Landing Page Optimization: How to Create One That Converts

Landing pages are critical for businesses that rely on their website to generate leads. A landing page’s primary purpose is to convert site visitors into leads. From there, your leads will, hopefully, turn into customers. It might sound relatively straightforward, but developing a landing page that converts is a little more complicated than just putting words on a webpage. No matter what type of campaign you have created a landing page for, it’s important to follow landing page best practices. This helpful guide will show you how to create a landing page that drives sales and reveal some page optimization hacks.  

What Is a Landing Page?

A landing page is a page created with the specific purpose of generating leads. It can be any type of webpage. For example, a landing page can be a home page. However, not every home page is a landing page. That’s because the purpose of a landing page is different from a general home page. Landing pages are designed to encourage visitors to convert. Some businesses use their home page as a landing page because that’s where they want visitors to click on to become leads. Other companies have separate pages on their website that they use as landing pages to drive conversions. Still, others build one-off landing pages for specific ad campaigns to drive very particular types of conversions. Another key difference between a landing page and a home page or any other page on your website is how it gets found. Home pages are often found through word of mouth or social media advertising. Landing pages are usually found through organic search, using keywords that help the page rank high in search results. They can also be found through Google Adwords. Companies can buy ads for their landing pages to show up high on the search results page for specific search queries.  

The Role of Landing Pages in Digital Marketing

Landing pages are the “virtual storefronts” for all of your many kinds of digital marketing. They provide a targeted platform where visitors may come after clicking on a call-to-action (CTA), which can be a link to an email or an advertisement. Landing pages, as opposed to standard web pages, are developed with a unique goal in mind – to encourage visitors to perform a specific action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a resource. This is in contrast to conventional websites, which are developed with several goals in mind. “It is crucial to have a landing page that has been adequately optimized since it functions as a bridge between the marketing efforts you put forth and the intended result of the visitor. It gets rid of distractions and directs the user toward the action that was intended, which increases the likelihood of a conversion happening.” – Ben Clayton, CEO of Double Jump  

Benefits of Effective Landing Pages

An effective landing page will increase conversion rates. That’s why having your homepage as your landing page isn’t always the best strategy. Standalone landing pages work well because they focus visitors on one thing only—converting. When your homepage is your landing page, visitors can easily get distracted and start clicking on other pages or links on your website. If you want to use your homepage as your landing page, it’s important to keep it streamlined and neat. Eliminate distractions and make your call to action (CTA) very clear, so visitors know exactly what they are supposed to do. You can create multiple landing pages for different purposes. In fact, a recent HubSpot report notes that 48 percent of marketers build a new landing page for each campaign. Each landing page will have a different call to action that is specific to the campaign’s purpose. For example, a lead magnet landing page could feature gated content designed to encourage visitors to download an eBook or white paper in exchange for their contact information. A landing page for a marketing campaign can encourage visitors to buy something specific. Meanwhile, a landing page for an outreach campaign might encourage visitors to call your business for a quote. If you’re still feeling lost, there are plenty of examples to look at to get a better idea of how companies use landing pages. These 110 landing page examples are useful to help you get more ideas and inspiration about what a successful landing page looks like and how you can use one for your business. As you’ll see, companies across industries use landing pages to convert customers for various reasons. Follow the 10 steps we list in the next section to create a high-converting landing page that doubles as your homepage.  

How to Create a High Converting Landing Page

Now that we have the basics out of the way, let’s get into more detail about the essential features of successful landing pages. Keep in mind that there is no one-size-fits-all manual that can tell you exactly how to make a landing page that converts. Use these ideas to formulate your landing page, then optimize it based on your analytics that measures user interaction and conversion rates.

Seamless Alignment with Email Messaging:

Email marketing is a powerful instrument that may be used to drive visitors to landing sites. To provide a consistent and enjoyable experience for users, the content of your emails and landing pages must remain consistent. A website that is consistent in its language, aesthetics, and value proposition gives visitors the confidence that they have arrived at the appropriate destination and encourages them to go further down the conversion funnel. “When a visitor arrives at your landing page after clicking a link in an email, they anticipate discovering material that is comparable to what they saw in the email. The promise that was made in the email should be delivered by the landing page, whether that promise is to provide a special deal, a presentation of products, or an instructive resource.” – Jessica Shee from iBoysoft  

Crafting a Clear Value Proposition

The value of your offer should be communicated very clearly on the landing page you choose. Which of these issues does your product or service help to resolve? What kinds of advantages does the visitor have access to? A value proposition that is not only captivating but also succinct will attract the attention of the visitor while also resonating with their requirements, which will increase the probability that they will convert. “Think about utilizing a catchy title that speaks to the problems that the visitor is experiencing and highlights the answer that you can provide. Combine that with a subheadline that is succinct but powerful, and further elaborates on the value that you bring to your customers.” – Jeff Romero, Founder of Octiv Digital  

