There's always the risk of misinterpretation and misuse with each new marketing or SEO tool. Landing pages are an example of this. There are a lot of congested sites with a lot of keywords. Certain landing pages do not clearly state what they want you to do. Landing pages that aren't performing as expected.
Do not be concerned. Here's some guidance on creating an effective landing page design that accomplishes the goal of persuading visitors to take action.
Why Are Landing Pages Necessary?
Image is taken from Strikingly user’s website
Let's look at why landing pages are such a vital part of your marketing strategy before we get into the recommendations.
We know we want to use keywords to attract new users to our site, but what if multiple phrases signify the same thing? Let's talk about the landing page design.
Without having to develop duplicate content, landing pages allow us to optimize for closely related keywords."Press release" and "news release" are two interchangeable words. And Google treats them the same way in this scenario. When you search for "how to make a news release," you'll also find "press release" results:
But what if Google doesn't realize your keyword is a synonym for another from a keyword standpoint? In this instance, you'll need to make an extra effort to appear in those results, which is where landing pages come in.
Landing Page Design Tips
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For each long-tail keyword synonym you have, you may be designing a landing page to entice a visitor to take action. You may give searchers exactly what they're looking for by designing a landing page dedicated to a single idea, product, or category.
1. Determine the Purpose of Your Landing Page
According to Toptal, the purpose of landing pages is to boost conversions. As a result, you must ask yourself, "What kind of conversion are you aiming to promote?" Some of the most typical conversion goals are as follows:
- Increasing brand recognition
This entails expanding your email subscriber list and cultivating a relationship with these people through information about your brand and products/services, which results in a loyal following and increased consumer growth.
This entails gathering contact information from potential customers interested in your product or service so that a member of your sales team can follow up.
- Sales
This seeks to make quick purchases easier by highlighting a particular product and allowing customers to add it to their cart or purchase it without ever leaving your landing page. Defining your aim is crucial to the planning phase since it will impact your landing page design.
2. Make a Layout Plan
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An effective landing page design should have the following five elements, regardless of the goal:
- A headline
- A short explanation of your product or service
- Relevant graphics
- A lead-capture form
- A call-to-action
3. Keep the Copy Short and Sweet
Concentrate on succinct messaging in your headline and description. It's easier said than done, yet it's critical for user satisfaction. A Microsoft study from 2018 indicated that the average human attention span is barely eight seconds. The emphasis should be on expressing how your brand or offering can benefit people in basic, straightforward terms. Then, if you'd like, go into further detail below the fold.
4. Make Above-the-fold Placement a Top Priority
Always keep the most crucial content and call-to-action at the top of the page. This ensures that visitors see a vital glimpse of what you're giving and where they can take action regardless of where the fold, or bottom of your browser window, ends up.
This isn't to say that you can't have content below the fold on your landing page design. While grabbing visitors' attention is the primary purpose of above-the-fold material, you also want them to scroll down to discover more.
5. Appreciate Your Visuals
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Remember how I said you just have eight seconds to create an impact on potential customers? People scan photos faster than words in general, so including them on your landing page will benefit you. If you use a picture or photos, especially a banner or header image, they should be eye-catching and visually complement your offer. You can also use a video as a visual element on your page. Videos are excellent for demonstrating complex products, such as software. It's advised that at least one graphic element be placed above the fold, regardless of the type of visual elements you use. You can use the real estate below the fold to better highlight your product, but don't go overboard.
One last point concerning visuals: make sure they're mobile-responsive! Mobile traffic already accounts for 53.3 percent of all online traffic, and this ratio is expected to continue to rise. Optimizing your landing page design for mobile so that it looks excellent, loads quickly, and is easy to navigate takes a little extra time, but you'll be glad you did when your conversion rates skyrocket.
6. Create Landing Pages for Each Campaign
Consider how you'll get a digital audience to see your landing page. Is it going to be via email marketing? Is it possible to have a monthly newsletter? Posts on social media? Perhaps Google Ads?
It's important establishing an effective landing page for each channel if the answer is more than one of those marketing techniques. This might assist you in determining which traffic sources were effective.
Keep the landing page design comparable to the source if you go the per-traffic-source option. Include those specific design components on the Instagram campaign's landing page, for example, if you build an Instagram Ad with a particular title and image.
