Create a Landing Page That Lands Customers
How can a good landing page help my business?
What are some guidelines for creating a good landing page?
How do I know what features need to be improved on my page?
Imagine Cathy Consumer is craving organic honey. She searches online and finds an ad for BuzzedBeez that promises “Organic honey for 25% off.”
Cathy clicks on the ad, credit card in hand, ready to buy more organic honey than any other BuzzedBeez customer has in history.
She ends up on a BuzzedBeez landing page. This is the moment when she either becomes a new customer or leaves the site empty-handed.
Let’s see what type of landing page would work the best.
Your landing page is often the first experience a potential customer has with your business. And as the saying goes, first impressions are everything.
An important point to remember is that a landing page isn’t necessarily your homepage. It’s any page that people “land” on after being directed to your page from somewhere else.
People who come to your landing page have a reason for being there, whether they need information, a product, or to sign up for something.
But what happens if your page doesn’t meet their needs quickly? Your potential customers won’t stick around.
That means your site will have a high bounce rate (% of site visitors who leave right away) and low conversion rate (% of people who take the action you wanted, like buying something).
Now that you know why it’s important to craft strong landing pages, let’s explore some basic guidelines that can help you avoid the most common mistakes.
Put your best foot forward. Your most popular features and links should be the first things people see when they visit your landing page.
Write well. Strong copy plays a huge role in getting customers to finish a conversion on your landing page. Always stay true to your brand’s tone and personality.
Paint a picture. Use colors and images to attract customers’ eyes to the features they’re looking for. The images can be products, symbols, or other visuals that easily communicate what they’re linking to.
Always be closing. Write a clear, short call-to-action (CTA) that encourages people to finish the action they came to do. If there’s room, you can write a second line that explains how easy it is. “Buy now. No sign in necessary.”
REMEMBER
If you’re running an ad for a specific conversion goal (like selling a product), make sure the ad clicks through to a landing page for that offer or product...not your company’s homepage. The landing page should feature what was in the ad and have a CTA that helps people finish the conversion.
With those general guidelines in mind, it’s good to take a second look at your current landing pages and make sure they’re up-to-speed.
Tools like Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics can help you evaluate your landing pages and make sure they’re addressing your customers’ needs in the right way.
With these tools, you can find out where people who visit your landing page are coming from (links from other sites, direct keyword searches, etc.) and what keywords they’re searching to end up there.
If people are coming from a specific source or are searching keywords related to one of your services or products, but your landing page doesn’t immediately offer up that service or product...well, it’s time for some landing page TLC.
For example, let’s say BuzzedBeez’s landing page features their organic honey.
They check their page’s analytics to see which keywords people use to find them. As expected, some search for “organic honey,” but even more search for “honey pots.”
What should the new focus of BuzzedBeez’s landing page and CTA be? Hint: It involves a combination of the words “honey” and “pot.”
LISTEN UP
But, what if BuzzedBeez doesn’t sell honey pots? That’s a search engine optimization issue. Instead of featuring the wrong product, BuzzedBeez’s landing page is attracting the wrong customers. Look out for this issue in your own landing pages.
Along with knowing how people are finding your landing page, you should check how they behave when they get there.
Tools like Google Analytics and Crazy Egg can help you run page analytics, which will tell you what percentage of people are clicking on different parts of your landing page – including your products, offers, options, CTA’s, and images.
You can even get really focused and check out the landing page behavior of visitors who came from certain referring sites or specific searches.
Page analytics help you put people’s behavior in context, showing you how your layout and design might be affecting clicks. You may find that your landing page is too cluttered, which makes it hard for people to find what they want.
After you’ve gathered your analytics and data, you’ll probably have ideas about how to update your landing page. That’s when it’s time to start testing.
One way to start is to A/B test your idea or hypothesis. For example, you can test where your CTA is on the page, your copy, the layout, button colors, the navigation bar, or other design elements – just make sure you test one variable at a time.
Survey your customers about their experiences with your landing page. Ask them why they visited, if they could finish what they wanted to do, and if not, why? Let them write their answers instead of offering canned responses.
To get people to take your survey, you can prompt them when they first visit your landing page, or have a survey CTA on one corner of the page. Just make sure it’s easy for people to decline or click out of the survey and return to your page.
For help making A/B tests, you can use tools like Content Experiments for Google Analytics or Visual Website Optimizer (VWO). To create surveys, you can use iPerceptions, Google Forms, or have your IT person help you make one.
DO THIS NOW
Let’s help you create a to-do list that will get you started on evaluating your current landing pages.
If you’re participating in the course, go to the next section to access your self assessment.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
A weak landing page can result in a high bounce rate and low conversations.
Check where your landing page traffic is coming from and how people behave once they're there.
Always test your landing page and make any necessary updates and improvements.