By definition, a landing page is any page you send direct traffic to. It can be a page on an exisiting website or the homepage of a custom url. Your landing page may be a visitors first impression and can make the difference between a good campaign or a great one. Here are 8 crucial parts of the anatomy of a landing page.
1. Branding
Make a good first impression. A well designed page can give credibility and authenticity. Your landing page is an opportunity to highlight your current brand or introduce a new one to your visitors. Your brand is not only a logo and supporting colors, but an error-free experience.
2. Attention Grabbing Headline
The headline should be the firs thing your visitors see when they hit the page. It should be clear and concise. If your selling a book, say its a book , if it’s an event, say event. What will they receive? Why is it beneficial to them. Answer these core questions quickly and up front.
3. No-Friction Choices – Lack of Navigation
Creating a friction-free experience will help with your bounce rate. The purpose of a landing page is to sell one product. Removing any other navigation keeps the visitor focused on the message at hand. The visitor landed on your page for a reason, don’t tempt them into clicking on another link.
4. Content and Value Proposition
Every element on your page can be a conversion point. Consider using a subhead below the headline to provide more information about the benefit. People, in general, scan a web page quickly before carefully reading it. Subheads and bullets break up the information and make it easy to read during the scanning process. Content and/or copy supports your message or Value Proposition. Make sure your copy supports your message of who, what, why the offer is valuable to them.
5. High Quality Image
Using a high quality image will help your page look more professional. Whether it’s a product image or stock photography, it must look as good as possible. Using an image at 72dpi at actual size prevents the image from looking blurred or pixelated. Never re-size within the code. Image size is also important. A page that takes just a little too long isn’t going to have the best conversion rate. When images are large, it’s best to use jpg format instead of png. A png can be up to 3 times the file size.
6. Lead Capture Form
The form is the main purpose of the landing page. Your goal is to get visitors to register, sign-up or purchase. Making the form (or as I like to call it, the CTA area) stand out, is important for friction-less experience. Visibility is key and should be above the fold. Make forms easy to read with good sized label and form field. Ask for only the fields that are necessary for this campaign. Having too many questions for them to fill out will decrease your conversion rate. Always use a custom submit button. Choosing contrast colors to make it stand out is best. Make it readable with space around the words.
7. Call-to-Action (CTA)
Even though you can have call-to-action verbage throughout the page, the main CTA subhead should be above the form. Anything you put above the form to make the user take action is considered the CTA. Add arrows or entice with an additional benefit.
8. Social Sharing
Getting the word out on your product or service is never a bad thing. Adding social media sharing buttons on the page helps visitors share what they like. At a basic, include buttons for sharing to Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Linkedin. Email forward is also a good way to spread your content across
more audiences. Controlling what posts about your page looks like is important to gain a positive impact. Having strange graphics or titles come up when posted can adversely affect what your trying to achieve. Make sure you have and customize your Open Graph meta tags. These are tags that Facebook and Twitter use to learn and post about your page.
9. Privacy Link
Give your visitors peace of mind with a privacy page. People these days are leary about getting spam or phone calls. Adding a privacy link at the bottom of your page will ease their anxiety. Be sure you are actually a trusted source and don’t sell or abuse customer information. This will help build your reputation for credibility among your loyal customers. Adding a short privacy link just below the form can drive this point home. In small type using phrases like “your privacy is assured” or “We’ll never sell your info” can give the user confidence at the moment of clicking.