What is a Landing Page? Everything You Need to Know

A landing page is a standalone web page, created specifically for the purposes of a marketing or advertising campaign. It’s where a visitor “lands” when they have clicked on a Google AdWords ad or similar.

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Unlike other pages in your website, landing pages don’t have global navigation. They don’t link to your primary navigation. In fact, the whole point of a landing page is to limit choices so that visitors are encouraged to follow through with your primary call-to-action without getting distracted by other links that might take them off track.

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Not every landing page needs to be a standalone webpage

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A landing page does not need to be a standalone webpage. It can be a page on your website as long as you are driving traffic there for a specific purpose.

The only difference is that you want to make sure the traffic you drive to any given page is being driven with a particular intent in mind, since this will help visitors find the information they’re looking for quickly and easily, which increases the chances of them converting.

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A landing page needs to be more than just informational

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Your landing page needs to be focused on more than just providing information; its main purpose is to convert visitors into buyers. To do that, you need to set up your landing page with these goals in mind:

• *Clear call-to-action (CTA)* Visitors should know exactly what they need to do next and how it will benefit them.

• *Compelling content.* The content on your landing page has to convince a visitor that clicking through is worth their time.

• *Lead capture.* Once you have a lead, you need a way to keep in touch with them and nurture their interest over time. This may be through an email newsletter subscription or some other means.

• *Conversion optimization.* You can't improve what you don't measure, so track important metrics like click-through rates (CTR) and conversion rates so that you can tweak your content and design over time for better results.

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Make sure your landing page copy is woven around your sales pitch

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The most important thing is to ensure your landing page is woven around your sales pitch or call-to-action. In order to create a great landing page, you need to understand your sales pitch and the psychology behind it.

Make sure your message is clear and consistent. You have one goal for this page, so make it as easy as possible for visitors to grasp what they're there for and take action. First impressions are crucial when it comes to conversions on the web, so make that first impression count.

Don't neglect user experience by making copy too small, hard-to-read or visually distracting just because you want something eye-catching on the page. Visitors should be able to read the text with ease and scan through easily if they choose not to read it all right away—and they should feel compelled to do so in order to find out more.

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Put the most important elements at the top of your landing page

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As a rule, the most important elements on your landing page should be right at the top. Why? Because that's where most people will look first.

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To see what I mean, consider this: can you remember the last time you scrolled down in a webpage? Yes, it's happened—but if it weren't for journalists like me forcing you to scroll down to read an entire article, would you have done it willingly? Probably not. That's because scrolling through a page is inconvenient and tiresome; users don't like doing it unless they really have to. And if they're skimming through your content quickly, they probably won't even notice anything that isn't at the top of the page.

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So how do you know what goes at the top of your landing page? Well, think about what really matters—what are the points on your landing page that have got to get across no matter what? Put those elements right at the top of your website and make sure they're above "the fold," which is when a user has to scroll down on their device in order to view more content (see image below).

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Feature testimonials on your landing page

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Testimonials allow users to see that other people have used your product or service and found it valuable. They build trust between your company and website visitors by showing that you’re willing to share honest feedback about your business.

When a potential customer reads a testimonial, they might think, “If this person had a good experience with the product, then I will too.” Testimonials are one of the most effective ways to build trust with prospective buyers and encourage them to convert into paying customers.

To make sure these elements are playing their role in your landing page promotions as well as possible, you should:

• Source testimonials from real people who make the user feel like they could be friends or neighbors.

• Write testimonials that look authentic (no one likes reading a sales pitch).

• Display testimonials prominently on the page using bold typography and imagery.

• Place a call to action at the end of every testimonial so that users know what to do next if they want more information about the product or service

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Be conscious of how you organize your landing page content

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Rinse and repeat for each landing page. This is what a properly organized landing page looks like:

Here's how the unorganized version of our landing page looked, with way too much content clogging up the page:

As you can see, there are no bullets or subheads to help guide your readers through the content. There's nothing separating one section from another, which makes it difficult for your potential customers to judge if they should stick around and read more. And this is all before we even mention how busy and difficult it was to navigate!

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Keep track of performance with analytics

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As you start to receive traffic to your landing page and collect leads, it's important to keep track of the performance of your page. Tracking information on how often people visit the page and what they do when they get there can help you make changes that lead to a better conversion rate.

There are a number of marketing analytics tools that integrate well with HubSpot, making this process much simpler. Here are some of the metrics you should be tracking:

• Where are your visitors coming from? Using UTM codes on links will tell you where your visitors were when they clicked through to your landing page.

• What pages do visitors view before or after the landing page? Analytics tools give you insight into which other pages customers interacted with before or after viewing the landing page. Knowing this information can help guide future content creation and optimization efforts.

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It's a wrap

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Landing pages are most effective when they're built around a strong, clear sales pitch and unique, engaging features. They are used to promote a product and encourage visitors to take action. They include the necessary information for people to become familiar with your brand, evaluate its value and make a purchase decision. You can use a landing page as part of a lead generation campaign or as an effective way to drive users into a sales funnel.

It's crucial to get this right if you want more conversions because almost half of all businesses in the world don't have any landing page optimization strategy at all!

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