Tag Archives: landing pages

Written by Caroline Cox on Dec 21 , 2020

From effective design elements to optimization tips, here’s what you need to know to create successful landing pages.

Here, you’ll find:

What defines a landing page
How to design a landing page for maximum conversions
Common landing page mistakes to avoid
Examples of landing pages that boosted ROI

When it comes to paid search, the ad itself is only part of the equation. Once you get that coveted click, there’s more work to be done. That’s where your landing page comes in.

We talk a lot about landing pages around here because of how make-or-break they can be for your campaigns. Effective landing pages properly represent your brand, offer something of value to the visitor, and see an impressive conversion rate. Not-so effective ones, on the other hand, garner little more than a high bounce rate and marketing budget spent on clicks that didn’t convert.

For everything you need to know about landing pages and how they factor into a well-rounded digital marketing strategy, read on.

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a page on your website that’s specially crafted to capture the visitor’s information. People most often arrive on a landing page via clicking through on an ad or an email.

The goal of a company’s landing page is to gather the visitor’s information in exchange for something. This could be anything from an educational piece of content to a discount code. Landing pages are generally designed with a more targeted audience in mind than the rest of your site. They also aren’t meant to be arrived at through your homepage or navigation menu.

While lead generation is the main goal of most landing pages, Mailchimp explains that there are “click-thru landing page” types as well. The goal of these pages is for visitors to click the call to action (CTA) and be taken to a new page to follow through with the action, whether that’s to place an order, schedule a consultation, or something more.

When designing your landing pages, experience tells us that the most important word to keep in mind is “minimalism.” (Image via Unsplash)

Why are landing pages important in digital marketing?

As HubSpot succinctly explains, the goal of a landing page is to generate leads for your business. It also serves as a type of quick introduction for those who are just stumbling upon or learning about your company.

With that in mind, you want your first impression to be one that’s positive and accurately reflects your overall brand. You can do this through things like:

your landing page copy
your page design
the ad leading to the landing page
the offer itself that you’re presenting in exchange for a person’s information

Not only can landing pages help increase conversions, but they can also provide you with valuable information about your target audience.

What elements make up an effective landing page?

The most effective landing pages are those that are being regularly tested and optimized. However, there are a few key elements that can help ensure your landing pages are as targeted and effective as possible.

These include:

A clear goal
A thoughtful design consistent with your overall brand aesthetic
An appealing offer
A strong CTA
A lead form
Copy that mirrors and delivers on the ad that brought them there
Messaging that speaks directly to your target audience

How do you design a successful landing page?

When designing your landing pages, experience tells us that the most important word to keep in mind is “minimalism.” That’s because, more than anything, you want your page to be free from distractions. Anything that could divert the visitor’s eye from your CTA will only do your page a disservice.

And, because people are often pressed for time, you don’t want the viewer to have to do a ton of scrolling to complete the desired action. Along with a clean, minimal design, you also want to keep things short and to the point.

One easy way to stick to a less-is-more aesthetic is by excluding elements that appear on your regular site pages. Think: your header navigation or subscriber box for your newsletter. These are great to have on your regular pages, but they can potentially make your landing pages cluttered, depending on what other elements are in play. Instead, you could simply have your logo hyperlinked to your homepage, where visitors can find these page elements if need be.

Each design element should serve to tastefully draw the reader’s eye to your CTA. This includes things like whitespace and thoughtful imagery, such as stock photos, color blocks, or informative charts. (Whitespace doesn’t necessarily mean “white” in color — just free from text, images or graphics.) It also shouldn’t stray too far from the look and feel of the rest of your website.

What are some common landing page missteps to avoid?

There’s almost always room for improvement when it comes to your landing pages. However, there are a few common landing page mistakes we’ve seen companies make repeatedly when creating these pages.

These include things like:

Neglecting to test your forms
Putting too many design elements on one page
Not optimizing for mobile
Boring CTAs
Slow page speed

The good news? Once you know to look for these issues, any that you come across can usually be addressed and fixed quickly.

How do you optimize landing pages for conversions?

Conversions are generally the goal of a landing page. Because of this, any optimization tweaks or tests conducted should aim to increase those conversions.

For starters, spend time brainstorming a handful of attention-grabbing headlines that you can then test to see how your audience responds. From there, make sure your copy highlights the value you can provide your visitor or what problem your product or service can solve rather than simply bragging about your brand.

Other conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategies for landing pages include:

An easy-to-fill-out form
Proof points like badges or testimonials that illustrate your credibility
A special offer of some sort
A mobile-responsive experience
Social share buttons
A plan for consistent element testing and analysis

What are some examples of effective landing pages?

