7 Must-Haves for A High-Converting Landing Page

Digital marketing is one of the best tools in a company’s arsenal. Master it, and you enjoy strong leads, a large number of new customers, and consistent growth. Miss the mark, and you’ve wasted a lot of effort for little or no return. A key performance indicator (KPI) you can use to measure your digital marketing’s success is your SEO and Paid Search landing page conversions. Think of landing pages as the gateway to new relationships and tantalizing new sales.

But only if your audience decides they are worthy. Marketers need to understand how to create effective landing pages. Here are 7 must-haves to build landing pages that are conversion-worthy.

1. A Well-Defined Objective

Landing pages function best when they are trying to reach a single goal. Are you wanting to build an email list? Get them to sign up for a free trial? Attend a webinar? Download an eBook? Decide up front what success looks like and then work backward to create a landing page that will be a vehicle to take you there.

2. A Valuable Offer

Landing pages that detail “what’s in it for me” urge your audience to take the next step in the process. If there’s not an offer, or it’s vague, it’s unlikely to spur them to action. Take time to specifically lay out your offer and then study it to make certain it’s compelling enough to make a person fill out a form to get it.

3. Powerful Keywords

Look at your landing page the same way a person who would be searching for what you’re offering. What words and phrases would they use in a search engine? Write them out and make sure they’re used in the landing page’s text. Doing this makes the page easier to find so you can capture more interest and convert more contacts.

The previous three points are essential to the foundation of building high-converting landing pages. Now, let’s talk about four things that must go on the landing page itself.

4. A Persuasive Headline

Headlines that are too long, vague, or dull will have potential clients clicking away faster than you can say “tiny attention span”. The people in charge of designing your landing page need to spend a chunk of their time creating a short, dynamic, attention-grabbing title. Otherwise, nobody is going to read any further. Use action words, keep it short (5 words is optimal) and appeal to their emotions. A strong headline may just make the difference in being able to generate leads and dealing with high bounce rates.

5. Address A Pain Point

High-converting landing pages need to answer the reader’s question of “why do I care?” This means tackling one of their pain points. To accomplish this successfully, you need to understand your buyer. What keeps them up at night? What parts of their jobs cause them stress and make them struggle? If you can filter these issues into a solution that you provide and communicate that on your landing page, your chances of increasing your conversion rates go up dramatically.

 6. Engaging Graphics

Text-only landing pages are yawn-worthy wastes of time. Sound harsh? Look at it this way. Your brain processes images an astounding 60,000 times faster than text! In your quest to create high-converting landing pages, don’t get so caught up in what you’re saying that you forget to add graphics that draw your audience’s attention. Use photos that are relatable, high quality, and relevant. Prominently display them across a large section of the page. You may also use informative graphics if they are clear and easy to absorb. Make your point using photos and graphics and you’ll reap the reward of higher conversion rates than you’ll see with text-heavy landing pages.

7. An Easy Next Step

You need to make it obvious what the potential lead needs to do next. A large call-to-action (CTA) with descriptive, compelling text is the final must have for a high-converting landing page. It’s smart to place it in the top third of the page so scrolling down isn’t necessary. Make sure it’s shaped like a button and use a contrasting color that’s brighter than the rest of the landing page. Everything about the CTA should stand out.

High-converting landing pages are instrumental in increasing quality leads and adding new accounts to your books. But not all landing pages are created equal. Marketing needs to take their time and flesh out a sharply focused, well-executed strategy in their landing page creation, and never, ever leave out these 7 must-haves.