WebCreate.io Guide: How to Build a Landing Page

What is a Landing Page?

Technically speaking, a landing page is any webpage that a visitor can enter, or land on. However,  from a marketing perspective, ‘landing pages’ are any webpage that a visitor lands on, and is designed to enable the visitor to complete a specific marketing goal (otherwise known as a ‘conversion.’)

The most common kind of landing page is a lead form, which sometimes includes but is not limited to the following info:

• First name
• Last name
• Company
• Email
• Phone number

Lead forms can even include other information you deem necessary for users to claim whatever is being offered in exchange for their information. This could be a downloadable guide, email sign up, a coupon or and any number of offers.

Typically, this is placed in a Call To Action (CTA) — which prompts visitors to take action so they can claim whatever the offer is. In the case of a small business, it could be the chance to collect additional information on products, services or exclusive content offers. Sort of like this:

Does a landing page differ from a homepage?

A landing page differs from a homepage in that it does not give an overview of your entire company. A homepage also has links to other pages like the about section, products, reviews and contact section, while landing pages rarely present users with any navigation or lead them off the page.

Homepages do not usually give one specific action for visitors to take, but present them with a copious amount of options to choose from. Landing pages are dedicated to one goal or product.

Types of Landing Pages

Let’s explore two popular styles of landing pages and their purpose for marketers:

• Lead Generation: Landing pages are created for one purpose, to collect personal info about potential converts. This helps small business owners take visitors through the full marketing funnel, from the awareness stage to advocacy.

• Click-through: Landing pages are extremely high in value, and allow visitors to read non-objective information about exclusive offers without the pressure to make a purchase.

Regarding tools available to create landing pages, there are a number of them, and many are free. Website builders like Wix and Ucraft, as well as MailChimp, offer free (branded) landing pages.

This means your domain will have the website builder’s name and your company’s name in the domain. If you wish to have the branding removed, there is a small fee, but a well-worth-it purchase if you think of the conversions it could lead to in the future.

What Should A Landing Page Include?

So far, we’ve talked about what a landing page is, how they differ from homepages and the kinds of landing pages available to small business owners. Next, we’ll explore what a good landing page should include.

• Unique Selling Point: First, you need to have a unique selling point — sometimes known as a unique selling proposition (USP). This is what sets your product apart from competitors. In the case of Ucraft, its USP would be: “Create your free one-page landing page today.”
• Main Headline: Next, you’ll need the main headline, which should be relevant, concise, and capture the attention of visitors to stay on the page through your desired action.

• Subheadline: The subheadline provides supplementary information to the main headline.

• A Reinforcement Statement: Reinforcement statements are for casual landing page visitors — ones who skim the information on the page. It should go halfway down the page and is not that dissimilar from a subhead, but once more reinforces what was said in both the main and subheadline.
• Closing Statement: Last but not least, is the closing statement — undoubtedly one of the most important components of a landing page. The closing statement should appear as your landing page comes to a close, giving you a final chance to communicate your message to visitors.
• Hero Shot: Another important aspect of your landing page is a hero shot, which is the image visitors see as soon as they arrive on your landing page — just above the fold. The image should be memorable, and you can test this by having a visitor (or in the case of the testing phase, a web analyst) look at the image for a few seconds, closing it and having them recall specifics of your business.

If the image is memorable — the tester will be able to give a synopsis of your company — with no prior knowledge. When creating a landing page, you should be sure to use keywords applicable to your site for SEO purposes.

• Benefits: Always include a summary of the benefits of your product and the features users will gain access to once they take.
• Social Proof: This is yet another way to showcase the value of your offering, and you should consider adding one of the following to your site as a result:
  • Testimonials
  • Customer Count
  • Review
  • Awards
• Call to Action: A CTA prompts site visitors to take a specific action such as “Call Now” “Download your Free Guide.” It can also be as generic as “Act Now” but the more specific you can be, the better.
• Thank You Page: This page is intended to send to someone who has completed an action like giving an email for more information, opting in for a monthly subscription, or as simple as someone who made a purchase.

Testing & Optimizing

The above information is essential when building a truly optimized landing page for your small business. If objective testers try out your landing page and test two versions — they should be able to tell a few things:

• If your landing page accomplished your goal
• If messaging is clear
• If images are memorable and relevant
• If your CTA is clear
• If your unique selling point is understood and accurate

This is called A/B testing — a crucial component to optimizing your landing page to maximize conversions.

Summary

Overall, building an optimized landing page isn’t a difficult task, but one that requires a bit of patience and certainly a certain amount of trial and error to figure out which page versions convert the best.

You can also learn a lot about your target audience when testing pages once they go live. You just might find your audience is more diverse than you originally thought.

By adding analytics tracking tools like Google Analytics you can gain even more insight as to where referral traffic comes from, too.