Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Jabed Hasan who is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Mountnow
Creating a high converting landing page is not an easy task, and having an effective landing page for a website is crucial from a business perspective.
If a website has a high converting landing page, then it would generate leads or close more sales and the business will grow.
There is no thumb rule to follow to make a high converting landing page. The niche, the product or service you are offering, the target audience and many other factors will influence your chances of success or failure.
However, there are some common characteristics that you need to keep in mind while creating a landing page. By knowing them you can make your own compelling landing page.
The infographic below will help you to understand the 13 creative elements of a landing page.
The creative elements of a winning landing page are as follow:
1. An Awesome Headline
The headline of your landing page must grab the visitor’s attention by being bold and standing out in design.
The headline helps them to decide whether they will continue on your page or bounce. A visitor only spends a couple of seconds to judge whether to stay on your page.
If your headline is overwhelmed with confusing text and words, your visitors will leave the page as fast as their browser allows. As a result, your conversion rates will fall dramatically.
Your headline should tell the visitors what the product or service is all about. It must be short — not more than twenty words and even better if you can craft your headline within ten words.
Moreover, there is no way to know in advance which headline will work for you best. Therefore,make sure you do the A/B testing to find the headline that gets as close to perfect as possible.
Have a look at the below example, how Buffer uses a strong, attention-grabbing headline.
2. Reinforcing Sub-headline
If the main headline grabs the visitor’s attention, then the sub-headline should convince them to stay.
An effective sub-heading is clear and informative. It should explain your major benefits and must reinforce what the headline says in a persuasive manner.
The sub-headline is generally positioned just below the main headline. It should be visually smaller than headline and larger than your body copy.
Just see the below screenshot from zestapps, how the sub-headline is explaining the benefits and supporting the main headline.
3. An Image or a Video
Visitors want to see what they are purchasing.
If you are selling a physical product, it is essential to include an actual image of the product on your landing page. If you are selling a service, the image must demonstrate the utility of your service.
Make sure the images are high-quality. Remember, this is not the right place to add the stock images.
Video can be even more effective than images on a landing page. It works better for more complex products that require high level of user understanding.
A study by Eye View Digital revealed, video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by up to 86%.
The below screen shot is taken from SpyFu. They have used a video to explain how their software to be used.
4. Attractive Copy
The copy of your landing page must be prominent, sweet, and to the point so that your visitors can understand easily without having any difficulty.
You should keep in mind that, you have only few seconds to convince a visitor. If your contents start puzzling your visitor’s brain, then your visitors will instantly leave from your page. As a result, your conversion rates will decrease.
Effective landing page copy guides the visitors into your call to action. Your landing page content should be self-navigational and explanatory. You also need to make sure that there are no spelling and grammatical errors.
A neat example is given below from Basecamp.
5. Well-Balanced Design
Having a well-balanced landing page is very crucial for converting visitors into customers. All the great ads and well-chosen keywords will be meaningless if a visitor arrives to a poorly-design landing page and bounces from your landing page.
Your landing page must have engaging layout, professionally designed graphics. The color combination should also be perfectly balanced.
It is essential to keep the key elements above the fold so that the visitors can see the every essential element without scrolling down.
Moreover, your landing page must be responsive as a huge number of traffic come from mobile devices.
6. Guarantee
A guarantee minimizes the risk that many people feel when purchasing a new product or service. Having a guarantee on a landing page improves the possibility of a conversion.
Some of the most commonly used guarantees by businesses across different industries are money-back guarantees, promises of satisfaction, anti-spam policies, etc.
Furthermore, the placement of your guarantee is also important. If you can add the guarantee close to your call to action, it can serve as the final persuasive nudge to convert a visitor into a customer.
My Video SEO Pro gives a killer guarantee and they have also explained in details how it works.
7. Social Sharing Options
If your visitors find your offer helpful, there is a high possibility that they will share it within their social circle. As a result, you may get some customers from their social circle.
Therefore, you have to make sure that there are social buttons available so that they can share your page in Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, etc. Let them share as many ways as possible.
8. Contact Information
The easiest way to prove you care and support your customers is to include the contact information on your landing page.
It is essential to let your visitors know that they can reach you if they want to know anything about your product or service. Show your phone number, email address, live chat, physical address and contact form on your landing page so that they can contact you whenever they like to.
For Example, I Will TeachYou To Be Rich has provided three different contact methods to reach them on their landing page.
9. Social Proof
People like to see the social proof on your landing page. By including the social proof you represent that people have used what you are offering.
You may add social proof by using some customer testimonials and reviews or by showing awards you received from a reputable organization.
Just see the below example, how Sprout Social has used customer testimonials.
Another way to add a social proof is by providing the numbers of signup. It may look simple, but the little things can positively influence on your conversion.
10. Benefit Statements
A brief description of how the offer of your landing page can make your visitor’s life easier and what your service or product can do for them is essential to have on your landing page.
Include a benefit summary with bullet points first for the scanners and also the benefit and feature descriptions that extend your bullet points for those who require more information in order to make a decision.
For example, KashFlow simply lists down how the user can be benefited and what they can do with their software.
11. Simple Form
The more you ask on your form, the less chance a visitor will fill it out. Keep only the necessary fields in your form, those are truly essential to qualify as a lead.
The number of fields on your form should be decided based on your product or service and make sure the data you are asking for is actually needed for that particular product or service.
For example, if you are asking your visitors to sign up for a newsletter, then why would you ask for a phone number?
On the other hand, if your form collects the data for home remodeling, you won’t be able to go far by only asking the email address as such kind of services requires lots of information to qualify leads.
For instance, Fluid Surveys has used a pretty simple form to be filled out by the users.
12. Prominent Call to Action (CTA)
The call to action is the most important element of a landing page.
It should directly state what you want the visitors to do. Don’t pick the pre-made “submit” button as it does not tell anything. Instead, use the phrases that describe what will happen when they click.
Some examples are outlined below:
- Start your free trial
- Join our community
- I want my freebie
- Get results now
- Give me my free e-book
- Download yours right now
The CTA button should be persuasive, exciting and compelling. Make it impossible to miss it out. Use contrasting color and make it stand out. Just take a look at the below example from Shopify.
Related article: Effective Tips to Create a CTA Button
13. Logical Flow
You might have high-quality content on your landing page. However, if you are unable to place them in a right way, then you won’t be able to keep them on track to be converted.
By maintaining a logical flow to your content, you can guide your visitors step-by-step until they convert. A truly interested visitor will read the content and follow the process.
Generally, a landing page starts with your explanation, continues with the benefits, followed by trust builders such as testimonials and concludes with a strong CTA button. This is the most common method of structuring a landing page.
Conclusion
A landing page is where customers click, people buy, and you make revenue. Creating a high-converting landing page is all about including the right elements in right place and avoiding the wrong ones. A landing page should be easy to navigate by the users.
By implementing each of these 13 essential components in your landing page, you will be able to make a perfect landing page that effectively and naturally converts visitors into paying customers.
About the author
Jabed Hasan is a Digital Marketing Specialist at Mountnow. He is passionate about writing and love to write on SEO, CRO, Growth Hacking and Online Marketing Strategies.
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