The best landing pages have one thing in common: they convert like crazy! Don’t you want a landing page that actually works? In this article, we give you a blueprint for creating landing pages that convert!
Exasperating, isn’t it? That feeling you get when you know the benefits of having a landing page that converts like crazy, yet your landing page sucks!
Well, today you’re in luck.
That’s because I am going to take you through the rudiments of making the best landing pages that really work.
But first, what is a landing page?
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What is a Landing Page?
A landing page can be any page that someone lands on after clicking on an online marketing call-to-action.
The best landing pages are dedicated, stand-alone pages that are designed for a specific marketing campaign.
A landing page is a stand-alone in the sense that it has no ties to your website, like global navigation. In other words, it floats alone, and is only accessible from the link you’re providing in your marketing content (the call-to-action in an email for example).
The best landing pages usually have all navigation and extra links removed so there is only a single action for your visitors to take: Click your call-to-action.
The Purpose of a Landing Page
The best landing pages fulfil two basic purposes:
- To capture leads that enable you to market to people in the future, or
- To “warm up” potential customers to the product you are trying to sell to them before sending them further into your sales funnel.
This creates the need for two types of landing pages – a lead generation page and a click-through page. In this blog post, our focus is on a lead generation page.
The most valuable piece of information you can get from a lead generation page is someone’s email address. This gives you permission to continue talking to them, and or marketing to them.
Once you have a lead’s permission, you then try to convert them into a customer by combining the two most powerful 1-to-1 communication tools a marketer has – email and landing pages.
You can create your landing page using InstaBuilder which I use and recommend. It’s cheap and versatile. This is an an example of one my best landing pages, which has a 42.40% conversion rate.
The Best Landing Pages – Conversion Rates
According to research by WordStream, across industries, the average landing page conversion rate was 2.35%, yet the top 25% are converting at 5.31% or higher. Ideally, though, you want to break into the top 10% — these are the landing pages with conversion rates of 11.45% or higher.
Your Goal: Do not focus on what the research says about average conversion rates, because you’re not average. As I said earlier, one of my landing pages is achieving 42.40% conversion, and if I can do it, you can too!
So, set your expectations high. Your goal should be to have a minimum conversation rate of 30%. So, if:
- 100 people visit your landing page; and
- 30 of them opt-in to your email list
Then your conversion rate is 30%. This is achievable, with a lot of hard work. A common trait across all top performing landing pages was this: they have incredibly unique offers that help them stand out in their respective industries.
It’s easy to fall into the trap of offering the same thing everyone else is offering. If you’re a dentist, for example, your offer might be a discount on an initial visit. Accountants might offer a free consultation. Software companies a free trial.
The best landing pages feature creative offers that are more compelling, more interesting, and ultimately convert better.
If you want to break into the top 25%, you need to test an average of four unique landing pages, with different offers, messaging and flow to find that one winner.
To break into the top 10%, you’ll need to test ten different landing pages. To succeed across your account, you’ll need to test this much for each winning page.
The Best Landing Pages – Message Match
Message match is an essential part of why landing pages can be so successful. Message match is the ability of your landing page to reinforce the messaging presented on the link that was clicked to reach the page.
Most visitors are impatient and will leave your page within a few seconds of arrival if you don’t reinforce their intent with a matching headline and purpose (quickly and clearly).
This example shows a comparison of good and bad message match on a landing page used for a pay-per-click campaign:
| Call-to-action Message | Landing Page Headline | |
|---|---|---|
| Bad message match | Get 25% off a MacBook Pro | Welcome to St. John’s Computer Store |
| Good message match | Get 25% off a MacBook Pro | Get up to 50% off Mac Book Pro at St. John’s Computer Store |
By ensuring a strong message match, you are letting the visitor know that they made a “good click”.
The Best Landing Pages – Maximizing Conversion Scent – a.k.a. Message Match
Conversion scent, or information scent, is another way of describing the connection between your source ad and your landing page. The scent begins when the ad is seen, and is maintained or ended when the visitor sees your landing page (depending on how strong your message match is).
The best landing pages have 5 core elements, which can be broken down further into a more detailed list of building blocks
- The hero shot (images/video showing context of use)
- Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
- The main headline
- A supporting headline
- A reinforcement statement
- A closing argument
- The benefits of your offering
- A bullet point list summary of benefits
- Benefit and features in detail
- Proof – Social proof (I’ll have what he’s having)
- Trust indicators
- A single conversion goal – your Call-To-Action (CTA)(with or without a form)
Best Landing Pages – 3 Examples
