There are five things that always exist on a successful landing page:
1) Headline
2) Demonstration (if you don’t have pictures or descriptions on what the visitor has to do on the page, they will leave)
3) Value – there has to be a reason why they should choose you instead of your competitors
4) Support
5) Action – tell people what they need to do. There has to be a single call to action on your landing page – if you expect someone to do four different things, they’ll do none
Every time you give someone an excuse to leave your page (like a social sign in), you’re giving them the opportunity to leave and never come back.
You have to think about why the visitor wants to interact with your content. Nobody cares about features – if you’re creating the right emotional feel for a product, you’re going to have higher conversion rates.
Things that can help your landing page:
- Bullets
- Graphics
- Emphasis (italic, bold, underline)
- Images
Many of your customers don’t think about your product in the same way you do, this is why testing is so important. Always try to find out what a potential customer would want to invest in emotionally when creating a landing page.
Test your content
If you’re selling a luxury item, you’re probably going to need to provide more content. If you’re just asking someone for an e-mail address, keep the content short. The important thing is that you test the content to see what works for you. Don’t argue with people about changing the headlines or other content – just change it, test it and use the one that performs the best.
Creating a great landing page: The Process
Phase 1
- Brainstorm content
- Design and write
- Create more content than you need
- Create control page
- Create variations
- Test
Phase 2
- Analyze your results
- Choose new control
- Revise variations
- Test again
Phase 3
- Headline
- Call to action
- Large images
- Length of content
Your headline needs to take the visitor from “I think this is the right place” to “I know this is the right place”. Once they realize they’ve come to the right place, they have patience.
Images
Sometimes a picture of a woman works really well and sometimes a picture of a man will work. You need to test the images and choose the one that conveys the right emotion for whatever you are selling.
If you use a picture of a person on your landing page, make sure the person faces the action on the page. If they’re looking at you, you start thinking about the person in the image instead of the content on the page.
Buttons
One of the last things you need to be testing is the buttons on the landing page. Your headline and images are more important.
Ways of expressing value
It’s a requirement that you communicate value. After the website visitor realizes they’re in the right place, you need to make sure they know that what they’re about to buy or sign up for is valuable.
Forms
Don’t create long forms that ask a visitor to give you their name, phone number, e-mail etc. Don’t use the word “submit” on your buttons. People don’t want to “submit”, they want to “buy”.
Content critique
People don’t care about you and your company; they want to know what you can do for them.
Written by: Francois Muscat , WSI consultant
There was a time when sending out a press release was a great way to get noticed. Once a release was sent to listed media outlets, odds were pretty good the event would create some interest. These days, not only is the market saturated with businesses looking for press, but no longer is it enough to send out a simple PR. You have to start thinking outside the box and beyond the traditional release.
