The proliferation of Digital Marketing tools and their availability for businesses of all sorts, size and niche make it even easier than ever before to drive traffic to your websites. If done right, tools like Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising can drive targeted traffic to your websites, the kind of quality traffic that eventually converts into leads or sales. Conversion is the reason why businesses conduct digital marketing in the first place. Without conversion, all your digital marketing efforts would all just be a waste of time.
However, with the abundance of information available in the Internet, people are starting to funnel what they receive and discard what they don’t find interesting or relevant. The decision point on whether to ignore a particular website or spend more time understanding its content more happens during the first few moments targeted visitors land on a particular page. The landing page is usually the designated entry point into a website and within its contents lie the key for conversion.
Landing pages are designed with one clear goal in mind – conversion. The type of conversion depends on what the business owner wants. This could either be gathering more valuable information about their visitors through lead generation or directly create sales. If your targeted landing page is not optimized for conversion, all your digital marketing efforts and investments will simply go to waste. Avoid this kind of scenario by considering these useful tips that can help you create targeted landing pages that convert.
1). Your Landing Page Should Have Optimized Page Settings
Just like any other web pages, your landing page should have optimized page settings that are targeted specifically for the keywords or keyword phrases that you have identified during keyword research. Each of your page elements should be optimized and keyword-enhanced starting with your landing page URL, the title tag, Meta description, page analytics codes and scripts, and your landing page footers.
The importance of these elements have previously been expounded upon on earlier articles here at Digital Marketing Philippines but is worthy of repetition here just to highlight their importance. The URL and title tags should clearly be keyword-focused to give readers, in just a few words, a clear summary of what they can expect from the contents of the page. The meta description is another important element that, although generally have a small impact on ranking, can provide visitors with a clear summary of the page content and should be written in a way that they would want to explore the page contents more.
2). Your Landing Page Header Should Draw Attention
As mentioned earlier, the first few moments upon arrival to a particular website is critical to the decision on whether a site visitor should stay or go. It may only take as short as three seconds before online users move on. A very strong and compelling headline can work its magic and do just that. The headline should be clear in its text, the message it is trying to convey in just a few words, and the relevance it has on a particular set of keywords you are trying to target in your PPC or SEO campaigns.
Make sure that your landing page header is congruent to the information your content or main body is trying to convey. A big mismatch between the two is a big turn-off for many visitors, with the visitors eventually bouncing off, making your landing page lose out to your competitor’s. Another thing, if your header promises something of whatever nature, make sure your content delivers on that promise – or kiss conversion goodbye.
3). Your Landing Page Should Have Optimized Content
When online users click on one of your PPC ads, or click on a link to your landing page after making an organic search engine query, the page they will eventually be led to should contain the right kind of information they are looking for in the first place. Although landing pages were specifically intended to push for a sale or least capture lead information, sales pitches are not the only content that you should be optimizing for.
Just like with any other web page, site visitors would want to receive value and relevant information from that particular page. That’s why it is vital that you provide clear, concise and precise information that not only complements your headers and titles, but provide copy that is true and relevant to your topic and will entice or motivate people to provide their contact information – or even make a purchase.
4). Your Landing Page Should Have an Optimized Sign-Up Form
Landing pages are designed for conversion, either for generating leads and gathering site visitor information, or directly make sales. In either case, your landing page should have an optimized sign-up form that will make it easier and convenient to share lead information. There are certain aspects in an optimized sign-up form that you need to consider, and this includes:
- Use of Relevant Fields – Although you may want to gather as much information about the site visitors as they are willing to provide, too much form fields might turn them off to the point that they will abandon filling up the form and moving on. Focus only on relevant form fields that you’ll need to develop a good visitor database on (usually just a name and an email).
- Use of a Good Thank You Page – Aside from the promise of a freebie that users can get when they sign up, your landing page should be accompanied with a good Thank You page which users can see after they sign up. It’s a clear sign of appreciation for their action and the start of hopefully – a long, engaging and profitable online relationship.
- Use Social Media Account as an Option to Sign-Up – If your autoresponder allows you to use Facebook and other any social media sites as a sign-up tool to your webform. Then by all means use it. Because this will greatly enhance your conversion rate since you already solved the problem that most people have when entering their name and email to the form. By using their social media account to sign-up, it will just take them one click to sign-up to your form.
