Creating Landing Pages That Convert
10 Minute Read
Looking for landing page best practices? You’ve come to the right place! Below, we discuss the steps involved in creating kick-ass landing pages that drive conversions and help you meet your advertising goals.
Twelve Three Media is a veteran SEM agency. These best practices come from years of designing and executing successful ad campaigns for many different clients across a wide range of verticals.
Businesses only get one opportunity to make a good first impression with potential customers. Learn how you can take your best shot by building successful landing pages to support a variety of digital advertising campaigns.
12 Landing Page Best Practices You NEED to Know
Obviously, a lot of work needs to be done before you can even conceptualize a winning ad campaign, let alone build a landing page. We’re all professionals here, so we’re going to go ahead and assume that you:
- Have an engaging and memorable brand
- Understand your audience inside and out
- Know what you want to achieve with your ads
Assuming you have all of these elements in place, you can move on to the landing page best practices you need to adopt to make your ad campaigns successful. In our experience, this is what it takes to get the most from your landing pages:
1. Get to the Point
Every landing page should have a very clear goal, and all aspects of the page should be created with that goal in mind. Say you want to…
- Generate leads
- Drive sales
- Get people to sign up for your newsletter
- Persuade customers to download a coupon, premium content, etc.
- Encourage signups for a free trial, webinar, etc.
… Then every single element of your landing page should further the goal of driving leads and sales, making people want to get your newsletter, etc. Avoid fluff and distractions and make sure the visuals, content, call-to-action (CTA), and other components convince visitors to take the desired action.
2. Be Consistent
The message, tone, colors, and other aspects of your ads should seamlessly match the content, aesthetic, and offer on your landing page. A lot of this comes down to understanding the audience; you don’t want to run ads for reading glasses only for the text on the landing page to be in a teeny-tiny font no one can read.
Even worse is a bait-and-switch. People search for products and services and click on ads with the expectation that the landing page will meet their needs and goals. If the page is totally different from what they want and need, you’re going to see minimal conversions and a lot of people leaving the page shortly after they arrive.
3. Get Organized
All elements on the landing page should work in harmony to maximize conversions. This means:
- Written content should be clear, informative, and readable. Use alternating paragraph lengths, bullet lists, and formatted text and headings to communicate key points.
- Visuals should create a pleasing layout that:
- Helps customers understand the product or service, as well as what you’re offering
AND - Shows the product or service in action
- Helps customers understand the product or service, as well as what you’re offering
- Prominently positioning the CTA high on the page (without requiring action too soon).
- For consumers, it is a real turnoff when a CTA pops up before they get a chance to spend time on the site. You don’t want to be intrusive and demand action on the visitor’s part too soon.
Good organization also means cutting down on things that can lead visitors away from the goal you want to achieve. Avoid the standard trappings of your product and service pages (such as menu navigation, hyperlinks, etc.) to create a unique digital ecosystem focused solely on meeting your goals.
Some aspects of landing page organization are up for debate. The length of the copy, for example, is debatable based on the complexity of the offering and what customers need to know. Ideal visuals are also dependent on the industry and audience. Ultimately, designing the perfect landing page should be treated as both art and science, with multiple unique factors going into layout decisions.
4. Optimize Your CTA
The call-to-action on a landing page needs to be in your face. It should stand out prominently on the page (we recommend having the CTA above the fold at the top of the landing page, if it makes sense) and demand the user’s attention. The CTA should also clearly communicate what you want the customer to do—and what they’ll get in return.
Since the CTA is the single biggest factor in optimizing conversions, it is worth obsessing over every single element. Is the color right? Do the words make sense and inspire users to take action? How does it work with the rest of the page? Making the CTA the best it can be is a combination of salesmanship, copywriting, graphic design, and web development that often requires multiple people inside a company—and/or an expert ad agency—to get right.
5. Design for Mobile First
Globally, mobile users make up over half of all internet traffic. Since most visitors will be seeing your landing page on a mobile device, you need to make damn sure that the page looks good and works great on smartphones and tablets.
The keys to mobile-first design include:
- Optimizing page load speed. The page should load in less than 2 seconds on mobile.
- Prioritizing content so important elements still stand out on different screen sizes.
- Improving touchscreen access. Buttons should be easy to click and forms should be easy to fill out using only a finger.
- Simplifying design elements. (A stripped-down look is already ideal for landing pages, so simplicity should be the goal in all aspects of the design.)
- Eliminating pop-ups and other disruptive features.
Mobile optimization for landing pages is often overlooked. Ensuring that the landing page is optimized for mobile and the CTAs and value propositions are at the top will help your landing page stand out in a sea of competitors who may have ignored the importance of designing for smartphone users.
6. Make It Fast
We just mentioned the importance of optimizing page speed, but this is so vital it’s worth repeating. According to HubSpot, pages that load in 1 second get three times more conversions than pages that load in 5 seconds. Want to triple your goals? Obtaining the fastest possible load time is one of the landing page best practices you need to embrace.
Tools like WebPageTest can help you identify resources that slow down the page. This may include CSS, JavaScript files, jQuery library, font libraries, etc. You should also cut out conflicting scripts and assets that impede cross-browser functionality.
All this talk about web development making your head spin? You might need help from a reputable agency to develop the optimal user experience.
7. Incorporate Strong Visuals
From websites to social media and beyond, there’s no question that imagery defines the browsing and shopping experience. That’s why compelling and resonant visuals are mandatory for any landing page.
