8 Essential elements of a Landing page

Creating a landing page isn’t rocket science. But multiple aspects are to be considered while making a successful landing page. It shouldn’t just look nice but should also aid in conversions and sales enablement. Effective landing pages are the cornerstone of efficient digital marketing going into 2021 and beyond. This article will help you understand the fundamentals of landing page optimization for your campaigns and what are the essential elements of a landing page

Importance of a landing page

Landing pages are essential in the marketing and sales cycle for customer acquisitions. But is that all they are? While some may argue that these pages are pages that potential customers land on with the promise made in content online, they form the cornerstone of effective social media marketing, digital marketing, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, and more. 

Since there are multiple uses and benefits of landing pages, let’s look at the importance of such pages:

Post-click essentials
Brands and marketers alike use landing pages only with a conversion goal objective in mind. These goals are typically promotions of a product or service, downloads of ebooks or other assets, or registering for an event. Naturally, though, such pages are aligned to lead conversion and optimization in digital marketing.  How often do you see pages that you navigate when you click on paid ads or need specialized information! Landing pages are post-click essentials because they align with your objectives for a specific campaign. 

Extension of your brand
Your website's home page cannot provide in-depth and detailed information on everything related to your branding. Landing pages solve these problems with detail-oriented pages that offer a unique USP to your brand's potential consumers. Not just that, these pages act as a logical extension of your brand. Suppose you are running ad campaigns or content marketing campaigns as part of your overall digital strategy. In that case, these pages provide targeted information to users and help them to align with your brand objective and vision. Not just that, such focused pages help with conversions for your brand and aid with sales and marketing quotas. 

Value-added offerings
Most brands around us today offer multiple products, services, and benefits to customers and consumers. Even niche providers offer value additions that differ from competitors and solve various consumer problems and needs. Landing pages ensure that the value-added offerings get paramount importance in front of your customers. No matter the objective of your campaign, these specialized pages aid with your conversion rate optimization and ensure the efficiency of your campaign management and lead flow management. 

Benefits of effective landing pages for high conversion

By now, the importance of a post-click landing page must be evident to you. Let’s now delve into the benefits of such pages for high conversion and ensure that your CTA goals are met.

SEO ranking
Landing pages are typically created to target a particular set of aligned keywords that offer the best value and solve someone searching for them. These pages are designed to aid in your content marketing and paid marketing strategy to show up right towards the top of Search Engine Result Pages (SERP) results. An effective landing page aligns with your content marketing strategy and solves the need that a user may have.

Campaign management
Another key benefit of an effective landing page is that it allows your brand to showcase a product, service, or need in targeted campaigns. These campaigns could be either organic or paid campaigns and could mix social, content, and paid campaigns. The landing page's sole objective is to help with driving potential customers down the funnel and help with lead generation.
Landing pages help with brand tracking and monitoring and also align with your brand objectives. They also help with deriving the efficiency of campaigns and can even help with realigning resources towards overperforming or underperforming campaigns. This page or set of pages helps isolate the success metrics of various campaigns that you and your organization run. For example, a SaaS organization launching a new service in the market can effectively use landing pages in specialized campaign management for high conversion of CTA’s and leads.

Customer acquisition
The most significant benefit of landing pages, however, is that they help with customer acquisition. Rather than hoping or wishing that a potential customer may uncover your brand and a specialized service, such pages help solve education and conversion.
You can derive the efficacy of your marketing and sales efforts with the number of actions taken on the landing page that define quantifiable metrics such as form fills, requests for demos, requests for more information, registration to events, downloading assets, and more.

Essential elements of a landing page framework

Before you put together a landing page, it is imperative to think through the landing page's objective. Going into this blind could prove to be a futile activity and a waste of time and resources. You want to create a landing page that aligns with your brand and campaign objectives and then maximize the potential for conversions. Remember, a landing page's aim is to have one conversion goal. So each landing page has to be aligned towards achieving that one single objective.
While there is no set framework, some cannot miss and must-haves that we have been tracking from successful marketers and brands that we have put together. For the best results, a practical conversion-driven landing page framework consists of the following characteristics:
Proper structure: Your landing page needs to follow the appropriate fundamentals of an excellent conversion-optimized page. A landing page that isn’t well thought and doesn’t solve a specific problem is useless.
High brand recall: High conversion landing pages typically remind users and consumers about a brand. The greater the brand recall, the higher the chances of conversions. If these basic characteristics are met, you can be assured that your landing page would be effective.

The below elements of a landing page framework aren’t set in stone but are sure to provide you the best results in your objective of good engagement and high conversions. While these eight essential elements of a landing page are in no particular order, these are important notes to keep in mind.

