A landing page, also known as a lead capturing page, is a webpage that appears in response to clicking on an advert, a call-to-action button, or a search engine pay-per-click ad.

A visitor browsing your website becomes a lead once he or she has shared personal contact information with you, indicating a certain level of interest in what you have to offer. A landing page is a page on a website that a visitor will be directed to once he or she has consumed the website content. Such a page holds a form which the user will fill out in order to subscribe to something or to obtain further information from you. A landing page, therefore, is a platform for capturing visitor information for the purpose of generating leads.

A landing page should be targeted to a specific interest group and offer solutions to specific requests:
For example, “request a video production quote”, “download the video production eBook”, or, “request a meeting with an editor”. These are examples of targeted landing pages. A landing page that simply says “contact us” is not ideal. The visitor should be aware of the offer you are making in order to request it from you via a landing page. “Contact us” is not a very appealing offer in itself. You need to offer your users something of value, and that is why it is important to build a unique landing page for each of the offers you create.

Use your pay-per-click ads to navigate visitors to your landing pages. Directing them to your website homepage is throwing leads away, as you are throwing obstacles in their path to receiving that which is offered. An ambiguous user experience will only annoy visitors, which results in them leaving your site. 

For a visitor to complete and submit the form, creates a satisfactory sense of task completion, much like ticking off an item on a to-do list. It has the same effect as retrieving a contact number from a website with the intention to call.

The form on the landing page should be as easy as possible to fill out, and the route to your landing pages should be simple and hassle free. The key to making landing pages easily accessible is through creating effective call-to-action buttons on your website. A call-to action is a button that prompts the visitor to take action. Clicking on this button will direct the visitor straight towards the landing page. It is recommended that a targeted call-to-action button should be present on every individual page on your site.

It is in your best interest to put time and effort into building the landing pages for your website; a good and effective landing page will directly affect your website's visitor-to-lead conversion rate.

An effective landing page houses the following elements:

Headline

The headline should explain your offer in a few words. It should repeat the words used in your call-to-action button, and should be short, simple and clear. Website users tend to scan through written content, especially headlines. Therefore, the visitor should be able to understand the purpose of the page through a single glance of the headline.

Form

The form is the most important component on your landing page; therefore you’d want to construct it carefully. First of all, the form should ideally be displayed in view above the fold-line, in other words, the visitor should not have to scroll down in order to see the complete form. Asking for too much information will make the visitor consider whether it is worth filling out, considering the time that it would take. Asking for too little information will limit your knowledge of the lead. It is therefore important to choose the fields carefully and keep a good balance when considering the number and the nature of the fields.

You want to be able to contact your lead in order to eventually convert him or her into a customer. You would also want to be able to address your lead by name. You therefore should start your form by requesting a title, first name, surname, email address and contact number. The rest of the fields should request information that would reveal the person’s level of interest, allowing you to determine whether or not the visitor qualifies as a lead, and how strong of a lead he or she is. Do not overwhelm your visitor with an avalanche of questions. Request only that which is most important. More information could always be requested at a later stage of contact.

Submit Button

Studies show that if the button that allows the form to be processed reads “submit”, visitors are less likely to click on it. This is simply because the word “submit” is associated with submission under some kind of authority, which can be a daunting experience. Using a word like, “go” or short targeted phrases like “download now” is recommended.

Additional Content

Additional conversion inspiring content is all the content on the page excluding the form. Your goal is to keep your visitor on the landing page for long enough to complete the form. What you do not want is for the visitor to be distracted by advertisements and links that would navigate him or her away from the page. Therefore, the content on the page should be minimal, for example, limited to a single paragraph or a few bulleted items displayed in an allocated section, replacing the space for advertisements or links.

The content should also be relevant to the offer being made. For example, if you are offering the visitor a quote for video production, your content paragraph should list the individual services that your video production department offers, or a paragraph aimed at persuading the visitor to choose your company above others.

Images placed on this page should be captivating and interesting while being consistent with the overall website design and relevant to the offer being made. Every single part of this page should portray professionalism. As the visitor is making personal information available to you, he or she should be convinced that the site is secure and that the information supplied will be used appropriately.

Social Media Links

Employing social media links is a great way of making effective use of visitors as willing promoters of your offer. The link to your page can be shared on various social media sites by visitors that consider your offer to be share-worthy. In this way, your page link is distributed across various networks to various communities of people.

Post-Submission Page

When someone has finished filling out the form on your landing page, what do they see next? Sending them to a “thank-you” page is a great opportunity to suggest next steps for your lead. This is where you bring back the navigation and direct them to other parts of your site or more offers in which they might be interested. Use call-to-action buttons on this page to make further suggestions, such as “receive our newsletter.”

E-mail Responder

A personalised email response is a good opportunity to assure the lead that his requests or query has been successfully processed. It gives you the opportunity to welcome the new lead, request further information, and offer more items of value that would be relevant to him or her specifically. “Thank-you pages” and email responders encourage your newly converted lead to further engage with your company. This will make them stronger leads, leads that will be more likely to convert into customers.

AB Testing

Now that your landing pages are built and functional, do some research to test their affectivity. AB-testing is where live pages are tested to see which of two content variations are most effective when it comes to visitor conversion. For example, test a black-and white copy page against a page where the copy is in bright colours.  AB testing will be elaborated upon in up-coming posts.

Landing pages are extremely important for online success in lead generation. As it is usually the last page that a visitor will see before exiting your site, build this page wisely and optimise its content effectively for visitor conversion and lead generation.

Previous article in the series: E-mail Marketing; Next article in the series: An Introduction to PPC Ads

Sound Idea Digital is a full service digital agency | www.soundidea.co.za

Julian Karstel is a Digital Marketing Consultant for Sound Idea Digital | @JulianKarstel | Julian@soundidea.co.za

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