5). Your Landing Page Should Have Good Visual Elements
Just like any other website pages, the use of graphics makes your landing page interesting for site visitors – if they are used right. Too much graphics or visual elements that do not really complement the information you are trying to convey in your body can be detrimental to your chances of conversion. Avoid using ordinary and boring stock photography that a myriad other websites have already used before. It would be best to create your own graphics if you can but make sure that you use only meaningful graphics that can enhance your landing page content.
The importance of using meaningful graphics is important in increasing your conversion rates for your landing page, as one software company found out. Even with good site traffic, their landing pages were only getting a measly 2% conversion rate, with bounce rates going as high as 80% (high compared to the industry standard of 30% to 50%). But after optimizing their landing pages, particularly the graphics and other visual elements, conversion rates soon jumped up to 106%. What they did was reduce the use of meaningful icons and instead focused on a relevant white paper as their main visual element – which worked well with their site visitors.
*Image Source : Hubspot
6). Your Landing Page Should Have a Good Video to Capture Visitor Attention
The addition of good and relevant visual elements can do your landing page much good, but using engaging video as part of delivering your message to site visitors can increase your chances for conversion even more. Video is a very powerful tool that not only catches visitors’ attention, but encourages engagement from them as well.
The figures don’t lie. comScore reported that 188.5 million people in the United States watched 46.7 billion online videos just for the month of August. Video ad views from this same report were placed at 22.8 billion. That’s not all. When used together with a mobile or smartphone campaign, video can influence the intention to purchase by as much as 72%, clearly signifying the power video has in generating conversion – and your landing page should do too.
7). Your Landing Page Should Include Trust Elements
Trust is a very important commodity online and one that your landing page should have as a main component. Most of your targeted visitors may not even heard about your brand, product or service so they have nothing to refer to that can influence them to know more about what you can offer them – unless you provide these trust elements in your landing page.
There are several trust elements that you can include in your website, and each of these can help remove the fear and mistrust visitors may have in making the decision to convert. These elements include business certifications, awards from recognized bodies, privacy policies, customer reviews and testimonials, and trust icons from business review companies among others.
Other trust elements can include the inclusion of mainstream publications that may have featured your brand, product or service, or social media widgets like the Facebook Facepile (where they can see online friends who subscribed) placed near the “submit”, “subscribe” or “order now” buttons.
8). Your Landing Page Should Have a Clear Call-To-Action
The landing page is targeted to generate action that leads to conversion. Without this action, your landing page will be utterly useless and would simply be a waste of time and resources. Make sure that your landing page have a clear call-to-action right next to a “submit”, “subscribe” or “order now” buttons placed strategically throughout the body of your landing page. The call-to-action should be prominent but not too distracting or annoying, particularly in color scheme, and should clearly state the action your visitors need to take to proceed to the next step.
9). Your Landing Page Should Be Mobile Responsive
The proliferation of internet-ready mobile gadgets and devices like tablets and smartphones make it a must for your landing to be mobile responsive when viewed from these devices. Many people access the internet through these devices and they will most likely ignore non-responsive landing page that they could not read nor understand. With mobile responsive landing pages, your chances of capturing leads or generating sales from mobile users just went up several notches.
10) Your Landing Page Should Be Properly Tested for Effectiveness
Lastly, your optimized and targeted landing page should be tested before it can effectively be used in your SEO or PPC campaign. Testing your landing page can let you tweak all the potential bugs and other elements that may need changing. It would be best to have these bugs and issues addressed before your targeted visitors see them instead – making you lose your chances for conversion. There are several metrics that you can use to gauge the effectiveness of your page which include the bounce rates, the number of unique visitors, the time visitors allot on your pages and of course the conversion rates.
Landing pages are very important tools in your SEO and PPC campaigns. These pages are responsible for turning site traffic into valuable conversions: either through the generation of leads or the commencement of sales. Without conversion, all your digital marketing efforts will simply go to waste. So, take action now and create a fully optimized and highly targeted landing page for your PPC and SEO campaigns that truly deliver results.
Jomer B. Gregorio is a well-rounded expert when it comes digital marketing. Jomer is also known as a semantic SEO evangelist and practitioner. Check out our Digital Marketing Services today and let us help you in achieving positive and profitable results for your business.