Just like there’s no single path to increase landing page conversions, there’s no one right way to design your landing page. With that in mind, here are a few landing pages for brands we’ve worked with that not only ended up paying for themselves, but that saw results like more time on site, increased conversions, reduced bounce rate, and more.

What makes it successful: This landing page for test management software company Zephyr gets down to business. The offer is clear, the design is minimal, and their claims are backed up by impressive proof points.

What makes it successful: This landing page for bluetooth headphone brand Rokit Boost leans heavily on the visual to show the specific product it’s selling “in action.” From there, it’s got a minimalist navigation in case the visitor wants to know more before making the purchase. Otherwise, they can go ahead and add to cart, with the added perks of free shipping and a money-back guarantee.

What makes it successful: Proven’s goal is to help businesses hire better and faster. This landing page targets restaurants, with a simple landing page, a strong CTA, and thoughtful use of color to draw the eye where it needs to go.

See more examples of successful landing pages and their results here.

The takeaway

If you ask us, landing pages deserve a place in your digital marketing plan. They can be a significant value driver for your business, whether you leverage them as part of your pay-per-click (or paid search) campaigns, email marketing, or elsewhere.

When you create well-thought-out landing pages that have the right mix of elements, a clear message, and an easy way to complete the desired action, you’re bound to see positive results.

Caroline Cox

Caroline is HawkSEM's content marketing manager. She uses her more than 10 years of professional writing and editing experience to create SEO-friendly articles, educational thought leadership pieces, and savvy social media content to help market leaders create successful digital marketing strategies. She's a fan of seltzer water, print magazines, and huskies.

Questions or comments? Join the conversation here!

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It’s easy to fall into one (or several) of these landing page traps — let us help you avoid them.

Here, you’ll find:

Best practices for landing page copy
Why landing page design matters
How to avoid snooze-worthy CTAs
Ways to make your pages stand out

Landing pages can be game-changers when it comes to your conversion rate. But that doesn’t mean the path to success is easy. At best, landing pages have a variety of thought-out elements that come together to create a seamless user experience. At worst? They confuse or turn off the reader, causing them to bounce.

One way to be sure you’re on the right track: Don’t fall for any of these common landing page mistakes.

1. Not testing your forms

Each element of your landing page factors into your conversion rates, but your form can be the ultimate deciding factor. With that in mind, crafting your form shouldn’t be a one-and-done endeavor. Rather, take the time to A/B test your forms to see which ones result in the most completions.

While experience has shown us that shorter forms often get more completions, this certainly isn’t always the case. It’s wise to test a few different form lengths, and even multiple-page forms, to find the sweet spot that your prospects respond to best. As long as you’re getting the key info you need from the form, you can play around with various questions and wording.

Sometimes, the most out-there CTAs are the ones that get the most attention — and clicks. (Image via Unsplash)

2. A distracting design

When it comes to your landing page design, there’s a delicate balance to be struck between not underwhelming or overwhelming the visitor. After all, you don’t want to put all this work into creating the best click-worthy ads that end up leading to boring landing pages. On the other hand, it’s just as important that you don’t send them to a page filled with in-your-face graphics, multiple calls to action (CTAs), a header and footer, pop-ups and more.

A well-designed landing page design will be consistent with the rest of your website, but with an overall clean aesthetic that thoughtfully uses visuals to draw the reader’s eye to your CTAs. These visuals could include things like a photo of someone using your product or service, a specially designed graphic, or color blocking that falls in line with your brand’s current scheme.

Pro tip: Often, landing pages don’t feature the usual headers and footers that the rest of your site does, to keep the look as minimal as possible. You can experiment with including pared-down versions of your navigation menus, or just a link to your homepage.

3. Boring CTAs

If the thought of a “click here” CTA makes you want to hit snooze, you’re not alone. Not only do generic CTAs not impress site visitors, but it often lacks context about why the person should click. Are they requesting a consultation? Being taken to a page where they can learn more about a product or service? This is one of the easiest landing page mistakes to avoid by making sure your CTA is clear and to the point.

CTAs are another great landing page feature to A/B test. Brainstorm a handful of attention-grabbing CTAs that align with your brand’s voice and tone, then start trying them out to see how your audience reacts. And don’t be afraid to think outside the box: Sometimes, the most out-there CTAs are the ones that get the most attention — and clicks.

4. Sluggish page speed

Of course, healthy page speed is crucial for all pages of your website. But it’s particularly make-or-break when it comes to your landing pages. That’s because landing pages often serve as the first impression of your business. You want everything to be in tip-top shape.

