How to Create A Landing Page

Creating an effective landing page to increase conversion rates can be challenging —  especially if you’re not familiar with the best practices.

We’ll take an in-depth look at how to create a landing page, compare different types and cover the most important elements of a successful landing page.

Video Tutorial

How to Create a Landing Page: Requirements for Succes

In order to create a successful landing page, there are a few important steps to cover.

Let’s break them down one by one.

1. Define Your Main Conversion Goal

Before you go and create your landing page, it’s essential to define a clear goal and set the percentage of conversions you want to achieve.

A conversion goal is an action you want visitors to perform on your landing page. For example, if you’re trying to build an email list, then the number of opt-ins is your conversion goal.

A realistically good conversion rate is around 2%-5%, while 10% and above being the ideal case. To calculate this, take the number of people that took the desired action out of all your visitors on that particular landing page.

If you had 1000 visitors and 30 people sign up for your newsletter, divide 30 by 1000 and you will get the conversion rate – 3%.

To track how your landing page performs, it’s recommended to use tools like Google Analytics. It is a free tool that helps you track visitors on your website, their actions, and time spent on-page.

What is more, Google Analytics helps you to separate visitors by demographics and tailor your content accordingly.

Defining your main conversion goal will help you optimize your landing page with CTAs (Call to Action) buttons and element placement.

2. Write an Attention-Grabbing Powerful Headline

A headline is the first thing your visitors will see when they open your website. Naturally, it’s important to create a catchy one.

Your headline should be clear, straightforward, and strong enough to engage with visitors and tell them right away what your product or service is all about.

A good and powerful headline should only be 10-20 words long. It should be eye-catching and convincing but not upselling  — you want the visitors to feel like they need what you can offer and not the other way around.

3. Create Concise Copy that Effectively Communicates Your USP

USP or as known as a unique selling proposition is used to differentiate you from other landing pages. It should describe what sets you apart from your competitors, and the benefits your website offers.

For that, you need to create a concise and persuasive copy that conveys your selling points right away. There are a few factors that make up a persuasive copy:

• Length — the length of the copy determines its effectiveness to engage and persuade your visitors, make the texts short, simple, and convincing
• Style — the writing style of your copy also plays a part in converting visitors. You need the appropriate writing style for your target audience. Use the word “we” and “us” instead of “I” or “me”, and make the copy as friendly as possible
• Clear formatting — disorganized letter spacing and fonts may lead to unclear formatting that takes away your visitors’ attention from the messages you’re trying to convey

4. Include Testimonials and Social Proof

A section on your landing page where you display comments and customer testimonials is a must. This section is usually filled with highlighted reviews from customers to build more trust.

It shows your visitors that real people have a positive experience with what you offer and help them feel more secure and encouraged to do business with you.

There are many ways you can create social proof for your landing page: including customer testimonials, sign-up count, and awards from reputable organizations are some of the best examples.

Nowadays, more brands are using celebrities and influencers on their websites to show relevance. The more “human” your social proof is, the more people can relate to it and notice what you offer.

5. Present a Clear and Strong Call-to-Action

Call-to-action buttons (CTA) are what generate conversions on your landing page. It’s the center of attention that guides your visitors to perform the desired action.

It’s a critical element for driving high conversions and should stand out to increase your chances even further.

There are a few elements to consider when creating strong and clear call-to-action buttons:

• Aim for large and readable text — the text on your call-to-action buttons needs to be easy to notice and read in order to attract attention.
• Use action-packed words — using action words such as “get”, “try” and “start” is recommended as they give an idea of what actions visitors will be lead to.
• Show urgency — it will also push people to take action immediately rather than putting it off. You can do this by offering time-limited offers.
• Play with color contrast — ensure the CTA buttons stand out from the background, by using contrasting colors. You can also play around with white space to achieve this.
• Focus on one thing  — don’t confuse your visitors with multiple options on your CTA’s and focus on one conversion goal only.
• Include attractive and eye-catching graphics — unique button graphics on your CTA’s will attract more attention from your visitors.

6. Continuously A/B Test Everything

The secret to having high quality and professional landing pages is to conduct A/B tests before you launch them on your website.

To conduct A/B tests, show two versions of your landing page to your visitors at a random interval to determine which one performs better for your conversion goals.

To make it easier, make duplicates of your landing page, tweak it around, and separate the traffic of your website to each duplicate to see which one performs the best.

Long-Form vs. Short-Form Landing Pages

There are two types of landing pages: long and short form. As the names suggest, a long-form landing page is generally longer and has more information in it. The short-form has less information and content on the web page.

Which one is the best for you depends on what you’re trying to offer. A short-form landing page with a picture and a short description might work for products such as clothes, books, and watches.

