Landing pages are a great tool to utilize in your content marketing strategy. In this post, we’ll cover everything there is to know about landing pages. We’ll talk about their purpose, how they are used, why you should use them for your content marketing tactics, and so much more.
What are Landing Pages?
Landing pages are stand-alone web pages that are created for the purpose of an advertising campaign. [pullquote]Landing pages are designed to meet a single focused objective: to elicit an action from the viewers, also known as a Call to Action (CTA). [/pullquote]As the name suggests, the visitor “lands” on a landing webpage from a Google Adwords ad, social post or something similar.
Landing pages can be a perfect marketing tool that can help any business generate more sales by increasing your conversion rates and building organic traffic. A single page can provide you with a competitive advantage that will further grow your business and expand your customer base.
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What is the Goal of A Landing Page?
Typically, landing pages are used to transform your web traffic into potential leads and loyal customers. These stand-alone webpages are designed to convert and bring in more traffic to the next level of the sales funnel.
Landing pages aid in making your company goals and business objectives clear because you would need to identify them before you start developing a landing page. [pullquote]Each landing webpage should have one goal. Thus, its effectiveness is typically measured by its ability to persuade the viewers into doing something.[/pullquote]
Remember, a single landing webpage should have a CTA that is tied to your overall business goal. Texts, images, videos, and other media tools found on the landing webpage should be tied to its CTA.
Advantages of Using Landing Pages
If you’re still unconvinced as to the benefits a landing webpage can bring to the table, continue reading some of the advantages of landing pages are listed below.
1. Reach your business goals
As explained earlier, a landing webpage has a single focused goal with a CTA that is aligned with your business objectives. So, if you find yourself stuck in a rut, try switching up your marketing tactics to publishing these landing pages.
[pullquote]Elements on a landing page should be consistent, simple and clear. The message should have a laser-focused CTA so that your viewers won’t be too confused as to what they should do about the information you have provided them.[/pullquote]
Landing pages can also help your business generate qualified leads. Typically, these webpages are focused on the collection of customer data. From here, you can hope that it will move up another level of the sales funnel, which is a point of conversion.
2. Benefit more from your paid traffic
Since landing pages are made for the purposes of converting, you can rest assured that they’ll be more effective and efficient when using your paid traffic.
Think of it this way, if your digital marketing team is spending about three to five hours a day on content marketing, while you are paying $500 a day on Google AdWords and $15 a day on Facebook advertising, you have to be able to see a return on that investment.
With landing pages, you can effectively direct your inbound web traffic to a single page that will hit the bull’s eye – or at least, has a high chance of hitting the bull’s eye. Through landing pages, you are actually throwing darts in the correct path, so you can increase your chances of hitting the mark.
3. Develop customer relationships
Customer relationships are the hallmark of a successful business. If you want to develop a stronger relationship with your customers, landing pages can help.
[pullquote]Landing pages are versatile enough so they can be used at any touchpoint along a customer’s journey. [/pullquote]They can assist in the initial stages, which include your business offer, up to the actual sale.
Utilize landing pages to establish a bridge between your business and its audience. They can help foster a deeper level of understanding and commitment.
Paid Search Traffic and Landing Pages
Have you ever experienced searching something online and finding an ad that says your favorite company is offering a 50% off on all of its items? You may have clicked the link and been redirected to the company’s homepage, where it is difficult to find that 50% off offer. Now that’s frustrating!
With paid search, you create an on-target message match. This means that the PPC ad that a potential customer may have clicked on the results pages of Google will redirect that customer to a page that meets their criteria. This means that when you click on a 50% off offer, you’ll be redirected to that same offer.
WordPress Landing Pages
If you have a WordPress website, you can quickly and easily publish landing pages with a WordPress landing page plugin.
This plugin allows you to publish a landing page from your WordPress website just like a post or page. Since your landing pages live on your website, not on some 3rd party tool or app, they integrate seamlessly with your website.
The iThemes Landing Pages plugin is designed specifically for email opt-in landing pages. Email is still one of the most effective platforms to connect with potential customers, so using landing pages to drive email conversions is a great way to significantly grow your email list.
How to Properly Optimize Your Landing Pages
This guide wouldn’t be complete if we don’t talk about how to properly optimize a landing page. Here are some of the tips and tricks to ensure that your landing pages perform at their best.
1. Be simple
People nowadays are always on the go. They do not have the time to read through everything on your landing pages. That’s why you have to keep a minimalistic design. Be simple and avoid unnecessary elements that don’t really contribute to your CTA.
One of the reasons why landing pages are much more effective at increasing conversion rates is because they don’t waste time getting to the point.
2. Provide a clear message
Remember when we said that landing pages should have a single focused objective? Well, to ensure that you will be able to meet this objective, you have to provide a clear and concise message as to what you want your viewers to do. Cut out unnecessary images and videos that may further confuse the viewer. [pullquote]Here’s a fact: CTAs that are only a few words are the most effective kind.[/pullquote]
3. Say “No” to navigation elements
Remember that landing pages aim to provide your viewers with a simple way of presenting an offer. Navigation elements just complicate things. In fact, if you pay attention to the characteristics of a landing page, you would notice that its main differentiating factor with that of a normal website is its lack of site navigation.
A good landing webpage only has vital links – those that are necessary for fulfilling your objectives – and navigation buttons.
4. Use social proof
If you are going to persuade your viewers, you have to present the facts that will help them with their decision-making process. If they can see an endless number of positive customer reviews or reputable brands that you have worked with, then that decision-making process will be cut short. Social proof is an effective way of supporting your claim.
5. Make a really good offer
Of course, all of these are worth nothing if the offer you’re presenting to your customers is not worth it in the first place.
Use your landing page as a place to present an offer that is too good to pass up. By presenting them with social proof that the products and services you are offering can greatly change their lives, you’ll have a higher chance of attracting potential leads and driving more sales.
6. Focus on the customer
This is a pretty obvious tip. Any marketing strategy that you plan on implementing should always focus on the customer. Those that are visiting your landings pages typically want to know what you can offer to them. Tailor every element on the webpage to entice them and make them feel special.
This is a small hack, but a good one at that: use second-person pronouns and avoid self-centered language, such as the use of “I.” Remember, this is not about you as a business owner, but about your audience.
A Final Tip for Landing Pages
The last tip is related to testing. Never ever forget to test your landing page before making it public. Remember, first impressions last. Customers with a great first experience with your landing webpage will keep coming back for more.
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