The Complete Guide to High-Converting Landing Pages

Do you want to create a landing page that makes visitors excited to be your customers and keeps them coming back for more? This comprehensive guide will equip you with the knowledge and strategies to create high-converting landing pages that drive sales and boost profits.

Get ready to unlock the secrets of successful landing pages and take your online business to new heights!

What is A High Converting Landing Page?

A high-converting landing page effectively communicates the value of your product or service, addressing your target audience’s needs and pain points. In doing so, it converts casual shoppers into loyal customers who trust your brand above all others in your industry.

By presenting clear and persuasive content, including compelling headlines, concise copy, captivating visuals, and strategically placed calls to action, a great landing page can influence visitors’ decision-making process and nudge them towards making a purchase, signing up for a free demo, opting into an email campaign, or completing another desired action.

Let’s dive deeper into the benefits of high-converting landing pages so you completely understand their value.

Benefits of Effective Landing Pages

A single landing page offers many exciting benefits for your business. Once a visitor lands on your website, they gain a complete overview of how you will solve their pain points. As they continue to read and scroll through your content, they will become more reassured that you are the answer they’ve been searching for until they ultimately become customers.

Here’s a list of benefits a good landing page can offer:

Increased Conversions

The primary benefit of a great landing page is, of course, the ability to drive conversions. By optimizing the page for a specific action, you increase the chances of a landing page visitor choosing you over the competition.

Quality Customer Experience

A well-designed landing page ensures visitors can easily find the information they need and complete the desired action without any obstacles. A positive user experience leads to higher engagement, increased trust, and more sales.

Resonate with Ideal Customers

The highest-converting landing pages tailor messaging and content to a specific target audience rather than attempting to appeal to the masses. By understanding your customers’ needs, preferences, and pain points, you can create landing pages that deeply resonate with visitors.

Data Collection and Insight

The platform you use to design your landing page will likely analyze visitor activity (such as click-through rate, time spent on the page, user demographic information, and abandonment rate) and present the information to you in charts or graphs. You can use this data for future marketing efforts, including redesigning your website until you have the ideal landing page.

Continuous Improvement

Through A/B testing, you can experiment with elements such as headlines, visuals, CTAs, and copy to identify the most effective combination and continuously improve your landing page conversion rate.

Brand Credibility

A well-crafted landing page enhances the credibility and trustworthiness of your brand. When visitors perceive a landing page as professional, informative, and honest, they are more likely to take comfort in choosing you over the competition.

Now that you understand the benefits of a high-converting landing page, we can get into the most exciting part of this guide: making your own landing pages that customers love!

Creating a High-Converting Landing Page

Creating high-converting landing pages involves a mix of psychology and marketing strategies. You need to understand the emotions of your visitors from the time when they decide they need a product or service to when they visit your page, see your visuals, read the content, crave your offer, and decide to buy.

There isn’t a singular definition of the perfect landing page – every business is unique, and your landing page should reflect that! However, certain elements will help convert landing page visitors into customers at a much higher rate than you’d see without these elements.

Key Elements of High-Converting Landing Pages

Landing page conversions are all about having all the correct pieces and ensuring they fit together like a puzzle. As soon as your page loads (which should happen quickly!), potential customers will begin evaluating your fit for the job.

You only have a few seconds to grab attention, so you must have captivating visuals, compelling copy, and clever tactics that make visitors want more.

Images & Video

Landing page copy is essential (as discussed shortly), but too much text can feel tiresome. Use images, photos, and videos to break up text and make it more exciting for readers to follow. Additionally, because visuals provide shoppers with something to look at, they are effective for keeping people on your website longer – this is especially true for video content.

You can use original images on your landing page, but that isn’t necessary. Most website-building platforms offer stock photos and graphics that you can use for free. As long as the visuals you choose align with your branding and overall landing page aesthetic (and are royalty-free to avoid copyright infringement), there’s no reason to set up an expensive photoshoot.