Designing for Visual Impact”

It's important to make a good first impression, and a landing page that's been well created may immediately engage visitors. Make use of a format that is neat and well-organized, with headlines that attract the reader's attention, brief material, and graphics that are strategically placed. Make it hard for visitors to overlook the CTA by using colors that contrast with one another to draw their attention there. “Not only does an aesthetically beautiful design make your landing page appear excellent, but it also improves user engagement and encourages visitors to explore other content on your website. Your conversion rates may be dramatically impacted by the use of high-quality photos, videos, and graphics that reinforce the information you are presenting.” – Arnaud, Chief Marketing Officer at Zoe Recovery  

Streamlining the Conversion Process

Reduce the number of distractions as much as possible and make the converting process easier. A landing page that is devoid of unnecessary elements and has just one call to action that is prominently displayed alleviates choice fatigue and directs visitors toward the intended course of action. Steer clear of navigation menus and other links that have the potential to distract users from the core objective. “Your call to action should be easily seen and positioned in an advantageous spot on the page. It needs to make use of language that encourages action and makes it abundantly apparent what action you would want the visitor to carry out. Make the CTA button visually stand out by using colors that contrast with one another.” – Timothy Allen, Director at Corporate Investigation Consulting  

Social Proof and Trust Signals

Include components that contribute to increased trust and trustworthiness. Showing trust badges, customer testimonials, medals, and security certifications may help visitors feel more at ease knowing that their information is protected and that your product is supported by previous customers' great experiences. “A potent psychological trigger that validates the decision-making process is provided by social evidence. When website visitors discover that others have had favorable experiences with a company's product or service, it increases the likelihood that those visitors will trust the company and convert.” – Tiffany Hafler, Marketing Head at Fortis Medical Billing  

Mobile-Friendly Optimization

It is very necessary to optimize your landing page for mobile devices in this day and age, given the prominence of mobile surfing. You should make sure that your webpage is responsive, loads fast, and keeps the user experience user-friendly regardless of the screen size being used. “It is crucial to optimize your website for mobile users since a substantial number of your visitors will approach your landing page using mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. You run the risk of losing potential conversions because of a bad user experience if your website is not optimized for mobile devices.” – Nathan Pallister, Marketing Manager at allpack  

A/B Testing and Continuous Improvement

A/B testing is an effective method for improving the performance of landing pages. Experiment with several variants of headlines, images, calls to action, and other features to see what elements connect most strongly with your audience. Significant conversion rate improvements are possible to achieve via continuous development that is informed by data-driven insights. “You can make educated selections regarding the aspects of your landing page by using A/B testing. Conduct experiments on a single component at a time (such as the headline, call to action (CTA), or picture) to see which modifications have the most potential to improve your conversion rates.” – John Chandler, SEO Consultant at Emoji Sprout  

Be Extremely Clear About Your Offer

Because the landing page’s primary goal is conversion, you need to make your offer crystal clear. Your offer can be information, a PDF download, a form to fill out, or anything else that turns your visitor into a lead. There should be no question of what you want visitors to do when they land on your page. Keep your landing page free of excess clutter, and use a call to action (CTA) button that users can click on to perform whatever action you want them to perform. That could be downloading a freebie, contacting you for a quote, or making a purchase. If visitors do not know what to do once they land on your page, they will leave, and you will miss out on important conversions.

Use Contrasting Colors

Landing pages rely on visual appeal to attract users and keep them on the page. Be consistent with your brand’s style guide here, and don’t stray too far from what your customers are used to seeing when they visit your website, social media pages, or other online mediums. However, you can get a little creative to make your offer stand out. On a landing page, it can be helpful to use contrasting colors for the background and CTA to make your offer pop out to visitors.

Focus on Above the Fold Content

The phrase “above the fold” (ATF) harkens back to a time when newspapers were the primary news source for people. The top headlines, images, and stories would be, quite literally, above the paper’s fold or crease. Anything below the fold would not be seen immediately, or possibly, at all. On a website, the content that lives ATF is the content visitors see before scrolling. A recent study found that people spend less than a second forming an impression of your website. To avoid people bouncing from the page, keep ATF content relevant to the landing page’s purpose. Put the most pertinent information here, including your CTA, so visitors know immediately what the landing page is about and what they are supposed to do.

