4 Tips for Creating Great Landing Pages for Lead Generation

If you’ve ever been to a dive bar on a Friday night, used a dating app, or simply stepped foot onto a public bus, you’ve heard your fair share of pick-up lines. Best case scenario, you can laugh about it. Worst case scenario, everyone is left feeling a little uncomfortable and questioning the nature of humanity.

That’s why creating effective landing pages is so important.

Scott Brinkler, a specialist in landing page optimization, once wrote: “The analogy of… landing pages is that they’re like pick-up lines. They’re shallow, optimized simply to “close the deal.” And, frankly, most people don’t respond kindly to that approach. Which is why, more or less, the bounce rate on landing pages is typically around 95%.”

All the blood, sweat, and tears you pour into creating a landing page, and it’s only scoring with 5% of its visitors. That’s a frightening statistic, and hopefully, one that makes you want to improve the way that you handle your landing pages.

Instead of pursuing potential customers with the first thought in your mind being “make a sale,” you have to spend time wooing them, letting them get to know your business, then politely asking if they’d like to take the next step into a beautiful, mutually beneficial partnership of business and customer.

So, how can you turn your landing pages from an uncomfortable Tinder date into a respectable partnership? Read on to find out!

1. Start with a value proposition.

The purpose of your landing page is to obtain leads, and in order to obtain leads, you need information. Information is a precious commodity, and customers know that. You need to show them what you have to offer in return for their cooperation.

It’s a matter of simply explaining what you are going to give a customer who gives you their contact details. Some common options include ebooks, product samples, free trials, coupons, and free consultations. Whatever it is, make it obvious on the landing page.

Some strategies for making your value proposition are:

• Avoid long paragraphs. Visitors are going to stop reading if you make them work too hard for the goods. Keep the text on your landing page a minimum– Just enough to communicate your message.
• Use bullets! They’re easier to follow and lists stand out against paragraphs of text.
• Write for your audience. Think about the mannerisms, jargon, and turns of phrase common to the audience and implement that writing voice. It creates a bond of understanding between the writer and the reader.

Wistia is a website that offers video SEO services. Their landing page offer is that signing up for an account is free, and that the account will continue to be free forever. They are easing potential fears of a bait and switch, offering a free product, and gaining contact information in one fell swoop.

2. Implement thoughtful aesthetics into your design.

Landing pages offer you a very short amount of time to spread a very important message. Allowing that message to shine so that it doesn’t have to share the spotlight with excess information is your best bet for customer follow-through.

Good elements of design on a landing page come down to four basic components:

Thoughtful Use of Color:

Thoughtful use of color involves choosing complementary shades and not attempting to fill every bit of the space on the landing page with information and text. Leave space for the eye to rest, and to allow the most important bits of information to stand out in the crowd.

Attention-Grabbing Buttons:

Attention-grabbing buttons direct the eye to the task at hand. “Find out more,” “sign up here,” and “download your free gift” are all messages that should be easily seen. Create a natural eye path, from left to right and top to bottom, that guides your visitor to the appropriate action you’re wanting them to take.

Font Selection:

Reader-friendly fonts are important, as the viability of your landing page rests solely on the fact that readers are able to engage with it. If they can’t read the page due to fonts that are distracting or overly-artistic, you’re going to lose leads.

Great Images and Visuals

Eye-catching images that communicate your message. If you want someone to sign up to donate to a charity, your images are going to look a lot different than those that are advertising for a tropical cruise. Make sure that your images invoke the emotions and messages that you are intending your readers to empathize with.

3. Use a Call to Action.

Tell the visitor exactly what it is you want them to do by the end of their visit. Your CTA should be easily visible, visually compelling, and placed logically within the confines of the page.

The most common spots for a CTA to appear are:

1. At the beginning of the page, so that it is the first thing that visitors see
2. At the end of the page, so that it is the last thing they see before they navigate away
3. Very near to the most compelling piece of content on your page. For example, if you have a video testimonial on your page that provides a heart wrenching account of how your product changed their lives, placing a CTA directly under that video would be a good move.
4. A floating button that stays visible no matter where the customer is on the page, as it allows them to decide which part of your page is the part that compelled them to seek your services.

4. Provide easy-to-use forms.

Don’t forget why we’re here: you want a compelling way to convince website visitors to give you information, so that you can sell them your products. Use forms that clearly ask for what you need from customers. This typically includes name and email address at the least, but may also ask for a phone number and company name.

An excellent strategy for ensuring that people fill out your form is to make their free download or sample contingent upon submission of the form. Once a visitor has submitted the form, the button can redirect them to a seperate landing page used for downloading or confirming their gift.

What You Should Take Away:

If you do not have effective landing pages, your advertising dollars are slowly washing down the drain. The true goal of a landing page should be getting to know your customers and letting them get to know you. Be consistent and thoughtful in your design, stay on top of leads, and follow-through on your promises. Those are the building blocks to forging mutually beneficial customer relationships.