The Importance of Landing Pages

By Mariana Magalhães

Landing pages tend to be perceived as a marketer’s secret tool by external audiences. When a marketer says he or she has put together a landing page it is often misinterpreted by the client, as just another web page.

After all, what makes a landing page so special that needs to have its own name? and how is it different from the other pages? This blog will walk you through what landing pages are, as well as how you can put one together and how they technically work. This is what we’ll cover:

• What are landing pages?
• Why do marketers use them?
• Kinds of landing page re-directs
• Who are landing pages suited for?
• How to use landing pages
• Why are landing pages useful?
• Optimation techniques for landing pages

What Are Landing Pages?

Landing pages are static pages that serve as a door to the website. These pages are usually ones in which customers “land on” as a result of the original action of clicking on an ad, and marketing promotion, marketing email or marketing promotion. Also referred to as a “lead capture page” or “destination page”.

Why Do Marketers Use Landing Pages?

Landing pages allow marketers to direct their leads to conversion by strategically positioning a call to action elements such as links, forms, buttons and other website elements. A landing page is frequently one of the first original points of contacts between the user and the brand so marketers tend to optimise this page in order to amplify the chances for conversion.

There are some critical reasons behind using landing pages, here are some of those:

Bridge Between Ads And The Brand

Landing pages act as a”bridge” between the ad and the brand. What this means is that the ad that the user first clicked on doesn’t fully show off the brand’s personality and doesn’t fully carry the user through the brand’s website. A landing page is able to carry, introduce and guide the user to a brand as well as a brand’s customer journey. The final destination being signing up to a newsletter, purchasing a service or products and other conversion activities.

It is very important that your landing page copy matches that of the ad or marketing material being used. This ensures that users a) know they are in the right location and b) a consistency of message evokes feelings of trust, which is especially important if you are advertising to a cold audience.

The Homepage Isn’t Specific Enough…

…for users who are looking for a specific query. Landing on a homepage will reduce the chances of a user converting, simply because they would have to make the effort to search for what they want. It’s much better than, to just direct them straight to it via a landing page.

For this reason, landing pages are useful to help convert and lead the user further (as mentioned above) for more chances of converting.

Segmentation

If a brand offers a wide variety of products and services, a marketer might opt to segment an audience for an optimal conversion rate. A marketer might choose to segment by target personas, behaviorally or demographically. With that in mind, different users require different ways of being targeted.

For example, would you target an 80-year-old grandmother the same way you would target a 25-year-old-millennial?

Most likely, not. While the millennial profile uses different online channels and it’s used to a very informal tone of voice, the grandmother profile doesn’t necessarily fit within the same cohort.

This is where landing pages come in. Segments of your target audience require different user journeys. Through your ads, you can link directly to a landing page that is appropriately designed to engage each specific audience.

Let’s suppose you have a noodles business. In order to target grandma, your ad could include something along the lines of “the best chicken soup for your grandson with our noodles!” and the landing page could have information about noodles, how easy they are to use, how easy they are on the stomach plus a CTA that reads “check out our chicken soup recipe”.

If the same noodle business wants to target the 25-year-old-millennial instead, the add could read “Get your lunch on the go with our noodles” and the landing page could have information about the said noodles, how easy there are to use, perfect for on-the-go people plus a CTA that reads “Flavours for every day of the week”.

Same business, different audiences, segmented by landing pages. This tone of voice change can improve your conversion rates.

Further Advertisement

When advertising via PPC, Google restrains characters to 140 characters, therefore, a landing page offers a chance to further develop on that pitch. In this context, a landing page should argue the reasoning why the user should convert (purchase, sign up for the newsletter or contact the company for more info).

Kinds of Conversion in Landing Pages

Landing pages may have different objectives depending on the varying marketing strategies of individual brands. Some of the most common landing pages re-direct to:

• Newsletter signups
• Information about a specific topic
• A downloadable
• Reach out by chat
• An add to basket CTA
• Register for an event

Who Are Landing Pages Suited For?

Anyone can set up a landing page in place as long as you have access to the back end of a website.

Whether you’re a small business, a freelancer or a big corporation, you can use a landing page and strategise accordingly. A landing page should be able to better help you track your users and use that information to improve your user experience. Here are some other reasons for adopting landing pages as part of your marketing strategy:

Why Are Landing Pages Useful?

Landing pages are particularly great if you have ads as part of your digital marketing strategy. If you have ads then you should probably have landing pages in place as well.

