Landing page truths that every small business should know
Landing page – This is a page designed to convert your traffic into leads for your business. Ideally, it will increase conversions, doing some if not all of the work for you.
Using design and content you can accelerate the conversion of visitors who are on your landing pages. Just as a well-designed storefront window display invites people to come in, a landing page should elicit action from its visitors.
A landing page can be a part of your website and within the menu options of your website. Or it can be a series of one or more landing pages tied to your website but not part of the standard menu of your website.
Traditionally landing pages were often completely separate from your website with their own URL and hosting platform. However, the easiest and most cost-effective way to create a landing page is to have it within your existing website and hosting.
Landing page truths that every small business should know
- You need a goal
- Clear and concise content
- Remember a call to action
- Ensure your brand is consistent
- Long-form or short-form content
- Landing page testing
- Finding your landing page
You need a goal
Why are you creating a landing page in the first place? Are you just creating on because you think you have to or is there a specific goal you can describe? Having a goal will make the rest of the process so much easier to follow.
- Is it to sell something (you may have one or many landing pages)
- Do you have a white paper for people to download
- Do you run regular webinars and need people to gain more information and register via your landing page?
- Would you like to grow your email list so that you have a direct way to get in touch with your list and then potentially send them to other relevant landing pages?
Clear and concise content
As part of encouraging your landing page visitors to take action, your page needs to quickly and concisely deliver the value that you are offering via your landing page. Make sure you are clear and avoid using any jargon.
Tell people:
- What your visitors need to give
- What your visitors will receive
- How it is going to solve their problems
Remember a call to action
As you have a goal for your landing page the call to action will be tied to that goal.
Having an effective call to action is arguably the most important part of any landing page. Ideally, you want the call or calls to action to be within the top of the content and throughout if it makes sense for your page.
Your call to action should be simple. For example, if you are collecting subscribers ask for a minimal amount of information such as their email alone or just their first name along with their email.
A call to action may be ‘Download’, ‘Sign Up’, or ‘Buy Now’, and is generally positioned in several places – towards the top, in the middle and to the bottom of the landing page.
Ensure your brand is consistent
Your landing page should be consistent with your brand along with the look and feel of your website.
Logo, colour, images and more should all reinforce your brand. It is this reinforcement of brand that lets visitors know they are in the right place if they are already familiar with you or want to compare your landing page with the rest of your website.
Images and video – these need to be on brand and engaging. Video is a wonderful medium to use and can work to enhance your call to action.
Long-form or short form
Many landing pages in the past were developed with long-form content. They appeared to endlessly scroll down with more and more content and more and more calls to action. Plenty of people still use these today however they can look very spammy regardless of the design.
Short form landing pages get to the point and usually require little scrolling to get the user converting. This type may have one or a series of pages to move the user through answering their questions and utilising the call to action.
The fold – The fold on a web page in everything that can be seen prior to the need to scroll. This is why having a call to action towards the top, middle and bottom is essential. You never know how far people will go to get the information they are looking for. Some want it quickly and others will scroll and make sure they view everything.
Landing page testing
If you are unsure what is going to work, you can try more than one version of your landing page. A & B testing is very common and once you see what is working you can stick with the one design.
You can test different headlines, calls to action, button sizes and colours, images and videos. Or you may try different designs for different audiences. The goal must always be about increasing your conversions.
How do people find your landing page?
There are various ways that people will find your landing page. The most common is generally from an ad that you may run on Google Ads or via Social Media ads.
Options:
- Paid ads – Google, social media or other
- Another page of your website
- The menu of your website
- Organic posts on your social media
- Organic search results of Google
Conclusion – Landing page truths that every small business should know
Back in 2019, I wrote a blog ‘What is a landing page’ this blog was aimed at describing what it is and why you need it. How long have you been using landing pages?
Just as a bird lands to take action on a meal, to rest or any of its other goals, your landing page must be designed for the visitor to take action based on your goals. Make sure that you don’t just create a landing page because you think you need to. Review your goals and make sure that having a landing page or several landing pages is worthwhile for your business.
So, are you going to add a landing page or a few landing pages to your marketing plans? Do you need help implementing them, if so contact Kelly @ My Sassy Business?