Here are a few other places you can get free or inexpensive imagery for high-converting landing pages:

• Unsplash
• Canva
• iStock
• Pixabay

Pro tip: Start with a hero image. A hero image is a large, visually striking picture, video, or banner at the top of a landing page. It immediately tells customers what your product does and how it will change their lives. 

Sales Copy

Sales copy refers to written content that you specifically craft to persuade the reader to take a desired action. For high-converting landing pages, sales copy involves the following:

• Compelling Headline: A strong landing page headline grabs visitors’ attention and entices them to continue reading. It should be concise, clear, and highlight a compelling benefit or solution.
• Engaging Opening: The opening sentences should build on the headline and spark curiosity or emotion, making the visitor want to keep reading and learning more.
• Persuasive Body Copy: The landing page body copy should highlight key benefits, address pain points, and offer solutions. The copy should be well-structured, easy to read, and continue to explain how your offer meets the reader’s needs.
• Clear Call to Action: Every effective sales copy should include a clear and compelling call to action. The CTA should be prominent and use action-oriented language.
• A Sense of Urgency: By emphasizing limited-time offers, exclusive deals, or scarcity of products on your landing page, your sales copy can encourage fast action.
• Readability: Utilize subheadings, bullet points, and short paragraphs to make the copy scannable and easy to digest. A visually appealing layout with sufficient white space, contrasting colors, and large headlines will enhance the overall readability of your landing page.

Search Engine Optimization

As you (or a professional copywriter) craft the copy for your entire landing page, be sure to incorporate relevant keywords that improve your search engine optimization (SEO) ranking. For this part, you’ll want to get inside the minds of your target customers and consider which terms they’ll use when searching for a solution to their problem.

For example, if you sell a water bottle, think about the specific details that make your product ideal for a potential customer. If you’re marketing a glass water bottle to an eco-conscious audience, you might want to include keywords such as “eco-friendly water bottle,” “sustainable water bottle,” and “plastic-free water bottle.”

Here are a few tools you can use to find keywords for good landing pages:

• SurferSEO: SurferSEO performs keyword research, analyzes competitors, audits webpages, and grades your sales copy to give you an idea of how well it will perform.
• Semrush: Semrush is a full-service SEO platform that offers keyword research in addition to site health checks, traffic analytics, backlink checks, and more. This is an excellent way to ensure your landing page is well-optimized and has the best chance of popping up in search results.
• Answer the Public: Answer the Public uses Google’s autocomplete data to give you a complete picture of what people search for when using your keyword(s).
• Online communities and forums: Get involved in the online spaces where your target audience hangs out. What language do they use when they discuss products and services similar to what you offer? This is a great way to find out precisely what they’ll type into a search engine when looking for a solution to whatever problems they discuss with their community.
• Competitor analysis: Analyzing your competitors’ landing pages can result in valuable keyword ideas. Identify competitors in your industry and niche and examine their content to see what terms they target. Be sure to check out more than one landing page to get a holistic idea of what you’re up against.
• Google: When you start typing into Google’s search bar, it will show autocompleted phrases related to your search, which can provide keyword ideas. Additionally, after you hit “search,” scroll to the bottom of the search results page to view “Related Searches,” which can expand your keyword list.

Pro tip: Implement keywords into headlines, subheadings, the first sentence of body text, and throughout the copy on your website. Aim for 1-2 keywords per 100 words of copy.

Simple and User-Friendly Navigation

A user-friendly experience on a landing page involves easy navigation, clear messaging, fast loading times, responsiveness across devices, and a design that guides visitors toward the desired action. 

