A lot of marketing focus and spend these days goes into digital ad spending.
You might be spending money on Google Ads or social media ads on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter, and maybe you are even running retargeting ads, those ads that follow you around the internet when you’ve shown interest in a particular product or topic.
However, there are not many businesses that can run digital ads with a call-to-action to buy and have a high click-through rate and then a high buy rate. Usually, there needs to be a bit more in-between the ad and the purchase.
That’s’ where landing pages come into it.
In this epsiode, I’ll give you 10 best-practice pieces of advice to help your landing pages convert.
Enjoy.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
As part of the service, I have had this episode transcribed. Transcribing, proofing, and editing a podcast episode is A LOT of work. That’s why I use a service called REV who provide professional freelance transcriptionists who are vetted for quality. While they offer a 99% accuracy guarantee, I do not proof-read their work extensively. Instead, I simply copy and paste below and, as such, please note that this is not a verbatim transcript of the episode and I have trimmed things like the intro, close, and mid-show ad.
A lot of marketing focus and spend these days goes into digital ad spending. So, you might be spending money on Google Ads or social media ads on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter and maybe you are even running retargeting ads, those ads that follow you around the internet when you’ve shown interest in a particular product or maybe just the topic in general.
However, there are not many businesses that can run digital ads with a call-to-action to buy and have a high click through rate and then high buy rate.
Usually, there needs to be a bit more inbetween the ads and the purchase. That’s’ where landing pages come into it.
A landing page, while it will probably live on your site, although it doesn’t have to, is a standalone page dedicated to getting the visitor to take one action, and one action only.
Sometimes, that action may be to purchase something but it can also often be to complete a form in exchange for something valuable like an eBook, or whitepaper, or guide etc. The value exchange there is that you get their details and can then market to them later.
There are two key things to what I’ve said so far.
One, that a landing page is a standalone page. By that what I mean is it is kind of like an orphan page in that, while it may be on your site, it isn’t part of the navigation i.e. you can’t just follow links from your site to get to it, and also that it doesn’t have any navigation on it i.e. there is no normal menu or even a logo that links back to the home page.
And two, it has single call-to-action. Only having one call to action on a page, any page on your website, is always best practice but this then marries up with my previous point about no navigation.
That’s because, the idea of a landing page is, once people are on it, it has a singular focus and that is for people take the action you want them to. As such, you don’t want them getting distracted and clicking on a menu item and then wandering off and forgetting about your landing page and the amazing offer.
By having a landing page, you are essentially backing up your digital ad spend and ensuring that you get the best return-on-investment i.e. you convert the most amount of people that you can from your ads.
I read a stat from Unbounce.com that said that 44% of clicks for B2B companies are directed to a home page, not a landing page. Is that what you want? People to click on an ad and just be sent to the home page of your site and hope they find what they are looking for? Of course not.
That’s why you need a landing page.
But what makes a great landing page? Well, depending on your industry and what you are trying to achieve with your ads and landing page, there may be a few unique pieces of advice. For example, if your target audience searches for your product or service in Google, then I might advise that you optimise your landing page for search so that it shows up in search results. However, if that’s not how your audience behaves, I’d probably still optimise for search but I wouldn’t stress a lot about it because with strong digital ad spend, you’ll be fine.
But, generally speaking, I’ve got 10 things that you should ensure your landing page ticks off.
Let’s jump into it.
1 – Make your landing page responsive.
This is the one that can kill your campaign dead.
These days, most websites see more than half of their traffic coming from mobile devices so, not having a responsive landing page, a page that looks great across all devices, is a killer.
Imagine being on your phone and seeing a great ad for something that you are interested in. But then you click on it and it takes you to a page that is all mixed-up, or squashed, and you just can’t read it. Or even if you persevere, trying to compete a form or purchase just becomes all too hard. You simply leave.
2 – Remove all navigation from your landing page.
I covered this at the start of the show but let me hammer this home.
Your landing page is there to support your digital ads and those ads will have one goal. Conversion. As such, your landing page should have one goal, and one goal only. It might be to buy now or maybe it is to register for something or to fill out a form to get something in return like discount or eBook or whitepaper or maybe a recording of a webinar.
What that means is there should only be one thing for visitors to click on. There shouldn’t be links off to other things they may be interested in. This includes the normal navigation menu on your site and even a linked logo back to your home page. So, remove them from your landing page.
You want a single focus and, as such, you need to remove anything that can distract them from clicking on that one and only call-to-action.
3 – Write a benefit-focused headline.
Too often, people write about the features of their product or service. However, that is not why people buy a product or service. What they are buying is the benefit that a set of features provides them.
As such, make sure you write a headline for your landing page that focuses on the benefit of what you are offering. It will be the first thing they read and don’t assume they’ll read everything on your page. Most people won’t.
Clearly communicating the benefit will help engage visitors.
For example, let’s say you’ve run an ad for a great eBook you’ve written that is a 8-step guide to doing ABC.
Instead of having a headline like, “Download the 8-Step Guide to ABC Now”, write a headline that says something like “Save yourself X hours a week with this 8-step guide to ABC”.
The thing about writing about benefits is it makes the visitor think about achieving the benefit but also clearly positions the outcome, the end-game.
The thing is, not everyone understands the benefits of what you offer as clearly as you do. You understand completely and so the features that allow you to deliver benefits is what you see as important. As such, don’t assume your audience can join the dots as to what benefits certain features will provide them.
You have to spell it out.
4 – Pick an image that illustrates the offer.
Using great imagery is always good and if you can use images that illustrate your offer, and even the benefit, that is amazing.
