Today you are going to learn 6 tips for creating landing pages that convert.
These come to you from the fields of copywriting, neuromarketing and logical argument. They help you optimise for the thought process and experience of your visitor.
These 6 tips are ideal if you are creating landing pages for paid search marketing campaigns, where you will be targeting searching for keywords with commercial intent. With intent to transact. But they also apply to other types of online advertising, too.
We’ll start with tips 1 to 5 because they will make the most sense now, then go to tip 6 after.
Let’s get to it.
Imagine you are your visitor. You’re searching for a product or service online and have just clicked through to a landing page.
What do you want to know?
- 1. Am I in the right place?
- 2. What’s in it for me?
- 3. Why you?
- 4. Prove it.
- 5. Give me something easy to say yes to.
1,2,3,4,5 (with 6 coming up shortly)
Let’s talk about how to apply these 5 tips, but first:
Why do they work?
The answer is because they align with principles like relevance, motivation, differentiation, credibility and friction reduction, all of which are important to momentum in decision making.
OK. How do we apply these?
A good place to start is to think about your landing page as having three sections: a beginning, a middle and an end.
The beginning
The beginning is your most important area. It’s above the fold, so every one of your visitors is going to see it, and what they find there will determine whether or not they stay on your page.
Which is why we’re going to answer the ‘Am I in the right place?’ and ‘What’s in it for me?’ questions right away.
A common format for doing this is to use a combination of easy scannable elements such as a headline, a 2 to 3 sentence intro paragraph and a few bullet points, all working together.
Now, the intro is also going to contain your offer, which is the ‘Give me something easy to say yes to’ question. It’s going to do this with a brief contact form containing the minimum number of required fields.
The reason for using the format ‘Give me something easy to say yes to’ is that it leads with value. You want your visitor to be able to read your offer and think to themselves ‘Yes, I want this’.
Yes I want this download. Yes I want to take a free trial. Yes I want to have a conversation with your sales team. Yes I want to take the next step with you.
While leading with value in your call to action is very important, so is being clear about what your visitor is saying yes to. Any question marks or concerns will cause friction and impact your conversion rate.
The body
Now, on to the body of your page. This is where you are going to address the ‘Why You’ and ‘Prove it’ components.
You might be thinking that answering the question ‘Why You’ isn’t so easy. It requires a deep understanding of your customers needs and how they align with your particular solution, and you’re right. That’s a big challenge.
But, there’s a very helpful tool to assist with this. It’s called the 30 elements of consumer value, and it comes to you from 3 decades of research via the Harvard Business Review.
These 30 elements of value are fundamental attributes of value in their most essential and discrete forms, which you can use as building blocks to articulate your Why You.
Let’s have a look:
These 30 “elements of value” fall into four categories: functional, emotional, life changing, and social impact. Some elements are more inwardly focused, primarily addressing consumers’ personal needs. Others are outwardly focused, helping customers interact in or navigate the external world.
You’ll find a link to this resource below.
It’s now time to Prove it!
This is so important for landing pages because it might be your visitors first interaction with your brand. If that’s the case, they don’t know you yet and they don’t trust you yet, so they’re going to need to see proof like case studies, before and afters, testimonials, awards and industry recognition.
The end
OK, now on to the end of your page. This is where you are going to restate your offer, your ‘Give Me Something Easy to Say Yes to’, to remind people who have made it all the way to the bottom of your page of what they can do next.
Which brings us through tips 1 to 5, and on to tip 6.
Tip 6 is ‘A strong thank you message’.
When someone converts on your landing page, they have momentum and enthusiasm.
They’re excited.
But so many landing pages fall short with thank you messages like ‘Success’ or ‘Sent’ message, which is a lost opportunity because they could have created a little bit of delight with something as simple as ‘Thank you, we’ve received your enquiry and will be in touch shortly. For the moment, you may like to check out these resources, blog posts, reviews, what have you’.
Everyone who converts will see your thank you page, and probably read it, which is why ‘a strong thank you message’ is so important for your creating a positive experience.
So now you have 6 tips for making landing pages that convert.
Have fun with them, and I hope they it make your next landing project that much better.
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Now, I want to turn it over to you. What do you think of this structure for landing pages that convert? Will you use it? Would you like some feedback on a page? Share your thoughts in the comments, we read them all.