Landing pages are an essential part of your digital marketing campaign, and the way they’re designed makes an enormous difference to your campaign’s success rate.

In a broad sense, a landing page is any page on your website which visitors typically enter or ‘land’ on, such as your home page. However, in the marketing context, a landing page is a specific and standalone web page – separate from your main website – designed with a sales focus and used as a stepping stone along the way to a sales goal.

In this post we’ll be discussing the design of the dedicated landing pages and their role in capturing leads and “warming up” potential customers before sending them further down your sales funnel.

Here’s an example: https://cleverclicksdigital.com/14-secrets-google-adwords-success/

In the post below we lay out the 6 critical elements every dedicated landing page needs and how to structure these elements for ultimate success.

The 6 critical elements:

Vital Element #1: The Sales Pack

Your sales pack (SP) is made up of elements that tell the viewer what your page and your offer are all about. A sales pack is basically a combination of things which work together to give the customer an idea of what you’re selling.

Take a novel, for example, how do you know you want to read it before you’ve bought it? You’ll use a combination of the cover, title, blurb, author’s name and maybe even a page or two to help you decide whether it’s the one for you.

A SP works in the same way, and it consists of the following things:

1. The main headline
2. A sub headline
3. A reinforcing statement
4. A closing argument

Your headline:

Your headline is usually at the very top or central point of the page. It needs to immediately communicate what your page is about and reassure people that they’re in the right place – i.e. it corresponds with the ad or link they just clicked.

Your Sub- headline:

This is used to expand upon the headline (which should be short and punchy) and shed a little more light on the offer.

The sub-headline is an opportunity to add an extra sentiment, so make sure you don’t simply repeat the headline in more words

Your reinforcing statement:

The reinforcing statement usually sits about halfway down the page and is a bit like an extra headline. When readers scan your page, this statement will jump out at them and reinforce their notion of why they should be buying this product.

Your Closing Argument:

On longer pages, a closing argument is your final chance to remind people why they want to buy this product. However, if your landing page is all above the fold and your headline is still visible, you don’t need one.

Vital Element #2: The Visual

A picture still speaks 1000 words and the visual is a critical part of every landing page.

The image you use works best if it demonstrates  the context of use – i.e. give the viewer a visual idea of what they are buying. The minute someone can picture themselves using the product you’ve got them a whole lot closer to buying.

For this reason, a short video often works really well on a landing page. Giving the viewers more visual information works wonders as they begin to identify with the product or service.

Vital Element #3: The benefits of your offering

Here you’ll need to provide a summary of all the benefits the customer can expect from buying your product. This should be done in bullet point form for easy reading.  

When creating this list, try to address the customer’s pain points, rather than just what the product does. For example, for a vacuum cleaner you might say: ‘So powerful it removes stains’ instead of: 1800W suction power.

That doesn’t mean you have to leave out features like 1800W suction power – you can certainly list those at well, but always list the benefits first to encourage readers to relate the product to their own lives.

Vital Element #4: Social Proof

Humans are herd animals – we love knowing what others thought of the product or service to help us make our own decisions. That’s why you need to provide social proof.

Social proof is simply ‘proof’ that other people have bought/used/experienced what you’re offering and have enjoyed it. This can be in the form or reviews, testimonials, social media comments and more – anything which shows that other ‘real people’ have made the same decision and been happy with it.

Vital Element #5: Your Call-To-Action (CTA)

Your CTA represents the goal of the page – it’s where you ultimately want people to end up and are usually in the form of a ‘buy now’ button.

On a page, you want your CTA to be easy to find and enticing to click. Using colours that stand out and copy that encourages action are vital  to your CTAs success.

A quick tip on design: using bright contrasting colours helps to get your CTA button noticed and making your button 3D improves the conversion rate.

A quick tip on copy: always describe exactly what’s going to happen once people click the button (e.g start my free trial now) and always use the first person (Get ‘MY’ free eBook or ‘I’ want better hair) instead of ‘you and ‘your’

The process of creating a compelling CTA is quite an art and both the copy and the design need to be spot on. Read this for more tips on CTA optimisation.

Vital Element #6: A confirmation Page

A confirmation page is the page people see once they have completed the action you wanted them to complete.

This page should thank them and let them know that their order has been received, but it isn’t only for the customer’s benefit.

The people seeing that page have just told you that they like what you do. They’re officially ‘warmed up’ and you should take advantage of this. Now is the time to direct them to your social media channels or to offer them a bonus feature – like a free tour or catalog.  

The moral of the story is that you shouldn’t stop once the transaction is completed – use the knowledge that they like your brand and the product they just ordered to offer them something else they might be interested in.

To recap, the 6 vital elements of a Landing Page are:

• The Sales Pack
• The Visual
• The Benefits
• Social Proof
• The CTA
• The confirmation page

Get these elements right and you’ll be a conversion king – happy optimising!