In the current pandemic all of us need to develop new ways to sell online. The best way to highlight your services or products online is with landing pages. We’ve all clicked through an interesting ad on Facebook looking for more information only to find yourself on a lame landing page that you abandoned it because it was poorly done, offered an outrageous result, had too little information or a confusing call to action. I don’t want you to represent your brand this way. If you need sales right now, pay close attention. I’m going to break down 15 Ways to Create Highly Effective Landing Pages.

1. Determine Your Conversion Goals. The first step for any great landing page is to determine your goals. What are you trying to do? Build a list? Sell subscriptions? Build your sign-ups for your newsletter? Build an audience for an ebook? Build a survey audience? It’s important to define conversions goals before you get started.
2. Check Out the Competition. Success leaves clues everywhere. Pick out three business brands that target the same audience as you. Review their website, landing pages, and special offers. Notice how they are positioning themselves? How can you duplicate their success? If your competitors are doing something that works, you should do it too.
3. Determine Your Audience? Who is your target customer? What are they struggling with?  What are their hopes, dreams, and aspirations? The better you understand your audience, the more you can position yourself as their best solution. Focus on their wants and needs so that your copy can demonstrate empathy with your audience.
4. How Will Your Prospect Find Your Landing Page? It might be beneficial to change your message depending on where your visitors come from – a different message might be appropriate for users who arrived at your landing page coming from a Facebook Ad vs. a Webinar. Ideally, you want to tailor your landing page content for each group. Start with one custom landing page first, and then add others once there are more resources. The personalization will build trust that much faster.

Strong landing pages are focused, relevant, and persuasive. These 6 elements must be included to have a strong landing page:

1. Headline: Your headline is your campaign proposition. Your headline should explain your page offer. It should capture attention.
2. Sub-headline: This copy supports the headline and gives more details. It should include your powerful unique proposition.
3. Relevant Image: This is the main image on your landing page. It should be doing much of the heavy lifting for you. It should show your product or some in action using your product.
4. Sales Copy: Benefit copy speaks to the problem. Features discuss how you fix the problem. Focus heavily on benefit language. Don’t use more than 3 key benefits per landing page. And avoid undifferentiated benefits like “save time and money.” EVERYBODY SAYS THAT, so it means nothing.
5. Social Proof: Testimonials are evidence of success from others. It reduces fear and allows people new to your brand to see how you have helped others.
6. Button Copy: The best button copy is Click here, Download Now, Get Started, Get My Guide. Don’t forget to change the color or shape of your button and draw attention to it.