• Responsive and Mobile-Friendly Design: Mobile-friendly landing pages play a crucial role in conversion! Many people browse the internet and shop on the go. If your website does not load properly on their phones, it’s unlikely they will return to your landing page once they are on a desktop or laptop (if they even have access to one).
• Easy Navigation: Keep the navigation on the landing page simple and intuitive. Users should be able to find the information they seek quickly and navigate the page effortlessly. Consider using a drop-down menu or anchor links to help users move smoothly across the landing page instead of packing tons of information onto your landing page.
• Fast Loading Speed: Optimize your landing page load time using appropriate image sizes and a reliable hosting provider. Slow loading times frustrate users and increase the chances of abandonment.
• Minimal Forms: If your landing page design includes a form, keep it concise. Minimize the number of required fields so that customer can enter their information in just a few seconds. Only request essential information that is necessary for your conversion landing page goals.
• Contact Information: High-converting landing pages make it easy for customers to contact the business. Your website should include an email address at a minimum. If you have a physical location, list your address and phone number as well.
• Clear and Concise Design: Keep the design of your landing page clean, uncluttered, and visually appealing. Use ample white space to make the content more readable and scannable. Ensure the layout is intuitive and guides users toward essential elements such as headlines, visuals, and calls to action.

High Converting Landing Page Examples

You can get some landing page design inspiration by analyzing both good and bad landing page examples. Below, we share a few screenshots of the best landing page examples that show you what to do – and what not to do.

Examples of High-Converting Landing Pages

Constant Contact

Constant Contact is a marketing tool for small businesses. This landing page example incorporates many of the elements this guide covers.

• The hero image displays a person working at their computer, which is what their customers do. It also incorporates graphics relevant to the marketing industry, such as graphs, email, and social media icons.
• The headline explains the benefits of their services and addresses a customer pain point: “meh” marketing efforts.
• The subheading details exactly how they help customers.
• There is a minimalistic form for email capture.
• Strong calls to action (“sign up free” and “buy now”) tells visitors exactly which step to take next.
• The mention of “No risk. No credit card required.” eases potential worries by letting visitors know they’ve got nothing to lose.

Neil Patel

Neil Patel’s landing page perfectly encapsulates his service: helping businesses increase website traffic. He even has a feature that reads the visitor’s location and provides a strong marketing message that triggers an emotional response.

• The hero image doesn’t overcomplicate things – it quickly and clearly explains what Neil does and provides an image relevant to the service.
• The headline addresses a visitor’s main problem, which is likely that they need more website traffic.
• The subheading explains Neil’s mission and makes things personal with location-specific messaging.
• The call to action invites users to analyze their website right away.
• Neil addresses any hesitation to get started and tells visitors to “learn more” about how he can help them.

Examples of Bad Landing Pages

SAP Software Solutions

Here’s a landing page example with some good and bad elements. Let’s discuss what SAP did well and what needs work, beginning with the hero image.

Hero image pros:

• Has a headline, subheading, and CTA.
• Contains a visual relevant to their industry (working on a computer).
• Utilizes plenty of white space for a balanced and aesthetically-pleasing design.

Hero image cons:

• The headline does not explain any benefits. “Prepare for anything” is too vague!
• The subheading is focused on features rather than benefits and still needs to be more specific. There needs to be a clear explanation of what this product does and how it helps customers.

Scrolling down the landing page, we encounter the next section – a perfect example of what not to do.

• The headline is small and weak.
• There is too much text, without any balance from imagery, and it’s full of industry jargon that customers might need help understanding.
• There still needs to be a clear explanation of what SAP does and how it helps people who use its services.

Chase Bank

Chase Bank offers another example of a bad landing page. There’s too much information, and it’s unclear what visitors should do the first time they come to this page.

• No headline or subheading explaining what Chase does (aside from banking) and how it offers unique benefits.
• Too many CTAs. “Sign in,” “Open an account,” “Choose what’s right for you.” A first-time visitor may need help with the options.
• The content covers too many topics instead of focusing on a single step or goal in the visitor’s buying process.

Designing a High-Converting Landing Page

Intuitive website builders like Squarespace, Wix, and GoDaddy make it simple for anyone to design and build a landing page that drives conversions – even if you’ve never made a website before and have no marketing experience!

 

With the advice in this guide and examples of good and bad landing pages, you can easily build a website with striking visuals, compelling sales copy, strong calls to action, and a user-friendly design.

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