Landing Pages: 11 Best Practices

Suppose you have a website where you sell your products, and you are marketing them on Facebook or any other social media profile. Now, you want to promote your website as well as your products, how would you do that? Simply put a link in your ads and social media posts so the readers can be redirected to somewhere, and that somewhere is known as a landing page.

For better landing pages, you need to have refined data. Base your landing page’s design on what you already know about your target audience.

What distinguishes a simple webpage as a landing page are the core objectives. Your primary focus should be converting visitors into leads through your landing page. That’s it! A landing page contains a form that asks the visitors for some information (such as contact information) in exchange for something that the visitor values.

If you don’t know how to put together an impressive landing page, this is where landing page best practices come in. A well-crafted copy and landing page with a user-friendly format will get almost any visitor to perform your desired action. Check out the list of landing page best practices:

1. Craft A Headline That is Based on Mutual Benefits

Chances are that for every ten people that visit your landing page, at least seven of them will bounce if they do not find relevant information or something that benefits them. To keep this number low, make sure you craft a benefit-focused headline for your landing page that can let your visitors know what is in it for them, just within seconds of redirecting to your page.

Your headline is the first thing that the visitors will read, make sure it is worth their time and is vivid enough to understand easily.

2. Write A Captivating Copy

Crafted a perfect heading for your landing page? Now, write a compelling copy that can actually make a difference. Both your text and image depend on each other – if you put an excellent image along with a poor copy or vice versa, everything will fall flat. Make sure your copy is concise, clear, and guides your visitor the action you want them to complete. Use ‘you’ and ‘your’ to make them feel that you are speaking directly to them – it is one of the best ways to get them engaged with your content.

3.Complement Your Copy with an Image That Illustrates Your Offer

Visuals play an important role – without the right image, even your well-crafted copy is not valuable. The image should portray your target audienceand how they will feel once they complete the form. Pair the best copy with the right image, and that’s it – you are halfway to your goal.

4.Add A Vivid and Standout CTA (Call-To-Action)

Without a call-to-action, it is just like a well-made car without a steering wheel – there is no way you can drive it. In the same way, if you are missing out on a clear CTA, you would not be able to fulfil the goal, which is converting the visitors into leads. Also, the CTA should standout clearly – you can use a color that contrasts with other elements on your landing page.

The best practice here is to use an action verb and spell it out for them but in an exciting way. For example, if you are trying to sell an e-Book related to health, you can use “Get it now and live healthy”.

Here are some tried and tested techniques that you can apply on your landing page as well:

  • Make your CTA button large with readable text
  • To make the CTA stand out, use contrasting colors that also compliment the overall design of your page
  • Place the CTA button in the center of the page
  • Use arrows or some person’s picture in which he/she is pointing with whether his/her finger or eyes to the CTA
  • If your landing page is large, place one CTA on every full-page scroll length
  • Grey out rest of the buttons or pop-ups

5. Make Use of Radio Buttons

People don’t want to get out of their comfort zone to first read your landing page and then fill out every information by typing. Thanks to the radio buttons, your visitors have to do as little as possible, yet fulfilling your desired action. Consider their laziness as an advantage and leverage it by making it easier for them to fill the form using radio buttons.

For example, “How many employees do you have?” you can give the following three radio buttons:

  • Less than 5 employees
  • 5-10 employees
  • 10+ employees

Now, they can easily select one from the given options rather than getting confused.

6. What Can Be Better Than Giving Away A Relevant Offer?

If you consider your landing page as a part of your lead’s journey to your offer, you will see the positive results coming. You should give away relevant information in exchange for your lead’s personal information. The giveaway should be compelling enough, so the visitors don’t have to think for even a moment before providing their personaldata.

Suppose you sell mobile phone covers and accessories. Your offer might be something like “10 best ways to protect your mobile phone” because ultimately, your goal is to sell your phone covers and accessories to that lead.

You shouldn’t hook them with an excellent offer that is irrelevant to you because it might make a good impression but will only put your leads on a completely different path.

7. Keep the Unrelated Things Aside and Only Ask for What You Need

There are three basic types of leads: cold, warm, and hot lead. A cold lead is a visitor that follows you but does not know you, and the visitor who has subscribed to your email newsletter is a warm lead, while a hot lead is someone who is keenly interested in your product or service and ready to buy. Now, you know what leads are. A lead wouldn’t give away its personal information if it doesn’t trust you or isn’t familiar with you.

The best practice here would be to ask for as little information as you need to convert your cold lead to warm lead. An email along with a name would be more than enough to nurture a new lead.

8. Don’t Confuse Your Visitors, Remove All Navigation

You have one primary objective – converting visitors into leads. Any links within your landing page, including internal links to other pages of your website, would only distract the visitor from completing the goal. Remove all navigation and links from the landing page so the visitor can clearly focus on your CTA.

9. Make Your Landing Page Responsive All the Way!

How would you feel if you put all your effort in writing a compelling copy, crafting an excellent CTA along with the right images only to find out that your form falls out of view on mobile devices? Most people will visit your landing page from their mobile phones – don’t miss out on this opportunity and make your landing page responsive so your visitors can feel comfortable no matter how they are viewing it.

10. A/B Test Your Landing Page

Before settling to a final decision based on just assumptions, it is much better to A/B test your landing page with respect to every aspect so you can know what you are missing. Previous 9 tips would not be practical if you don’t A/B test the results continuously and see what option works best for you.

11. Don’t Forget to Use A Thank You Page

Just how a shopkeeper thanks you for shopping, you should redirect your leads to a thank you page as well once they have completed your form. You can ditch the thank you page as well, but we won’t recommend you to do this because it serves many valuable purposes including:

  • It delivers the giveaway or whatever you promised on the landing page (this case is usually for instant download forms).
  • It gives you an amazing opportunity to offer your lead with additional content, which is also relevant to your product or service.
  • It shows how generous you are for their interest, which goes a long way.

Just having an attractive landing page isn’t enough, you should have an excellent website as well! If you have both – perfect! Have a look at some ways to promote your website to get more organic traffic.