What The Heck Should Go On A Landing Page?🤷‍♀️

It is time to learn how to K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid)

Building a landing page is really all about being simple, straightforward and punchy.

Before we talk about tools and techniques, let's start by looking at what a landing page should not be…

A landing page should not be a home page that has many options and a navigation bar for users to dive into. It is a page that has limited options, a clear goal and that the person lead to the page by an external link is given exactly what they were promised from this link or ad.

What is landing page optimization?

A landing page is a single property page that removes the options that a normal web page has and focuses the visitors attention around clicking the button on the page.

To make a landing page better, ask yourself, how am I getting my users to click on the button?

Next question, what does a landing page have? 

It does have a hero section (the top of the page) with a headline (your H1), a brief blurb that promises to fix the problem the visitor has, and a form that is the gateway to their answer. You want visitors to get what they came for as soon as they land on a landing page. And you want them to love what you’re saying and offering so much, they can’t wait to click the only button you give them to click. 

What is a conversion?

A conversion means that a visitor completed a desired goal. In the case of a landing page, a conversion changes the passive visitor who landed there into one of these two things:

1. A lead 
2. A buyer 

When a landing page is set up properly, it flows like this:

A visitor lands, they scan, they like, they click. 

The click is the conversion.

Landing there in the first place probably had something to do with your advertising campaigns. But scanning your landing page elements and liking what they see is the optimization part.

Landing pages are pared down on purpose. They do one thing really well: sell an action. That action is to click a button, and that click is called a conversion. 

What is optimization?

Optimizing your page is all about tweaking things to be better. It may be as simple as cutting your words down by half so your information gets read. Or it may be adding a non-threatening form (more on this later) right at the top of the page to make the thing you want them to do obvious and available right away. 

When you optimize, you focus on the things that will get you more clicks (increase conversions). 

That’s why the official term for “optimization” is “conversion rate optimization” (CRO). 

CRO describes what you do to your landing page (how you optimize it) to increase Landing page optimization is not a one-and-done thing. It’s an all-the-time thing.

5 Simple Things To Follow:

#1 Design Your Landing Page Right

When designing a landing page you must think about where your traffic is coming from. Answering that question will decide on how long your page should be and what the call-to-action should look like.

If your traffic comes from:

• Search ad use a short and concise landing page (these individuals know what they are looking for and are close to converting)
• Display ads, use more information as individuals are still in the awareness stage, they are not looking to buy yet, but are looking for a reason to do so.
• Testing is best: The only way to know for sure which landing page design (short or long) works better for your product or service is to build two landing pages and test them. 

Design Checklist:

• Take the number of actions on the landing page down to one CTA
• Remove the navbar, footer, and clutter
• Use whitespace (less words + more space = more conversions)
• Keep the conversion elements (the form and CTA) above the fold (the part that the visitor sees when the page loads). 
• Make your CTA button contrast against the background 
• Use one or two fonts max or your page will look like a circus bulletin.

#2 Write Right!

Anything written on the landing page should be a reason given as to why the user should click on the conversion button. Another important note is to know that people DON’T read, they skim through information.

Typically, a landing page visitor will read your H1 (that’s the big headline at the top of the page that you should A/B Test), maybe a sub headline, your bolded text and bullet points, and what your button says (that you should also put through A/B Testing). 

Start with your CTA button—the most important element on your landing page.

What do you want landers to do? What will they get if they click your button? Figure that out first and make your button crystal clear. Then write your headline and brief blurbs to push that button. 

Use everyday language when writing your page. Make it easy enough for a 5 year-old to understand.

Don’t try too hard with bloated adjectives like totally awesome!

Give your message an upbeat rhythm that doesn’t contain run-on sentences and is quick and easy to read. A good tip would be to use emotional triggers, if it goes with your specific product.

Writing Checklist:

• Start by writing your CTA
• From here only write copy which strengthens this CTA
• Match your CTA to the visitors intention (know where you traffic is coming from)
• The length the copy depends on how familiar the visitor is with your brand
• Write a copy that removes objections and if there are any forms to be used start by asking easy information first.
• Use feedback tools to improve your copywriting and perform new tests.

Match your visitors’ landing page expectation to their last interaction (the ad they just clicked that brought them to your landing page). And match your landing page keyword to the keyword you bid on for your ad.

Grammar:

Write your landing page in an active voice. This can cut your copy writing down to half. Active sentences go like this:  Subject (dogs) + verb (chase) + object (cars). Once again K.I.S.S - keep your landing page short and simple.

