A landing page can be the difference between having a strong conversion rate and a bad one. After putting a ton of time into your website content, you’ll want to make sure your website landing page pops and is effective, so you can get reach the average conversion rate of 2.35%.
It doesn’t matter if your website content offers paid courses, paid products, blog content, or even video content. Everyone can benefit from creating a highly converting landing page.
That’s why today, we’re going to cover all of the critical components of a great landing page.
What Is a Landing Page?
A landing page is a page that visitors land on that usually offers them a deal, prompts them to sign up for a newsletter, or has some other promotion.
The main uses of a landing page include:
- Product or service sales
- Collecting information for later marketing
- To get eyes on what products and services you offer
- To provide free trials in hopes of later coversions
When you start using a landing page, it’s all about getting conversion rates as high as you can. Doing this helps you grow the monetary portion of your business instead of just the traffic in general.
After all, it doesn’t matter how many people land on your website if none of them are converting.
The picture above is an example of a landing page I used when I was going to a full stack developer school called Lambda School. I gathered email addresses from my YouTube viewers and gave them something in return.
This allowed me to grow an email list of 60 people whom I could email whenever I wanted with offers or updates on my life.
It’s a great way to grow your influence online since you’re given a list of people who could be interested in paying for what information you’re passionate about.
Landing pages are great for capturing all sorts of information, not just emails. For example, you can set a landing page up to get a first name, last name, phone number, company name, and even a list of services people are interested in.
These pages are great for converting site visitors into subscribers or even paying customers when they’re set up right.
So, let’s get into how to set up your landing page, so it has the best chance for conversions!
1. A Captivating Header
Since a landing page is a form of ad, it’s essential to give your landing page a high header. This should be the first thing a visitor should see, and it is always designed to get their attention.
The two things to convey with your header are what you want and what you’re offering in return.
A basic example of this would be the first picture in the above section.
Notice the information found under the subscribe button. I’m telling you exactly what I want and what I’m prepared to give you in exchange.
What I want is the visitor’s email address to add them to my email list.
What I’m offering in return is a free resource list that I used while going through school.
Check here for the top email marketing service providers around for building a bigger email list!
Another great example of a strong header is Code Academy’s landing page.
Notice they are still telling you what they want from you and what they’re planning to give you in return. Though, they do this in a different way than I did.
What they want is the visitor to create an account and provide their email address.
What they’re offering in return is limited access to their services.
They do it this way so there’s no monetary commitment upfront; however, you are subject to their emails. And you can bet they’ll try to convert you into a paying customer in the near future.
Defining what you want and what you’re offering in the heading is a great way to get people’s attention on your landing page.
2. Vibrance Works
It’s no secret that humans enjoy bright colors and pleasant color schemes. Companies have entire branches and divisions explicitly dedicated to the design of a product or ad.
People respond very well to vibrant colors and well-balanced color schemes. Sometimes they’re even used to elicit emotion out of the viewer.
A great example of a balanced color pallet is Taster’s Club.
They use a simple color scheme of neutral or dark colors like black and brown, which pairs well with the gold color.
This gold color is present on its logo, header, and buttons. They set it up this way to draw attention and even go so far as to add borders around the buttons they want your focus to be on.
Your landing page doesn’t have to be overly vibrant, so long as the color scheme works well.
As with this above example on Muck Rack, the colors are pretty tame. They’re all some variation of blue, and most of them are a darker shade of blue.
It works because it’s simple, sleek, and using different shades of blue make for a great color palette.
3. Media Matters
Your landing page may not have a video, but it probably has an image.
Images are an excellent tool for getting attention and pulling your landing page together. Just make sure it fits with the color scheme and message of your landing page.
For example Edupath’s landing page has an image that goes well with the orange color scheme of the rest of the page.
Edupath is all about applying to colleges differently because they don’t think it’s great how it is.
Not only does this picture match the color scheme, but it also matches the tone of the website. Their goal is to make applying to colleges easier, and the image they use is quite peaceful.
The goal in creating an effective landing page is to match your site’s colors and theme with the right image. If you find yourself in need of some high quality images, be sure to check out this article on the best places to find free stock photos.
Don’t have a specific color scheme for your website? It’s okay. You can always try something more along the lines of what Edupath does on their homepage.
This example is a collage with text on top. Notice the color scheme is mostly black and white with an accent a gold accent for breaks.
To get the right landing page, and see a rise in conversions, you might have to split test different versions of your landing page to see which design and format encourages the most people to convert.
4. Sometimes, Less Is More
There’s a golden rule in marketing, programming, and writing that sometimes less is more. In fact, the popular saying “keep it simple, stupid,” or KISS, often applies in the digital world.
When creating a landing page, you’ll want to follow this rule from start to finish. Simplicity is vital anytime you’re trying to get people to consume your content. This is especially true if you want them to pay for that content.
Breather is an excellent example of this simplicity in action:
This site uses a simple and neutral color scheme of black and white. there is not even a header image. Instead, there are just two links with pictures.
Even their motto and tag lines are straight forward and as short as possible.
Usually, the best practice on a landing page is to say what you need to say in as short a way as you can. Doing this ensures that you’re getting your message across without losing someone’s interest.
After all, once you’ve lost the viewer’s interest, it’s all over.
The average human attention span in the world of smartphones is only about 12 seconds, according to Digital Information World. That number might as well be cut in half for an ad on a landing page.
So, get your point across in a clear and concise way if you want to boost conversions.
5. Social Proof
Some people are distrusting by nature. They always assume the worst, especially when it comes to businesses that are small or new. Fortunately, there’s a great way to get through to these types of people to make them trust your site and ultimately convert.
Social proof is what you can point to when someone doesn’t trust you right away.
It’s a way of saying, “well, all these people and companies trust me, and they’re not to be taken lightly, so give us a shot.”
A great example is seen on Lambda School, where I attended school. It shows the companies that hire Lambda School graduates and what they’re saying about those graduates.
Having a section on your landing page that shows off those you’ve worked with in the past is a great way to gain trust. Not to mention, you can also use testimonials to showcase quotes from previous buyers of your products or services.
If you use WordPress, you should check out these top WordPress testimonial plugins to help you out.
Wrapping Up
And there you have it! You know know what it takes to make a stellar landing page for your WordPress site and it’s time to try it out for yourself.
Want to make sure those arriving on your landing page have an exceptional user experience? Then check out these top WordPress caching plugins for speeding up your load times and boosting conversions.
What do you feel makes for a highly converting landing page? We’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
The post 5 Key Components of a Highly Converting Landing Page appeared first on WPHacks.