What is Landing Page

 

You are a plane that flies over the Internet at breakneck speed. Suddenly an advertisement catches your eye. This is for a free webinar about something that really interests you. You click on it and land on the spot. You scroll down to a new page, read all there is to know about the webinar in question, and finally arrive at the bottom of the page, where there is a big, illuminated button. You click on it to reserve your place. You will understand, you are not on just any page: you have landed on a landing page (literally "landing page" in English). But what exactly is a landing page?

As the name suggests, a landing page is a page where internet traffic "lands". If your website was a city, your landing page would be its airport. And just as the opinion you have of a city you discover starts at the airport, your visitors also get a sense of you, your brand and what you have to offer as soon as they arrive. 'They land on your landing page.

And that's why the design of your landing page is crucial. This is where you grab people's attention and get them to do what you want them to do. An effective landing page will not only impress your visitors, but it will also encourage them to "subscribe", "buy" or "subscribe" by guiding them to a particular place on the website.

In this guide, we explain the ins and outs of a successful landing page: what it is, what it is for, and most importantly, how to create a beautiful and effective one.

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a web page designed to market a specific product or service, or to encourage Internet users to respond to a “call to action” (otherwise known as a CTA). Often, the journey that leads a visitor to a landing page begins as soon as the visitor in question notices an attractive banner ad, an ad on social media, or a link in an email they have received. When he clicks on it, he is redirected to a landing page.

A landing page is not the same as a home page, or even a splash page. A landing page is "hyperfocalized", that is to say it is optimized to encourage visitors to take a specific action. Everything, the text, the images and the navigation, are intimately designed with the result that we are trying to produce in mind. Each item is designed to be in a logical progression leading visitors to a button to click or a form to fill out.

Landing pages exist to convert. And they are completely transparent on this! When you are on a landing page, you have no doubts about what is offered to you and what you are asked to do.

A home page looks like a website table of contents. It is the central point of its navigation, and gives a quick overview of what the site in question offers. This is usually where you end up when you arrive from a search engine or social media profile page. Unlike landing pages, landing pages don't have one specific purpose. They are more open and offer visitors all the options available. They then go wherever they want.

A splash page is like the entry portal to a website. It is via this page that visitors access the home page of the site in question. In many cases, the splash page is used to verify information about visitors before they can access the site in question. For example, a brewery website might use a splash page to verify that visitors are well over 18. A splash page can also be used to advertise a promotional offer, and force visitors to share their email address to be able to take advantage of it, for example.

Although similar, the main difference between a splash page and a landing page is that splash pages are always closely linked to the main website, whereas landing pages can exist on their own.

Anatomy of a landing page

Every landing page is unique, but the most successful all have certain things in common. Each of these elements plays a specific role and pushes visitors to take a specific action.

Big title

The objective of a headline is to attract attention. Yours should pique the interest of visitors and be compelling enough that they want to keep scrolling. This is where they first meet your Unique Selling Proposition (USP), or what you have to offer that they can't get elsewhere. Note that even if you are offering something common your USP may well match your low prices or some other perk / feature offered by you alone.

Subtitle

Your subtitle is, unsurprisingly, below your title. Its goal is to take the title while adding details, or to further persuade visitors of the interest of your landing page. The caption is a great place to put all the essential information about you that you weren't able to include in your headline.

Text

The text following your caption explains your offer in more detail. He talks about your business, why you are good at your business, and the benefits of doing the action you suggest on your landing page. Your text should explain exactly what visitors can expect when accepting your offer.

Your text should also create a certain sense of urgency. Tell visitors how long your offer is valid for, and what will happen if they don't take the requested action immediately: Pay full price? Missing a great opportunity? Give them a reason not to wait and click on your CTA right away.

Pictures

Use high quality photos to show your visitors what to expect. Your images should either represent the products you are selling or elements showing how your business is improving people's lives.

Don't buy cheap stock images. Your landing page is not at all the place for generic photos… Make sure you have beautiful professional photos that will make you want to buy your products.

Advantages

This is where you really “sell” your offering. Benefits are often listed to grab (and maintain) the attention of visitors who tend to read web pages diagonally, as the listings are really easy to look at and digest.

The benefits of your product can be added to your text (see above) or be a separate section. The goal is to quickly explain why your offer is so interesting.

Inspire confidence

Instill confidence in your audience with the help of text and images. These are often testimonials from existing customers, or logos of famous customers (known as "social proof"), as well as statistics that showcase your wins or customer satisfaction. You can also highlight your secure payment system, for example.

Generate leads

Finally, this is where your visitors "convert" or not. The result you want is lead generation. This is the culmination of all your landing page efforts. This can be a form located directly on the page where visitors are sharing information, or a button that takes them to another page where they give you the information you are looking for.

Whatever it is, it has to be big, bold, obvious, and visually appealing. The whole purpose of your page is based on this element. It's common to use a contrasting color with the rest of the page for your CTA.

Your CTA should also be self-explanatory ("sign up now") to encourage visitors to engage in the process through the power of suggestion. You can improve your conversion rate by explicitly telling your reader what you want them to do. Just be careful not to push too hard either.

Keep in mind that you don't need to have all of these elements in that specific order for a landing page to be effective. Some landing pages have the lead generation form at the bottom, others have it on the side. Some pages contain a lot of text, while others contain virtually no text at all, etc.

