What is a landing page? And why does your business need them?

I’ve been a digital marketer for a long time now and content is very definitely my thing.

I love writing, and I love the infinite possibilities that content marketing has for entrepreneurs, starts ups and small businesses.

Website copy is a bit of a tricky niche however. And not all website pages are created equal.

A landing page on your website has one purpose and one purpose only, and often times people get this slightly confused with the purpose of other pages on their site.

A landing page is there to convert visitors into leads or customers. What might surprise you… is that the average landing page conversion is 9.7%, which really is pretty good and well worth the investment in time and effort compared to other pages that may feature on your website.

I’ll delve a little deeper below about what a landing page actually is, and why your business needs to think about creating specific landing pages for various campaigns, offerings, promotions and messaging to help you capture your perfect audience …. and, ultimately grow your business.

If you’re looking for quick recommendations on Landing Page software… my personal picks are Unbounce, SwipePages or LeadPages. 🤎

Disclaimer: This post contains links, that if clicked, and you make a purchase, or start a trial, I may make a small commission, at no additional cost to you. I only recommend products I 🧡

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a page on your blog or website that acts as a destination for when a visitor clicks a link either on Google (via a paid or organic search result) or in a piece of campaign content, such as a social media post, or an email as part of an email sequence.

Often your landing page will not have a link in any of your navigation bars, and will only be found via a direct link.

A landing page has one job!

It’s really that simple! And that is to drive leads, sales or conversions for a particular product or offering to your ideal clients. Your landing page should be a very specific and very niche, stand alone page where one concept is detailed in earnest for your audience to get a clear understanding of what the offering is.

A landing page is not meant to be a catch all. You want to stay very specific with your landing page copy and content to specify one message and convey one idea to your ideal audience.

Ultimately you want them to take action as a result of hitting your landing page.

Heres where the CTA or call to action comes in.

You want to make sure your landing page has ONE CTA only… so that when you ideal persona lands on your landing page they are compelled to take ONE action and are not distracted by multiple competing priorities.

You don’t want to distract visitors with multiple message or offerings. You want to figure out your most important action and rive them to do that one thing. That might be to start a trial, download an ebook, purchase a subscription or sign up to your newsletter. Whatever that one thing is… your campaign, and your landing page should be very precise.

There are many examples of great landing pages and these all follow the same formula. Short copy, one CTA, and a clear and concise purpose.

The Netflix homepage is the perfect example of a great landing page. It’s asking you to do one thing and one thing only. Plu, the copy on the page is short and descriptive. Giving you little soundbites or snippets of info that are easily digestable and memorable.

AirBnB is another great example of a perfect landing page. Clear and targeted copy. One compelling CTA. Imagery that draws you in. And, ,messaging that is perfectly aligned with search intent.

Wix, our final example, is a great example of simple is better. Straight forward messaging. Compelling copy. You know exactly what they want you to do. And, if you’re coming across this via an organic search, then whammo! You know you’ve hit a result that makes perfect sense for your intentions.

What are the 2 types of landing pages?

Landing pages fall into one of two types:

1.Lead generation landing page

2. Click through landing page

The first is a lead generation landing page. The purpose of which is to entice your visitors to hand over their details so you can learn a whole lot more about them, and add their contact details to your database. Lead generation landing pages are the least popular sign up form – BUT have the highest conversion rate – of 23%!

Forms typically gather information such as email address and phone number, name, company information and sometimes what industry or vertical the visitor falls into.

Lead generation landing pages are particularly useful in that you can now add your visitors to your mailing list and deliver them email workflows to help educate and convince them of your product or services worth. Or pop them on a call schedule, in the hopes you’ll get a sale out of them eventually in the future.

Click- through landing pages on the other hand have a CTA that’s a bit more direct. A click-through landing page features a CTA that asks the visitor to take a specific action- like Start a trial, Get offer – or Buy now.

What are the benefits of a landing page?

1. Increased conversions and leads

This one, of course is the holy grail. you want to convert your website visitors to loyal, paying customers right!? Landing pages play a critical role in the customer journey. Offering precise information at exactly the right time to help increase conversion rates.

2. Showcase unique offerings

Landing pages allow for very specific and detailed information to easily be curated and served up to your website visitors. They can serve as beautiful and highly targeted content offerings that allow your visitors to get a glimpse into a slice of your product or service.

3. Promotion of new products or services

Landing pages provide the perfect place to promote a special offer or campaign as a stand alone piece of content on your website. A campaign can be highly targeted and offer all the relevant details and information on a dedicated landing page.

4. You can test and improve your content offering

Most good landing page tools allow for A/B testing. You can literally see which landing page and what content resonates with your audience. Allowing you to choose the page that converts the best.

5. Increase ROI on paid search campaigns

When spending your well earned dollar on paid search you want to make sure that any visitors that you are attracting to your website hit a page that makes sense to them. Visitors earned through paid search need to have a seamless journey.

Clicking an ad, and going to a page that doesn’t make sense with their search intent only serves to generate a high bounce rate. Capture your audience with paid search ads that are highly relevant to your niche customer- then make sure they stay and convert once you have them on site with a great landing page that is directly tied to your messaging.

Landing page creation

Theres a tonne of reasons why you would want to create landing pages on your website. The thing is, most website builders don’t quite cut the mustard when it comes to creating these little pieces of gold.

It’s super important to ensure your landing page follows a certain format. Generally speaking you want a landing page tool that helps you lay out your page for ultimate conversion. This includes helping you know where to put CTA’s, assets, copy and section placement.

Choose landing page software that is easy to implement, fits with your website platform and is SEO friendly.

My choices for landing page software are Unbounce, SwipePages or LeadPages.

Many landing page tools integrate with WordPress, which makes building your landing pages seamless. Unbounce and LeadPages are both great options here.

Or, choose a WordPress Plugin – like Elementor or SeedProd – if you’re a blogger this option is super easy to implement and will save you a whole heap of time and effort.

Wrap Up

Landing pages are an incredibly powerful way to both collect leads and encourage your website visitors to take action. They’re an important part of an overall marketing strategy and act as another lever in the customer journey.

Landing pages help to get your main message in front of and audience that is much more likely to convert. They help lower your bounce rate on paid promotions and also are an important part of your overall marketing strategy when it comes to lead collection.