Digital Doctor: 5 fundamentals of a landing page

In online marketing the landing page is the web page that a visitor arrives, or lands, on as a result of clicking a search engine optimised search result or online advertisement. Done correctly it can make you money in your sleep, but landing pages are a tricky thing to get right. Wondering why your clicks aren’t converting? On average you have less than 5 seconds to grab your visitor’s attention and tell them why your product or service is great and worth buying. We’ve put together the 5 fundamentals for a successful money making landing page.

1. Create an attention grabbing headline; a headline is where everything begins. It should be eye catching, short and use actionable and positive wording. When a potential customer lands on your page the first that they ask themselves is, does this site have the answer to my problem? You’re headline should give them that answer straight away, they won’t scroll through endless amounts of text to see if you’re worth investing their money in. The headline should be backed up with a persuasive sub headline, usually positioned directly under the main headline. These two items are possibly the difference in conversion or not, use them wisely.
2. The brain processes pictures 60,000 times faster than text; a user will be affected by the images on your landing page immediately. Images should be large, and meaningful to your product or service. Use high quality images, and steer away from the generic images of business men in suits shaking hands, keep it appropriate and consistent to the theme of your landing page.
3. If visitors stay on your page for more than 5 seconds, chances are they’re interested in your product. You’ve grabbed their attention, now it’s time to convert them. Your body copy should be compelling, not too wordy and go into more depth about your product/ service. Consider the use of bullet points to quickly show key points and factors, also think about the font and size of font you choose, if they can’t see it, they won’t read it. Use trusty testimonials from your relevant target audience to cultivate your visitors trust.
4. The most persuasive landing pages have a method of contact, a contact form works really well and if filled out can generate significant leads. The trick is to keep contact forms short and sweet, the more fields you enter the less chance you have of them being filled out. A name and email address is fine, but asking for a phone number and date of birth decreases your chance by up to 50% of your form being filled out.
5. Above all your landing page should be easy to navigate and minimalistic. A good landing page provides all the necessary information but nothing extra. It’s understandable that you want to get everything about your business across, but the truth is too much information can overwhelm visitors and send them elsewhere.

A landing page is an integral part of paid search and where all your efforts come to fruition. Make those first 5 seconds count and make sure you ‘reconverting those clicks into paying customers. There are hundreds of businesses out there trying to do the same thing as you, and what’s stopping them from clicking the back button and going elsewhere? Implement these 5 basic rules and you will be well on your way to generating more paying customers.