How to Create A Landing Page

Creating your first landing page is kind of like writing your first report in middle school English class. The first things you need to think about are the what, the why, the who, and the how. 

Before we start on how to create a landing page, we need to make sure we all know what it is. This kind of page is different than a normal site page, because it is created for one purpose and one purpose only: to deliver the offer. Whereas your website’s normal pages are there to convey information about your company or product, landing pages are designed to convince people to take the action you want them to. Landing pages may be the destination of your PPC ads, of special promotions, or special pages designed for your email marketing campaign. The what, the who, the why, and the how are very important to determine the look, content, and copy of the landing page. 

The What

What are you offering? What do you want visitor’s to do on your landing page? It could be to sign up for your service, download a whitepaper or e-book, or to buy something.

What you are offering is an important part of the page, because it is what gives it focus and purpose.

The Why

Why should people want to get your offer? Why is it special, or important? Hashing out these questions help you set your offer apart from the competitions’. It also helps you when creating the copy of the page. You want to show people why they need what you are offering, what benefits it gives them, and make them feel like they are losing out if they do not partake in it.

(if you don’t know why anyone would want your offer, then you need a new, better, offer!)

The Who

Who is your landing page targeted towards? What kind of person are you attracting with the offer? This is where your company personas come in. You want to keep your target audience in mind when you are designing the page and writing the copy. By addressing your target audience directly, you are more likely to hit their pain points, worries, and be able to stress benefits that they can relate to.

The How

How will they get the offer? This can be anything from filling out a form to download it, receiving a phone call or email, or any other system you have in place. The last step is to determine the best way for the visitor to get the offer once they purchase or sign up. A common method for downloadable offers is to provide a form where the visitors can self identify their persona and give you some additional information about themselves. Remember, if you are offering something for free, like an e-book, it is ok to ask for some information in return. Visitors are then redirected to a thank you page with a download link to get the offer.

Designing your Landing page

The page should be long enough to cover everything it needs to, but short enough to be direct and to the point. A visitor is not going to trudge through a long page full of content to decide whether they need what you are offering or not. Often, people will decide whether to stay and partake in the offer or not in the first couple of seconds. Therefore it is important to keep your page focused and to have it convey one and only one message: get this offer.

Some tips to accomplish that:

1 – No main menu navigation, clear company title. We don’t want people navigating away from this landing page once they get here.

2– Clear, bulleted copy. Customers get to know what they are signing up for, the benefits, what to expect, all topped with a (we hope) attention grabbing headline.

3 – Here is the form they need to fill out to register for the newsletter. Clearly labeled with just a few fields.

4 – Our CTA button, prominently on display, with text that tells the user exactly what it does. Sometimes using more creative text can be better, sometimes it is not but it is worth testing.