What is a landing page?
There has always been confusion around what is a landing page and what isn’t. Most of this confusion stems from misunderstanding the difference between a website homepage and a landing page. Which is totally normal, and often more common than you think. So if you’ve found yourself on our blog, we’re probably correct in saying you want to know what a landing page is and why is it important? Look no further. We’re here to help.
Landing pages are dedicated, stand alone pages that with correct design and planning, can help stimulate conversions. In the digital world, a landing page can be considered a specific page that a user can access from an external source. Things like a paid marketing campaign or an effective SEO strategy can help increase the number of visits to your landing pages. Landing pages are an essential part of the user journey, that’s why understanding how to optimise them is vital in ensuring you maximise conversions.
Website homepages vs. Landing pages
Let’s start at the top: website homepages. Website homepages are generic. When you’re looking to explore a product, or what a company has on offer, the first port of call is the website’s homepage.
Think of it like a roundabout, when you approach it, you’re often prompted with various different exits. Each of these exists take you to a different destination. Each of these destinations is a landing page with one clear goal; conversion.
When you arrive at your landing page, you can stop and admire the scenery at your destination. No distractions. No major detours. But a specific focus on one objective with a clear and predetermined action designed to generate a lead or sale.
The importance of landing pages
SEO benefit
Creating new landing pages naturally adds content to your website. This new content serves several SEO purposes:
- It allows you to bring in more terminology that matches with navigational, informational and transactional searches your customers make.
- You can add a greater range of content types (video, images, copy, products) for display in different search results.
- These landing pages can internally link to other key sections of your website (with optimised anchor text), helping search engines to understand and rank your site better.
Benefit to paid campaigns
If you’re running a paid campaign, the laser focused content of a purpose built landing page is much more likely to convert. Use this sole destination page as an opportunity to showcase who you are and what you’re offering all in one place, rather than having to navigate through the website trying to find it.
Content marketing success
Landing pages allow you to satisfy each stage of your marketing funnel (TOFU, MOFU, BOFU) with highly targeted content that satisfies user needs at each stage.
For example, the top of the funnel (TOFU) is where you try and attract potential customers. In this case, you want to attract visitors to your website. So you’ll create a marketing campaign to redirect individuals to a landing page – where you have the highest chance to convert leads. Your leads will then want an engaging page that provides them with exactly what they’re looking for.
The power of a great landing page is unmatched. The more landing pages you have, they higher your chance of converting leads and securing new customers.
Creating landing pages that convert
You want to create a page that can successfully convert your leads. So for example, going back to the roundabout analogy, if at your final destination there is a coffee shop, you want you visitors to enter and purchase something.
Deciding what goes on a landing page is vital in ensuring you’re maximising your conversions. That’s were research comes in. Rather than making decisions blindly, you want to know what’s going to have the greatest success rate on your landing pages.
So it’s worth considering tailoring different landing pages to different types of customers. Creating buyer personas can help you generate a greater understanding on your different types of customers, which in turn can help you create bespoke, targeted landing pages.
To help increase your success rate, we’ve highlighted important features you should consider when creating a high converting, landing page.
1. Include video content on a landing page
As humans (in most cases), there’s nothing we love more than watching videos. So it comes as no surprise that landing pages which feature video content have a staggering 86% conversion rate! Hard to believe, I know, but it makes sense. Video content informs customers in a more enjoyable and digestible way. You can pack all your information in one clip and it can have the same affect as if you’re reading three pages.
Videos are also great at capturing attention. You ever find yourself wandering into a room and seeing something on the TV and you end up standing there, arms on hips, engrossed by it? If the answer is yes, you’re not the only one. Consider using videos to showcase what you’re offering, these can be illustrated videos or videos with actors. They capture attention subconsciously. So having a video on you’re landing page can really impact your conversion rate.
Video opportunities are endless. You’ll need to establish what your selling point is and then tailor a video to that. Figure out what the key pieces of information you want your leads to understand and then incorporate them in a short, engaging and informative video. Try to avoid auto play if you can, although it’s a pretty cool concept, there’s nothing worse than stumbling on a page and frantically trying to mute audio from a video you weren’t expecting (auto play also slows down your page load speed).
