How Landing Pages Can Transform Your Marketing

For small business owners that are trying to drive clicks to their website, landing pages can be a useful tool in getting more visitors to convert. By using landing pages, you can deliver clear, concise, and tailored messages to your viewers that can help provide the best return on ad spending. Business Foundations has compiled a guide on what landing pages are, and what they have to offer to your digital marketing efforts.

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a standalone webpage created with one specific call to action and no website navigation. Landing pages are visited when a web user clicks on a link in an email, advertisement, or social media post. There are two types of landing pages:

• Lead generation landing page: A lead generation landing page turns visitors into leads by asking them for their contact information in exchange for an offer such as an e-book, contest entry, or free trial.
• Clickthrough landing page: A clickthrough landing page is typically used by e-commerce sites and goes straight for the sale by adding a ‘buy now’ or ‘add to cart’ button that sends visitors to complete the transaction.

Landing pages are different to websites in that they only want you to click on one thing, whereas websites encourage exploration. Marketers are encouraged to have multiple landing pages for different audiences and different campaigns, so that each landing page has a perfectly crafted message for the visitor.

Example of a landing page. Source: Shopify

How landing pages work.

Landing pages are effective in that they simplify and refine the visitor’s interaction with the site to maximise the chances of conversion. Due to their simple nature, landing pages reduce the number of distractions on the page by removing navigation options, competing links, and other information in order to capture the visitor’s undivided attention. Landing pages make it clear what will happen when the visitors click the link and allow you to receive more value from your ad spend.

To give you a better idea of how landing pages can increase your conversion, here are some examples of landing pages in action.

Example 1: You own a pet supply store and are running a Facebook advertisement to generate more sales amongst middle-class women who are pet owners. To achieve this, you have created a landing page with the bonus offer of free engraving to visitors that purchase a pet collar.

Example 2: You own a boutique real estate agency and are running a pay-per-click Google Ads campaign targeting homeowners in your suburb that offers a free property evaluation in exchange for the visitor’s contact details and address. This provides the real estate agent with a list of leads that may be interested in selling their home soon.

How to create an effective landing page.

Be strategic.

Before designing your landing page, you need to be crystal clear on its purpose. This means you need to take your landing page’s goal, whether that to be lead generation or sales, and identify your target audience. Once you know your goal and audience, you will need to create the offer that you will give to visitors in exchange for completing your call to action.

Design with simplicity in mind.

Your landing page needs to keep distractions to a minimum, which means the design must be simple, yet appealing as possible. This means you should use lots of white space and resist the urge to include unnecessary links or visuals. You want your visitors to be focused on your CTA, so don’t give them the temptation to navigate away.

Write compelling copy.

The most important part of your landing page is going to be your copy. You will want the visitor’s attention focused on a well-written headline that motivates them to convert without needing to read the copy. You should still write a bit of copy outside the headline, but just focus on the main benefits of your products or services and dot point them.

Creating landing pages with fewer elements that distract the user will increase your chances of converting your visitors. By carefully tailoring your landing pages to each call to action and target audience, you will receive a better return on investment for your marketing.