Writing for a landing page can mean the difference between success or failure of your offer. There is a skill in creating something that draws your reader in and impels someone to take action.
A landing page, in its simplest terms, is the first page someone reaches on your website. However, it has come to mean so much more in digital marketing.
Instead, a landing page is one that is highly optimized to reach a targeted set of people and get them to convert on a goal – most likely, becoming a lead or making a purchase. These pages have very different goals to other pages on your site such as a blog, and so, they need a slightly different style of writing.
Just like with the rest of your website though, there are certain techniques that can help you get the most out of your landing pages, and we’re going to share nine of the most important with you today.
Secret 1. Grab People’s Attention
People’s time is precious, so you’ve got to work hard to grab their attention. Everyone reads your headline, but if it doesn’t appeal to people that might be as far as they get.
Your headline needs to draw people in and give them a reason to keep on reading. Remember that people tend to skim when they’re interacting with your website, so make sure the most visible aspects of the page (your headlines) are appealing.
Ask yourself what kinds of headlines grab your attention and replicate them with your copy.
Secret 2. Match People’s Expectations
If you bring people to your landing page based on a certain promise, then you need to follow through with it. People are going to arrive at your landing pages because they’ve clicked a link that generally has a headline and a description. If the content of your page doesn’t match what the link promises, then people will feel cheated.
As you can imagine, if people feel like they have been tricked to your page, then they’re not likely to want to sign up for anything.
You’ve got to stay on topic, and you’ve got to make sure your landing pages match the expectations people have for them.
Secret 3. Keep Your Writing Simple
When people consume content on your website they’re doing so for one of a few basic reasons – to get information, to be entertained, or to solve a problem. The easiest way for you to help people achieve these goals is to keep your writing simple.
It’s easy to get carried away when we’re writing and overcomplicate things, but it’s simplicity that sells. The best writers are able to take complex ideas and put them into simple language so that everyone can understand. If you can learn to do this by keeping your writing simple, then you’re going to find your landing pages appeal to more people.
Secret 4. Articulate Value
Make the most of this by telling the story of how your product or service is going to benefit people’s lives.
When we’re making our landing pages we can get obsessed with details – it’s got a 10” display, it has 4 engine modes, etc. However, the details in themselves don’t sell anything; it’s the idea of how those details help solve a problem for the purchaser.
The more you can articulate value by telling the story of how your product of service makes the reader’s life better, the more responses your landing pages are going to get.
Secret 5. Incorporate Social Proof
Social proof plays a huge part in people’s buying decisions. When we’re going to invest our time and money into something we want to know other people have taken this path before and that they’ve enjoyed it.
Including reviews on your landing pages is a great way to convince people of the value of your products/services, so make sure they feature prominently. Of course, an important part of this is actually collecting reviews, so you need to find ways of encouraging your customers to give you feedback.
Testimonials and reviews can make a huge difference to the effectiveness of your landing pages, so make sure you’re making use of them.
Secret 6. Limit the Number of Actions People Can Take on the Page
Your goals for a landing page are very narrow – to create leads and make sales.
You’ve got a whole website to inform people about your business, but this landing page is all about sales, so don’t give people other options. Take out the nav bars that take people to different places, and make sure your links all take people on the journey you want them to take.
Leave people with two options: become a lead, or leave the page.
Secret 7. Get Contact Details
Ultimately, you want to make sales, but you’re not always going to do this on your first contact point with a potential customer. If you can’t make the sale the first time around, then it’s important that you get people’s contact details so you can build more contact points.
When someone leaves your landing page without filling in your contact form they can be lost forever, but when they fill in the form, you’ve made the first step in building that relationship.
Contact forms should be a huge part of your landing pages, and impossible to ignore – make it as easy as possible for people to fill in their details.
Secret 8. Strong Calls to Action
If you want people to take certain actions (buy your product/ fill out a contact form), then you’ve got to lead them into this. You’re in charge with your landing page, and it’s your words, through your calls to action which guide people in the direction you want them to take.
Calls to action should be frequent, highly visible, and convincing, spurring people into taking action.
CTAs can make a big difference to your conversion rate, so it’s well worth taking the extra time to make sure you’ve got them just right.
Secret 9. A/B Test – Test, Test, and Test Some More!
If only you had a way to figure out exactly what works and what doesn’t!
Well, you do, and it’s a great way to get your landing pages working at peak performance – A/B testing. This allows you to create multiple pages, splitting your traffic between each landing page and comparing how people interact with them.
This allows you to find out which optimizations work for things like your copy, calls to action, contact forms, images – virtually any aspect of your page.
Takeaways
Your landing pages are a key part of your online efforts, but not all are created equal. When you write the perfect landing page, and really make sure it is optimized to its fullest, then you’re going to find you start creating leads. However, if your pages aren’t focused and don’t encourage people in the right direction, then you will find they just don’t have the same effect.
It might only take small changes, but the right copy can make all the difference, and you can start to see leads coming in where once there were crickets. At Word Glue Marketing, we specialise in helping you get the most out of the written word, and we’re always here to help ensure your landing pages are converting at a high level.
Speak to us today, and we can help build the strategy that’s going to make your landing pages pop.
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