How to Make a Good Landing Page (The First Time)
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s a landing page. If you’re scratching your head in confusion, let me steer you back in the right direction. Much like an aircraft landing strip, landing pages guide clients to something special you’re offering while enticing them to act.
Maybe you’re a brand with a new clothing line about to drop, you’ll want to make a landing page featuring new items, demonstrating any specials, coupons or deals. While to some it may sound simple, building a landing page takes research, planning, specialized insight, and a little intuition. Here’s how to land a landing page.
What’s a Landing Page Again?
Specifically? It’s a web page that inspires your target audiences to take some form of action. A “call to action”, or CTA. The CTA doesn’t even have to be a physical action at all. Maybe you offer complicated software and want to highlight uses, tips, and other information. Maybe you also noticed a Reddit thread where customers ask the same question over and over again.
Your landing page can encourage client subscriptions by answering the question and offering other related resources. Here is when you’d consider a longer form copy. You may also add landing pages to help advertise upcoming (relevant) events, products, or services. However, this must be skillfully done as the wrong design or verbiage will push clients away. With so many variables disguised falsely as simple tweaks, it can be easy for landing page developers to go astray.
Here are some helpful tips to making an inspiring landing page.
1) Get cozy with your audience.
How well do you know what’s going on? Do you have any pages or posts that customers respond to more than others? Do a little digging, AKA market research. Search for high performance pages and critically assess your audience’s actions. Use a data and analytics checker to run diagnostics tests on your pages to check for important metrics like conversion and bounce rate, subscriptions or opt-ins, customer lifetime value and acquisition cost. Make sure to divide metrics by traffic source, so you can also pinpoint what’s really driving your sales. Want to go even deeper? Check out competitor landing pages for a birds-eye-view at what everyone else is doing, find weak points, and exploit them.
2) Offer them something they actually want.
After talks with the financial, sales, and marketing departments, pull together a workable plan to reel them in. This can involve exclusive coupons, timed discounts on new product or services, or even just concise, helpful information they really need. If you want to build a newsletter or blog, the landing page can entice visitors by offering exclusive information about a product or service they may not know about yet, or that audiences tend to struggle with. If they’re intrigued by the content, odds are they’ll subscribe.
3) Put some meat on those bones.
Some businesses with one product or service may build a landing page that is the entire website. This appears as unreliable and a potential scam. Try to give your website depth. Make supplemental pages that go into detail about your product or service. Develop a simple blog that can stir awareness or provide helpful information that customers need to know. Landing pages are never supposed to replace the entire website, they’re more of a supplement to structured information, marketing, or sales campaigns.
4) Get to the point quickly.
Most busy people don’t have much for attention spans. Especially the ones you haven’t won over yet. Even the ones you have won over might still only give you a glimpse. You essentially only have a few, crucial seconds (less than five) to get your target audience’s attention and keep it. Make sure your message is clear and concise. When you think you’ve finished crafting the messaging on your landing page, give the draft to a few people to edit and look over. Something you may find easy to understand may be confusing to someone who isn’t in the industry. Think of a landing page as a virtual flyer or sign, don’t bog your clients down with blocks of text or wordy descriptions.
5) Show them your vision.
Images and videos are here to stay, so get used to it. Use visual elements in your landing page, because only text will send them away. Most people prefer visual over text. Make sure your graphic designer shows the landing page all the tender love and care it deserves.
6) Test the plan.
If you’re unsure which words to say, colors to use or images and videos to display, join the club. Narrow it down to two pages and AB test. Promote both equally, track metrics, and discover what your audience truly wants.
Still Need Help?
Building a cohesive, relevant, and attractive landing page that converts the customers you want takes some well-directed and skilled effort. If you’d like specialized guidance backed by experience, our team at Cork Tree Creative can help. We have an analytical bunch of creatives that can swiftly draft and design a stellar landing page you can bring home to your parents. Just reach out, and we’ll get something started ASAP.