What is a Landing Page? Answers to All Your Questions
What is a landing page? A landing page is defined as “a standalone web page created to convert visitors into leads.” It’s where a visitor “lands” after they click on a link in an email, or digital ads. Landing pages can also be called lead capture pages, squeeze pages, or conversion rate optimization (CRO) pages. They are often used for advertising campaigns and marketing offers that require specific responses.
This article will answer all of your questions about what they are, the purpose of them, types of them and why they’re important! We’ll discuss how well do landing pages work and the difference between a homepage and a landing page.
What is the purpose of a landing page?
The purpose of a landing page is to convert visitors into leads and prospects. A lead may be defined as an individual who has shown interest in your company or organization by requesting more information about the product or service you offer, registering for certain events like webinars, workshops, seminars etc., submitting contact information on forms provided online (such as name, email, phone number etc.) or taking other actions your company would like them to take.
How do landing pages work?
Landing pages are often used for advertising campaigns and marketing offers that require specific responses. These lead generation tools allow you to capture leads when visitors click on a link in an email, or digital ads. They are designed with a specific goal in mind, to capture a visitor’s contact information such as their name and email address.
They make it easy for you to track which of your ad campaigns are working best by tracking the number of leads generated from each campaign or source (ad network etc.). This allows you to create more effective advertising strategies based on proven results.
What is the difference between a homepage and a landing page?
Homepages and landing pages are not the same. A website’s homepage is its main web page that typically reflects your brand or company name, logo, and navigation links to other pages on your site. This can also include secondary internal pages like about us etc., as well as social media links to your profiles.
The purpose of a homepage is different from that of a landing page in the sense that it’s not designed for particular actions or conversions and typically includes information on all aspects of your business, product line etc., as well as contact details (address, phone number etc.). It often also contains secondary internal pages etc. In contrast, landing pages are focused exclusively on promoting a single product or service by capturing contact information in exchange for that specific offer.
While both can be used to market your business and generate leads, they serve different purposes.
A homepage is designed as the official website of an organization whereas with a landing page you want visitors to take a specific action.
How do landing pages fit into a digital marketing strategy?
Landing pages are a critical part of an effective digital marketing strategy. They’re often used in conjunction with other lead generation tools like search engine optimization (SEO), pay-per-click advertising, email newsletters and blog posts among others. A landing page is one of the important factors that Google uses to rank websites for certain keywords. This is why it’s important to have well-designed landing pages that are optimized for conversions.
They’re also a valuable source of leads and information about your target audience, allowing you to better understand their needs, interests and behavior patterns which can eventually help increase sales. Landing pages make it easy for companies to track website performance with the ability to track conversions (the number of visitors who take you up on your offer), track leads and gather valuable customer information.
Companies often use landing pages for advertising campaigns to capture more qualified traffic than they would have received from homepages which are typically cluttered with banners, links etc., making it difficult to identify a specific product or service that’s being advertised.
Do you need a website for a landing page?
No, landing pages can be used without a website. They’re also often created as standalone webpages on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn among others in order to drive traffic back to the company’s site or blog page. The purpose of these types of lead generation tools is similar: converting visitors into leads (or sales). In addition, companies like Amazon and EBay also use landing pages to drive traffic back to their site, where they can then purchase products.
How effective are landing pages?
Landing pages have the highest conversion rates of any site online. The average for landing pages is around 20%, or one out of every five visitors, while homepages only convert about two to three percent (or about one in 33).
This means that companies can increase leads and sales by as much as 80% with the right combination of tools.
Landing pages are not only effective but they’re also cost-effective. They allow you to make the most of your advertising dollars by being more targeted and efficient with where you place ads and how much traffic it sends back to your website or blog page.
What are the types of landing pages?
There are three main types of landing pages:
- Lead generation: used for lead nurturing and list building by capturing contact information in exchange for a specific offer.
- Sales-oriented: designed to drive sales via an ecommerce transaction or lead submission.
- Promotional: created for direct response campaigns with the purpose of driving awareness and consideration around a product, service etc., through creative marketing tactics like contests, giveaways and more.
What makes a good landing page?
- Visuals or graphics that are relevant, interesting and persuasive.
- Testimonials from real people with compelling stories related to the product or service being offered on the page.
- An offer that’s appealing enough for visitors to be motivated to provide their contact information in exchange for it (i.e., free samples, discounts and giveaways).
- Calling to action that’s clear, concise and easy for visitors to interact with.
- Well-written content that provides details about the offer or product being presented in a way that’s compelling enough to capture interest from potential customers.
A good landing page should answer: “What is this page?” “What do I get if I sign up or buy right now?” and “Why should I trust you?”
What do you need before creating a landing page?
To create a landing page, you’ll need to have two things:
- A product or service that people want – this is the first step in creating and designing an effective lead generation tool. The quality of your offer will determine whether it’s successful or not. You can’t expect great results if you don’t provide something worthwhile and relevant to your target audience.
- A list of email subscribers or leads you can market directly too – because without a targeted list, it’s difficult to ensure that the right people are seeing and engaging with your offer on landing pages. You need something worthwhile for visitors in order to engage them effectively enough so they’ll provide their contact information (i.e., email address) in exchange for your offer.
What are best practices for a landing page?
There are a number of best practices for landing pages, but here are some highlights:
- Use the same email provider where you have your list stored. This ensures that when visitors provide their information in exchange for an offer on the page, it’s automatically added to your existing marketing database and not sent into spam or junk folders by mistake.
- Use a tool like SumoMe or OptinMonster that allows you to easily create and customize your landing pages for different campaigns, with options to add social sharing buttons.
- Test the content on each page – track results across all devices (desktop, tablet and mobile) so it’s optimized for every stage of the lead flow funnel.
- Write compelling headlines that are specific and clear about the offer being made.
- Use bullet points to clearly define what’s included in each package or subscription plan so visitors know exactly what they’re signing up for before checking out.
- Don’t include a lot of text on your landing page; keep it simple but engaging enough to capture interest.
- Include a strong call to action that’s easy for visitors to interact with (i.e., free trial, button or link).
- Use social proof elements like testimonials and case studies from real customers on your landing page so people can see how effective it is before trusting you enough to sign up themselves.
- Include a clear, prominent privacy policy so visitors know exactly how their information will be used before submitting it.
Learn more about how to create a landing page
As you can see there's no shortage of things to consider when creating and designing landing pages that convert into leads for your business or brand. There are many online training courses that teach you how to create effective landing pages. One of them is offered by AWOL Academy, an online learning platform that offers quick, affordable and effective digital marketing training. The training helps you create lead generation tools (i.e., landing pages) that convert visitors into leads for your business or brand.
I Buy I Review bought the AWOL Academy course and reviewed it to see if it is worth joining. Read our AWOL Academy review here
I buy and review courses so you don’t have to. Sometimes, I even find courses that are legitimate and worthwhile; and that’s how I accidentally came across one that led me to building a 6-figure business in a little under 5 years. Now, I still review courses because it’s my favorite hobby. 🙂 Learn more about me here.