The key here is to try and illicit some sort of feeling, an emotion. Don’t just skip over this step and put in an image just because you have to.
Showing your product or service in action helps people imagine themselves as your customer. Plus, it also quickly backs up your copy and that benefit-driven headline I spoke about earlier.
Step-by-step walkthroughs or before and after photos or even situational photos with testimonials or reviews laid over them are very effective.
Sure, video can help as well, but I think it is a “it depends”, especially on your resources. But you should consider video as well. In fact, using videos on landing pages can increase conversions by 86%. I’d even go as far as split-testing your images and maybe your videos.
Maybe walk before you run and get the images right and then look at using videos.
5 – Write clear, concise, and compelling copy.
This one is a bit personal. I, for one, hate when I get to a landing page and I’m greeted with a wall of text that tells me someone’s life-story and I have to scroll and scroll and scroll to get to the price and/or call-to-action.
It never makes much sense to me. People are time-poor, easily distracted, and they’ve come to the page already pre-disposed to a “Yes”. Long-form copy disregards all of that and only serves to push people closer to a “No” and just bouncing off the page.
Instead, keep your copy short and concise and too the point. Work really hard to cut unnecessary words out, not just fluff, but words out of important sentences. Make it pithy but don’t go so far as to strip it of all the goodness. You do need to strike a balance.
I once heard someone say, or maybe I read it, that the copy should be as readable as the back of a cereal box. I do like that thought.
If you love long-form copy, however, and more importantly, your audience likes long-form copy, then my advice would be to split test short and long-form copy and let the results dictate what you do.
OK, so that’s 5 of the 10 and now time for a break. I’ll see you on the other side for the next 5 as well as some chat about what sort of results you can expect from your landing page.
OK, so we’ve covered off
- Make your landing page responsive.
- Remove all navigation from your landing page.
- Write a benefit-focused headline.
- Pick an image that illustrates the offer; and
- Write clear, concise, and compelling copy.
And now we will cover off five more.
6 – Be sure that your copy messaging matches your ads
This can seem obvious and not a mistake you wouldn’t think you’d make. But people do.
The thing is, you absolutely want to create the same tone and vibe on you landing page as you do with your ads. Remember, the landing page is there to back up the ads.
However, if you created an amazing ad, and then later sat down to write the copy for the landing page, it can be easy to go off on a different path, even if only slightly different.
The important thing to remember here is that people were compelled to take action because of your great ad. So, stick with that for the landing page in terms of not just the copy but also the colours and imagery you used in the ad.
You might even find it useful to have a copy of your ad next to you while you write – and bonus points if you have a copy of your persona next to you as well!
7 – Have one and one only clear and standout call-to-action.
So, this one has cropped up a few times but it has kind of been mixed in with other advice so it is important to go over it again and make it stand alone.
You have a goal for your landing page – to get people to take some specific action.
But people are time poor and easily distracted and you need to remove choices from their vision when they are on your landing page.
As such, you should only have one goal and supporting call-to-action on your page. Give people one action, and one action, only. If you want the best results, you have to be militant on this.
I’m OK with having the call to action button or form on the page more than once but they should be exactly the same.
Following on from that is
8 – Place the call-to-action above the fold.
If you don’t know what the fold is, the fold is lowest spot people can see when they first land on a page i.e. anything below the fold they would need to scroll down to see.
So, we have above the fold and below the fold.
Place the call-to-action above the fold.
Think about it like this. People will see an ad, think “Yes”, and click on it. So give them the shortest path to being able to confirm their “Yes” and take action and place the call to action above the fold.
As I said before, I’m OK with having the call to action button or form on the page more than once so it is OK to also have it below the fold, just as long as you also have it above the fold.
9 – Include social proof such as reviews and testimonials
Reviews and testimonial are social proof that you can do what you say you can do. But only use real ones, no fake ones!
There are a lot of plugins and programs that help display reviews and testimonials on your website whether that be Google reviews or from testimonials you seek out. Or, if you want to tightly control the design, you can add them in manually on your landing page.
It plays into the “show, don’t tell” common piece of advice because you are showing how good a job you’ve done for others who are just like the prospect.
10 – Use a thank you page after the visitor takes action.
Once someone has taken the action you set out to get them to take, make sure they are redirected to a thank you page.
It helps underline the interaction but can also be used to clarify what will happen from that point. For example, “Check your inbox for a copy of the eBook” or “Click this link to access the guide” or maybe even “Here are some other things you might be interested in”.
While the advice is to have one and one only call to action, the thank you page is where you can cut loose and position anything else you want to show or tell them.
Let’s recap. As I said at the start, depending on your industry and what you are trying to achieve with your ads and landing page, there may be a few unique pieces of advice.
But, generally speaking, I gave you 10 things that you should ensure your landing page covers and they were …
- Make your landing page responsive.
- Remove all navigation from your landing page.
- Write a benefit-focused headline.
- Pick an image that illustrates the offer.
- Write clear, concise, and compelling copy.
- Be sure that your copy messaging matches your ads
- Have one and one only clear and standout call-to-action.
- Place the call-to-action above the fold.
- Include social proof such as reviews and testimonials
- Use a thank you page after the visitor takes action.
So, let’s say you have your amazing landing page in place and your ads optimised and humming. What can you expect?
Well, the average conversion rate for landing pages is 9.7%. If we couple that with a great conversion rate with Google Ads, and just using Google Ads as the platform example for illustrative purposes, let’s say of 5% conversion, that means if 1,000 people see your Google Ad, 50 people will click through and 9.7% will take your call to action.
So, with that simple path, 5 people out of 1,000 will take your desired call-to-action.
As such, you can see that you really do need to put your best foot forward with your landing page.