What Are The elements Of An Effective Landing Page?

Summary: There are a few key ideas to keep in mind when developing an effective landing page. I have developed and tested several, and continue to do so for myself and my clients. There is also a logical order to keep in mind when developing an effective landing page. In essence, an effective landing page should help your visitor / prospect to achieve (usually) a singular goal, be in alignment with your mission, vision, and core values, and be easy to navigate: clutter free.

You might be asking, “What is a landing page?”. Simply put, it is the web page where people arrive or “land” when they follow a link, banner ad, pay-per-click ad, or some other means to arrive at your site.

1) What is the purpose of the landing page?

Think backwards! You’ll want to keep the end in mind when developing a landing page. First, define what you want the landing page to do. If you still belong to the old school idea (really old school) that a business should have one website, you might need to read more of our Internet marketing and design curricula. Do you want the landing page to build your database of prospects/ clients,

If you do not know what you want the landing page to do, then you should back up a little and ask yourself what kind of tool or set of tools you need to have online in order to help your business, ministry, organization, etc. This should be a direct extension of your vision and mission. If you are clear about the vision and mission of your company or organization, or even a particular product launch campaign, this should reveal what you want the landing page to do.

2) Is the landing page effective?

Do you test your landing pages? You should run split testing as often as possible to continually lower the dropout rates of your visitors. One test we ran recently showed that our opt-in box pop-over was increasing the number of opt-ins three to one versus the static opt-in on one of our landing pages, but it decreased sales on the page. We had to re-think our landing page approach to make sure that we did not miss the ultimate purpose of this particular page. We decided to take out the opt-in pop-over, because the event sale was the main goal of the landing page. Sales increased from this tested decision!

3) Does your landing page offer too many options?
Some beginners or even seasoned business owners offer too much information on their websites, or they send people to the wrong type of website and leave much of their organizational potential untapped. It has been said that “a confused buyer will never buy”. If we offer too many options on our landing page, we will confuse people, overwhelm them with too much information, and we will lead them to confusion. Keeping a simple, singular, focused approach to the purpose of your landing page is essential in the development and implementation of your page. Most times, simplicity is the best approach. After all, we are in business to serve and help those who are seeking our expertise to solve their problems or enhance their lives.