Your Guide to Creating Effective Website Landing Pages

by | Last updated Mar 19, 2024 | Digital Marketing

A landing page that’s created to generate leads, boost SEO, or convert customers isn’t like any old page on your website. There’s more strategy needed when creating landing pages with specific goals. It starts with knowing what kind of webpage you need, then determining what tactics you’ll use to achieve those goals. Below, we walk you through everything you need to know about creating high-quality, effective landing pages on your website.

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Types of Landing Pages

There are three main types of landing page structures: lead generation pages, click-through landing pages, and pillar pages. Which is best for achieving your digital marketing goals?

Lead Generation

Lead generation landing pages—also known as lead gen or lead capture pages—collect user data like name, email address, phone number, job title, and other personal details that can be useful for nurturing leads, building out customer profiles, paid ad target demographics, and more. Site visitors often provide information through a lead capture form to receive offers like discount codes, free downloads, or entries into sweepstakes.

Click-Through Campaign

Click-through landing pages are often used in conversion-focused digital marketing campaigns. The goal is to get a customer to click through a website link, land on the webpage, and take action—like signing up for a free trial, contacting a business for services, or making a purchase. These landing pages are an effective marketing tool because they combine education and sales on one page, informing customers of why they need something before directing them to convert.

Pillar

Pillar pages are information hubs that connect topic clusters on your website. These pages can attract visitors to your site and educate them on various topics, such as the services your business provides and why those services are beneficial. Unlike lead gen and click-through campaign pages, this landing page strategy relies on content marketing and organic SEO strategies to drive website traffic and push visitors further down the sales funnel toward conversion.

Best Practices for Landing Pages

From using keywords strategically on the page to keeping design elements simple, there are several best practices you should follow when building landing pages.

Follow Index vs. No Index Guidelines

Depending on the type of landing page you use, you may want your page to be set to no index. For click-through campaign pages, for example, you’re acquiring customers through paid efforts, so you don’t need search engines to index them. On the other hand, pillar pages are intended to drive traffic through organic search engine results, so you want them to be indexed by search engines.

Focus on Simple Page Design

Landing page design needs to be mobile-friendly, easy to navigate, and uncluttered so that site visitors aren’t distracted from the page’s objective. Through content structure, calls to action, and other visual cues, the design should tell users exactly what to do and where to go on the page. You should also consider placing your most important information or action items above the fold so that visitors don’t have to scroll far to find what they need. One way you can gauge the effectiveness and simplicity of your landing page design is with a blink test.

Craft Concise & Compelling Copy

You have eight seconds to capture the attention of your audience when they land on your webpage, which means you need to communicate effectively in a short amount of time. Regardless of where it is on the page, copy should be engaging, informative, and demonstrate your value all at once. Additionally, webpage copy should serve your larger marketing goals. For example, with a paid campaign landing page where the intent is converting customers, you’ll want to use persuasive calls to action like “Buy Now” or “Get a Free Quote Today” that trigger urgency.

Use Strategic Keywords

A strong keyword strategy is vital for landing pages where driving organic search traffic is the goal. Conduct keyword research to identify phrases relevant to the page content, then implement those keywords within landing page copy to help search engines crawl, index, and rank your content. This can help your landing pages appear in search engine results pages (SERPs), where your target audience or customers will be able to discover them. Remember to include a variety of keyword types, especially long-tail keywords and user intent phrases.

Include Engaging Media

If you need site visitors to stay on your landing page long enough to complete an action, such as filling out a form, scheduling an appointment, or making a purchase, you’ll want to add visual elements that keep them engaged. On-page media like photos, videos, and infographics can capture attention and communicate what you offer much faster than text. In fact, embedded videos can increase conversions by 86%.

Offer Examples of Social Proof

With lead generation and campaign landing pages, you might consider adding social proof examples for site visitors. Social proof shows credibility and can help customers feel more secure in taking action with your brand. 95% of customers read reviews before making purchasing decisions, so having customer reviews, testimonials, or user generated content on your landing page can further demonstrate value and trustworthiness—and even drive more conversions.

Make Minimal Lead Capture Forms

75% of Americans are concerned about privacy online, and that concern can make it more difficult for you to get customers to convert on your landing page. If a lead capture form asks for too much personal information, site visitors may be less likely to fill it out because they’re concerned about sharing data. When creating a lead gen page, keep your forms simple by only asking for the data you need right now. And if you’re collecting data beyond a name and email address, be transparent about what you’re collecting and why. For example, if you ask for a birth date, you might explain that it’s because your company sends free gifts on birthdays.

Segment Your Audience

Particularly for paid campaigns where you’re targeting different audience demographics, it’s a good idea to use audience segmentation when building out landing pages. This allows you to create personalized landing pages with design, copy, and media catered to a specific audience’s interests so that it better resonates with them, which can ultimately lead to more conversions.

Utilize A/B Testing

A/B testing can be useful when determining the effectiveness of your landing pages, especially if you’re using audience segmentation. When using A/B testing for paid search campaigns, change one element of your landing page at a time—whether that’s headline copy or the color of your CTA buttons. Split testing like this can be helpful for answering questions like “Is my copy resonating with customers?” or “Is my CTA on-page placement optimized for clicks?”

Need to develop a landing page for your brand? Hurrdat Marketing offers content marketing, web design, and SEO services that can help. Contact us today to learn more!

Megan Schneider

Author

Megan is a Content Strategist at Hurrdat, where she helps write content for local and national clients. Projects Megan has worked on include paid landing pages, website copy, optimized pillar pages, and blog work. Through her work, Megan conducts competitive analyses, title tag and meta data optimization, and search-engine-optimized keyword research. Megan began her writing career as an Online Reporter at the University of Nebraska-Omaha’s student newspaper, The Gateway.

Megan lives in Omaha, NE, graduated from the University of Nebraska-Omaha with a major in Journalism, and enjoys creating content for her fashion blog, spending time with family, and watching reality TV shows.

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