Dos and don'ts of designing a landing page
In any online advertising campaign, the landing page is one of the most important things to take care of. It is the first page a user gets to after clicking on your ad, and there is a great need to capture the visitor's mind here. It should do just one job and do it right. Convert its readers into action takers.
Equal attention given during the planning of your ads should be given to the landing page or even more. In this write-up, we have listed some of the Do’s and Don’ts that you should note while creating your landing page to help make your campaign successful.
The Dos:
1. Professional looking page
Humans are naturally visual creatures and are attracted to great designs. After you must have captured the minds of your audience with a compelling ad, enhance their visual experience by bringing them to a professionally designed landing page. Hiring the services of a web designer will be great.
2. Consistency
In your design, there is the need for you to be consistent with your ads. Make sure that the visual design in the two aspects syncs together. This implies the use of same colour theme or template for the design. Your landing page has to provide more information to what is displayed in the ads. Continuous visual experience being given to your visitors with consistent messages usually leads to high conversion.
3. Stick to the point
The most likely event is that majority of those who clicked your ads are new customers. You should try to avoid forcing down the background, services and products of the company to them all at once. Stay on track with the original message that your ad promotes. You also have to be clear and concise in a not too lengthy page. This is even true for returning customers as well. You should avoid any unnecessary details that will make your new customers lose interest.
4. Converse in your target audience’s language
Ensure that all the words on your landing page are relevant to your target audience. The need for a target audience cannot be overemphasised as your campaign is bound to fail if it doesn’t even have one. It is essential for you to know and understand who your target audience is, and what makes them take action. You have to show that the content is indeed relevant to them by addressing their needs. By doing this, your visitors will be more engaged, and there will be more chances of conversion.
5. Call to action
Getting your visitors to visit the landing page and clicking the ad is already a signal of interest. Once they get to the landing page, you sure don’t want them to bounce right off the moment they get here.
Click here to know the best practices of call to action button design.
Try to treat your landing page as your last chance to close the deal. Unlike face-to-face marketing, your interaction with them is very much limited. In fact, the landing page is your only hope of converting the visitor. You should not only present them with a visually appealing page but one that can address their problems and make them take actions. Always ask your site visitors to take actions, whether by filing a form, purchasing a product/services or signing up for a newsletter.
The Don’ts
1. Don’t sell to everyone
Never try to fall for the temptation of squeezing all of your product offers in a single landing page. If there is some variety in your demographics, then it is much advisable that you customise your landing page for the different categories. Try to invest in creating various landing pages for each of your target market out there.
2. Never consider using your home page
Don’t fall for the temptation of just directing your new visitors to your homepage. Doing this will either chase them off, or they will never convert. Most people clicked on an ad only to find a solution to their problem, and here they are on your homepage. They might easily get turned off because they were expecting a page where their problems will finally be solved. They will most likely close your website and look for other things on the web.
3. Don’t be gimmicky
Consumers today are very discerning as they know they can get access to almost any content that they need on the web. Therefore it is a very big turn off to have your landing page give itself off as being “scammy.” Always create a landing page that is straightforward and filled with verifiable facts.
4. Limit your requests
Don’t try to request for too much information from the visitor. Imagine offering a free eBook download and seeking for SSN (Social Security Number) from the visitors. This will surely scare most people away.
5. Don’t forget to track and test
Don’t forget to make use of theintegration of tracking code on your landing page to ensure that enough data on the behaviour of the visitors are gathered. With this result, your marketing efforts can be improved and worked upon for better results. Also, those with an already optimised landing page should as well test various elements on the page to see what can be improved for even better conversion rates.
Conclusion
The landing page of any campaign is very crucial to its success in the PPC marketing campaigns. Its main duty is to turn and convert site visitors into paying customers.
Thirumalesh Prasad C G (Thiru) is an entrepreneur, Founder, and CEO of Inboundsys. He has over 22 years of experience working for various multinational IT products and services companies in India and abroad. He was a significant member and worked as a user interface architect, designing the user interface for many web applications and products. In addition to running Inboundsys, he is an advisory board member in various other design studios and digital marketing agencies. He is a passionate blogger who loves writing on digital marketing, inbound marketing, lifestyle, philosophy, positive thinking, and motivation.