Want Your Site to Convert? Landing Page Best Practices to Consider

Have you considered creating landing pages to reach your target audience, but you’re not sure where to start? Whether you are launching a landing page with the goal of lead generation or simply persuading visitors to click through to another page, the following best practices and mistakes to avoid will help you create a successful one.

Three Things to Consider When Building a Landing Page

Know Your Goals

LaneTerralever’s Content Strategist Alli Ligget said knowing your goals before you even begin to build out your landing page is of utmost importance. You should know exactly what this landing page must achieve. What’s the one action you want your user to take? Knowing the most important end goal and action you want a user to take will keep you focused on the purpose for this page and help you weed out unnecessary information. Landing pages should be hyper-focused on one action.

Make it Personal to Your Audience

Many businesses and brands are so concerned with the message they want to get across, they forget to consider the person who will actually land on the page, and what they need.

Before you create anything, you’ve got to have a clear understanding of who you’re creating the landing page for, and how to personalize the page for them. Ask yourself: What are the top questions your audience wants answered when they land? How are you going to answer those questions?

Ligget says a good way to figure this out is through empathy mapping. Going through even a brief session where you take on the mindset, needs, questions and emotions of your audience can help you determine exactly what you should highlight on a landing page.

Good Information Architecture

Once you know what the page must achieve and what info your audience is looking for, you’ve got to figure out how the page communication should unfold; the information architecture of the page.

There should be a hierarchy in your messaging — the most important or burning question answered first, then all remaining questions follow in logical order. A good way to determine the communication design of your page is to go through a core modeling exercise.

At this point, you should have a rough idea of what messages you need to convey and in what order. That’s when a writer can flesh out exact language, but make sure to get SEO involved for good key terms to use!

Once your messaging unfolds, you can start to envision what design each message should take, whether it’s best conveyed in an image, a video, a testimonial, a paragraph of text, etc.

Landing Page Basics

No matter what design you’ve decided each message should take, you need to include the basics. LT’s UX Architect Krista Kinkade recommends including the following landing page must-haves:

1. Unique Selling Proposition: This should be outlined in the headline and subheading.
2. Hero Shot: The hero shot is the user’s first impression of your page, show the product or service in use.
3. Value Proposition: What are the features and benefits of your product? Explain why someone would want to use your product and service.
4. Social Proof: Use real testimonials to reassure potential leads and to show authenticity.
5. Call to Action (CTA): This is the primary marketing goal of your campaign and the action you’re trying to get the user to take. When adding a CTA to your landing page, consider these tips:

• Make your CTA big and position it above the fold.  
• Use directional cues to direct attention to your CTA (arrows or photos/videos of people looking or pointing at your button).
• For lead gen forms where the CTA is below the fold (e.g., due to a long form) – make the directional cue point down the page to the button.

Common Landing Page Mistakes

A good landing page avoids these common mistakes:

1. Slow page speed: If the page takes too long to load, users will bounce. Make sure you test your load speed, and if the load time is high, have a developer fix it ASAP.
2. There is no match between the ad and headline: Ensure the primary headline of your landing page matches the ad visitors clicked to get there.
3. No set clear expectations for action: A landing page should really have one CTA — any other links and calls to action will dilute your page and decrease the odds your page will achieve what you need it to. Stay focused on the task at hand!
4. Not (seriously) considering the audience: Many businesses and brands are so concerned with the message they want to get across, they forget to consider the person who will actually land on the page, and what they need. A successful landing page will have messaging that’s a marriage of a business’s goals and a user’s needs, getting the brand’s message across in a way that answers an audience question or addresses a need.

In the end, a well-thought-out landing page that’s personalized to a specific audience has the best chance of achieving results. When you design a page with a user-first mindset, your audience is way more likely to convert.

If your company could use help creating a landing page that achieves conversions, fill out the form below or give us a call at (602) 258-5263!