Anyone who runs a website cannot avoid a landing page. The so-called Call-to-actions lead the visitor directly to the landing page, which is practically the goal or the common consensus between you and your users. These pages are therefore very important in marketing, although it is not always clear exactly what a landing page is. All in all, landing pages are essential for attracting customers, ranking your site and generating more sales.
To give you an overview of the various definitions and information about a landing page, I have compiled the most important information for you here.
What is a landing page?
The term landing page comes from the English word "landing" and the English word "page". Visitors usually land on this page, i.e. their destination, after clicking on something. They often come to your landing page via a so-called call-to-action, such as "Click here", advertising banners or other links.
Overall, the landing page pursues various goals:
- Traffic and SEOA landing page helps you to rank well on Google and increase your visibility. SEO, i.e. search engine optimization, generally aims to display your site on the first 12 pages of Google. However, your goal is to be displayed as high up as possible. This will give you more visibility and therefore more visitors and potential customers.
- Leads: Good landing pages increase your leads, i.e. contacts to customers.
- Sales: Well-optimized landing pages help to increase your conversion rates and generate more sales.
On the landing page, users find specific offers, preferably without distractions or other disruptive factors. To prevent customers from leaving the page again, landing pages stand alone. The page usually contains no additional navigation system, no external or internal links and no references to other pages, but only the information sought or input forms for orders, newsletters or offers. The landing page is therefore a common consensus between you and your visitors. This can be, for example, the purchase option for the product or information that the user has been looking for. The landing page is therefore a very important component in online marketing. Without a landing page, it is much more difficult to sell services or goods.
It is important that the landing page is not linked to the Home page should be confused with the landing page. The latter fulfills a completely different function than the landing page. The main purpose of the home page is to provide information and make the website appealing to the customer. On it, the user will find lots of information, links and call-to-actions that lead to various subpages. It generally shows visitors what kind of site it is, what it offers and what the customer will find here. The landing page is about a specific goal, such as a purchase offer.
10 tips for a good landing page
After all the theory, here we explain how to create and build your perfect landing page.
Nevertheless, you should refrain from creating the perfect landing page right from the start. A conversion rate of 100 % is therefore unrealistic. Nevertheless, you can still achieve good rates of 80 % with a good landing page. Here are a few tips for optimizing your landing page.
1. find target group
You cannot optimize your website without a target group. You should therefore be clear about which users you want to reach when you create your website. Does the target group consist of young or older people, women or men, professionals or students, etc.?
Depending on the target group, you also need to adapt your landing page stylistically and visually, i.e. align it to your visitors. However, remember that the focus here is also on your product.
2. set target
Before you start creating the landing page, you should next consider what you want to achieve with it. Possible goals could be:
- Subscribe to our newsletter
- Service booking
- Event booking
- Product purchase
- Donation page
- Arrangement of a consultation
- etc.
The choice is not limited. You decide what you want to achieve with the landing page. However, you should focus on one function per landing page. The fewer distractions, the more effective your page will be, which is why you should create a separate landing page for each target.
3. coordinate the ad, landing page and forms
Customers often find your site via an advertisement. If they enter a search term in Google, they are shown suitable offers. If visitors click on the ad, they are taken to your landing page. To ensure that visitors stay on the page, your landing page should match the ad both visually and in terms of content. It is important that the landing page keeps the promise made in the ad and does not make any promises that you cannot keep. Ideally, the ad and the landing page should build on each other.
The heart of your landing page is the form. This can consist of the purchase conclusion, an input form for data or something else. Your visitors should be able to enter their data here so that you can use it later to contact them, complete the purchase or implement their wishes accordingly. The form should not be too long, visually appealing and easy to find. The rule here is: as much as necessary, as little as possible.
It is important that the design of your website is reflected in ads, landing pages and forms. A uniform design not only looks nicer, but also shows visitors that everything belongs together and demonstrates good taste. It also looks neat, structured and professional.
4. present solutions
Customers like short and concise messages. Long texts, explanations and stories are distracting and lead to customers switching to other websites.
Visitors should therefore be able to quickly recognize the benefits of visiting your website. It is therefore more appealing to visitors if they can see how your product can help them. The article on writing website texts can also help you with this.
You should also upload photos to make your website more visual. Avoid pure advertising texts as far as possible, but rather concentrate on honest and authentic texts and always keep your target group in focus.
5. gain trust
Testimonials, seals of approval and personality show visitors that your product is of high quality and that you are trustworthy. Other ways to gain the trust of your customers are:
- Product video and tutorials
- Company presentation
- Information on blog pages
- Customer reports and ratings
It is important to keep your promises based on this information. Authenticity and trust are the most important keywords on which you should build your website.
