Landing Pages: 10 Best Practices to Implement in 2021

A landing page is a key asset in any digital marketing campaign. A landing page is a webpage that has a very specific and clear goal: to convert visitors into leads.

Regardless of its content or design (its visual appearance), the purpose of any landing page is to convert traffic into leads. This happens because these pages typically offer some useful content or resource that people are interested in.

Such content or resources can range from an eBook, an infographic, a video, a case study, a simulator, or a free trial, for example. The expectation is that, in order to receive the offer in question, visitors will provide some personal information relevant to the company in exchange. This makes it possible to begin “nurturing” these leads and helping them move forward in their buying journey.

Why should you use landing pages?

A landing page should be highly conversion-oriented. This means it shouldn’t contain any elements that cause distraction or could hinder visitors from taking the desired action.

Without menus, without overly extensive information, without multiple CTAs (call-to-action buttons), and without multiple navigation options, a landing page becomes more effective at capturing the visitor’s attention and leading them to conversion (filling out a form).

Some statistics on the benefits of using landing pages

• The average conversion rate for a landing page (across all industries) is 9.7% (Unbounce);
• Companies that increase their number of landing pages from 10 to 15 see a 55% increase in lead generation (HubSpot);
• 48% of marketers build a new landing page for each new campaign (Marketing Experiments);
• Sign-up forms on landing pages have a conversion rate of 23% (Omnisend).

Given these figures, using relevant, conversion-optimizedlanding pages in your paid media campaigns, when promoting your events, or in other one-off marketing campaigns appears to be essential to your success.

We’ll therefore share some recommendations and best practices you should follow when building these pages.

1. Create a landing page for each buyer persona

Segmentation should be the starting point for any marketing initiative, and knowing who your buyer personasare is essential for developing any content or offer. And landing pages are no exception.

If each buyer persona has a specific need or concern, this must necessarily be reflected in landing pages with distinct styles, content, and offers (that address those very needs).

2. Focus on a single conversion goal

Having multiple offers on a single landing page can create too much clutter, distract visitors, and prevent them from taking the desired action (thereby lowering the conversion rate).

Just as the content of a landing page should focus on a single persona or audience, it should also promote a single offer in order to be more persuasive and effective.

3. Include all the essential elements of a landing page

Since these pages are designed to capture leads, there are some essential elements that a landing page must include: a clear and precise headline; a brief description of the offer that demonstrates its value; an image; and, most importantly for collecting visitor data, a form and a CTA.

4. Use persuasive copy

Keep in mind that when someone lands on a landing page, they don’t expect to read typical marketing and sales messages. Instead, they expect to read something about the offer or the content featured on the page.

With this in mind, avoid clichés like “sign up” or “submit” and focus instead on providing useful information that allows visitors to make a quick decision. Adopt a conversational, engaging, and, above all, personalized tone.

5. Highlight the benefits of the offer, not your product or service

Your landing page should highlight, in a short paragraph or bullet points, the benefits of the offer you’re promoting.

Try to convey how the content or resource you’re providing will help solve a problem or meet a need for your target audience.

6. Remove the navigation from the page

Unlike other pages on a website, where the goal is for visitors to navigate from one page to another, the goal of a landing page is for people to stay on it.

The presence of menus or links can create distractions and cause people to leave the page before converting. Navigation should therefore be removed.

7. Ask only for the information that is truly necessary

At this point, you need to strike a balance between asking for too much information (and running the risk that visitors won’t want to fill out everything) and asking for too little (generating poorly qualified leads about whom you know very little).

Every situation is different, and there’s no one-size-fits-all answer for the number of fields a landing page formshould include. Our recommendation is to run tests and see what works best for your business.

8. Build responsive landing pages

This should already be a given, considering that more and more people are accessing the internet via their smartphones, yet there are still many web pages that aren’t optimized for mobile devices.

Your landing pages should adapt to any screen size while keeping the content readable and maintaining the positioning of visual elements, forms, and buttons.

9. Display a thank-you page

A thank-you page can be an effective way to thank the visitor for converting on the associated landing page.

These pages allow you to add some personalization (since you’ve just collected personal data about the visitor) and also introduce a new conversion point so that the lead can move forward in their buying journey right away.

10. Test regularly

To continuously improve your conversion rates, you need to frequently analyze the performance of your landing pages. This may involve conducting A/B tests or adaptive tests— a feature available in HubSpot that allows you to test up to five variations of the same page.

Analyzing the results of these tests will enable you to build increasingly relevant and effective landing pages.

Consider these recommendations and start 2021 by creating landing pages that help generate more and better leads for your business.

At YouLead, we can help you with your overall lead generation strategy. Don’t hesitate to contact us.