Are you running a digital marketing campaign but can’t seem to catch a break? Sometimes, the problem could be right in front of you—a poor landing page. Even the best content creation tools can’t help you if your landing page isn’t compelling enough, is too lengthy, or is not optimized for mobile use and effective lead generation.
With all its importance, not every entrepreneur and marketer invests the time and energy necessary to craft high-converting landing pages. Some don’t know what makes a web page convert, and others don’t realize that continuous optimization through A/B testing is necessary.
This article will change that by discussing how to make a good landing page that garners sales and action.
What is a high-converting landing page?
Landing pages are specialized web pages with a single purpose: to convert a visitor.
Conversion, in this context, means that the person performs the action that we want them to do. This action is typically to buy a product or service. However, it can also be to watch a webinar, schedule a call, opt in to a mailing list, or download trial software.
Therefore, an effective landing page converts a large percentage of its visitors.
Now, you’re probably asking yourself, “But what is considered a high conversion rate?”
Good question. To answer that, it’s helpful to look at average conversion rates across industries as a baseline. The median conversion rate for landing pages is 4.3%. That means anything above that is a solid conversion rate for most industries.
However, competitive industries like hospitality, entertainment, and finance have higher median rates, so you need to aim higher than the 4.3% rate to run a thriving business. Compare yourself with your industry’s average landing page conversion rate to determine what to aim for.
Knowing your target conversion rate gives you a goal. But how do you get there? Let’s review some essentials of a great landing page.
Essential elements of landing pages that convert
Look at the highest-converting landing page examples, and you’ll see that they always have a few essential building blocks. Briefly, these are:
- Headlines: A strong header is essential because it captures the visitor’s attention and entices them to read the rest of your landing page.
- Compelling subheadings: An engaging subheadline is necessary as it reinforces the message in the headline and keeps visitors intrigued.
- Unique selling propositions: This is the big “why” of your landing page that states why the visitor should buy from you or take further action on your page. Here, you should explain what makes your offer unique.
- Design elements: Elements like graphics, animations, or video add excitement to your landing page so as not to bore the visitor—videos are so impactful that they boost conversion rates by as much as 86%. However, it’s vital that these elements supplement, and not overtake, the page itself.
- Proof, proof, proof: Conversion relies on getting users to trust you. You can build trust by providing plenty of proof, like customer testimonials and reviews, credentials, and endorsements.
- Calls to action: You must provide a clear call to action (CTA) to direct potential clients on what to do. Examples include “Fill out this form” if your main focus is lead generation or “Add to cart” if you want to boost sales.
- High-quality content: Create a concise, value-oriented copy focusing on how your product or service solves visitors’ pain points. Take time to learn how to write content that converts to keep potential customers on your landing page long enough to take the desired action.
- Mobile responsiveness: With more than half of all internet traffic coming from mobile devices, optimizing your landing page for mobile use becomes more than just a “nice thing to do”—it’s a necessity, as it can help you reach a broader audience.
10 tips for creating a high-converting landing page
The good news is that landing pages aren’t carved in stone. If your conversion numbers aren’t where you want them to be, there’s a lot you can do to improve your situation. Here, we offer detailed tips to help you create the perfect landing page:
1. Keep the design clean and focused
More isn’t always better—at least not when it comes to landing pages. The main goal of a landing page is to convert visitors into leads or customers—this can only happen if the potential customers have an easy time navigating your page and taking the desired action, be it completing a sale or signing up for a newsletter.
Maintain a minimalist design to avoid overwhelming visitors and facilitate seamless navigation. Embrace white space and use a limited color palette to make it easy for potential customers to focus on important elements like the call to action button or your value proposition.
For your colors, consider options like green, blue, red, yellow, and black, as they evoke growth, trust, urgency, optimism, and elegance, respectively—choose one or combinations that align with your branding.
If you plan to incorporate a hero image or other visuals on your landing page, ensure they’re high-quality and only supplement other page elements to avoid distracting visitors from taking desired actions.
2. Use a compelling headline
The headline can make or break your entire landing page. Its job is to capture a person’s attention and tell them why it’s vital that they read the landing page. If people don’t read past the headline, it really won’t matter how brilliant the rest of your landing page is.
Great headlines should be compelling and grab the reader’s attention enough to make them pause to read your landing page.
But at the same time, it must be as clear and concise as possible. The best headlines are engaging yet straightforward. That’s not an easy task, which is why you should devote a decent amount of time to crafting amazing headers. Ask for suggestions from your team and choose the most irresistible option.
3. Simplify the form fields
Many businesses make the mistake of developing double-digit form fields. While collecting potential customer information is great, asking for too much can overwhelm page visitors and your team.
