’s wrap everything up by revisiting what we’ve talked about.
You need to have a landing page because your competitors are laughing their way to the bank by leveraging the huge statistical advantages and sales increases offered by great landing pages. Don’t get left behind with a static web page and no landing page to show for it.
Good landing pages share a few key similarities and new research is available daily about what’s working and what’s not for great landing pages. The best landing pages are capturing huge amounts of traffic and conversions so don’t miss out.
Making a landing page can be easy with free or inexpensive software and landing page creation tools such as Deal Fuel to help guide you through the process and relieve the technical burden of page creation.
Testing your landing page will ensure that its performance continues to improve and you can take advantages of the huge potential of a good landing page!
We’re certain you’re going to love the results of creating a focused, intentional, and effective landing page for your brand or business. Good luck out there and enjoy the ride!
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