An honest personality is a good sales channel. Customers like authenticity and personality and prefer to buy from people they trust. So give your landing page a face and a so-called human side. Your character is often required for this point. So don't just sell your products, but also yourself as a salesperson, both in line with your target group. Customers like to buy based on gut feeling and not always on rational factors. Therefore, with a well-formulated, authentic text about yourself, you can also get very close to the customer online and often generate more sales through this sympathy.
6. select elements carefully
The landing pages should be structured as directly and clearly as possible so that the visitor is not distracted from the essentials. This is why many landing pages do without navigation, excessive graphics, banners or other products. Reduce the content to your main focus, your product.
So ask yourself when designing:
- Does the content offer added value for the customer?
- Is the content distracting?
- What is the focus of the site?
- Does the content support the visitors' wishes?
For this reason, landing pages usually consist of the following content, whereby you should also follow the motto "as much as necessary, as little as possible":
- Logo
- Headline and footer
- Product image/services
- Title and introduction
- Call-to-action
- Recommendations
- Social proof/trust signals (seals, certificates)
- Privacy policy
- Imprint
- Cookie settings
7. headings and contents
The headlines of your landing page should be short and appealing. Users must be able to immediately recognize what the focus of the page is. On their first visit, visitors often scan the page first before deciding to read on or fill in any forms. With short and direct headings, however, they know immediately what to expect and whether they will find what they are looking for on the page.
On the landing page, users should usually take the final step to purchase or enter data. This is why excessively long paragraphs of text are often a deterrent, which is why you should avoid them if possible. To keep visitors on your page, your texts must be carefully structured and neatly designed. List elements, markers and checkboxes are particularly eye-catching, as they help customers find the right information they are looking for more quickly and therefore make the decision to stay on the page or even come back. If you still want to include continuous text, place it at the bottom of the page so that customers don't have to skip it to get to the information they need.
8. call-to-action, data protection and cookies
Call-to-actions (CTA) not only lead to your landing page, but can also be found on it. They lead the user further through your website or ask them to enter data, fill out forms or even complete purchases, for example. A good CTA should therefore be demanding, but not too intrusive for the visitor. Make it appealing, inviting and, above all, clear so that users know what to do. Rather than using standard formulations such as "Click here" or "Register now", choose creative and appealing CTAs.
You should also bear in mind that, for GDPR reasons, you must also include the legal notice, your website's privacy policy and the associated cookie settings on your landing page and every other subpage of your website.
9th "Thank You" page
If the users have fulfilled the goal on your landing page, e.g. completed the purchase or entered their data in the form, then it is always nice to place a "thank you" page in the form of a landing page. This way you show your visitors that they are important to you and it also feels more personal. This gives users another good feeling. Who doesn't like to be thanked?
10. analyze ranking
The more pages you create, the better you get. Track your Google ranking and analyze how many new sales you generate over a longer period of time. This data will tell you whether you need to optimize your site further or whether your site is already ranking the way you want it to. WordPress offers various plugins with which you can track your ranking, e.g. RankMath. A good ranking leads to more visibility on Google and therefore more visitors, which in turn leads to a good ranking. This eternal cycle helps you to continuously improve your website, and in this case your landing page.
Conclusion
As you can see, it is impossible to imagine e-commerce without a landing page. However, in order for the landing page to fulfill its purpose, it must meet certain requirements.
A landing page is not a classic website. The start page, for example, should usually provide as much information as possible, catch the visitor and show them why they should take a closer look at your site. The basic rule for a good landing page, on the other hand, is to avoid distractions and focus on the desired goal for visitors.
The goals of a landing page are usually to make purchases, enter data, fill out forms or book services. There are corresponding call-to-actions and prompts for users. However, to ensure that they follow the prompts, they must not be distracted by unnecessary additional information.
So you can remember that:
- Find your focus group and address them in a targeted manner.
- Same design on the entire website.
- Landing page: as much as necessary, as little as possible.
- No navigation!
- Use short, snappy titles and texts.
- Keep your promises.
- Choose suitable call-to-actions.
- Analyze your ranking and improve the page if necessary.
- Don't forget data protection and cookies!
Don't forget: visitors decide within the first few seconds whether they want to stay on your site or move on. You therefore only have a very short window of time to persuade customers to stay and perhaps even buy.
Creating a good landing page is therefore not as difficult as it sounds. A good landing page, like a homepage, lives from good, authentic content that always matches the focus of the website. The ranking and completed purchases will tell you whether you need to optimize your page further.
If you stick to these rules, nothing will stand in the way of your landing page.
