A landing page, lead capture page, or squeeze page, is a single page on a website with one goal in mind: to capture the contact information of visitors for future correspondence, usually through an “opt-in” form. The goal of a landing page is to get a prospect to take a desired action like signing up for your email list, purchasing a product, liking you on Facebook, signing up for your services, or coming into your store. It functions as a virtual “funnel” to move large numbers of potential and current customers into your database.
Landing pages are not a replacement for your company website, but are a great addition to your current business website, and a virtual necessity in an email marketing campaign.
Some specific ways that landing pages are used:
- Send traffic from your pay-per-click (PPC) campaign to a specific landing page on your website. This allows the ability to test the effectiveness of both the PPC keywords used and the landing page content. Multiple landing pages should be customized to correspond with the different keyword phrases the searchers used to find your business.
- Send traffic from a link in your email campaign to a landing page designed to prompt further action like a purchase or appointment with you.
- Send traffic from a blog post or sidebar link on your website to a landing page that prompts further action, such as an email list signup or Twitter follow.
A lead capture page is a great opportunity to capture potential customers contact information, then send them relevant content that will convert them into a regular customer. The effectiveness of any landing page is determined by the percentage of traffic to opt-ins received.
Every landing page (and website for that matter) must have three things in order to effectively convert:
1. Relevance
2. Value
3. Call to Action
Some additional considerations are:
- Simple and Clean– Over design and cluttered content are all characteristics of a low-converting landing page. A simple design and clear, concise message appeals to prospects without overwhelming them and creates the highest conversion rates.
- Relevant Message– Many solid marketing campaigns get derailed at the landing page when the information there is not what the visitors are looking for. An important factor of a high converting squeeze page is relevant, engaging content that is valuable to your site visitors.
- Value– If the information provided on your landing page isn’t valuable to the person reading, watching, or listening to it, then it won’t be effective.
- Compelling Offer– The copy on your page must be enticing and compelling in order for the visitor to take the desired action.
- Call to Action– The best ad campaign and relevant landing pages are useless unless they create an action in your potential clients. A clear, direct call to action is the most important aspect of any landing page. You should the test color, placement, size and text of the calls to action throughout your page for the highest conversion rates.
- Tracking and Analysis– Keeping accurate records of lead capture pages helps design future campaigns and adjust for higher conversion rates. Tracking of all campaigns to continually create higher conversions is of utmost importance.
If your website is built using the Genesis framework, it most likely comes with a landing page template built in. However, if it’s not built on Genesis or if you want a few more design options, Lead Pages is one of the best tools currently available to build out a high converting landing page.
Are you using landing pages to improve your website conversion rates?