Luckily, there are usually quick fixes for slow site pages. First, test your current speed with Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. From there, you can work with your team or developer to address any issues that come up, such as too-large image files that may need compressing.

(Page speed promises to become more important when it comes to rankings when Google officially rolls out its Core Web Vitals metrics in 2021.)

Need more help getting landing pages in tip-top shape? That’s one of our specialties.

5. Not optimizing for mobile

Around here, we talk a lot about the importance of having a mobile-friendly site. That’s because we’re seeing more and more people using their smartphones over desktops for things like searching, shopping, and visiting websites. And it’s a trend that doesn’t appear to be slowing down soon.

Before launching your landing page, conduct tests to make sure the page and each of its elements renders well on mobile. That doesn’t just mean it loads. It also means imagery is properly sized, CTAs and buttons are easy to click on, and copy is easy to scroll through and read. This should be the case whether someone is viewing your page from an iOS, Android, or tablet device.

Consider crafting an automated message upon form completion that reiterates what the user can expect as far as next steps. (Image via Unsplash)

6. Spending too little time on copy

Another one of the biggest landing page mistakes we see is creating a compellingly designed page with lackluster copy. If you’re just copying and pasting the same copy from your ad to your landing page, we hate to say it, but you’re doing it wrong.

While you don’t need to pen a novel, you do want there to be a consistent and clear message, from your headline to your CTA. Your landing page copy should match what your ad mentioned or promised. Moreover, it should focus on the value you can provide the user, not just info about why your brand is so great. In just a few sentences, make it clear that you understand the person’s needs or pain points, and highlight how your brand’s offering can help them.

7. Failing to provide next steps

Sure, you can get by just fine with a simple “Thanks!” message that pops up once someone has completed your landing page form. But why stop there? Maximize each visit to your site by being thoughtful about what comes next.

Consider crafting an automated message upon form completion that reiterates what the user can expect as far as next steps, whether that means an email or a phone call. You can also add value and start guiding them further down the funnel by offering them a piece of content that’s relevant to the ad that originally brought them there.

Even a funny quip, joke, or GIF paired with your “thank you” message can help make for a memorable and positive first experience with your brand.

The takeaway

Don’t panic if you’ve fallen prey to any of these common landing page mistakes. Some are easier to detect than others, but all can be fixed.

Letting your landing page sit stagnant can lead to the issues above, along with others, so prioritize periodically testing new elements and making sure everything is as optimized as possible for best results.

Caroline Cox

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So, you’ve got the PPC campaign thing down — or do you?

Here, you’ll find:

What makes a PPC campaign successful
Ways to determine your PPC campaign goals
How to pick the right keywords
Why campaign tracking is crucial

These days, having an established PPC campaign isn’t enough. You need one that converts. That usually means a set-it-and-forget-it strategy simply won’t cut it.

ROI should be the driving force behind every aspect of designing, launching, and monitoring your PPC campaign. Not sure where to begin? Keep reading.

HawkSEM blog: 10 Steps to a Successful ROI-Driven PPC Campaign

Your goal should be centered around overall ROI as well as year-over-year growth. (via Unsplash)

1. Determine your goals

Most marketing pros are familiar with the acronym SMART goals — that is, ones that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely. This type of goal setting can be highly effective, no matter your company size or industry.

Applying this mindset to your PPC campaign can help you zero in on what you want to accomplish — maybe it’s more sales, market expansion, the desired CPA, more precise persona targeting, more effective lead nourishment, or something else. Whatever your goal, it should be centered around overall ROI as well as year-over-year growth.

2. Identify the right keywords

Having the right keywords is crucial for a campaign’s success. Now that you’ve determined your goals, it’s time to identify the keywords you want to leverage for this particular PPC campaign. These could include the services you offer, the products you sell, or phrases customers use in connection to your business.

Pro tip: Having a clear understanding of your target persona (or personas) will help you develop a list of high-performing keywords.

Create a list of keywords by pulling your own search query data or using a keyword tool like SEMrush or Google Keyword Planner. Add in factors like longtail and negative keywords, then work to identify those that are highly relevant but not highly competitive.

3. Expand on those keywords

Before checking “keywords” off the list, it’s a good idea to expand your list of keywords to make sure there aren’t any important words and phrases you’re missing out on.

You can do this in a few ways: by analyzing your competitors and seeing what keywords they’re leveraging, looking into your target audience’s search behavior to uncover more keywords, and using a keyword tool to see if there are any suggested keywords you haven’t included. For even more inspiration, you can look into a service like Answer the Public that aggregates questions people ask around different keywords, giving you more insight into their search motivations.