Budget Optimisation

Increase your conversion rates and lower your cost of acquiring a lead or sale. As the page is driven straight to what the user is looking for, the cost of acquiring a lead is reduced.

Your conversion rates also tend to increase as landing pages already offer a convincing argument to drive users straight away to convert. The user searches for it, the brand delivers it through a landing page, the user converts. Simple!

Specific – What the User Wants… what it really really wants.

Landing pages addresses exactly what the user clicked on for a higher chance of targetting. If a user clicks on an ad that is targeting a specific product, a landing page could and should feature precisely what is advertised. This way, you are delivering exactly what the user wants, with just a single click.

For example, let’s assume you have a household products business and your ad says: “Get 50% off on household products” your landing page message could be: “50% off all household products for today only” along with a product listing. Always be sure that your ad and landing page are congruent.

Optimisation Techniques with Landing Pages

This is how you can ensure landing pages are fully optimised so your lead (aka user) doesn’t immediately bounce-off. Here are some of the optimisation techniques we use at Forty8Creates to improve landing pages:

Copywriting

Ensure ads copywriting and headlines are similar, if not the same, for better targetting and consistency. In order for landing pages to act as a bridge, it is necessary that there is a resonance or something in common between a landing page and the ad so the user feels aligned with the landing page. Opposed to a fish out of the water, clicking around trying to find the very thing he clicked on in the first place.

Visible CTAs

Ensure your CTA’s are visible and attractive. This can be simply achieved by highlighting a button so it stands out from the rest of the text.

Above-the-Fold Content

Above-the-fold is a common term used in web design.

This term describes the initial content that is seen as the page loads. A good type of above-the-fold content is content that immediately grabs the user experience such as hero images, or hero sliders with a call to action.

Hero Header/Hero Slider/Hero Image

I can be your hero baby

Enrique Iglesias

Hero basically anything. Usually, a landing page has a very defined and stand-out element whether that is a slider, an image or a header. This is what’s called a hero header.

A focus on these elements is great because it immediately grabs the lead’s attention, and gives you the opportunity to keep their attention.

Design Directional Cues

“Directional cues” is a design term that defines the visual elements on the page that are used to guide the user’s eye level through each page.

They are organised in a way to point towards different elements such as CTA buttons, important information or testimonials.

UX and Easiness of Use

It’s important, that your landing page is user-friendly and it’s easy to use. This is necessary to retain your user on your website. If the landing page isn’t easy to use and automatic to understand users will bounce off of your website to look for something simpler to use. Some of the programs in which you can do landing pages, already come equipped with instructions to help you put together the most practical and user-friendly page possible.

With that being said, if you’re currently experiencing a high bounce rate in your pages you might want to consider installing a heat map analytics service so you can understand how previous users have looked and used the website. We use HotJar here at Forty8Creates.

Focused

To be a landing page it’s important that this page is focused on a single promotional message opposed to different arguments and kinds of content within the same page. A unified, convincing argument will build up the chances for conversion as it doesn’t overwhelm the user. Try to simplify it for the user as much as possible. After all, the user is only interested in what you advertised, to begin with, anything else that isn’t what you’ve advertised is irrelevant.

Consistency and Harmony

Each element on the page should contribute to the overall goal of guiding the user to conversion and build a harmonious combination. This element will be mainly influenced by the design of the page, but remember consistency in your tone of voice and messages also help here.

Testimonials & Social Proof

The best advertising you’ll ever get for your business is word-of-mouth. This because it’s genuine and it shows that your company is experienced enough to handle customers. The closest to word-of-month online that you’re going to get is through testimonials/social proof (reviews, comments, pictures with your product etc.).

Ensure your landing page has testimonials and some sort of social proof. Typically, placed on the bottom of this page, testimonials and social proof will be an added argument to purchase without having to physically write or state your point.

Trust us, this works.

Closing Argument/Reinforcing Statement

You should ensure that each landing page copy positively argues the reasons why the user should convert. For instance, you can describe why the products are good for the user or how your services can improve a user’s life. With that being said, do try and stick to a couple of single arguments if not one so the user doesn’t feel overwhelmed.

You can also use landing pages throughout social media. For example, on your Instagram. This article lists the best landing pages for Instagram.

You can do this!

Despite all of these guidelines, each business and each client is different. But most of all, ensure that you’re constantly testing and reviewing the results in order to learn how to better improve your landing pages.

Now go out there and start working on your landing pages, convert those users and buy yourself that house in the sun*

Send us through any questions that you might have. We love to nerd out on the specific problems you are having.

*We cannot guarantee these activities alone will get you a beach house.