What is a Landing Page?
If Inbound 15 taught us anything about landing pages, it’s that they do not have to be complicated in order to be effective. In fact, it is best to keep things simple, and follow a few of the tried and tested best inbound marketing practices listed below. These tips will allow you to optimize your landing pages to convert better than they ever have in the past.
Let’s go over the basics: (inbound.org)
- Make Sharing Easy: If you want people to share your offer on Social Media, reduce anxiety by telling them they can customize their message.
- Increase eBook Downloads Instantly:Just tell users how long it will take them to actually read the thing.
- Halt Ad Bounce Rates: If your landing page bounce rate from ads is high, check your messaging. Nine times out of ten, messages and images on ads don’t match their landing pages, which is a conversion-killer!
Be sure that you never start a content marketing campaign without a landing page. This is rule number one, so make sure you don’t forget it, and you’ll be on your way to success. Also, don’t try to do too many things at once on your landing page. Repeat the following mantra: One page, one purpose, one action, and no distractions. Follow this rule and conversion rates will rise.
Next, make sure that you are very clear about everything on the form. These tend to confuse people quite easily, and it goes without saying that if they don’t know what you are asking for then things won’t go very well. Be sure to tell them what the form is, what the form will do once filled out, and how they will benefit from filling out the form. Don’t mince words, and know you’ll be best served by putting all of the information concisely on the form itself.
Your form should act like a miniature landing page, communicating what it’s for and why users should care. You can use a framework similar to the 5 W’s of a hard news story: Who, What, Why, Where, When, (and sometimes How).
Your form should now look something like this: (inbound.org)
- Headline: What is your offer?
- SubHead: Why should the user care?
- Benefits: Bullet points
- Form fields: To be described clearly so users know what to do
- TA: Describe what’s going to happen next
- Social Proof: Testimonial quote
You might wonder how many fields your form should have, and that is up for debate. Would you like lots of conversions, or only high quality conversions? The general rule is this: The longer and more detailed the form, the higher the quality. If you want excellent leads to hand over to sales then you need to get the prospects to give as much information as possible. Follow these guidelines and you will see an immediate and positive impact on the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns.