So much has been said about landing pages and how they are critical to inbound marketing. While it is true that landing pages are the ultimate tool for businesses to convert the people visiting your website into potential customers – many people remain unaware and oblivious as to what really are landing pages.
Don’t sweat on it. This article has got you covered as it provides a complete guide to what landing pages are and how they need to be utilized in order to make the most of it.
What Are Inbound Marketing Landing Pages?
Many corporations today, large and small alike, invest a lot of time and money to create an interesting landing page which adds value to customers. A landing page, in the most simplest of terms, is a page where the visitors arrive on after clicking on a hyperlink or any other form of a call to action.
“The Rules of Web Awareness If the visitor can’t find something easily, it does not exist. If you emphasize too many items, all of them lose importance. Any delay increases frustration.”
― Tim Ash, Landing Page Optimization
For a landing page to be effective, it should focus on a targeted audience rather than have broad categories. Today, when the competition is intense owing to the plethora of online websites available to users, users tend to click on the site that offers them the closest results to what they are searching for.
There is a general misconception surrounding landing pages as people use the terms landing page, web page, and homepage interchangeably, incorrectly believing that they are the same. However, this is not true. A landing page’s primary goal is to collect the visitor’s information through a call to action form, thereby being designed in such a way that they achieve a single objective i.e. ‘conversion’.
On the other hand, homepages are not focused on one single goal or one single product. In fact, being the homepage, it introduces visitors and potential customers to your company and the wide array of products and services that you offer. This means that your homepage is likely to have more than one call to action buttons to cater to different purposes and products. Thus, while landing pages are a type of web page, they, under no circumstances should be mistaken as homepage.
Essentially, there are two types of landing pages:
1) Lead generation landing pages,
2) and click-through landing pages.
Another name for lead generation page is lead capture page. The primary purpose of this type of a landing page is to gather comprehensive information regarding the visitor including their names, email ids etc. thereby giving you the go-ahead to contact them and continue your target marketing.
Click-through pages are designed to nurture and warm up visitors, thereby captivating their attention. The idea is to gradually get your visitors acquainted with your company and what you offer before sending them to your desired page.
Why Do Landing Pages Matter?
Having discussed what landing pages are and what’s their purpose and goal, this section will focus on what makes landing pages extremely valuable for businesses.
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Offers concise results by removing clutter
Since the landing page doesn’t contain subsidiary information regarding your products and services like your homepage, it is extremely effective in its sole purpose of improving conversions. Thus, by narrowing your focus and getting rid of clutter, it shows visitors and potential customers exactly what you are offering, thereby, increasing the likelihood of a possible click to your call to action.
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Increases your website ranking on SERP
With so many sophisticated and creative web pages competing with each other to appear on the SERP, it is quite a difficult task to improve your ranking. However, with specifically targeted landing pages you can direct people to your site and increase your ranking on the search engine result page. Since search engines display results that are highly relevant, you need to present the content on your landing page in a straightforward way.
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They generate leads requiring little to no effort
Again, landing pages are paramount in order to increase leads drastically. Rather than directing potential customers to your home page via your social media accounts and other mediums like emails, you should direct them to targeted landing pages. This is because homepage showcases too many broad categories which frustrates the customers and makes them exit the site. On the other hand, targeted landing pages with the availability of quick call-to-actions increases your leads without you having to work for them.
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Cuts advertising costs greatly
As discussed above, these focused and targeted landing pages improve your ranking on the search engines and generate direct leads. Furthermore, when you are running online ad campaigns for your focused landing pages via advertising networks like Google Adwords, it generates more relevant results, thereby increasing your visibility as well as decreasing the advertising cost. As a result, you no longer need to plunder your expenditure account in order to fund your extravagant advertising costs.
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Retains website traffic by reducing bounce rates
When compared to retaining traffic, attracting traffic to your site is not that big a problem, thanks to the rise in search engine marketing and social media marketing. After all, getting someone to visit your site is meaningless if eventually they exit it without taking your desired action. In such a case, landing pages prove to be extremely useful. With clear-and-cut steps offered to customers in the landing page as well as many other appealing features, visitors are left with no other choice other than to complete the conversion process before exiting the site. On the other hand, for instance, if the email you sent to potential customers contains a link to your homepage, they are ought to exit your site as they don’t find it useful.
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Gives easy insights
Landing pages come with online forms asking for basic information from the visitors like their name, location, email address etc. When interested visitors fill these forms, it provides marketers and researchers with valuable data that can help them determine the type of visitors that are converting their behavior generally. These insights into visitor types and their behavior can then help them determine if their web page is effective or if they need to make changes to its design, structure etc.
How to Create an Effective Landing Page
Now that you are aware of the importance of landing pages and how they are becoming a significant tool for every online business, you need to create an effective and stunning landing page.
Here are a few things that you need to incorporate in your landing pages to get your desired result.
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Mention your company’s USP right away
USP, shortened for unique selling point, is what sets your company or organization separate from your competitors. Customers want to know straight-up as to why they should choose you over your competitors. What is it that makes you unique?
Just like you would mention your USP elsewhere on your web pages, you need to mention it on the landing page. Make sure that you mention it in the initial content of landing page. Whether use it in a headline, a sub header or in form of a value proposition; make your USP compelling and captivating.
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Add social endorsements and testimonials
Endorsements and testimonials act as a social proof. Testimonials are basically short quotes and statements from customers who are extremely satisfied by your product or service. These are highly valued by your potential customers. Because as human beings, we tend to place a greater value on a product which has been tested and proven to be of a great value.
These testimonials should include trusted sources such as mentions from well known brands, press, trusted partner and not to forget customers themselves. They show that your product is legitimate and not a scam. While you are at it, include the picture of the customer or whatever source you are quoting from to make it appear more believable and legit.
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Focus on your call to action (CTA)
This is perhaps the fundamental part of any landing page. After all, clicking on your CTA is what you want the visitors to do, no? You should come up with a clear and focused CTA based on your goal. It can be anything from ‘get in touch with us’, ‘call us’ to ‘add to cart’ etc. as long as it directly relates to what you are trying to achieve.
Since it is easily the most important part of your landing page, make sure that it is easily navigated. You need to highlight it through visual cues like arrows and ensure that it is placed where it is easily identified as the CTA.
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Keep it clear, concise and convincing
The primary purpose of a landing page is to keep it focused. Any extraneous information is only going to distract the customers, thereby keeping them away from your desired action. Visitors are not interested in your company philosophy, In fact, since they are already on your landing page, it is safe to assume that they are interested in what you have to offer. Also, because the content in your landing page needs to be concise, make every sentence count. Keep in mind that the opening and closing paragraph of your landing page should be no more than 3 to 5 sentences. Lastly, your landing page should be convincing so that visitors complete the conversion process.
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Make it visually appealing
Never underestimate the power of visuals. You need to make sure that your landing page doesn’t look outdated, boring or complicated. Your landing page should make potential customers feel confident that you are a trustworthy company.
The color and design of your landing page should be such that it entices and excites the visitors. At the same time, it should be consistent with the primary color scheme of your company so that visitors are able to recognize your brand from the first glance at your landing page. If you do not trust your creative streak, get help from a credible professional designer.
Thus, landing pages are immensely important in converting visitors to leads. No other web page can have the impact that landing pages have in successful conversion. However, landing pages aren’t meant to be a stand-alone marketing strategy. If you want to ensure higher conversions, it is necessary that you integrate landing pages with other online practices like social media marketing, search engine optimization, conversion rate optimization and much more.
To know more about landing pages or to get one, please reach out to us today.
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