A landing page isn’t like any other web page. Each landing page is created with a specific goal in mind, and the page contains everything needed to help a visitor accomplish that goal. For example, you might want visitors to sign up for your newsletter, download your app, or purchase your product.
Whether you’re promoting your business on social media or with Google Ads, an attention-grabbing landing page is a crucial part of any successful digital marketing strategy. This guide shares how strategic landing pages can help you increase conversion rates, gather leads, and influence potential consumers.
What is a landing page?
A landing page is a standalone web page potential customers land on when they click through from advertising or marketing campaigns. They’re most often used to convince people to take action. For example, a landing page could drive customers to purchase a product, download an app, start a free trial, or sign up for a subscription service.
A good landing page always includes:
- A compelling headline
- A persuasive subheading with a clear value proposition
- An obvious call to action (CTA)
Depending on the goal of the campaign, a landing page can also include:
- A striking hero image or video
- Social proof (i.e., customer testimonials and reviews)
- Form fields to collect customer information for lead generation
Landing page vs. homepage: key differences
Although both landing pages and homepages are types of web pages merchants use, they serve two entirely different purposes.
Goals
Homepages help customers interact with your brand in a variety of ways. They communicate your company’s vision and story, while providing a robust overview of your products and services. A homepage might include multiple CTAs to encourage visitors to take multiple actions.
By contrast, landing pages are focused on driving customers toward one particular goal. The entire page leads customers to complete a specific action in service of that goal. For example, the goal of your landing page might be to get customers to purchase a product, sign up for a free trial, download marketing materials, or submit their information through a form.
Design
A homepage is designed to give your customers the opportunity to explore your company: your products and services, customer reviews, mission statement, and other branded content like blog posts and videos. Homepage designs are more complex than landing pages. A comprehensive homepage might include multiple sections, easy-to-find navigation bars to subpages, and other elements like job postings, customer service contact information, and links to social media channels.
By contrast, landing page designs often guide audiences toward one action. You won’t find as many sections or links to other pages. Since the goal is to get customers to convert, there are fewer opportunities to navigate away from that single purpose.
Call-to-action buttons
Every landing page should include a call-to-action (CTA) button. A CTA button features a compelling directive to complete an immediate action, like submitting a filled-out form field, signing up for a subscription, or making a purchase. Typically, a CTA button’s copy is succinct (e.g., “Learn more”) and pairs with complementary call-to-action copy adjacent to the button. For example, a clothing store might catch a visitor’s eye with a “Get 15% off” CTA button, alongside a newsletter sign-up form with complementary text that clarifies, “Save 15% off your first order when you sign up for our newsletter today.”
Landing pages keep customers focused on the landing page’s core goal. While a homepage involves a variety of calls to action, encouraging viewers to explore multiple pages on the site, an optimized landing page includes a single call to action.
CTA placement is also important. Whether on a landing page or homepage, it’s always best practice to place a CTA above the fold. The term “above the fold” refers to the topmost part of a page that visitors see immediately upon landing on it, before scrolling down at all.
Types of landing pages
Lead generation landing pages
A lead generation landing page, also known as a lead capture page or a squeeze page, encourages prospective customers to fill out a specific data capture form. These form fields typically request information like email addresses, phone numbers, and demographic data.
You can use a lead generation landing page to learn more about your target audience, improve a marketing campaign, build an email list, and collect lead data for future sales conversions. Lead capture landing pages often offer a value proposition for customers. For example, upon submitting their information, they may receive a free ebook, marketing material, another useful resource, or a discount code.
Click-through landing pages
Click-through landing pages encourage users to complete one specific action, like make a purchase or sign up for a subscription service.
Unlike lead generation landing pages, click-through landing pages include CTA buttons without data capture form fields. The goal is to convert visitors into customers or subscribers, rather than to gather information. This type of landing page often uses compelling CTA buttons like “Buy now” or “Get started.” A click-through landing page might also include a value proposition like a free trial or special offer.
Benefits of landing pages
Lead generation
Landing pages can help you identify your target audience and give you a better understanding of what your customers need. Using lead generation landing pages allows you to build a list of potential customers and collect demographic information. That process makes your future marketing efforts more targeted, giving your customers what they want and offering solutions to their pain points.
Brand awareness
Landing pages can bring marketing materials to new customers, as well as reinforce your brand identity to existing customers. If you offer a free resource or an interesting piece of branded content, you can create more brand awareness by educating or entertaining your customer via your landing page.
Conversions
Highly targeted landing pages can increase conversion rates by funneling prospective customers to specific calls to action. A dedicated landing page can offer customers more targeted promotions than broader webpages with less-focused designs.
11 best practices for landing pages
- Keep it simple
- Write captivating copy
- Include social proof
- Optimize your landing page for search engines
- Offer a clear value proposition
- Incorporate visuals
- Make your landing page mobile-friendly
- Prioritize landing page load speed
- Stick to one call to action
- Create multiple complementary landing pages
- A/B test your landing pages
1. Keep it simple
When it comes to landing pages, less is more. Keep viewers focused on a specific goal with simple visual design elements and copy. Only include the necessary elements, and break up text with bullet points wherever possible to make it easier to read.
2. Write captivating copy
A landing page that converts requires a compelling headline and a persuasive subheading that communicates clear benefits. Use short sentences, active words, and a confident tone. Pay special attention to the copy you use for your CTA buttons. For example, avoid banal words like “Submit” or “Complete.” Instead, opt for active phrases like “Sign up,” “Buy now,” or “Get your discount.”
3. Include social proof
Social proof is the process by which customers make decisions based on other people’s opinions and actions. You can use social proof to your advantage in landing pages by including customer reviews, testimonials, and case studies to communicate the usefulness and benefits of your product or service.
