You’ve got a super cool website, so…why do you need landing pages? Excellent question. Landing pages are simple sites (usually, one minimalist page) created for a specific type of traffic to increase conversions and ultimately lower your cost per conversion rate.

Why Make Landing Pages?

Landing pages dial in on a specific product or service offering. If you’re a company that sells blue jeans, your website might be full of every style and cut of jeans under the sun. One of your landing pages might specifically be about women’s high-rise skinny jeans. If you’re running ads promoting that cut and you drive traffic to your full website, you’re going to have a lot of that traffic bounce or get distracted.

Landing pages are the quickest way to take action and are created to speak directly to the ideal target customer for that product. A good landing page can double or triple your conversion rate, even if nothing about your ad changes. 

When To Use Landing Pages

Landing pages are ideally implemented as the destination for your pay per click ads. When you’re paying for every click you want to send users to a page perfectly curated to secure conversions. 

If you have a new product or service being released soon, ads and a landing page aimed at driving awareness ensure that when you go to make sure your opening day announcement, it isn’t to an empty room. Make it a simple landing page gathering email addresses for people interested in knowing when your new offering is available. You can use that list for an email blast, targeting for your future ads, and to build look-alike audiences on Facebook. 

Landing pages are also a great way to speak to a segmented audience. If you’re a roofing company that works in both residential and commercial sectors, landing pages specific to each industry are important. You don’t want a new commercial developer to get onto your site and be confused because they see that you do residential work.

How To Make Landing Pages That Convert

Plenty of people get the ‘what’ and the ‘why’ down for landing pages, but struggle with the ‘how.’ Here are our 7 secrets for high-converting landing pages:

1. Don’t ask for much

If you have a lead form on your landing page, only ask for the bare minimum of information required. One company was able to increase its conversions by 120% just by reducing its 11 form fields down to four. Studies show that the optimal number of form fields is three. You can always gather more information later on in the process, only ask for what’s absolutely necessary at this stage.

2. Match Your Ads

In one study, a landing page with ad-specific messaging out-performed an identical landing page with generic text by 115%. Think about it, your ad resonated with this person enough for them to click through to your landing page. You need to build on that messaging to move them further towards conversion.

3. One Call To Action

Do not – I’ll repeat – do NOT poke holes in your landing page. If you want people to fill out a form, don’t give them a link to another page. If you want people to download an ebook, don’t give them a link to your social feeds. If you want people to take one action, don’t present them with a shiny yellow button for a different action. Secondary calls to action belong on your website, not your landing page.

4. Social Proof

On average, across all industries, user-generated content increased conversion rates by 161%. People don’t trust businesses, they trust other people. Including a testimonial, reviews, or other forms of social proof on your landing page is a must.

5. Optimized Content

A 1-second delay in your site speed can reduce conversions by up to 7%. Woof. Don’t let a lag cost you a conversion. Optimize your landing pages for mobile and for desktop with images and videos that load fast.

6. Visually Dynamic

Using a video on your landing page can increase conversion by 86%. This is your first impression with a lot of your traffic, make sure that it’s an impressive one. The goal is for your landing page to leave all questions answered without inspiring any new ones. To do that, you need a crisp, clear design that delivers information to the user in a way that’s simple to understand and easy to act upon.

7. Tested & Proven

Like anything else, your first draft isn’t likely to be your best draft. Testing your landing pages to see what specifically resonates with your audience is crucial to increasing your conversion rate. Some simple things to test are your call to action, your supporting text, your visual creative, your color-scheme, and your form fields. There is always something you can improve, never ever stop testing and optimizing.

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 Ready to make the leap into landing page creation? Get in touch with us. We’re here to help businesses just like yours achieve mind-blowing conversion rates.