However there is often one key component of the buyer’s journey that is very important but often gets overlooked – a well constructed landing page.
Unless your website is purely promoting a single service or product, your homepage is not and should never be used as your landing page. You can easily lose your lead because they won’t go hunting for products or services once they get to your homepage.
People are time poor and seek convenience every step of the way, so will quickly get fed up and go to the next best thing – which could easily be your competitor’s fully functioning, easy to navigate landing page that delivers what they are searching for.
Think of the landing page as your last chance to ensure all the hard work you’ve put into your paid advertising campaign pays off. Your leads have run the race, now all you need to do is get them to cross the finish line.
To ensure your leads make it there, here are our top five steps that will get you started on executing a high converting landing page:
1. Keep it focused and free of distractions
Even when businesses do the right thing by creating a landing page they often include too much content or information that can steer potential customers in the wrong direction. To make sure your leads do what you want them to, make your landing page free of distractions and exclude the following:
- Your main navigation bar
- Unnecessary menu items situated in the borders/footer
- Non-product/service related copy
- Focus on the product/service and inspire your prospect to convert
2. Be product/service or topic specific, don’t talk about your whole business.
Even though it seems tempting to share all of your business offering on the landing page, save it for the rest of your website. A landing page is your platform to showcase the specific product/service you are selling, its benefits and the value it brings to make their decision process easier.
3. Tailor the copy for the audience targeted in your advertising campaign
Look over your campaign one more time – who exactly are you targeting? The copy on your website usually targets your wider audience to ensure you capture everyone looking for the various services or products you might offer. However the landing page for your campaign shouldn’t target the masses, it’s time to get specific. Understand and speak directly to the audience segment you are targeting in the campaign for that product/service. Writing tailored copy that emotionally engages them, resonates with their personal needs and desires, or solves a problem they might have will spur them into action and lead to sales, sales and more sales.
4. Include simple and un-intrusive process for customers to convert
So you’ve got your non distracting landing page sorted, as well as the impactful and tailored copy written. But then you go into a 50 question form asking them for everything from their hair colour to their first car. Boring! And “ain’t nobody got time for that!”.
Keep it short, sweet, and most of all relevant – name, number, delivery address and/or email address for example, only what is absolutely necessary to complete the purchase and enable follow up.
The checkout process should be seamless, so your customer can easily see the product/service, price and other relevant information such as size or what is included. This is leading them to a purchase where every step flows quickly and easily. The inclusion of convenient payment options such as Paypal at checkout helps speed things up and might make the customer feel more secure if purchasing with you for the first time. When designing this part of the landing page, think of an extremely distracted child – you don’t have their attention for very long, so make the little time you have effective.
5. End your user journey with intention
Once your lead makes the purchase they convert into a customer, well done! But don’t let all the hard work you’ve put in end there. To get them to stay just a little longer, include links to any relevant product or services that might complement their purchase or the full website menu so they can explore more.
Now it’s over to you, get started on these key steps if you want to stop losing your leads. Happy converting!