Landing Page Design

In order to convert, the page must have a very clear call to action (CTA). The CTA could be a large colourful button leading the user to purchase or make an appointment, or it could be a simple on-page form in order to gain leads in the form of email addresses. 

Do some planning before creating a landing page.

From the user’s perspective, think about the 1) Before; 2) During; and 3) After they land on your page:

1) Before.

Think about how you plan to share the hyperlink to the landing page with your audience. Are you running a Google Ads, LinkedIn or Facebook Ad campaign? Are you speaking at an event and sharing the link as part of your talk? Are you linking to it from your blog posts? It’s important to know this ahead of time because the page will change depending on how and with whom the hyperlink is shared.

For example, if you are running a Google Ads campaign, the page must relate very closely with the Google Ad itself. The page must show what the user expects to see when they click on the ad. This way the ad will get a high quality score and the cost of your advertising campaign will go down.

Also, your landing page must speak directly to the specific audience you are sharing the hyperlink with. For example if you are speaking at a computer software trade show, you will want to keep the attendees in mind and create the landing page specifically for computer software people. Think about their industry, income level, age, location, culture, etc.

2) During.

What exactly do you want the user to do when they land on your page? Make sure your key message is clear in your heading and sub-heading. It doesn’t have to be clever. Simple is better.

Your CTA (Call to Action) should be the most colourful, easy-to-see element on the page. You might want to consider designing your landing page without website navigation in the header, in order to avoid other distracting links. If you can, put your key message and the CTA are at the very top of the page, “above the fold”. You can repeat the CTA again lower down on the page. This gives the user opportunity to act right away. Keep in mind that more users are on mobile than desktop. This means more scrolling on a small mobile device.

Testimonials are very effective on a landing page. Three is a good number of testimonials because this gives some variety and different perspectives, but is not too long. Even better, include a video testimonial too.

Your landing page can go on to identify pain points the customer has, explain the process of what you are offering and let them know how taking action will change their life.

Everything you add to the landing page should have purpose. Keep it as succinct as possible. In our digital world, people have very short attention spans and they want to take zero time to figure out what you are offering them. They don’t want to read long paragraphs of text on their mobile phone.

3) After.

Carefully plan what happens once the user clicks the CTA button or the form Submit button. The user experience must be as easy as possible so they will carry through to the end of the process. Make sure everything you promise on the landing page occurs.

Although a landing page should look simple, there can be a lot of moving parts in the background. Their email address can be added to a list. A welcome email can go to their in-box. There may be a download that needs to be available and a link to it that needs to be accurate. There may be a page of resources. There may be e-commerce elements that need to be set up with payment gateways, credit card, Paypal, tax and shipping.

They may get redirected to a thank you page. This page needs to be carefully designed so the user can take any next steps required. Since getting redirected to a thank you page means a successful conversion took place, this is an actual buyer and someone you want to take very good care of. What does this mean to you? Does this mean adding them to remarketing campaigns, adding them to a customer care list, adding them to a list where you market similar products or services? Plan all these pieces ahead of time.

Test, test, test. And test some more. Test with different browsers, different devices. Test to make sure downloads are in place and working, and emails go into the right lists. Make sure welcome emails get sent, transactions work using a real credit card. Don’t let some small detail like a misspelled hyperlink cause the conversion not to process.

Below is an example of a landing page that we created for Andrea Bailey Brown. The purpose of this page was to convert people to sign up for a business workshop. It is very clear that the workshop is for people who want to make more profit in their business. The page identifies the pain points of the target audience, and how this workshop can help. It includes testimonials. If you have questions about landing pages and how they can be used as a tool in your business, please contact us to find out more.