If you want a website that turns visitors into paying customers, you need a great landing page. With these 5 website landing page best practices, you will be able to create a high-quality landing page that boosts your conversions and grows your business.
What is a landing page and why do you need one?
A landing page is a single page focused on compelling visitors to take a clearly defined action.
Landing pages are often the first page people see when they come to your website. High-converting landing pages highlight how the product, service, or lead generator you offer can solve an ideal client’s pain points. The surrounding elements, like landing page copy, social proof, images, and videos, all support the idea that your offering will solve the visitor’s problem.
The overarching goal of any landing page is to get an ideal client to take action and follow your call to action or CTA. That could mean they sign up for your email list, buy a product or service, or schedule a call.
You can create a dedicated landing page for each of your lead generators and each of your products and services.
Effective landing pages convert around 35% of visitors. If you want your website to help grow your business, landing pages must be part of your marketing strategy.
5 Website Landing Page Best Practices That Will Boost Your Conversions
Whether you plan to have one landing page or several different landing pages to highlight various aspects of your business, these website landing page best practices will help you create visually appealing landing pages that keep people’s attention and raise conversion rates.
Tip 1: Keep it simple.
A good landing page should be laser-focused on compelling your target audience to click your call to action button. You don’t want to include so much information that you overwhelm people. Instead, provide just enough to help potential clients make an informed decision. Focus on how your product, service, or lead generator can make their lives better.
To help your landing page show up in search engines, strive to include at least 300-500 words of landing page copy focused on your target keywords.
Tip 2: Use clear and concise headlines.
People don’t read websites, they skim. Clear, concise headlines are the key to getting your point across for both the skimmers and the readers.
After reading your very first headline, or your landing page header, potential customers should know exactly:
- What your business offers.
- How that offering will make their lives better.
- How they can buy or sign up for it.
(In StoryBrand language we call these three questions the website header grunt test.)
Once you’re sure your header passes the grunt test, skim your full landing page, reading just the headlines. Does it make sense? Is it still compelling? If not, try to make some tweaks until it does.
Tip 3: Use images and videos.
Big blocks of text have the potential to scare people away. We all want to find answers fast. Long paragraphs of text feel intimidating and time-consuming. Use images and videos to break up the text and help convey information quickly.
Adding images and videos to your landing page is an easy way to make your page more engaging. However, you still want to make sure the images and videos you choose align with your main focus: getting people to click that CTA button.
Use images or videos of satisfied customers and previous clients to highlight how your offering has solved people’s pain points in the past. Nothing is more compelling than visuals of people already experiencing success with your product or service.
Tip 4: Use a clear call to action.
Since the term keeps coming up, you may have already guessed that your call to action, or CTA button, is a pretty important part of the landing page.
The reality is, people won’t take action unless you tell them what you want them to do multiple times. We need to hear something at least 7 times before our brains internalize the information.
That means even with the most beautiful landing page design and compelling landing page copy, if you fail to tell people what next step to take, you won’t get the conversions you’re looking for.
Use a strong, direct call-to-action like schedule a call today, download now, or buy now.
Then, repeat that same call to action, word for word, throughout your landing page. You want a CTA button to always be accessible, no matter where your potential customer is on your landing page. You also want to avoid any other links or distractions that could cause a potential customer to click away.
Tip 5: Test and track.
This tip is the one that sets apart the landing page amateurs from the pros. If you want to maximize your conversion rates, you can’t just set up a landing page and then forget about it. Instead, add a calendar reminder to go in each month and see how your landing page is performing.
Review analytics and performance metrics to help you determine what changes you can make to improve your landing page. Although there are several metrics you could look at, the conversion rate is arguably the most important.
If you notice your landing page isn’t converting as well as you’d like, use the other landing page metrics to make informed tweaks and edits. If your website gets a fair amount of traffic, you could also try A/B testing to pilot various changes at the same time.
Creating a successful landing page requires much more than just slapping some text and images on a web page. First, you need to create focused, compelling content with clear headlines and appealing visuals, like videos or images. Second, be sure to include an effective call-to-action so that visitors know exactly what to do next. Lastly, track your performance metrics for conversion rate optimization. With these tips, you’ll be able to optimize your landing pages for success.
If you need help getting started, contact us today to speak with one of our StoryBrand Certified Guides. We can work together to craft a winning BrandScript and compelling landing pages that will drive conversions for your business.