However, if you’re offering more elaborate products and services such as computer software or life coaching, then a long-form would be the best fit. It gives more details about your offer and creates more credibility.

To decide which type of a landing page performs best for you, conduct A/B testing on your landing page to see which one generates more leads and conversions.

Short-Form Landing Pages: Pros and Cons

Generally, a short-form landing page works the best when you want to quickly capture the visitors’ attention. It provides information in a clear and straightforward manner and allows visitors to decide right away whether they are interested.

Pros:

• Fewer distractions — the shorter and the more straightforward your landing page is, the fewer distractions it will have. Your visitors can focus more on your products and decide right away whether they want to take part in your business.
• Immediate impact — a short-form landing page with a well-written copy has a higher chance of visitors taking immediate action.
• More mobile-friendly — short-form landing pages are more mobile-optimized as they don’t have much content to load.
• More affordable and easier to create — since there is less content in shorter landing pages, it will be easier and faster to create one.

Cons:

• Decreased quality of leads — leads are your potential clients. Since your page is shorter, attracting attention is quite easy but if the short space of your landing page is not well optimized, these leads won’t convert.

How to Create an Effective Short-Form Landing Page

If you’ve decided to create a short-form landing page after learning its pros and cons, there are two key questions that need to be answered to get the point across quickly:

1. Who are you?
2. What do you do and what can you offer visitors?

Then, make sure to research by checking out competitors’ landing page design and learn from it. Don’t copy their work, just check what ideas or concepts might fit into your landing page.

To design a simple free landing page, you can utilize a landing page builder like Hostinger. It doesn’t require any technical knowledge to get started, and you’ll have your landing page done in no time.

Here’s what you need to create an effective short-form landing page:

• Short and eye-catching headline — your heading should be no more than 20 words long and should catch your visitors’ attention right away. Be mindful of its size, colors, and placement.
• Stunning images and visuals — when creating a short-form landing page, there should be only one or two images on it to avoid distractions. Therefore, making sure that these visuals are eye-catching and convincing enough is essential.
• Credibility proof — build the credibility of your landing page by providing a small section of social proof.
• A clear call to action button — ensure the CTA button is easily noticeable by your visitors and apply the best practices we’ve covered above.
• Short and concise information — create a landing page copy that’s simple and easily understandable. Don’t put a wall of text on your page and just focus on the benefits of your products and services.
• Clear pricing details — provide clear and detailed pricing information for your customers, they should be able to know right away how much they will pay for your products.

Long-Form Landing Pages: Pros and Cons

A long-form landing page consists of informational content to help visitors understand your products and services better.

Long-form landing pages will most likely have a FAQ section, testimonials, maybe even a short tutorial.

Pros:

• SEO ranking  — the longer your landing page, the better your chances of ranking higher in SERPs, since there are more opportunities to place relevant keywords.
• Better conversion  — long-form landing pages tend to have better conversion rates as they have enough content and information to convince visitors your products and services are worth their attention.
• Builds trust  — because the visitors get more information about what you offer, you get to build more trust and credibility with them as well.
• Shows more professionalism and expertise  — detailed descriptions and information tend to show more professionalism and expertise, which helps to build authority.

Cons:

• Distracting  — visitors can get distracted by all the information provided and miss the CTA buttons.
• A low quantity of leads  — since your page is longer, most of your leads are visitors who are actually interested in your products and services. This means that you get fewer leads but they have a higher chance of converting

How to Create an Effective Long-Form Landing Page

A long-form landing page is trickier to create compared to a short one. Since putting a lot of content on a web page can be quite overwhelming, a proper structure is a must.

Using a page builder for a long-form landing page is still very possible. Just make sure to choose a landing page design that can fit the content needed.

When it comes to a long-form landing page, it’s not just the content that matters. Here some of the most necessary elements of a long-form landing page:

• Catchy headlines and subheadings — since you get more space to work around, create a catchy headline and its sub-headings to ensure a good structure and readability.
• Visuals — visuals in a long-form landing page are important for the copy. Leaving a wall of text will bore visitors and they are likely to click away.
• Comprehensive content copy — the purpose of a long-form landing page is to give your visitors a detailed explanation about your offers, so make sure to create a well-written, informative copy.
• Highlight the benefits — highlight the benefits of your offers instead of listing out every feature it provides.
• More call-to-action buttons — since the page would be longer, it’s wise to put more than one call-to-action button all across the page, in case your customers decide to convert as they scroll through.
• Trust proof —  make use of the larger space and create a social proof section where you can build your visitors’ trust.

Conclusion

Creating high-quality landing pages is not easy — there are many elements and factors to consider. However, once done will net amazing results in the form of a high conversion rate for your website.