5. Have an Irresistible Offer. The easiest way to get conversions is to have an offer that is awesome. Don’t try to trick people into converting. This doesn’t work. Make your offer enticing enough to get users to download or buy. If you know your customers well, you’ll offer them something they actually want or need. Breakdown why your offer is their best option, you’ll get adopters and referrals.
6. Create Compelling Headlines. Most good landing pages use the main headline to confirm the offer and use a subheading to explain the value proposition. An example might be, “Free Facebook Ads E-book” (headline), “Learn how to get create compelling Facebook Ads that convert from our online sales experts” (subheading). There’s also a strategy to invert this concept and use the value proposition as the headline. It’s doesn’t matter, it must be engaging copy. Try hypnotic words to entice visitors to engage. Using the word “you” to make your copy feel more personal. The word “imagine” encourages readers to visualize what their life would be like using your product. The word “because” explains to visitors why they should take action. Always make your copy customer-focused. Everyone only cares about what’s in it for them. Don’t talk too much about yourself. Visitors really don’t care. They’re only looking for a solution. Just tell them how you can improve their life.
7. Have a Clear Calls to Action. Calls to Action can be present in the headline text as well as the button text. You need to tell your visitors exactly what you want them to do in big, bold colorful text. (for example: “Get Started Today,” “Buy Now” or “Download Your Free Marketing Guide.”) Avoid copy like “See Plans” or “Get Pricing.”
8. Keep Your Content Tight. You’ve heard the saying, “Show just enough leg to keep ‘em interested, but don’t show everything.” The same is true for your content. Use benefit language. An ebook is an introduction to your brand and thought leadership, don’t overwhelm people with too much information. Leave some stuff to talk about in your nurture campaigns once you get them signed up on your list. You should create excellent content, but keep it brief. Copy that teaches someone something will always inspire trust.
9. Have an Appealing Design. There are a lot of drag and drop landing page templates out there, but it’s important for a landing page to be visually appealing and well designed. Good design can draw people into reading what you are trying to share. You want to answer all questions and make sure all necessary information is provided. You do not want any in your conversion. If at all possible, visitors should be able to convert in one click.
10. Lead Visitors Down a Specific Pathway. Great landing pages control the flow of the reader’s journey. It’s important to limit exit points such as hyperlinks that would allow someone to leave your page. If links could cause a visitor not to complete your Call to Action (CTA), they should be used sparingly or not at all.
11. Remove All Distractions. Watch your Call to Action ratio or the number of things a visitor can do versus what you want them to do. Your goal should be 1:1. Also, remove all navigation from your landing page to get higher conversion rates.
12. Make it Easy to Convert. It’s important to make it as easy for visitors to convert into a prospect with as little friction as possible between points A and B. The next step should always be obvious. This strategy varies depending on what your desired conversion is. If it’s form submissions, make that form a piece of irresistible eye candy. If it’s downloaded, make a button that is begging to be clicked.
13. Add Compelling Testimonials. Nothing is better to sell your offer than a testimonial from satisfied client who got amazing results. Video testimonials are highly effective, but at least get a headshot to place beside the quote from your happy customer aka brand ambassador.
14. Add Social Proof. You need social proof in addition to testimonials. It demonstrates why are you the person they should be listening to for advice. How big is your social footprint? My content reaches 3 million readers a week, some would say that is compelling. Who has recognized you as an expert? List how many people bought your solution. How many years have you been in business? Have you been featured in the media with your product or service?
15. Keep the Opt-in Form Short. Only ask for minimal information on the main opt-in form. The more fields you ask visitors to fill out in your form, the less chance you have of them completing your CTA. If your conversion requires a form, get the bare minimum of first name and email – and ask for more contact info on the thank-you page. Most people don’t have a problem providing their name and email address, asking for info about phone numbers and annual revenue can significantly increase your drop off rate. The rule of thumb is not to include more than seven fields in your lead gen form.

How to Take Advantage of Your Thank You Page

1. Ask for Referrals: Generating new business is an on-going challenge for many online marketers. Nothing is better than a warm referral. Ask your new prospect to share your offer with others in their network. Make it easy for them, prepare a one-click email they can send. You can even offer a giveaway to bribe to get them to do it.
2. Ask for Social Shares: Ask your new prospect to share your offer with their network on social media too.
3. Link to Your Most Popular Content: Your thank you page is a great way to introduce someone to your brand. Look at your analytics and select three blog articles or podcasts that are relevant to your target audience and the content they just downloaded as another way to introduce yourself an add value.
4. Offer a Discount: They took a chance by downloading your offer, give them something for it like a significant discount. Here’s a hint: Start with at least a 15% offer.
5. Qualify Your Leads: Add a survey to your thank you page to clarify the quality of the person who has engaged with your content. Ask what you need to know, but don’t go over 8 questions. The more friction you add to the process the harder to capture the lead. You need to make a decision about quantity vs. quality.
6. Upsell a Product or Service: But wait there’s more, yeah it really works. If your lead has already made a purchase, add an upsell offer at a discount rate to generate even more revenue with the transaction.
7. Encourage Engagement: We all have a need to connect. Invite them to join your online community. Do you have an active Facebook Page, Private Facebook Group or a LinkedIn Group? If you do, ask your prospects to “Like” your Facebook page and/or your accountability group and invite them to introduce yourself.  Only do this if you have a way to welcome your prospects to engage with other readers.

The people who are coming to your landing page are grazing for solutions. In order for your landing page to be the thing that makes them feel like you are the answer, you need to do a few simple things. Make your page easily scannable. Your main point must be in your headline Using your subheading to reinforce or explain your value proposition. Use bullet points to share the benefits. Feature great artwork and use various fonts and colors to drive your visitor to take action. I know this sounds like a lot of work, don’t forget this just step one to get your web visitor engaged with your brand. Now that there in your sales funnel, you’ll also need to develop a nurture sequence of emails to follow-up to get them even more engaged with your brand and buy. I’ll post more on that soon.

Examples of Landing Page

Example #1

Example #2

Example #3