Reinforce Urgency

Humans are naturally drawn to urgency. We don’t want to miss out on a good deal or opportunity. Employ scarcity techniques to demonstrate that the offer you are presenting is only available for a short amount of time. You can use a countdown clock on your landing page to show visitors how much time is left until the offer expires. If you want to keep things more simple, say that the offer is only available for a limited time. Offering a one-time-only webinar, for example, can encourage visitors to convert so they don’t risk missing a special opportunity that will never come around again.

Keep CTA Buttons Straightforward

It can be tempting to try to vary your CTA message to avoid sounding like every other website. However, it is essential to have a clear call to action, so visitors are not confused about what will happen when they click on your CTA. There’s nothing wrong with being direct. In fact, the more straightforward your CTA, the better! “Buy now,” “Call now,” “Download now,” “Try for free,” and “Join now” are all simple but effective CTAs that give visitors a clear direction on what to do and what to expect once they click on the button. Feel free to play around with different types of CTAs. You can even use a dynamic QR code to test its effectiveness.  

Test Early, Test Often

Testing is crucial for landing page optimization. You should frequently run A/B tests to see how different headlines impact conversion rates. You can test everything from your layout and content to your background and button colors. Regular testing will give you useful insight into how visitors react to your landing page. Use the data you gather from each test to improve the landing page experience for your visitors.

Don’t Ignore Good Content

Even though landing pages are relatively simple and uncluttered, they still need to have enough good, quality content to engage users and encourage them to trust you. Focus on quality instead of quantity for landing page content. Catchy headers and informative content will drive conversions much faster than overly wordy or flowery text. People are smart and know the difference between authentic content and content that is clearly just trying to sell them something.

Optimize for Search Engines

Whether your landing page is standalone or part of your company website, search engine optimization (SEO) is still incredibly important. Do your research to discover which keywords to target that will help users find your landing page. The better your landing page matches user intent, the more likely you are to get conversions.

Employ Trust Elements

People trust video, images, and graphics when deciding to convert. These types of content can help visitors engage with your brand on a more emotional level than text alone. Video testimonials can be compelling because they connect visitors to the brand through a trustworthy third party. To effectively use video, make sure it is high quality. Use a video editor, like Fastreel, or Magisto, to turn any amateur video into one that looks like it came straight from the studio. People prefer watching videos to reading content, and one study found that landing pages that incorporate video enjoy a 34 percent higher conversion than those that don’t.

Integrate a Live Chat

People expect instantaneous responses from brands, which, fortunately, is now possible thanks to live chats. Integrating a live chat software on your landing page will help you stay connected to your visitors so you can answer questions instantly, rather than risk having visitors leave your landing page and never return. Live chatbots have come a long way in recent years. Many are powered by AI, which allows them to answer questions in a personalized way. They become smarter as they get more input, so the more frequently an AI gets used, the better equipped it is to help your landing page visitors.  

Which Tools Will Help?

Now that you know what your landing page should look like and what goals it should achieve, it’s time to get the right tools to make it all work. We’ve put together a list of landing page optimization tools that will help you come up with the perfect layout, conduct tests, analyze the page’s effectiveness, and implement other optimization techniques.

Unbounce

As the name suggests, Unbounce helps you do your best not to let visitors bounce from your landing page. You can use it to build pages, and you don’t need any particular skills in design or web development. The tool includes a set of customizable templates, so you can create as many pages as you need.  

Leadpages

Leadpages is a multifunctional toolkit for building landing pages, creating pop-ups, and other website elements. It has a drag-and-drop builder and a collection of mobile-friendly templates appropriate for any industry. The service also allows you to check the growth and success of your landing page.

Optimizely

Besides being a website builder, Optimizely is a great A/B testing platform. Split tests can help you understand which version of a page is more appealing to visitors and will hopefully earn you more money. With this tool, you can test and compare your newly built pages, score their performance, and monitor conversion rates.

Crazy Egg

Another way to monitor your page performance is to use heatmaps like Crazy Egg. The app gives you a visual representation of what people do on your page: where they click, how far they scroll, and what they ignore. This insight into how people interact with the page will help you write better content and place calls to action where they are most likely to be seen.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics (sometimes referred to as just GA) gives you a full analysis of activity on your site’s pages: user sessions, average on-page time, transactions, and more. With this data, you’ll get a comprehensive picture of what aspects are performing well and which need attention.  

Takeaway

Whether you have one landing page or dozens, there’s no question that an optimized landing page is essential for your business. By creating a landing page that is clear and concise, while still offering helpful visual, video, and textual content, you can encourage conversions from all of your visitors. While many businesses use their homepage as a landing page, marketers also often create new landing pages for each campaign. This tactic can help you focus your efforts to get different responses from leads for different campaigns.