31 May
Landing pages are also known as “lead capture pages”. It helps businesses create effective marketing strategies to promote products and services. A landing page is an important part of the design development process and aims to entice visitors and drive them further down the conversion funnel.
They are valuable marketing channels that can benefit any type of business. Whether you want to grow your list (through a giveaway or product pre-sale, perhaps) or sell more stuff (by highlighting special offers or showcasing your newest items), landing pages are a great way to nurture new customers, educate people about your products, and drive conversions.Unlike a website’s homepage which is typically designed to provide a general overview of a business.
What are landing pages?
Landing page is a single web page that appears in response to clicking on a search engine optimized search result, marketing promotion, marketing email or an online advertisement. The landing page will usually display directed sales copy that is a logical extension of the advertisement, search result or link.
Moreover, landing pages are used for lead generation. The actions that a visitor takes on a landing page is what determines an advertiser’s conversion rate. A landing page may be part of a microsite or a single page within an organization’s main website.
Why do you need a landing page?
A landing page is a standalone page on your site that’s created for a specific offer or campaign. This is different from the home page of your website, which has many different options for visitors to take.
The main task of your landing page is to attract people that are interested in your offer and convince them to take action. You can create a landing page for many different purposes, like:
- Offering a lead magnet in exchange for contact information
- Promoting a specific product or service
- Generating buzz about an event or sale
- Getting registrations for a webinar
And much more. When visitors arrive on your landing page, there are no other options or choices to distract them. Instead, they can focus on taking your desired action.
Best landing page practices
The most basics of landing pages have the following elements.
- Headline
- Subheadings
- Copy
- Images
- Call-to-Action
Aside from the basics though, there are landing page best practices that can turn your landing page into a lead generation machine. Here are some landing page design tips to help you create the highest-converting landing pages.
1. Keep text to a minimum
The content on your landing page must be to the point, highlight the unique point. The content you offer will depend on the type of product or service you’re selling. Remember that you have approximately eight seconds to convince users that your offer is worth pursuing. Excessive information can overwhelm visitors and make them leave the page immediately. Speak to your audience using plain language and tell how you can make their lives better.
Furthermore, your landing page copy should be concise. Isolate the most essential information about your product, and condense it down as much as possible. Show, don’t tell; let the images do most of the talking, supplemented by supporting text and compelling headlines. Since you will be using a minimal amount of text, the phrases you do choose need to be meaningful and engaging.
2. Opt for a clean UI
The look, feel, and overall structure of your page design will have a huge impact on the effectiveness of your landing page and how well it drives conversions. The primary goal of your landing page should be to make it as easy as possible for a visitor to convert, so it is important that all elements of your page work towards the conversion objective, whether it being filling out a form, making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading an ebook.
When it comes to UI, the design should be simple and avoid being clutter. Leave plenty of white space, and break up large chunks of text. If you’re adding a signup form to your landing page, don’t add too many fields. Instead, keep it quick and to the point by including space for only the most important details: the visitor’s name, email address, and perhaps their job title.
3. Write a strong CTA
One crucial element for conversion is CTA(call to action). Having a CTA is an important landing page best practice. An acronym for call-to-action, a CTA is the little button on your landing page that tells visitors to take the next step. Depending on your goals, your CTA could ask visitors to fill out an online form (“Sign Up”), download an e-book (“Download Now”), or make a purchase (“Buy Now”). Whichever CTA you choose, it should direct your visitors toward fulfilling the main objective of your landing page.
Moreover, CTAs should be simple – typically, they’re just 2 words – but they need to clearly communicate value. Visually, they should be bold and eye-catching. Create a CTA button in a contrasting color, and place it in a highly visible location, such as directly below the main header of your landing page.
Double-check that your message in the CTA and the heading of the landing page correspond. If the heading reads differently than your call to action, it may lead to confusion, leaving visitors wondering whether the CTA is linked to the wrong page. Eliminate all confusion and make sure your text content reflects what you’ve promised in your call to action and vice versa. If there’s a deliberate catch in your CTA (e.g. no free trial), you’ll lose your users’ trust.
4. Avoid long scrolls
No one wants to spend a great deal of time on a landing page, however beautiful it may be. Everything your visitors need to learn about your product and convert should be on the first fold of your landing page (that is, the part of the page that’s visible without scrolling down). An explanatory and enticing heading – and, most importantly, a powerful CTA – must be included near the top of the page. That ensures that visitors will be able to convert without needing to scroll.
Another note about scrolling: there are cases in which it’s desirable. If your offer is particularly complex and requires more detailed explanation, you can benefit from a long-form landing page design. Just keep in mind to include the most crucial elements for conversion at the top of the page. You may also consider using lightboxes to display additional information without adding too many page sections, or parallax scrolling to make the experience engaging and pleasant for users.
5. Stick to brand colors
The best landing pages include a pop of color. In fact, a recent study shows that using color on marketing materials boosts brand recognition and sales by up to 80%. Think about it: whether it’s a red wildflower in a field or a rainbow against a blue sky, color has a natural power to attract.
Before you go wild with the colors, though, remember that they’ll still need to match the look and feel of your brand. This ensures that your branding is consistent across all platforms and helps visitors instantly associate your landing pages with your business. Try using brand colors that contrast from the other elements of your site to create a landing page that stands out.
6. Choose engaging visuals
Your visuals, like your choice of color, must attract and engage your visitors. Even if your offering is highly technical, such as a software, you’ll need to find a way to represent it visually. This is not only important for catching your visitors’ eyes, but also for breaking up the text and making your landing page more digestible.