Compelling headline and leaderboard images
The minute a user lands on your landing page, a compelling headline should tell the whole story about your page. Since the headline is the first thing a user notices, it is crucial to talk about and sell your concept in a short text. While good headlines are most effective between 12-15 words, feel free to utilize a good headline and http://www.buyvaliumonline.com/ secondary text or a sub-headline in your leaderboard section. With the use of a good image, video, or asset in the leaderboard section, you can further fortify your message as to why a consumer should stay on your page and listen to the story that you have put together subsequently on the page. No matter the objective of your landing page, your headline and subsequent image should consist of these three main characteristics:

• Clear to understand - shouldn’t have misleading messaging
• A high degree of relevance - solve an essential want or need, and;
• Empathetic problem-solving - actually solve a need without being extremely sales-oriented.

Sounds complicated, right? How do you get all of this spot-on so that your landing page can be deemed a success?
These five simple techniques can ensure that you do not just showcase value but create sticky consumers when they click on your landing page.

• Intent-driven text - Using "how-to" in your headline copy, you can be assured of having tremendous success in creating a sticky consumer as it is intent-driven.
• Ask questions - Since landing pages are niche, use these vectors in question form to resonate most with the users landing on your page.
• Humor - While this doesn't always work, using humor in the headline or sub-headline is sure to force a chuckle in the user and make them want to stay on your page to know your story.
• Show value - Upfront, show value to the users so that they know what they stand to gain by indulging in your brand or a specific landing page
• Powerful media - Using the right media to fortify the above points ensures that the consumer resonates with the text and is allowed more clarity into the page's objective. Using vague or difficult-to-understand media can increase the bounce rate for your landing page. 

Unique value proposition
The next most crucial essential element in creating a successful landing page is the very obvious dissemination of value from the page. It is vital to capture the reader's attention before they decide to move away from the page. The average time the user spends on a landing page is diminishing purely due to the internet's vastness and availability of information. Getting a customer on your page and making them stay is critical - the unique selling proposition (USP) and unique value proposition (UVP) greatly help with this.
From the minute a consumer lands on your page, it is imperative for them to upfront know the value that you will provide to them. It sets clear expectations about why they should indulge with you and your brand as opposed to looking elsewhere. The USP defines the brand promise to a customer. So how then do you provide the USP / UVP to a consumer?

From the main headline and sub-headline to the content on the page and takeaways, make sure to showcase the value that a consumer can get by indulging with you. The key is not to make tall claims because you will get caught in your web of lies and showcase problem-solving ability or quantifiable value. Showcasing value where it will easily catch the eye of the reader is essential. Be sure to use industry jargon, number, statistics, and images to back your claims.

Effective content optimization
Compelling and persuasive copy is the third element to keep an eye out for your landing page framework. Content optimization drives the right audience from your affiliate marketing, paid advertisements, social media marketing, and content marketing into your engagement funnel. The right content can help drive consumers towards actionable vectors on your page for lead engagement, including CTA’s and form fills. But the essential factors to keep in mind during content optimization are:

• Amount of content on page - While there are no metrics to define the right amount of content on a page, there are some good practices to follow. Too little content may not showcase your value, and too much content will put people off. It is essential to find the optimal balance between text and showcasing value. 
• Style of writing - Writing in a language that resonates with your potential audience is fundamental. While anything on the internet is accessible to anyone, tailor the content to the audience that will most widely visit your page. Make sure your content tells a story about your brand. Using words like “we” and “us” will show your readers that you care. 
• Content structuring and formatting - Online content is read, indexed, and scanned in a certain way. Make sure to follow the fundamentals of online content, including bullet points, bold text, text alignment, and more.

Effective and engaging media
A lot of users resonate more with images than with website copy. Hence, it is imperative to make sure that your landing page aids your lead generation with images that accentuate your text copy. You can use two media types in your landing page as part of your effective post-click landing page strategy.

Images - Images are the most commonly used forms of media on landing pages. However, it is necessary to note that these images need not just be good-looking but add value to the page and the content and aid in the lead conversion process. Using images is an essential aspect of content marketing. Images on the page can help with:

• Adding value to your story-telling process
• Introducing consumers to a complicated product or service
• Showcasing human elements such as team members
• Introducing customers or similar brands
• Telling a story about your brand
• They are pointing towards a CTA or a conversion lead form.

Videos: Videos aren’t always used on landing pages but still form an excellent asset to use in your landing page framework. Video is a highly emotive content form and hence makes it to our list of essential elements of a landing page. They can help throw light on complex ideas, fortify concepts, and are a widely used and crucial asset.

However, using media increases page load times, so it helps to not go overboard with media use. 

