What is a landing page?
A landing page, simply put, is an attractive, elegant, and clean page that immediately grabs the attention of your site visitors.
When built innovatively, a landing page can act as the cornerstone of a successful online marketing website campaign.
Why all the fuss about them?
“Landing pages are the new direct marketing, and everyone with a website is a direct seller.” -Seth Godin
The landing page is a place where conversions happen. Having an effective landing page can turn your website into a money-making machine.
According to Marketing Sherpa, 68% of B2B businesses use those pages to get new leads for future conversions.
A business making $1,000 a day could lose more than $25,000 a year if the landing page is slow to respond, says internet marketing guru Neil Patel.
Here’s an example that’s old now, but still demonstrates the importance of building a landing page well. In 2010, President Obama was able to raise an additional $60 million JUST by A/B testing the page that was created for a particular campaign.
Remember: you only have a couple of seconds to make or break the deal.
So… give it all you’ve got!
What makes a landing page work like a conversion machine? What are the best elements to incorporate into your lead capture page to get even the most reluctant visitor to your site to vote for you?
To answer these questions, let’s take a look at seven of the top things to consider when designing your landing page.
7 Ways to Captivate Users with Landing Pages
1. Create compelling headlines
Your page title is the first thing your visitors will see and read. Therefore, it makes sense to create an impactful headline that instantly hits them.
Years ago, Basecamp changed their landing page based on standard software features/benefits to an image of a real customer.
Basecamp turned the headline into a quote summarizing the main benefits the client company received.
The result was a massive increase in conversion rate by 102.5%.
Here are some tips on how to create powerful headlines.
• Be useful
When writing your landing page title, remember to connect with your visitors’ fears and desires.
According to Kissmetrics, Carelogger increased their conversion rate by 31% when their headline focused on the fear and desire of their target audience.
• Be urgent
Encourage users to act right now by providing a deadline or some helpful offers. This strategy can easily grow your reader base and compel them to take action.
• Command Warning
Your words should provoke emotion among your users. It is always advisable to choose vivid adjectives for this purpose.
Some powerful words you can use are:
• Amazing
• Never seen before
• High prices
• Energy
2. Use videos to tell your story
Video landing pages can increase conversion rate by nearly 80%, according to EyeView Digital. Furthermore, recent statistics reveal that 95% of users retain messages in videos.
Videos provide passive participation. With minimal effort, visitors can discover exactly what you want to convey.
Many marketers don’t know what a heat map is. So CrazyEgg hired the team at Demo Duck to point out the reasons why small businesses need more than Google Analytics to improve their conversions.
Do you think visitors will leave this page?
Never.
Some important points to keep in mind when creating a video on a landing page are:
Use an enticing thumbnail to engage and convert your audience.
Put your video on top of the cover.
Keep your video meaty enough to be interesting to your target audience.
Try to include a transcript of the video. Some people may want to watch the video, others may want to read it, and others would love the idea of doing both.
What is the secret?
According to Entrepreneur, if a picture is worth a thousand words, a great video is worth 24k words per second.
People love videos. The Guardian even claims that videos will be the future of content marketing.
Cisco claims that video will account for approximately 79% of consumer Internet traffic by 2020.
3. Create a 3D effect using parallax scrolling
With the help of parallax scrolling, the background of your landing page moves at a reduced speed compared to the foreground.
This feature results in a 3D effect when visitors scroll down the page.
What’s so good about the hover effect?
It allows you to tell your story on your landing page. It allows your visitors to know more about your services or products.
When you use effective copy with parallax scrolling, the result will be a very persuasive and professional page.
4. Trust signals
The best landing pages make proper use of trust signals.
Why do they use this tactic?
Trust signals tell visitors that your brand and offerings are credible. These signals can take various forms, such as testimonials, endorsements from previous clients, etc.
FiveStars has done a fantastic job of providing trust indicators on their home page. The company displays “proven results” and customer testimonials, as well as personal information about website activity.
Another robust tool that acts as a sign of trust is trust badges. These are nothing more than logos of well-known companies that you have worked with in the past.
When using trust tokens, always include the following:
• Customer Recommendations
• Third party seals
• Trust Badges
• Privacy Policy
5. Use gifs to demonstrate your products
Demonstrating the way your product works is extremely important.
Gifs explain how your product can be used in a faster and more persuasive way compared to videos.
Marketers are now realizing the importance of Gifs. They have become the go-to feature for businesses looking for better social media engagement.
Since Facebook allows brands to post Gifs and Twitter also implements autoplay videos, they definitely deserve a spot on your landing page.
GIFs are the best substitutes for videos on landing pages.
In fact, they are much more cost-effective compared to videos when it comes to visually demonstrating a service or product.
GIFs are also gaining popularity, particularly in this year’s mobile marketing trends, so keep an eye on them.
PineGrow uses a Gif on its home page to explain how users can build responsible websites faster.
6. Give offers
An offer is something you give your visitors in exchange for them doing what you want.
Offers may include discounts, coupons, a free version of your product, a free trial, a matching gift, or a white paper.
There are some strategies you can use.
A website that pays bills may offer users $10 for the initial bill they pay. Users would have to sign up for the service and link their accounts to it.
A consulting company might offer a free 60-minute consultation, which could be a meeting to describe how the agency can help people.
Industrial Strength Marketing provides potential clients with a free guide to creating mobile-optimized websites.
7. Put the title and the form in two columns
By dividing the screen into two columns, you can display multiple elements on the page with the same degree of prominence.
Do you think your landing page form deserves the same attention as your title or subtitle? Can they have a cumulative impact on your visitors?
Although there is no exact formula for creating an ideal landing page, there are some common rules of thumb to improve your chances of creating one that stands out.
Are you looking to achieve a high conversion rate this year?
So don’t forget to follow the steps above when creating your landing pages.