Strike a balance between gathering customer info and maintaining form simplicity to increase the likelihood of completion. For example, if you want visitors to sign up for a newsletter, only ask for details like name and email address, as this is all you need to reach them.
4. Ensure mobile responsiveness
As mentioned earlier, a majority of all internet traffic comes from mobile phones. As such, it’s wise to invest in a mobile-responsive landing page design to get potential leads to open and browse your page. Here are some responsive design practices to implement for optimal results:
- Use a single-column layout to provide a smooth scrolling experience for visitors.
- Use white space and minimize visuals.
- If you want to incorporate images, use relative measurements like percentages instead of pixels, as they can translate better into mobile devices.
- Use a clear and legible font.
- Add an easy-to-navigate menu.
If you’re new to landing page design, find mobile-responsive templates to guide you.
5. Concentrate on user experience
If you want to convert a site visitor, providing a positive user experience is essential. Everything must be intuitive and straightforward, with no room for confusion. All of it starts with a good user interface design.
Only include photos and videos that support the message. Avoid overcrowding your landing page with too many elements, contrasting colors, or unnecessary menus. Remember, your call to action must be the star of the show. Good visual elements to include are explainer videos and an image of your product or service. These can actually boost your conversion rates.
It would also be best to focus on the “scannability” of your landing page. Your content should be structured and organized enough that the user understands your offer, even if they skim through it.
6. Create action-oriented CTAs
The CTA is undoubtedly one of the most vital elements in your landing page because it directly drives conversion. So, you need to be mindful when crafting it since it can determine how successful your web page becomes. Some best practices to keep in mind to boost conversion include:
- Align your CTA’s intent with your landing page copy: If your copy focuses on the value of keeping up with your offerings, let your CTA do the same. A CTA like “Sign Up for Our Newsletter” is suitable in this case.
- Focus on a single goal: One mistake some marketers make with their landing pages is using too many calls to action, asking people to buy, subscribe, and maybe download something multiple times on a single page. The idea is to hit multiple goals on one page, but that’s not a strong strategy. Most of the time, people get confused and leave the page altogether.
- Use a contrasting color for your CTA button: This helps capture visitors’ attention.
- Be clear and concise: Get to the point to boost the likelihood of potential customers taking desired actions.
- Use action verbs: Tell your audience what to do using words like “Submit,” “Download,” or “Sign Up.”
7. Optimize page load speed
Slow loading times can negatively impact bounce rates and, ultimately, conversions, affecting your page’s success rate. To improve your page’s load speed:
- Optimize your images by compressing them.
- Cache your web pages and enable browser caching to minimize the work your server needs to do to display files.
- Minimize your redirects.
- Remove unnecessary plugins from your page.
8. Highlight the offer’s value
State your product or service’s value early on the page to encourage visitors to read through your entire copy. Implement content marketing tips, like addressing your target audience’s pain points and focusing on unique selling points, to boost the chances of visitors taking desired actions. This isn’t to say you should write a lengthy copy—keep your content brief and use short paragraphs and bullet points for easy readability and scannability.
Also, remove the element of risk for potential customers in your copy. Providing plenty of social proof through case studies and customer testimonials is one of the easiest and most effective ways to do this. The idea is that when leads see that other people are happy with your offer, there’s a good chance that they will like it, too. You can also provide other types of proof, like credentials or track records, to show that you’re the real deal.
9. Use A/B testing
How do you know if your copy is the best? Or if your CTA and images are impactful?
You test them.
A/B testing is necessary, as it allows you to compare different landing page versions and identify which performs best. For reliable insights, test one page element at a time. For example, you can start by tweaking your headline, move on to your images, and then your CTA to determine which combinations get the highest conversions.
10. Continuously analyze and optimize
Assess your landing page performance regularly to identify elements that spark the most page visits and highest conversion rates—you can use tools like Bitly to assess the number of clicks your landing page URLs receive so you can facilitate well-informed page design and content optimization. Continuous optimization based on data can lead to sustained improvements in conversion rates because it allows you to provide features that resonate the most with your audience.
Use Bitly insights to create your best landing page yet
Sure, the tips discussed here will help you create an awesome landing page. But even the best landing pages won’t convert if they aren’t attracting enough qualified traffic. Lead generation and ads matter, which is where link management tools like Bitly help.
With Bitly, you can easily shorten your landing page links for easy distribution in your emails, newsletters, and ads. You can also gain valuable insights on the Bitly Connections Platform, like the number of clicks the links receive, allowing you to make well-informed landing page optimization decisions.
Sign up for Bitly today to facilitate seamless link distribution and access click analytics that’ll help elevate your landing page.