So you’ve read a few different articles about landing pages. You may have even put one together but are unsure every time you go to press the “publish” button. In this article, I’ll give you 15 important questions to ask yourself before creating a landing page. These questions will help you add structure to your campaign and determine when you’re ready to launch.
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1. What’s my conversion goal?
Why are you creating a landing page? What are you looking to get from it?
The conversion goal of your landing page should be something that benefits your business. More often than not, people who create landing pages are trying to generate leads. So, are you looking to make sales on a new product/service? Do you want to generate email leads for your newsletter? Get more millennial blog subscribers? The more precisely you can answer this question, the more your campaign will benefit.
2. Who is my target market?
In order for your landing page to have a solid foundation, you need to identify your ideal customer and create a landing page around their needs. You can start by taking a look at your current customers.
Make sure to be specific about your target market’s demographics. If you’re running ads around your landing page, these demographics will help you put those together as well. Here are five standard demographics about your target market you should identify:
- Gender
- Age
- Location
- Occupation
- Income level
Once you figure out who your target market is, you’ll be able to market your offer more effectively.
3. What’s my offer?
Once you define your conversion goal and your target market, you can move onto what the offer on your page is. There should always be an offer (otherwise, how does this page benefit your business?). Asking yourself your conversion goal will help you figure out what exactly you’re going to be offering. You may already know what offer will complement both your conversion goal and your target market.
For example, I work at a Software as a service (SaaS) startup. We offer online marketing software. Let’s say I’m looking to get leads for an email list so we can nurture those leads into sales down the line. My target market is realtors. What would a realtor want from a SaaS startup that would help me nurture them into a sale down the line? A resource that’s going to benefit them without selling to them (directly). Something related to how they can use online marketing to benefit their business, something like an ebook. In fact, I have created that exact resource for our business already. I created “The Successful Realtor’s Guide to Creating Killer Pre-Sale Campaigns.”
But an ebook isn’t the only kind of offer you can feature on a landing page. There are so many more options. Here is a short list of some common offers that might work well for your landing page:
- A limited-time deal
- A webinar registration
- An event registration
- An ebook download
- A free course
- A consultation service
- An email newsletter signup
- A pre-launch signup
Ultimately, there are an infinite number of offers you can feature on your landing page. Your conversion goal and target market should point you in the right direction to what both you and your potential leads are looking for.
4. Which type of landing page am I using?
Now that you know what your offer is, you’ll have to decide what type of landing page you’re going to use for it. There are generally two types of landing pages:
- Click-through landing pages
- Lead generation landing pages
Lead generation landing pages: These pages feature a form or CTA, as the main goal is to get contact information out of visitors (so that they become a lead). The form usually contains several fields and a call-to-action button.
Example of a lead generation landing page.
Click-through landing pages: These pages Warm visitors up for a sale. For example, a page that has a “learn more” or “contact us” button. This click-through landing page often leads to another page with more information about the offer.
Example of a click-through landing page.
You’ll have to figure out which works best for your offer.
If you’re offering something that doesn’t require purchase (like as a newsletter signup, a free sample or an ebook), then a lead-gen page is usually a good idea. There is also less work involved with a lead-gen landing page. If you’re offering something more complex or a larger purchase, click-through landing pages may be ideal for you. They offer you more time to warm up your potential lead for a sale.
5. What are the benefits of my offer?
When I say benefits, I’m not talking about features. Benefits tell your users what your features can accomplish for them. The more succinctly you are able to outline what your offer can do for your potential leads, the more likely people will be to convert. Generally speaking, benefits are most effective on lead-gen pages when they are outlined in 3 to 5 bullet points.
Struggling to define the benefits of your product/service? Check out this article: Benefits vs. Features: The Crucial Key to Selling Your Product.
6. What makes my offer unique?
Most likely, you’ve got some competition in your industry. That’s what Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) are for. So now that you’ve defined your offer’s benefits, you’re well on your way to figuring out what sets your offer apart from others.
Sometimes it can be tricky to pinpoint what sets your offer apart from other offers just like it. What you should focus on is what problem your offer solves, and why your business does this differently than the competition. Here are a few slogans by large businesses to get you thinking about your USP:
Visa: “It’s everywhere you want to be.”
This slogan incorporates their USP, as it tells us that no matter where we are in the world, we can rely on Visa as a form of currency. It’s convenient (almost) anywhere. This is a major selling point.
Verizon: “Can you hear me now? Good.”
Verizon is known for having service wherever you may be. This is what sets Verizon apart from other phone providers.
Geico: "15 Minutes Could Save You 15 Percent or More on Car Insurance."
This one’s pretty simple… who doesn’t love saving money and time? Win win.
