Though the aggression should not be directed to overwhelming the consumer but poured into being relevant and providing value.

The reason landing pages are so popular is due to the directed, focused and intentional approach to selling specific products or services versus a more general approach typically found on the homepage of a website; speaking more to your overall brand and core values with links / distractions that leads customers to other areas of the site.

Everything on your landing page is directed towards a single purpose, closing the sale or other key performance indicator.

Combining the use of landing pages with other marketing campaigns you may be engaged in such as on social networks, PPC and other inbound activities provides the opportunity to create a sales funnel that is measurable and can be adapted as you learn more about your audience.

This is with the ultimate goal of closing more sales.

Landing Page Development Tools

Although landing pages on the front-end usually seem very simple and less complex to design and develop than a complete website, there’s a lot happening to deliver a complete solution that covers analytics, testing, design and scalability.

Taking the route of designing and launching landing pages from scratch without a complete feature-set to cover all these is a huge mistake that becomes obvious as customers start interacting and you begin to demand more from the experience.

GetResponse, a leading email marketing service provider, is a company you should consider when merging your landing page implementation with not only email but other promotional activities.

Their squeeze page generator is packed with features that make customizing, testing and launching squeeze pages simple.

Here’s what they provide and how each helps:

1. Mobile-friendly, responsive landing page templates – As the world shifts towards mobile, this ensures that mobile users are receptive to your messages.
2. Built-in web forms – A major feature of your landing page needs to be capturing lead and client data to build a knowledgebase of client details, empowering you to serve them better and close sales.
3. A/B testing – It’s likely that your messages are not being delivered as you assume they would the first time and GetResponse’s testing tools allow you to track the performance of your pages against various scenarios to help you determine the best layout and delivery for your content.

The success of landing pages depend greatly on your ability to not just serve up a great product but using tools to better understand your audience, ensuring that value is perceived the right way.

Pleasing Your Audience on Mobile is Half the Battle

Interestingly, mobile devices account for 66% of all email opens in the 1st quarter of this year.

This means that users prefer the mobile experience and as devices offer more native experiences, their use will ultimately overtake that of desktops.

You’re now in an age where you should assume that every customer accessing your landing page may be doing so from a mobile device.

In addition, considering the high mobile email open rate, if your promotions are done via email then this speaks volumes as to why you need mobile-friendly squeeze pages.

Ignoring the fact mobile device use is so prevalent will lead to high bounce rates on your landing pages since they will not render clearly and provide a great viewing experience for users.

Therefore, they’ll abandon and ignore your message and you won’t convert anything.

Invest Time in Great Copy

A fundamental element of conversion centered squeeze page design is message match, which is the ability of your page to accurately reflect the messaging presented on the upstream ad or other promo content.

For example, the offer you presented in that email which leads to your landing page should be closely related to each other and provide similar value.

The majority of visitors you acquire will be impatient and will not spend time trying to decipher the reasons why your content doesn’t match its purpose; they’ll abandon your site in a matter of seconds.

Here’s an example comparison of good and bad message match on a landing page for a PPC campaign:

An example of bad message match

Ad: Get 70% off the Super Widget 500

Bad Landing page message: Welcome to Sally’s Super Widget Store

An example of good message match

Ad: Get 70% off the Super Widget 500

Good Landing page message: Get 70% off a Super Widget 500 here at Sally’s Super Widget Store

By ensuring a strong message match, you are delivering the value you promised the customer in a clear and easily understood manner; making it easy for them to click and make the final purchase.

Excellent, value-driven experiences coupled with tools to deliver relevant, credible content to your audience are part of a solid foundation for launching landing pages that convert; tweaking and testing your approach until you hit a goldmine.

It is therefore imperative to study and test it with the utmost care.

Otherwise, potential customers will not perform the action for which the page was designed.

But how do you create a landing page that can sell and make money?

In other words, you want to maximize the conversion rate of your landing page.

There is no valid prescription for every occasion.

However, it is possible to list a number of tips that are useful in most situations.

1. Create an Effective Headline

The headline is the opening slogan of your landing page.

Its purpose is to capture the attention of potential customers.

It is the most important element of the landing page and in fact it is read about five times more than the body of the offer.

The headline has a difficult task: to summarize the landing page and indicate the main benefits of the product.

In addition, it should intrigue the reader so much to push him to continue reading.

All in one or two rows to the maximum.

Not easy, is it?

Some tips on how to write an effective headline :

– use a larger body than the text of the offer;

– use a color that stands out well in the eyes of potential customers.

The headline may provide a title and a subtitle.

For example, a question such as the title and its response as the subtitle.

Another tip:

the headline should start with “How To” or “Learn how to“.

2. Write about Benefits, not Features

The center of your attention must be the needs of the potential customers, not the product you sell.

Therefore, the landing page must immediately explain what happen if someone will buy your product.

At this point, put yourself in the shoes of your clients!

In a clear and concise way, you should discuss the benefits of what you sell.

Be practical: they are the facts that speak.

Write in a simple language.

Report data and evidence to support the credibility of your product.

A landing page that lists only the characteristics of the product will never sell as a landing page that explains how the product will solve the problems of those who buy it!

3. Create a Simple and Clean Layout

On the web, you should never overdo the graphics.

Therefore, the layout of your landing page must be sober and clean.

The graphic layout  must have a single purpose: to guide the user to perform the action you want.

Often, this means that the look should be functional to fill in the contact form.

It must be consistent with the style of the message you want to propose.

Otherwise, your potential customer will be confused and ask themselves, “Am I really in the right place?”.

Finally, a landing page should be quick to load.

Because if your potential customer has to wait too much, he could decide to go away.

So be sure to reduce to a minimum the weight of your page.

4 . Insert a Clearly Visible Call to Action

Be sure to place the call to action in a clear and visible spot.

The action should be easy to complete in order to facilitate as much as possible the commercial contacts between you and the potential client.

Also, the call to action should be repeated several times in the page at regular intervals, perhaps by changing your message.

If the landing page is long, at least one call to action should be above the fold.

5 . Keep an Eye to Readability

While creating the content of your landing page, keep in mind the important rules of online writing.

The style of your communication must be adapted to target your potential customers.

It is worthwhile for you to do a little more effort and write a text that is really as simple as possible.

What to do?

Be sure to set the degree of legibility and comprehensibility of your text.

Your landing page must have content written in a perfect language.

Errors of spelling, grammar and syntax demolish your credibility in the eyes of your audience.

It drastically reduces your chances of selling.

6 . Use Media

The landing page must show the product through pictures, photographs or video.

For example, you may enter a video that shows how to use the product.

Or a catchy image.

7 . Ask an Easy and Intuitive Action

Filling out the form or purchase order of your landing page should be easy and fast.

The action must take just a few steps.

For this to happen, the form should have a few fields.

Also because people do not like to fill out any form.

The best place to put the labels of the fields is above them.

However, you should leave sufficient vertical space between a field and the other, otherwise potential customers will not understand if a label refers to the field above or the one below.

And remember to reassure potential customers how you use their data. How? Make reference to your privacy policy.

8 . Test your Landing Page

Before launching a campaign, you need to test multiple landing pages.

In fact, only trials can show what will be the one with the highest conversion rate.

Therefore, you should test, test, test!

Do you have any other suggestions in order to create the perfect landing page?

Please let me have your views in the comments below, thanks!

Image courtesy of dream designs / FreeDigitalPhotos.net