7. Minimize Distractions and Departure Points
Limiting exit options is one of the most commonly advised landing page design techniques. Remove the navigation bar from your website, as well as any internal or external links and mentions of linked deals. Visitors to your landing page should completely focus on completing your lead-capture form and converting.
When it comes to social sharing buttons, several marketing firms advise placing them below the fold. This allows you to easily share your material on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and other social media platforms. Other marketing firms advise excluding them totally to adhere to the concept of minimizing exit options. To check if adding social sharing buttons has a fair ROI, do an A/B test comparing different landing pages.
8. Make an Intriguing Offer to Encourage a Conversion
Removing exit options keeps visitors focused on your site, but luring them with something extra almost guarantees a high conversion rate. Offer a discount, a helpful resource like an ebook, or a free trial in exchange for a website visitor's email address. The possibilities for gated material are unlimited, but make sure the content is relevant to your product or service. Don't instantly prevent visitors from converting with an excessively long lead-capture form once you've persuaded them that your offer is worthwhile. Your form should be simple, with simply a first name, last name, and email address required. Of course, depending on the purpose of your landing page design, you may need a little more information, but that just means you'll have to make your offer genuinely worthwhile.
9. Use a Compelling Call to Action to Increase Conversions
Finally, we've arrived at the most crucial section of your landing page! A call-to-action, or CTA, is the button that your website visitors click after filling out a lead-capture form to submit their personal information. Use words that motivate and inspire your visitors to do a specific action when writing the button's copy. This frequently entails instilling a sense of urgency. Even WordStream agrees, as evidenced by its killer call-to-action criterion, which calls for the use of powerful command verbs, figures, and words that elicit emotion and provide a reason for viewers to take action.
The font should be easily readable and match the rest of the page's fonts when it comes to CTA design. However, it should be slightly bigger than the description text.
Although studies have shown that buttons with rounded corners are more clickable than buttons with sharp corners, the shape of your button is less important than its size in most cases. Your CTA should be large enough to stand out on your page and read clearly, but not so enormous that it overwhelms both your landing page design and your visitors.
Color theory is crucial in the marketing sector when it comes to color. Your CTA should be somewhere in the middle of what makes an impact and reflects your brand. Contrasting colors, such as orange and green, were more actionable and resulted in conversions. SAP discovered that orange CTAs increased conversion rates by 32.5 percent years ago.
10. Use A/B Testing to Increase Conversion Rates
It's time to A/B test the language, images, design, and CTA now that your landing page contains all the necessary aspects. Examine the performance stats for each page to see what may be tweaked to achieve your ideal conversion rate. However, keep in mind that you should only test one landing page design element at a time to discover which one made a difference.
While not directly connected to A/B testing, there are a few more improvements you should make: Optimizing copy for search engines and reducing the time it takes for your landing page to load, particularly on mobile. The smallest delay in loading time can negatively influence conversion rates. Check out Google's PageSpeed Insights tool to see how fast your landing page is.
Create Landing Pages with Strikingly
You could believe that generating landing pages necessitates the purchase of pricey software. On the other hand, Strikingly is a free landing page builder that may assist you in creating free and effective landing page designs! A premium package is also available if you want to take things a step further.
Contrary to popular assumptions, landing pages do not need to be spectacular to be effective. Take a look at some of the landing page design examples on Strikingly, and you'll notice that the most popular designs are straightforward and sophisticated. The idea is to eliminate as many barriers as possible, so visitors are neither distracted nor angry.
While doing landing page design, choosing the most impressive free landing page templates isn't the only factor to consider. It's more about determining what works best for you to achieve your email list-building goals. The best thing about Strikingly landing page templates is that they've already been tested and shown to be effective. These gorgeous but straightforward models have been expertly designed to help you get started.
Conclusion
Landing pages are an essential component of lead generation without a doubt. Without these, internet marketers would face an uphill battle to convert website traffic into potential leads and increase re-conversions. Landing pages assist marketers in directing site users to pages that are specifically targeted and capture leads at a much higher rate.
Finally, landing pages concentrate your visitors' attention on a single, focused offer, reducing the number of potential distractions on your website. Now that you know the landing page design tips and tricks, you should always remember that visitors to a landing page are there for one reason only: to get an offer!
Do you want to set up and build a landing page design for your company? Well, you've come to the right place; we're professionals in website development and design, which means landing pages are one of our specialties. Contact Strikingly today for designing a landing page that is the best you've ever seen.