4. Prioritize your chosen keywords

As your campaign progresses, you’ll start to get a better idea about which keywords are top performers and which can be cut.

Because the frequent iterating and optimizing of these campaigns can be time-consuming, those without the expertise or bandwidth often turn to a digital marketing agency that can manage these types of campaigns on an ongoing basis.

Put your keywords into different categories based on the type of advertisements they create. (Image via Unsplash)

5. Categorize your keywords

Keywords can fall into many categories: high-intent, branded, and feature-specific, just to name a few. A great way to stay organized and make sure you’re covering all your bases is by breaking up keywords into thematic Ad Groups.

You can group your keywords into the categories above, or by things like funnel stage, persona, service, and intent. Put your keywords into different categories based on the type of advertisements they create.

The eventual goal is to establish and track different types of ads based on the type of keywords. Basically, this ensures your ads directly relate to the search being made.

6. Set up ads

There’s no shortage of advice to be found about the best ways to set up PPC ads. But through our years of experience, we’ve narrowed it down and found that there are a few key facets to creating ads that convert.

They include:

Keeping ads short, catchy, and relevant
Having a consistent look and message from ad to landing page
Leveraging ad extensions
Targeting based on location
Taking advantage of remarketing when applicable
A/B testing

Pro tip: If you’re unfamiliar with the technicalities of ad management, your chosen ad platform or platforms should have step-by-step instructions for setting up your ads and their corresponding keywords.

7. Think about context and content

When planning your ad copy, be mindful of where the ads will be placed. With display ads, for example, it makes sense to keep the ad copy relevant to the content of the sites where they’ll appear — if you know what those sites will be.

That’s where the Google Display Network’s keyword contextual targeting comes in. As a more advanced and efficient way to choose the sites to place display ads on, this method allows you to create a list of keywords so your ad can be more closely matched to pages with similar context and content. Essentially, this lets you better target the sites where your display ad would show up.

Think about the desired action you want your potential customers to perform, then make it easy for them to do so. (Image via Unsplash)

8. Determine the desired action for conversion

A “conversion” isn’t defined the same way across the board. Different industries and campaigns will have different definitions of what action they consider to be a conversion.

This could mean:

A submitted form
A completed sale
A demo or consultation request
A downloaded piece of content
An email subscription

No matter your conversion type, it can be measured by tracking the number of people that perform the measurable task once they reach your landing page. During the planning process, think about the desired action you want your potential customers to perform, then make it easy for them to do so.

9. Design optimized landing pages

We’ve highlighted 12 key ways to boost landing page conversions before.

Some of those ways include:

A strong call to action (CTA)
A special offer
An easy way to share
A mobile-friendly experience

Effective ads get people to your landing pages. From there, you’ve got to have a strong landing page poised to turn clicks into conversions.

10. Set up a means of tracking

Spoiler alert: Establishing a new campaign is just the beginning.

From there, you’ve got to have the means to test, track, and adjust your initial plan in order to achieve an optimal ROI. That means taking the time to pull reports, analyze the data, and pinpoint strengths and weaknesses in your campaign so you can iterate accordingly. By following the steps outlined above, however, you’ll be set up to see all that effort turn into a well-executed campaign that converts.

Creating a successful ROI-driven PPC campaign takes time and effort. Luckily, that’s exactly what we do — request a consultation to learn more about how we can help you get the results you deserve.

This post was originally published in August 2014 and was updated in October 2019.

Landing Pages: The Ultimate Guide

From effective design elements to optimization tips, here’s what you need to know to create successful landing pages.

What is a landing page?

Why are landing pages important in digital marketing?

What elements make up an effective landing page?

How do you design a successful landing page?

What are some common landing page missteps to avoid?

How do you optimize landing pages for conversions?

What are some examples of effective landing pages?

The takeaway

Caroline Cox

Questions or comments? Join the conversation here!

Related Posts

It’s easy to fall into one (or several) of these landing page traps — let us help you avoid them.

1. Not testing your forms

2. A distracting design

3. Boring CTAs

4. Sluggish page speed

5. Not optimizing for mobile

6. Spending too little time on copy

7. Failing to provide next steps

The takeaway

Caroline Cox

Questions or comments? Join the conversation here!

Related Posts

So, you’ve got the PPC campaign thing down — or do you?

1. Determine your goals

2. Identify the right keywords

3. Expand on those keywords

4. Prioritize your chosen keywords

5. Categorize your keywords

6. Set up ads

7. Think about context and content

8. Determine the desired action for conversion

9. Design optimized landing pages

10. Set up a means of tracking

Caroline Cox

Questions or comments? Join the conversation here!

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