Many people naturally try to be fancy and write in a passive voice. So if you write passively, start making edits.It is time to start thinking like a 5-year-old!

Use the Hemingway app to keep your sentences short, blunt, and verby. 

Tip: Don’t use words that water down your message.

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#3 Social Proof

Visitors may only be at a point where they are just hovering over your button. To turn this into a click you need to add credibility to your page.

It is important to legitimize yourself with some social proof. Giving company logos of your past and current customers, and testimonials of their experiences working with you is important. 

#4 Trustworthy Form Design Techniques

Spam and salespeople have made it very difficult for visitors to fill out a form without having ‘’trust-issues”. 

It is the thought of being bothered and having an overwhelming inbox that stops individuals from converting on your landing page.

The trick here is to get your visitors to initially give up something that isn’t difficult to share.

Use the yes ladder. The yes ladder is a way to get the visitor to agree to a smaller yes first, that doesn't really scare them.

Give the visitors an incentive to place their name,email and phone number on the last step.

Start by asking them what they’re trying to do (goals) or what they have already tried. That’s a low commitment ask.

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The goal is to make it feel like a conversation between the visitor and yourself. 

Asking to-the-point questions keeps the visitors engaged and willing to carry on answering. They are now invested.

End the “conversation” by asking how to contact them with answers that solve their problems.

Now that they have worked through the form they are not likely to shut the form down and will most likely fill in their details. You should continue to run tests to find out what length form has the best conversion rate for your target audience.

#5 Lastly SEO

Search Engine Optimization also sends traffic to your landing page, if you do your SEO correctly of course.

Write a good meta description and snippet title to ensure your landing page is optimized for organic search. The Focus Keywords should be on both the title and meta description.

Some Landing Page Optimization Tools:

1. Decrease page loading time to effectively decrease bounce rate on a page, if your page takes longer than 2 seconds to load this needs to be addressed , this means your authority is hit and all trust is lost.  So invest in a fast host, a CDN, or a performance platform like Gatsby. 

Not ready to make that big of an investment? At least optimize your images before you upload them into your CMS media library. Try a free online tool like TinyPNG.

Complementary Colours Are Key: 

Canva color wheel: enter your background color and choose “Complementary” for your contrasty button suggestion.

High contrast CTA buttons get more clicks. If you’re not a color theorist, use a tool that is.

1. A/B Testing

Also known as split testing, there are many tools out there that can test things like your headings, your forms, your page length, and your buttons. Some of the more popular WordPress themes (like Divi) build in A/B testing modules. But if your theme doesn’t come with an A/B tool, try one of these:

Unbounce

Google Optimize

Shogun (ecommerce)

Instapage

VWO 

Optimizely

Convert

AB Tasty

4. Use a template

You don’t have to build your landing page from scratch. Every web builder comes with templates. From WordPress to Squarespace to Wix to HubSpot, you’ll have a vault to choose from. But there are also CMS-independent templates out there (many of them from the same platforms that offer A/B testing) like Unbounce, Instapage, and Mailchimp.

5. Still not getting good conversion stats?

Check out Hotjar or CrazyEgg.

Why Your Page Isn’t Converting:

Ask yourself

• Is there a disconnect? There may be a gap between what the prospect wants to get from your page and what you give them. 
• Have you satisfied their expectations and/or addressed their objections?
• Do you bring a sense or value to the table and is your offer catchy enough?

How to fix this

Follow this checklist:

• Is my design intuitive or does it lead prospects guessing what I want them to do?
• Does my headline and body copy directly relate to the ad that brought prospects to my page? Do both elements contain my focus keyword? Does my writing grab attention with wit or an emotional trigger?
• Is my CTA crystal clear? 
• Do I have too much information that distracts prospects from my action button? 
• Is there not enough information? Have I not created confidence in my prospect to drive a click decision? 

When in doubt, crank up your A/B testing for all the elements on your pages and have a look at heat mapping to clear things up. You could also use exit intent pop-ups to incentivise visitors by offering discounts etc.

A few takeaways:

• Make sure that your landing page has a crystal clear message that is catchy, stands-out and is clickbaity. 
• An optimized landing page is a tool that boosts your conversion rate, lowers your customer acquisition costs, and maximizes what you get out of the money you spend on ads (Return on ad spend or ROAS). 
• Let us know what works for you 

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