A website landing page is not an unfamiliar term in the realm of digital marketing and digital commerce. Many of us have utilised landing pages in the past, particularly for online marketing campaigns. After all, it is a great, proven lead generation tool.

However, many of us have also done a pretty lacklustre job at it.

It’s not just as simple as creating a page, throwing some design and content inside it and hoping for the best. Believe it or not, creating a successful website landing page takes some serious research and optimisation implementation tactics.

With inspiration from Dotmailer’s Landing Pages Best Practice Guide, acidgreen (your full service digital commerce agency) have put together 10 of the most important steps to creating a successful website landing page.

We’ve even provided a fun, succinct infographic for you to download, save and refer back to at your leisure. 

So without further ado, here are the 10 steps to creating a successful website landing page design:

1. Clear USP/Headline

This is your first chance to engage the consumer. A successful headline comes from having a well-developed creative brief that has a clear, definitive unique selling point (USP).

Ask yourself,

“What is the cannot-live-without feature of my product/service that my competitors can’t or haven’t offered? Why can it add supreme value to their lives?”

Study what you’re selling. Perform some serious personal introspection and discover why you would want to buy the product/service.

Underline the interest and then put it in bold. Make it powerful and lay out your positioning.

Additionally, it’s always good to have your headline backed by a solid secondary headline - let there be no uncertainty or confusion experienced by the consumer.

2. Be Visual

What’s that old saying - “A picture is worth a thousand words”?

It may be old but it is certainly not irrelevant. According to Wyzowl, people only remember 20% of what they read and 10% of what they hear. However, when it comes to visual content (whether it be an image or a video) people retain up to 80% of what they see.

Moreover, Brainrules reports that if text/copy is paired with an image, people remember 65% of the information 3 days later. That’s a stat you don’t want to shy away from.

That’s why it’s imperative to have some visual content if you want to have a well-performing website landing page. And don’t bother wasting time and money on a hundred different image designs, you only need one really good one.

Your chosen image (or video) should be big, it should be bold, and it should be clear.

Use design and colours that are consistent with your brand.

Maybe we can appropriate that saying a little bit here - “A picture is worth a thousand leads”.

3. Highlight the Benefits

If your viewers have made it this far they don’t want to hear about the features again, they want to know the benefits. Repeat the following mantra, “value, value, value”. Throw another, “value” in there for good measure. Your aim is to help the consumer along the conversion funnel. Don’t be afraid to be really specific here, either. This is where the consumer is going to decide whether your service is more beneficial or valuable than one of your competitors.

Adding an emotional touch will also urge your user to take action. Emphasise how, by purchasing your product/service, you will take away their pain and add significant gain.

This emotional component is what will push the user to reach out, and ignoring this step will mean the downfall of your campaign.

4. Know Your Audience

Knowing your audience means keeping it relevant to your customer segment. Landing pages are usually created as an extension of an online marketing campaign e.g. PPC or email marketing. This means, if the campaign is well researched, you have a very good idea of exactly who your customers are; whether it’s a csv of your email contact list, a remarketing list or in-market/affinity audience.

The advantage of this is that you know exactly how to appeal to them. Why? Because you’ve looked at past consumer behaviour reports and you understand exactly how, why and what your audience likes and also, (more importantly) how they shop.

Consequently, your design, copy and UX should be catered specifically for your targeted  audience. Include messaging that resonates with them on a personal level.

5. Exploit Testimonials

If you’re a half-decent business in 2017 then there’s no doubt that you’ve accumulated some positive reviews - whether it be directly, on your site, on social media or on the search network, they exist. However, they’re not doing you any good if you’re not putting them to good use.

Placing customer testimonials on your website landing page will motivate and reassure users that you are a trustworthy, reliable merchant; they’re added encouragement that will  persuade your users to convert.

6. Encourage Immediacy

Scarcity tactics are a proven success. This is also contemporarily referred to as the ‘FOMO’ strategy, otherwise known as, ‘fear of missing out’.

Emphasise a limited supply of your product offering, limited time for your offer, or a limited number on offer.

We’ve provided a few examples to help you along:

• Don’t Miss Out

• The Countdown Is On

• Only X Days Left

• Only X Products Left In-Stock

• Limited Supply

• Hurry! While Stock Lasts

Adding marketing tools such as a countdown timer will also enhance the effect.

7. Outline  the CTAs

Make sure your call-to-actions are clear and your customers know exactly what to do next. An uncomplicated CTA is more crucial on a website landing page than it is on a website or email. You want your audience to be able to get in touch with you via means that best suits them.

You can then have your secondary CTAs at the footer of your website landing page to capture those users who do actually decide to journey to the bottom.

Three important considerations:

• CTA wording

• Position

• Buttons

  8. Transparency

  This step coincides directly with the one above and where you can focus on the single objective/action for the reader. Incorporate a CTA button that stands out on the page and ensure it is above the fold.

  You want your website landing page to be easy to navigate. Keep it free of too much information or clutter - take advantage of whitespace to direct your consumers to your prospects/offers.

  Moreover, use complementary and contrasting colour schemes to help make your page more appealing, i.e. put your CTA button in a contrasting colour.

  9. Mobile First

  It shouldn’t have to be said, but we’ve included it anyway. Why? Because the mobile now represents 60% of all digital media time and 31% of customers use their mobiles as their main device to click-through and buy online.

  Even more than that, if your users are being sent to your landing page via an email campaign, there is more than a 56% chance they are coming from a mobile. There’s absolutely no point in setting up a brilliant mobile-friendly email campaign if the destination URL isn’t mobile-functional.

  10. A/B Testing

  It goes without saying, no website landing page should be deployed without serious, thorough testing. This can be best achieved by split testing the performance - trying different variations of headlines and CTA text and testing it on multiple browsers.

  The most valuable marketing strategy is the one that’s proven to drive ROI. 2017’s consumer is a tech-wizard constantly looking for a perfect brand interaction, and they’re aware their data is priceless.

  Consumers are no longer just comparing you with your immediate competitors. They’re comparing you with the best experience they’ve ever had online. For this reason, it is essential to ensure you are following best practices.

  Now You’re Ready to Optimise Your Website Landing Page

  “Landing pages are the keystone of lead generation” - Bizibl Marketing.

  Creating an optimized website landing page will act as a consistent facilitation of critical conversions, such as: direct online purchases, mailing list sign-up and data input. It is the most effective web tool to drive your desired audience to take an action. Not to mention, it enables online businesses access to deeper customer insight.

  Still not confident about optimizing your landing pages to generate and convert leads? Or, just not sure where to start? Not to worry, because acidgreen is your trusted, multi-award winning full service digital commerce agency.

  We’re experts at designing, building, integrating, optimising and marketing amazing ecommerce websites, that includes your ideal campaign landing page. Contact us today for free, friendly advice. We look forward to hearing from you.

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  acidgreen is an award winning e-commerce agency  specialising in Magento, Shopify Plus and digital marketing with over 15 years of  industry experience. Our certified developers and digital marketers are highly qualified to create aesthetically pleasing Magento and Shopify Plus websites that generate the highest amount of conversions and provide the best ROI. Be sure to follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, or give us a call to learn more about our services.