4. Optimize your landing pages for search engines
Search engine optimization (SEO) can help interested customers find your landing pages. A key element of SEO is using relevant keywords to optimize your headlines and other copy. SEO tactics like this can increase your brand’s organic search traffic and attract potential customers to your landing pages.
A high converting landing page uses keywords for topics that relate to your target audience’s needs and your company’s unique value proposition. For example, if you run an online furniture store, you might use keywords like “high-quality couches” to convey longevity, or “multipurpose furniture” to appeal to someone who lives in a small apartment.
5. Offer a clear value proposition
High converting landing pages offer something of value to your customers: a free resource, a discount code, or a piece of entertaining or relevant content. When designing a landing page, clarify what your value proposition is, highlight it on the page, and deliver on the promise.
6. Incorporate visuals
Not everyone prefers to absorb information through text alone. Content like product screenshots, illustrations, photography, GIFs, or videos help visual learners interact with your landing pages by giving those visitors a break from reading. Incorporating visual content into your landing pages may also help your brand illustrate concepts with more immediacy and clarity than doing so solely through copy.
7. Make your landing pages mobile-friendly
Since mobile users account for almost 60% of web traffic, an optimized landing page must account for mobile users in its design. Mobile optimization can increase conversion rates by making your page accessible to a wider audience—not only those visiting on desktop browsers.
Prioritize landing page load speed include:
Once you’ve done the hard work of driving traffic toward your landing page, make sure the page loads quickly so visitors can complete the action you’re asking of them. Simple ways to improve landing page load speed include:
- Compressing images
- Minifying code
- Avoiding carousels and sliding elements
- Minimizing plug-ins and apps
Before making any of those improvements, you can use a tool like Google’s PageSpeed Insights to see how quickly your site currently loads. From there, make adjustments as needed, then check your page speed again to confirm if your changes had a positive effect.
9. Stick to one call to action
The goal of a landing page is to convince someone to take a specific action. The paradox of choice comes into play here. When people are presented with too many options, picking one feels harder.
That’s why it’s crucial you determine the ideal outcome of your landing page. Do you want someone to sign up for your newsletter? Purchase a product? Contact your sales team? Pick one call to action and stick with it throughout every call-to-action button on your landing page.
10. Create multiple complementary landing pages
Design multiple landing pages based on the actions you want your customers to take. For instance, creating separate landing pages for an email marketing campaign and a new product launch gives you the option to target each landing page toward a different goal.
11. A/B test your landing page
A/B testing is the process of comparing two landing pages that have one single difference between them. The goal of A/B testing is to determine whether making a specific change can affect conversion rates.
Things you could A/B test on a landing page include:
- Button colors
- Headline copy
- Social proof placement
- Page layout
- Button copy
- Hero image
- Form fields
Just remember to only make one change at a time. As tempting as it might be to overhaul the design and compare performance, it would be hard to determine which element impacted your conversion rate. If you make numerous changes, it’ll be harder to roll out the changes to other landing pages.
How to create a landing page
1. Determine your primary goal
The process of creating a landing page is defined by what you want to get from it. For example, if your priority is higher sales conversions for a new product, opt for a click-through landing page. It should feature a hero image of the product, information about the product’s benefits, and a clear CTA button for purchasing that product.
If you need to build an email list for your new subscription service, create a lead generation landing page. On that page, encourage visitors to fill out form fields with information that’s useful to your business.
2. Find a landing page builder
Unless you’re a skilled programmer who can create the page from scratch, landing page builders are useful tools for creating landing pages you can use for search engine marketing campaigns. Use a landing page builder to create targeted pages that integrate seamlessly with your website’s homepage, sales pages, and other pages related to your business.
If you’re an ecommerce brand, research which platforms offer landing page-building tools with templates most helpful to your types of products. Applications like PageFly and Shogun, both available in the Shopify App Store, let merchants customize landing pages with a user-friendly interface.
3. Design your landing page
Before you create a landing page, establish your goals and what you’re offering. Keep your landing page simple and focused by using the design to direct attention toward your specific call to action.
Make your CTA buttons eye-catching with a distinct style, font, and color. Write compelling headlines and make sure your landing page offers something of value to your audience. For example, you could offer a free ebook, a useful white paper, a limited-time offer, or an exclusive promotion.
4. Launch your page and adapt accordingly
When landing pages work, you see increased conversion rates for your calls to action. That could mean increased subscribers, customer contact information, or sales for a specific product.
For the best results, A/B test two different versions of your landing page’s design, copy, and CTA buttons. That will help you discover which option is more effective, so you can adjust your landing page based on which test delivers better results.
5. Create more landing pages
Once you figure out how to successfully launch a landing page, consider what other landing pages you can create to support your overall marketing strategy. You might create more landing pages for new product launches, email lists, limited offers, or other business goals to grow your business.
The more landing pages you create, the more opportunities you have to guide your target audience toward different actions.
Example of an effective landing page
An example of a successful landing page is Beardbrand’s customer quiz. Beardbrand is a grooming company that launched on Shopify in 2013 and has since grown into a multimillion-dollar business.
In these landing page examples, Beardbrand uses a lead generation page to gather information about its prospective customers through a fun, lighthearted quiz. Based on the results of the quiz, viewers receive grooming tips and selected products.
Beardbrand created a stylish and simple landing page with an attention-grabbing hero image (the collage of many bearded faces), a clear call to action (to take the quiz), and a simple goal to collect information about potential customers.
Beardbrand also optimized the page to load quickly and be easy to navigate on mobile, making for a seamless landing page experience.
Beardbrand’s landing page is effective because it does more than share information about a product, it also gives visitors a fun way to interact with product options. The process of discovering your “type of beardsman” makes it more likely that visitors will complete the form—smoothly accomplishing Beardbrand’s lead generation landing page goal.