Make sure all images, logos, and other assets are high-resolution and clear. This helps to establish confidence and trust with users. Same goes for any videos you add to the landing page.
Also consider how the colors on the page interact with text, forms, and imagery. For example, buttons should be visually distinct from any background elements and the negative space in form fields should be complemented by surrounding colors.
8. Write Strong Ad Copy
It might be tempting to copy-paste content from elsewhere on the website or leave it to your favorite AI tool to write the landing page content. We discourage either of these approaches. You get what you put in with paid ads, so it’s important to write landing page copy that successfully supports your goals.
What those goals are should inform what you write for headers, body text, content around forms and other conversion elements, etc. You also need to transfer your extensive knowledge of the audience into the copy, addressing their needs, questions, and concerns and presenting your business as the one to pick. Taking the time to write custom content allows you to connect with the user and increases the likelihood of earning conversions.
9. Provide Social Proof & Motivation
Social proof refers to confidence-building components of a landing page that provide positive reasons for visitors to take the desired action. Examples include:
- Reviews and testimonials
- Monetary gains/money saved
- Case studies, results, and success stories
- Social posts discussing the product or service
- Endorsements from industry leaders and influencers
Including elements of social proof on the landing page helps to build credibility in the eyes of visitors and increase the likelihood of a conversion. Consider using other motivators as well, such as discounts, adding a sense of urgency in the copy and design (“LIMITED TIME OFFER”, “ONLY [x items] LEFT”, etc.), pointing users to ways they can continue the journey (“SIMILAR/RELATED PRODUCTS”), and content for commerce.
Read More: The Importance of Content for Commerce
10. Give Customers Multiple Opportunities to Convert
Having read through a number of landing page best practices by now, you should understand that the right course of action is to always provide visitors with the means to complete the goal. To that end, every landing page should include multiple conversion opportunities.
People interact with businesses differently. They may prefer phone calls, live chat, email, etc. By integrating multiple conversion methods into the landing page, you will be able to accommodate different user preferences and increase the chances that they will convert.
11. Keep Form Fields to a Minimum
Getting to know your customers is key. However, it is also critical to resist the temptation to include a bunch of unnecessary form fields.
The landing page experience should be quick and to the point. Forms need to be as straightforward as possible, requesting only the most essential information from the visitor for them to reach the goal. Keeping the form simple should lead to more conversions.
12. Test, Test, Test
A/B testing is crucial for fine-tuning your ads and landing pages. Experiment with different versions of the page, including variations in:
- Headlines and copy
- CTAs
- Form placements
- Layout and colors
- Social proof elements
- Content organization
- And more
You never know what is going to work until you try, test, and test again. Google Optimize is no more, but there are a host of different tools you can use to run experiments and find the most effective solutions for maximizing conversions.
Bottom line: You need to make data-driven decisions when it comes to optimizing your landing page. Any advertising partner you choose should also be committed to plumbing reports and analytics, getting creative, and finding the optimal landing page for meeting your goals.
Additional Tips for Creating a High-Converting Landing Page
Still hankering for landing page best practices? We haven’t exhausted our stores of advertising wisdom just yet.
Here are some more advanced tips for making your landing page everything it can be. Don’t say we never did anything nice for you!
- Use best practices for SEM: Quality Score is a metric Google uses to assess how SEM ads stack up against the competition. Landing page experience and relevance are both key components of the Quality Score, so make sure your copy includes target keywords and phrases, is highly relevant to visitors’ expectations, etc.
- Do not index the page: If the landing page supports ad campaigns that don’t rely on search (such as social media, email, traditional media, etc.), be sure to set up the noindex rule. This will ensure that traffic to the page is limited to the desired advertising channels and your SEO will not be affected.
- Invest in video: We briefly mentioned video up above, but it’s worth highlighting the importance of video content for driving landing page conversions. Consumers expect videos to be informative and engaging. If you’re going to use video on a landing page, make sure it’s aligned with all aspects of your campaign. This might require you to create new videos, but such an investment is totally worthwhile if it means upping the conversion rate.
The ideal landing page experience should align with the user’s intent—the reason they are visiting the page. It should also be easy for visitors to convert, providing multiple ways to contact your business, make a purchase, etc. while limiting the effort involved.
What Is a Good Conversion Rate for a Landing Page?
The answer varies depending on the industry, product or service, and type of campaign you’re running. According to a comprehensive report by Unbounce, the average conversion rate for landing pages is just 4.3%.
Businesses and advertisers obviously want more than 1 out of every 25 visitors to convert. Unbounce says that a conversion rate of about 10% is good for businesses in any industry (and we agree), but there’s always room for improvement. Designing effective ad campaigns and embracing these landing page best practices can help you stand out from the crowd and achieve the results you want—or better.
Don’t Wait: Start Creating Killer Landing Pages That Convert!
Landing pages are an integral part of any paid ad campaign. They let businesses target specific audiences, hone their messaging to a particular customer’s needs, and spotlight a particular product, service, or other offering. Successful landing pages can support your business objectives, including greater brand awareness, more leads and sales, increased revenue, etc.
It isn’t always easy to build effective landing pages on your own. The experts at Twelve Three Media implement best practices in the design, copywriting, and development of landing pages for countless clients’ ad campaigns in multiple different industries. We also test, monitor results, and make improvements to get the maximum number of conversions.