Great landing pages are critical to maximizing conversions from your visitors. It makes no difference what you sell, you might not even sell anything at all, just trying to build your email list of possible customers. But whether you sell anything directly from the landing page, or just collect email addresses, one thing remains consistent in all landing pages, and it is that they must gain the highest possible number of conversions from your users.
When we say conversions what we’re saying is the proportion of people who visit your page, and then move forward to carry out whatever it was you wanted them to perform, or completing a purchase or filling out a registration newsletter form, any person who performs the action you hoped for is a conversion.
So what is it that makes a good landing page? There are some things that every landing page should have, and its these items that we will talk about here, of course, you will have a requirement for you landing page that requires you have specific requirements, but what we talking about here is for all landing pages, no matter what the subject or what you want your visitors to do.
So let’s start with the most important aspects of a good landing page, which is of course the call to action. A call to action is asection or a combination of elements on the page that encourages the customer to perform the required action. The most essential thing for a winning landing page is that there has to be a very clear call to action. The call to action has to be so obvious so visible that no user is left in doubt what to do to take up whatever it is that you try to make them do.
Make sure your form is eye catching with a great title above the form in big bold characters that will tell the user to either get started or fill out the form etc, just be certain the title is eye catching and that it is brief and to the point to immediately let the user know where to go next.
This great title generally works very well when locationd on an arrow type graphic that points to the first section of the form, title and arrow work together to make it unquestionably clear to visitors when they must begin, and what it is that they need to do. Another major point of a good landing page is a representation of what is on offer, it may come in the form of a photo image or an drawn illustration. Try to make sure the graphic is simple and straightforward, if you sell cars, for example, when a picture of a car is all you need, do not pile in a load of iamges to get emphisise your point, think tidy, basic and straight to the point. You must also include a brief and catchy heading, again this should be bold and clear, and no more than 5 or 6 words, just enough to say what the landing page does in as little number of words as possible, so that the customer does not have to actually read the heading, it must be so brief that they see it and automatically know what it says.
One more addition is some bullets to reinforce the major benefits of what you have to offer, keep the number of bullets low, say no more than 4 or 5, and like the heading keep them brief and to the point. Users should not have to read very much on your page to understand what it does, make certain all the text gets to the point quickly. Customer testimonials are a great way to increase conversion numbers, as they help to install some credence that the user will feel safe that other people have gone before them and had a good experience of what it is you have to offer, and if a user feels great then they are much more likely to implement the action you want them to perform. In the supplementary details and opinions are is also the location to once again show your call to action, the user may at this place be convinced that they want to take you up on your offer, so you should make it obvious and easy for them by having the call to action there in front of them when they have completed reading the end of the landing page. Many people sweat over the actual graphic design of a landing page, and while great looking landing pages can be very impressive, they are not essential for increasing conversions. Provided you have a professional looking landing, the layout and content of the landing page is what is most important.
The last important fact we’ll look at is the importance of experimenting with your landing pages. There is nobody on that can give you a landing page and know that it will be the highest converting page you will ever get. To achieve the highest sales you need to experiment with your landing pages and maintain good records of the results of each experimental page. In this way you can pin down your landing pages repeatedly until you find a page that converts well in relation to all the others landing pages you experiment with.
Jake Dean writes articles on various topics including website marketing and landing page templates along with articles on how to create successful landing page designs.