7. How engaging is my headline?
Headlines need to captivate your landing page visitors so that they stay on the page. A popular study by Copyblogger suggests that while 8 out of 10 users will read your headline copy, only 2 out of 10 will read the rest of your page. A good practice is to include one of the main benefits of your offer in your headline. So once you’ve answered question five, you should be able to figure out the main selling point of your product/service.
Tip: If you’re creating online ads for your landing page, make sure the keywords in the ad are included in the headline.
8. How is the rest of my copy?
It’s important to proofread your landing page copy. Grammatical errors can convey carelessness and unprofessionalism. They have also been known to decrease conversions! It’s best if you can get another person to look over your copy, it’s normal for people to miss grammatical errors in their own copy.
9. Is my landing page utilizing relevant keywords?
This is an important question if you’re looking to have your landing pages optimized for search engines (which it’s likely you are). You can use Google’s (free) Keyword Planner to find out which words and phrases related to your industry are commonly searched by users. You then can use these words and phrases on your landing page to make it more optimized for search.
For example, let’s keep on the theme of a realtor’s online marketing ebook. I might want to see what realtors are searching for online… Google’s Keyword Planner gives you a good idea of the keywords you should use on your landing page. It’s important to exclude words that aren’t relevant to your offer, though. So if I didn’t mention anything about realtor marketing tools in my ebook, then I wouldn’t want to put the keywords, “realtor marketing tools” on my landing page.
Check out Brian Dean’s simple guide to using the keyword tool here.
10. Is my landing page easy to consume?
In order to keep your landing page traffic around for more than several seconds, you’re going to have to make your page look inviting and easy to read.
So what makes a landing page easy to read?
- Bullet points — these allow you to succinctly outline the benefits of your offer on your landing page.
- No chunky paragraphs — the reason we don’t use large paragraphs is the same reason we use bullet points to outline our offer. Paragraphs can appear daunting to read, therefore discouraging visitors from reading your landing page.
- Whitespace — Whitespace is blank space used strategically on your page to make certain areas standout.
These are just a few basic best practices to consider when designing and creating a landing page.
Check out this article for more landing page design best practices.
11. How trustworthy is my landing page?
You need to earn your landing page visitor’s trust in order for them to convert on your offer.
A great way to establish trust on your landing page visitors is through social proof. Social proof can come in many different forms. Here are 7 common types of social proof businesses use online:
- Customer Testimonials
- Reviews
- Social share buttons
- Client logos
- Number of clients
- Awards (recent)
- Security certifications
Tip: If you’re including social share buttons on your landing page, be sure to set a specific share image for it. Social shares that include images get 150% more retweets and 53% more Facebook likes.
12. Is my call-to-action (CTA) clear?
There’s nothing worse than seeing a landing page with no call-to-action. Landing pages aren’t used for brand awareness (leave that to social media). As I’ve mentioned above, landing pages should feature a singular conversion goal, a single offer. Let this startling stat drive that point home: landing pages with multiple offers get 266% fewer leads than single offer pages. Although, it is okay (and sometimes encouraged) to include multiple CTA buttons on the page that have the same offer.
Tip: Do not include a navigation bar on your landing page. This is like including several different call-to-actions on one landing page. It will only increase your bounce rate, therefore decreasing your page conversions.
13. Is my landing page optimized for mobile?
Have you ever been on a site that you seriously have issues using on your phone? You have to scroll down, zoom in, zoom out a bit, and scroll up. Ugh. I find it really irritating and sometimes you have altogether abandoned a site on your phone because it was just too irritating to use.
It turns out that a lot of mobile users agree with me — 40% have admitted to leaving a site and turning to competitor’s after a bad mobile experience. This is no different with your landing pages. The good news is that most landing page tools are mobile-optimized automatically. Make sure they’re optimized for mobile!
14. Where am I going to promote it?
Most people create landing pages for their online advertising traffic to “land” on. Most commonly landing pages are used alongside Google AdWords campaigns. Google AdWords campaigns are often the most effective way to promote an offer, but they require either a level of understanding in order to use them effectively (or someone to outsource the work to).
So how and where will you be promoting your landing page? You can always use a few different channels. Some people prefer to send them out to their email list, fans and followers, or use a different platform for ads such as Twitter or Facebook. Ultimately, it’s imperative to have a solid distribution goal for your landing page to maximize its reach.
15. How will I track the results of my campaign?
Depending on if you’re creating a landing page from scratch or using a landing page tool, the way you track the results of your campaign will vary.
But there are three key metrics that you need to be tracking for each landing page:
- Views/Visits
- Conversions
- Conversion Rate
There are a lot of other valuable metrics out there that can be tracked, but these three are always a must when it comes to the results of your campaign.
I hope these questions have prompted you to better understand the strategy behind creating a landing page that produces results.
