Landing pages are pages on your website designed to increase conversion. These pages should always be associated with a specific campaign or product and should target a specific customer segment with relevant content to be more effective.

Providing exactly what users are looking for with custom message matching and a simple, intuitive interface can have a positive effect on your conversion rate.

Here's how to create a perfect landing page.

Planning Your Landing Page

Before you even begin putting together your landing page, you need to ask yourself a few questions:

Who’s the target?

Unlike your homepage, landing pages should be tailored to a specific audience. Determining which customer segment to target with your page will allow you to refine your message. Content that resonates with users more personally will increase your conversion rate.

Father's Day tip: create two landing pages - one targeting dads, themselves, and another targeting significant others or family members that might be buying gifts for dads.

What’s the goal?

Landing pages are geared toward increasing conversions. Conversion goals are typically purchases (for ecomm) or lead-generation (for B2B), but can be anything you define as a successful customer behavior.

Are you looking to grow your email list? Promote a new product? Get people to download your latest ebook? Sign up for a subscription service? The list goes on. You need to determine what a successful user action looks like so you can build your landing page around that goal.

Where will users be coming from?

Users will most likely be coming to your landing page from an external source. Will you be driving traffic to your landing page with paid ads? Linking to it in an email blast? Taking advantage of SEO to capitalize on organic search?

Each of these customer journeys is different and affect the user’s experience once they arrive on the landing page. Users coming from an interruptive social ad will likely know little about your brand and may need education, while users arriving via an email link will probably be more familiar with your products. This will dictate what type of content to include on the page.

No matter where users are coming from, content and imagery should align with the messaging and imagery of the ads, emails, etc. that got them there. An inconsistent brand experience is sure to chase users away.

Father's Day tip: Drive traffic to your landing pages with distinct campaigns featuring imagery and messaging that shows why dad will love it!

Building Your Landing Page

Now that you know the who, what and where of your landing page, it’s time to build it. As with any web page, user experience is key to success.

Content and layout are critical to encouraging users to take desired action. Too little information and users won’t feel confident enough to take the next step. Too much and you might overwhelm them. A wonky submission form or improperly placed CTA will certainly drive users away.

Here are the most important things to consider when building your landing page:

1 - Headline

Have a clear, succinct headline that grabs a user’s attention while creating interest and understanding of the product or promotion. Your headline should be no longer than 10 words.

2 - Subheadline

Where your headline hooks the user, your subheadline should elaborate on what your headline promises, encouraging them to take action. Your subheadline should be between 10 to 30 words.

3 - CTA

Your call-to-action (CTA) is that all important button you need the user to click to complete your conversion. Whether you’re pushing a purchase, a free trial, an email subscription or anything else, your CTA should be big and bold, standing out against the surrounding content with a message that clearly states what will happen when the user clicks.

4 - Imagery

The imagery on your landing page must not only resonate with the target audience, but also align with the product or service being offered as well as the campaign that drove the user to the page.

5 - Copy

As with imagery, the messaging and tone of your landing page copy should be consistent with your overall brand voice and match the traffic source. Your landing page needs to offer a clear explanation of why the user should take the desired action. Demonstrate the benefits of the product, service or offer in question by touching on value props.

When crafting your body copy, remember that clarity and brevity are your best friends - try to say the most with the fewest words. Keep away from linking out to other pages or sites, as this can only interfere with the desired user action.

6 - Other Content

Including other content, such as video, or an interactive element like a quiz can help increase engagement and conversions, as long as it educates the user and encourages them to hit your CTA. Just make sure it’s (you guessed it) relevant and consistent with your brand, product and encourages, rather than distracts from, the desired user action.

7 - Layout

By now it should be clear that, when it comes to landing pages, shorter is better. Minimize how much your user has to scroll to get the information they need to hit that CTA. Keep important content above the fold and never bury the CTA.

For longer scrolling landing pages, consider placing multiple CTA’s throughout.

Conclusion

By nature, dedicated landing pages will have a higher bounce rate than the rest of your site, as they serve one goal and aren’t meant to encourage navigation to other parts of your site. Keep these 7 critical things in mind and your landing page will be set up for success. Remember to always test multiple variations of these elements (one element at a time) to see what performs better