Furthermore, any visual elements you select should be consistent with your brand. If you’re using photographs, make sure they’re staged in the same way as other photos on your site. Any illustrations or graphic art should likewise reflect your brand image. If you choose to add a video, the style and tone should be consistent with the overall feel of your brand.
7. Use F or Z patterns
Research has shown that people’s eyes tend to move around websites in an F or Z-shaped pattern. To maximize the effectiveness of your landing page design, try to take these patterns into account.
You can do this by placing your most essential landing page elements – the header, main image and CTA button – in an F or Z configuration. For instance, placing the image on the left, the header on the top right, and the CTA below the header follows an F pattern, prompting the reader’s eyes to settle on the CTA.
8. Keep visitors focused on the page
When designing your landing page, you need to make sure there are no distractions that will cause users to leave.Since the only link you really want your visitors to click on is your CTA, a landing page is not the place to include links to other pages of your site. If a link doesn’t directly take people to a place they’ll convert, it doesn’t belong there.
With that in mind, avoid including your website’s navigation bar on the landing page itself – that will make it too easy for visitors to navigate away from the CTA. Similarly, don’t include backlinks within your landing page copy.
9. Enable social sharing
As we’ve seen in the landing page designs above, another effective strategy is to make it shareable on social media. This lets people who view your landing page spread the word to their followers. While this tactic doesn’t directly drive conversions, it can increase the number of clicks on the page. And the more visitors you bring in, the more conversions you’ll get overall.
To encourage people to share, add a few different social buttons to the first fold of the landing page. The most popular options are Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Pinterest.
10. A/B test your design
Finally, while there are several best practices for optimizing your landing pages, consumer psychology can be surprising. If you’re conflicted about a particular landing page design, the best thing you can do is to run an experiment that tests out different versions of your pages.
Display slightly altered versions to different people – for instance, try playing around with the colors and the position of the CTA – and check to see which ones convert best. According to this conversion benchmark report, the average landing page conversion rate is 9.7%, so you’ll want to aim for that or higher. That way, your final decision will be based not only on aesthetics, but also on real, hard data.
Landing page design inspiration
Now that you know how to make your page stand out, take a look at these landing page designs for inspiration. If there’s an idea below that you love, clicking on the link will take you directly to a free landing page template that you can customize yourself.
- Signup landing page design
- Product landing page design
- Webinar landing page design
- App landing page design
- Conference landing page design
- Startup landing page design
- Online store landing page design
- Under construction landing page design
1. Signup landing page design
A landing page that doubles as a signup form is a highly effective design when it comes to capturing leads. The form requests the visitor’s full name as well as their email address, while customer testimonials further down the page persuade them to take action. If you’re looking to grow your client base online, this particular format is a valuable source of landing page inspiration.
2. Product landing page design
This landing page uses vivid colors for a playfully crisp, clean feel. Large-scale images of the product are showcased front and center, as well as the company’s slogan and a CTA that encourages visitors to buy the product. Towards the bottom of the page, a list of the product’s benefits serves to persuade people who are on the fence about purchasing.
3. Webinar landing page design
While people often associate landing pages with product promotion, they can also be used to promote a webinar or similar virtual event. This simple but powerful landing page design begins with a straightforward header that explains exactly what the webinar is about. Because of the uncluttered design, the CTA – “Reserve my spot” – is prominent and clickable. More detailed information about the webinar, including the speaker bio and audience testimonials, is placed lower down on the page.
4. App landing page design
Another type of landing page centers around promoting your business’s mobile app. This particular design is both friendly and professional. It introduces the new app with a catchy headline, links directly to Google Play and the Apple App Store, and includes a screenshot that displays the app to potential users. Scrolling further down the landing page, visitors are given an introductory explanation of the app’s features and benefits.
5. Conference landing page design
If you’re holding a conference, using a landing page is an effective way to promote it. This landing page design condenses all the important information about such an event on a single page. The top fold displays the location, date and a button to buy tickets, while a quick scroll downwards reveals details about the speakers, agenda and venue.
6. Startup landing page design
This attractive, modern landing page design works well for any company, but it’s especially on-brand for startups. While minimal text is an important feature of most landing pages, this format allows you to dive a little deeper into your product by providing places to include specific information. The “How It Works” section, for instance, is the perfect place to share product details that would attract investors and future clients.
7. Online store landing page design
If you’re in the process of launching an online store, use a landing page to attract customers leading up to the official opening of your shop. One strategy to get potential buyers excited about your brand is to display top items on the landing page itself, as you’ll see in the design below. This is far more effective than a text-based coming soon page, since it gives people a sneak peek of your store and entices them to sign up for updates.
8. Under construction landing page design
Website under construction pages are a specific type of landing page that explain to users that your site is still in the works. This is a fairly straightforward under construction landing page with a playful but minimalistic progress bar design. There are two important elements that make this page stand out: the social media buttons and the “Notify Me!” CTA. These encourage the visitor to further engage with your brand, rather than simply navigating away from your page in search of another. And if a particular user is excited about your upcoming site, they’ll have the option to spread the word on social media and share it with friends.
Conclusion
Landing pages differ from website homepages and present a unique opportunity for businesses to build focused, customer-oriented marketing campaigns. The key is in how professionally they’re designed. Remember that landing pages that are technically good must also have well-structured content to increase the conversion rate.
When you create landing pages for unique campaigns, targeted audiences, events, or promotions, you can provide people with a clear, direct call to action and make it easy for them to buy your products or sign up for your list. The simpler and neater a landing page, the better the chance it will convert users into leads.