Landing Page Guide – Improve the way you generate leads

Landing pages are often talked about, sometimes used, but rarely built well, tools with the potential to double or triple the leads your advertising produces. Done poorly, they are a complete turn off for your customers.......

So, starting with the basics;

A landing page is simply the first page a visitor sees, when they take action from your advertising. This could be either paid advertising, or shared links from fans in social networks. 

Your first question might be:

“Why do I want a landing page, my Home page tells them everything!”

Well, hopefully by now you’ve experienced searching online for something – at least once or twice.  Lets assume you want to find out the “best home loan interest rates”, and for the sake of illustration, the first position in the paid results lands on major bank’s web site with a page titled “Find the best home loan interest rates”. The content on this page shows a comparison chart, offers a download on how to choose a home loan, and other helpful information. 

If you were looking for this information, you’d be pretty happy. Most of your first questions have been answered, and you might be ready to download some of the information .

Compare this page  to the content of the same bank’s home page, where the general list of options are things like: Personal, Business, About Us, Investor information, find an ATM, download the app and so on. 

If the advertisement landed on this page, you’d probably be a little confused to start with. You might persist in searching it for the information you wanted, but you’d be just as likely to leave do a new search.

As an internet user in the modern age, you want answers to your questions, you don’t want to dig, sort and find information buried behind complex menus.  So Landing Pages are vital in providing information that matches your advertising, allowing you to increase your lead generation and ultimately, sales.

You might be asking yourself; How do I create a landing page for my website?

This is a bigger question than you might think. There are three main considerations;

• Planning
• Design
• Technology

Planning

Firstly, don’t rush it!  Your page should contain several key elements that will help to make it successful. A simple way to check landing page content is to run through questions a visitor would ask:

• Am I in the right place?
• Can I find the information I was looking for?
• Do I trust this site/business/person?
• Who else trusts them?
• What do I do next/where can I get more information?

Make sure your landing page answers these 5 simple questions. This will make sure it contains everything it needs to be successful.

Stuck?  Trying asking these from another point of view, some people find this perspective a little easier:

• What information will visitors to this page want to know?
• What are the businesses goals for visitors to this page?
• How can we encourage visitors to take action?
• How will we measure this campaign or landing page’s results?

Using these questions to drive your planning will go a long way to helping you decide what your landing page should include.

Design

The graphic design and layout of your landing page is really important.

Start by removing any elements that fail to answer one of the questions listed under planning.

Keep the layout of the page simple.

• You may not need all the links from your main website.
• Don’t assume your logo should be prominent.
• Limit distractions.
• Video introductions can be very effective, when they focus on the benefits of working with you.
• Stories are much more engaging than a list of features.
• Specialist copywriters who work on landing pages are worth every cent they charge.

Here is a review of two landing pages:

Technology

The way your current website is built will affect the technical ‘how’ to add a page to your website. Generally landing pages are still on your main website, but often they are not available via the menu structure of your website.

In some cases it may be better to have a separate domain name, particularly for magazine, newspaper, radio or TV advertising. This allows you to have a more simple (easier to type and remember) word or domain in your advert. 

As for adding a page to your site, you will need to discuss with your website manager or web designer.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you changed the picture or the text on a webpage? Would you get more sales or leads? One of the best features of landing pages is the relative ease with which you can test different elements of your design and content.  

What to Test

This allows you to see which changes make the biggest difference to your lead generation or sales. At the most basic level, you can use a service from Google called ‘Content Experiments’ and do tests in real time, of two or more different versions of the one page.  The basic premise is shown in the image below:

So, when your sales team is arguing with the marketing department about a new change, let the data settle the argument. 

What to test?

Anything can be changed in each version of a page.  There are two types of tests we run; 

Sweeping changes, where each version is completely different.

Minor element changes. 

Sweeping changes are used usually earlier in a new campaign, or if there is a change in the targeted advertising. Here we are seeking a concept, which converts much better than another design. Minor changes are usually used when we are looking for smaller increases, to an already successful design. 

 How long should I run a test?

 The answer to this will vary with every person you speak to. My answer is look for a ‘statistically significant’ volume of new visitors. For example, if your site currently receives ten thousand visitors per day, you might want 10% of your daily visitors to see each version.  Or if your site receives 1000 visitors per month, then you will have to wait longer, and perhaps be satisfied with 100 visitors per page you are testing. 

 So now you have a good basis for understanding what a landing page is, the process to build your landing pages, and the method by which you can get better results. If you’d like to develop landing pages with an expert, please Contact Us to discuss your ultimate goals and how we can help you.