Jon Samsel

So you need to create, design or develop a landing page that converts  visits into sales–where do you begin?

First, let’s define what a landing page is. Typically, a landing page is a web page that supports an online marketing campaign and is designed to capture leads or convert visitors into sales. Often, landing pages are separate and distinct from a main website, have unique website addresses, and allow for end-to-end campaign tracking (via unique phone numbers and/or source code tracking appended to the URL).

Typical landing page elements are:

1. Header masthead (logo, tagline, phone number)
2. Hero shot (a graphic representation of the benefit of the product or service you are selling)
3. Headline text and supporting text
4. An offer (50% off your first order, free shipping)
5. A time ticker (limited time offer with an expiration date) to create a sense of urgency
6. Calls to action (call now with a phone number, fill out this form with a form on the page, engage in live chat with a link to start a chat session)
7. Direct response elements (red arrow that directs the eye to a specific action, yellow highlighter effect that draws the eye to an offer of benefit, big bold 1-800 number, etc)
8. Customer testimonials or product reviews (to build trust and re-enforce visitor’s purchase decision)
9. Trust marks such as BBB, McAfee or VeriSign
10. Product or service comparisons

Studying your competitor’s landing pages may seem like a logical place to start, but keep in mind that other companies may have created their landing pages with entirely different goals in mind. This may not be a simple apples to apples comparison, as your goals may be different than those of competing firms. It can’t hurt to know what your competitors are doing, just don’t copy them.

Additionally, competitive landing pages you identify may not be performing very well. The visit-to-lead ratios, for example, on company Y’s landing page may be 2%, far below your target goal of 7%, so copying what others are doing in not always the smartest move.

When you are ready to start a new landing page design and development process, I recommend you start by identifying of few important elements having to do with your goals and objectives.

10 step landing page development process:

1. Identify the baseline visit-to-lead ratio you are trying to beat (ie: 3%)
2. Spell out the desired mix of lead transaction type you want (ie: 70% phone, 30% form)
3. Name the optimal product mix (ie: 50% premium brand dogfood, 30% animal toys, 20% grooming products)
4. Recognize your desired customer mix (ie: 90% repeat/existing customers, 10% once-and-gone customers)
5. List the source of the traffic to your landing page (ie: paid search, banner ads, etc)
6. Identify the time of year this landing page will be used (to gauge whether or not this could/should impact the design)
7. Name your color choices such as background, accent, fonts, images, etc (evaluate brand must-have colors vs. those colors that we know stimulate user response online and consider new combinations)
8. Form placement: Place the entire form on the page vs. a multi-part form vs. a form that is one click away (any combination of which can radically impact results)
9. Smart forms & on-site help: Certain form elements, for example, are known to impact conversions
10. Think of additional ancillary elements you may need, such as live chat, audio, flash animation, video, calculators, click to call, collapsible design elements using AJAX or the like–which are all elements that can impact landing page performance

Once each of these steps is performed, design several new landing pages, varying the tone, style and layout. Then test your new pages. Only testing with a live audience will reveal the winning landing page design. Online visitors are a funny breed. Often, the ‘best’ design perform poorly and ‘ugly’ designs yield great results. From a brand perspective, try to find a landing page that you are proud to display to the world, yet one that fulfills your sales goals.

I encourage you to consider a wildcard design now and again that breaks all the rules. This is one way to radically out-perform, or lose to your control landing page. But breakthrough landing page designs often come about by trying something different. Good luck and happy testing!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 2:20 am and is filed under Design, E-Business, Marketing, Sales, User Experience, Websites, Writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.