2. Have a fast page load time
Speed is something we crave when it comes to technology. Fast cars. Fast internet. Fast page load time. So it comes as no surprise that landing pages with a load time between 0-2 seconds have the best conversion rates. It makes sense, who would want to sit at and stare at a spinning wheel for a long time? It’s like waiting in a long queue for a coffee in the morning and thinking ‘do I really need one?’. The greater the load time, the higher the chance someone isn’t going to be interested anymore.
If you’re unsure about your landing page speed, you can run a quick Google Speed Test to see how your pages are performing. Once you have that data to hand, you can start making changes that can improve your speed. Initially there are a few quick, and fairly easy fixes you can do to help increase your speeds:
Examples:
- Reduce your page content – larger amount of content means longer load times
- Try and optimize your images – make sure the image is the same dimensions that your page will be rendering in.
- Minify CSS, HTML and JS – all these codes that make up your landing page are often packed with spaces which make your load time slightly faster. Try minifying them here’s an example of minifying JavaScript code that can be found from Wikipedia:
– var array = [];
for (var i = 0; i < 20; i++) {
array[i] = i;
}
Is the same as:
– for(var a=[i=0];i<20;a[i]=i++); - Host your videos elsewhere – although they look great on your website and help increase conversion rates, they’re fairly hefty and can affect your load time. Try moving video content to YouTube, Vimeo and other video sharing platforms. Then just simply embed the external link so the video is pulled from it’s original location and will only load when they’re actually clicked.
There are numerous amounts of fixes to help drastically increase your page load time, but some of those fixes are often best left to the experts. So if you’re still struggling with your page load speed, then we’d be happy to help. Just drop us a line info@immedia-creative.com.
3. Feature testimonials on your landing page
What’s the first thing you do before figuring out if a restaurant is worth visiting? You see what other people have said about it. People want to know if what they’re visiting is reliable, good value for money and most importantly trustworthy. That’s why 36% of top landing pages feature testimonials. Having testimonials on your landing page, from clients you have worked with, or are currently working with, is a great way to build trust. As we mentioned above, the main purpose of a landing page is to convert. By allowing clients to answer how you’ve solved their pain points, through the use of testimonials, mean like minded leads who are facing similar issues are more likely to chose you.
Think about using a variety of testimonials which all focus on a specific area. For example, if you’re running a coffee shop maybe find a testimonial which speaks about the location. One that speaks about the coffee. One that mentions the staff. So you’re answering various clients’ needs without you doing the talking. You’ve essentially found real life personas. That’s what’s great about having testimonials. You have a form of social proof. Plus it’s always nice to be reminded that clients appreciate what you do.
Why your website needs multiple landing pages
You know the famous saying: less is more? Well, when creating landing pages, you want more (less doesn’t always mean more). When it comes to conversion rates, having more landing pages gives people a higher chance for them to visit your page. Having 10-12 landing pages on your website can increase your leads by 55%. Not only are increase the chances in which individuals can stumble onto your pages, but you’re also allowing your brand to create various landing pages for different potential buyers.
Having multiple landing pages can help increase leads.
Having multiple landing pages can help increase leads. Segmentation becomes easier to do when you have various landing pages. You’re able to create bespoke, tailored landing pages for different audiences.
You wouldn’t advertise new cars to someone who doesn’t have a license. Landing pages are the same. They’re there to help you convert potential leads so you’ll need landing pages that work. Understanding your potential buyers can be simplified by creating buyer personas to help better target your marketing campaigns. Buyer personas help you establish your ideal customer and what their behaviours are like. So you’ll have different personas based on the products you’re selling. In all honesty, at the forefront of any successful marketing campaign or product launches is buyer personas.
So, what next?
The benefits of landing pages are unmatched. We’ve barely skimmed the surface. But we believe with these 4 key landing page requirements, you’ll definitely see an increase in conversion rates. If you’re still unsure whether you’ve got lead converting landing pages, or want further help on improving your landing pages, then let us help. We’ve been creating lead converting landing pages since the dawn of time (well since the business started in 2006). Get in touch at info@immedia-creative.com or call us on 01753 206006.