It will probably take a few tries before you find the perfect layout. Optimize this process by testing two designs at the same time. So you will know very quickly which one works best. To do this, use tools like Google Analytics.

Need inspiration to create your landing page? Here are some great examples.

The importance of landing pages

According to truelist.co, people spend about eight seconds on a landing page before deciding whether to continue reading or leave. Only around 50% of landing pages are optimized for mobile devices, while targeting a page correctly can increase the conversion rate by 300%. Also, a load time of just one second can reduce the conversion rate by 7%.

If you're not sure what this all means, don't panic. We provide you with the definition of all of these terms right after. But first, take a look at a few other landing page stats:

·         The average conversion rate of landing pages across all industries is 2.35%

·         Of all visitors who read a page title, 90% also read its CTA 

·         Videos Can Improve Landing Page Conversion RateBy 86%

Landing page conversion rates vary by industry, so find out the average rate for yours so you can set realistic goals.

As you can see, landing pages are an essential part of digital marketing. They provide valuable information about their prospects and are often a key step in their sales funnel. Let's quickly define some important concepts to understand to develop a digital marketing strategy:

Sales funnel. A sales funnel is a series of steps designed specifically to turn people interested in your product or service into people who actually buy your product or service. The term comes from pictorial representations of this process: Imagine a large number of people (i.e. all the people who see your brand's posts on Instagram, for example). This is the top of your funnel. Within this group, a small number of people (your page's followers) are interested in your brand. These people have taken one step down your funnel, one step closer to purchasing one of your products. Within that small group, there is an even smaller group that has decided to buy from you. And among these people,

In this scenario, you can create a post that offers access to the next launch of your product before its official release. Interested parties click on your link and go to a landing page on which they must give you their email address. This page therefore sits between the interested customer and the dedicated customer, thus increasing your chances of turning your visitors into buyers.

Leads. Prospects are people who have shown an interest in your brand and are likely to buy your products. In our example funnel, these are the people who shared their email address on your landing page. In other words, prospects are the people who have chosen to engage with your brand and have expressed a desire to continue a relationship with you.

Lead generation. This is all the effort you put into generating leads: posting on social media, serving ads, creating landing pages, and building brand awareness in general. This is the top of your sales funnel, the widest part, where you present your brand to the world.

Conversions. A user is "converted" when they take the action you want them to take. On a landing page, a conversion consists of clicking a button or providing an email address. On a sales page, a transaction is a conversion. Depending on your goals, conversions can also consist of clicking on an ad to be redirected to a landing page or following your page on social media.

SEO (referencing). Search engine optimization (SEO) is the strategy to increase the ranking of your landing page (or website) on search engines. SEO strategies involve:

·         Use relevant keywords in your title, metadata, headers, and text

·         Have quality content on your page

·         Add images and videos to your page

·         Make sure your page loads quickly

Call to action. A call to action is a piece of text that directly encourages visitors to take a specific action: “call now”, “read more info”, “click here”, etc. The call to action is a crucial part of any landing page worth its salt, and the best way to do this is to put it in several places: just below the benefits of your product, immediately after your accompanying text, and on the button that visitors click to give you their contact details. In fact, a landing page is a call to action on its own.

What makes a landing page effective?

An effective landing page leaves no doubt with visitors. It carries all the information they need to make them want to click on the CTA button.

In the same vein, think carefully about who your target audience is and what speaks to them. Take the persona of your ideal customer that you created and imagine talking to them directly when writing your copy.

Regardless of your customer's persona, certain graphic and textual choices work for all landing pages, including:

·         Clear and catchy titles (which include keywords)

·         Clean layouts

·         Short and simple forms

·         Clear and frequent CTAs

Want to know more about landing page design? Here's how to create a landing page design from start to finish.

An effective landing page also makes it clear what your business is doing for visitors who aren't already familiar with your brand. Again, a good landing page eliminates any possible doubt about who you are and what your intentions are. If it's possible that a visitor could get to the end of your landing page and still have questions about who you are as a brand, what you offer, and why what you offer is great, your landing page is not optimal and you have to rework it to clarify these points.

Take a look at the landing pages of brands similar to yours. Sign up for their newsletters, for example, subscribe to their social media accounts, or just search for their name on Google. Make copies of your favorite ones to inspire you, and analyze why these pages work well. This is called a "swipe file" in English.

What makes a landing page not effective?

Just as catchy text and direct, frequent CTAs make great landing pages, bland text and passive suggestions unsurprisingly make bad landing pages ... Here's what can harm your page:

·         Overloaded design

·         Irrelevant images

·         No image

·         Bad SEO

·         Unclear calls to action

·         Too slow loading speed

·         No mobile optimization

In 2020, around half of the world's internet traffic is via mobile devices. This means that roughly half of your audience (maybe more, depending on your market and brand) interacts with you from a phone. So make sure your design is optimized for small and large screens.

Also, make sure that your images and videos are compressed enough so as not to slow down your page loading speed, as this has an influence on SEO. The same goes for images that are not properly tagged.

Generate more traffic with a great landing page

If you are looking to sell a product, to create an audience, if you are looking for new customers, or to offer quality content, having a well-designed landing page is not an option, it is an obligation. The internet is teeming with thousands of people who would love to interact with your brand. Give them a clear path to follow to reach you. A landing page is a direct route to your brand.

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