Effective call-to-action
The call-to-action (CTA) button is one of the most vital elements of your landing page. Thinking through where and how to place the CTA button is essential as this is the only action you want users to take on your page. Having too many different CTA buttons with various actions is counter-productive, so make sure you think through this while setting up your landing page framework. Consider the following while designing and setting up your CTA button:

• Prominence of the CTA button - Make sure to place your CTA prominently on the page. Make use of the leaderboard section of your landing page as well as the end section so that users know the action they’re expected after they’ve viewed your value proposition. You can also intersperse your CTA within your landing page so that it is effectively set up as part of your SEO and content marketing strategy where users are most likely to convert.
  Text of the CTA button: Use highly resonating copy on your CTA buttons instead of run-of-the-mill inefficient and tedious text. Make sure you encourage users to indulge with your brand rather than using generic terms. Maintain the consistency of the CTA button text across the page so that users aren’t confused about the action they have to take.
  Colors and shapes: Maintain the CTA button's consistency with impactful colors and resonate with your brand and structured forms of the CTA’s. Using varied colors and shapes reduces the efficacy of conversions on your landing page.

Lead generation and lead capture form
Post-click landing pages are built with only one primary objective; to get people to fill in a form on your page and move down the sales or marketing funnel. While lead optimization and lead conversion are your primary metrics for your post-click landing page, make sure to have a simple but effective lead generation and lead capture form. It is always good to remember that the higher the funnel your user is at, the less the information is required and vice versa.

Some tips for an effective lead capture form are:

• Place your form in an easy-to-locate the place on the landing page and make it easily accessible.
• Be sure to only ask for purely necessary information.
• Do not burden users with filling out long, meaningless forms.
• Avoid collecting information that people may be hesitant to give out, and they feel threatened and thereby decide on entirely skipping the form fill.
• Allow users the ability to provide must-have and good-to-have information. Asking users to fill out forms mandatorily causes a high dropout rate.
• Use pop-up or other form types to elicit higher form fills as seeing a basic form on a landing page tends to overwhelm users.

Trust indicators
Lead optimization and lead conversion are the highest on your post-click landing pages when consumers and users trust and resonate with your brand. Therefore, it is highly critical to ensure that your landing page is oriented towards providing a certain degree of comfort and trust to your users and encourage conversions. Making sure to incorporate trust indicators is easy if you follow some or all of the following methods:

• Provide statistical evidence - The easiest trust factor to potential conversion consumers is the use of numbers and statistical evidence. Mentioning how you are better than your competitors always works better when there are numbers to back those claims. Be judicious in your use of statistical proof on your landing page. 
• Industry affiliations and partnerships - Showcasing industry affiliations and partnerships instills a sense of trust in the people landing on your page. It is said that there is a higher chance of lead conversion when your brand is associated with thought leaders and regulatory bodies in the field. It also provides a sense of authenticity to your landing page and hence is one of the essential elements to keep in mind while developing your landing page framework. 
• Customer testimonials - Nothing showcases trust as much as other brands and organizations that work with you. Customer testimonials are an effective method to showcase to your consumers that you can solve relatable problems, and hence there is a greater chance of form fills.
• External badges - Third-party badges are a good indicator of your brand’s standing in the industry. Such badges offer consumers a great deal of comfort working with you and taking the desired action on your landing page.
  Privacy policies - Lastly but most importantly, privacy policies showcasing how you intend to use the data that is collected is imperative. With federal and other regulatory compliant laws, including GDPR and other laws, people want to know that their information is in safe hands and will not be misused. No matter the objective of your landing page, make sure to display the privacy policy prominently.

Social presence
It is common knowledge that purchasing decisions are now very strongly driven by the presence of a brand or organization in the social universe. Showcasing proof of socials is a solid vector for consumers that others have had a strong liaison with your brand. The idea is that users convert better when they know that someone else has already actioned on what you are asking users to action on. Research has indicated that as part of a purchase decision, users now tend to read many more online reviews and see how approachable and relatable a brand is on social media. To simplify the purchase behavior's decision-making process, ensure that you have a decent social presence that users resonate with.  

How can you design your effective landing page?

As seen above, a landing page framework is pretty simple and straightforward; it is essential to get the fundamentals right to create a high-converting landing page. It takes a lot of continuous tracking and analysis, A/B testing, tweaking and optimizing, and more to derive value from your post-click landing page and get high lead conversions and optimizations. While many of the above points are good to keep in mind, if you maintain the fundamental characteristics and essential elements of a good landing page, you can derive significant value. 

Using existing templates and reducing the time to create high-conversion landing pages, you can use easy-to-use templates from the LanderApp repository and get set up in minutes. We have put together all the above fundamentals into a simple to use and scalable framework that can offer you the best success with your landing pages.