How to create an effective landing page (July 2021)

A effective landing page can really make a difference in your web marketing strategy and your business in general. With design and content geared toward conversion and usability, you will get lower advertising (PPC) costs and more conversions for your campaigns.

Landing pages are created with the goal of offering your visitor, and future customer, one thing and one thing only: What he is really looking for.

Instead of sending traffic and visits to your generic and usually not perfectly conversion-optimized website, an effective landing page is able to retain and convert your visitor because they immediately find the information, content or products they want.

Unfortunately, creating a successful landing is not easy, and the process for getting a great result is quite different from any other web marketing activity you might be used to.

The home page of sumo.com Is a perfect minimalist landing page.

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a page that unlike any other page within a website, is not contextualized in a complex structure such as a blog or e-commerce, and has only one goal: to convert the visitor, that is, to make him or her take the action for which we brought him or her exactly there.

Some examples of landing pages with conversion goals may be:

• OPTIN: have them leave their e-mail address to have them register for our newsletter.
• SALT: selling something.
• BOOKING: Have an appointment or call booked.
• SURVEY: Conduct a survey to derive useful information.
• UPSELL: Selling a product in addition to the one just purchased.
• THANK YOU: is the final page, the one the user sees after they have performed the requested action, and where they are thanked.

The concept of a landing page is developed not only for the design and purpose for which it is created, but also for its usability and immediacy.

Behind every successful landing page are numerous studies and tests ranging from the loading speed to the effectiveness of the mobile version, from the text inserted to the color palette used, to the creativity of the content.

It is quite evident that the goal of the landing page of coursera.org is to get you to join his classes for free. Find how many "Join for free" and CTAs there are.

  What is the goal of a landing page?

Like any web marketing activity you respect, your landing page must have a clear and defined goal. My advice is to avoid any type of content that is not strictly necessary or that will somehow drive away or distract the visitor.

Therefore, your landing page should not contain anything that is not conversion-oriented, you can then forget about it:

• Navigation menus outside the page.
• Links to other websites.
• Content not strictly related to the purpose of the page.
• Banners, advertisements or anything else that might take the visitor elsewhere.

So you have to be extremely specific in what you put on the page, and everything has to be extremely consistent with the visitor's expectations, and the expectations have to meet the promise you made to bring them to the page.

Let's take an example: if you publish an ad campaign that brings traffic to your landing page and it talks about "cake design," your landing page will necessarily have to ... talk about "cake design."

This observation, which may seem trivial to most, is often underestimated, and we make the serious mistake of missing the promise made (with the advertisement) by offering something different (on the landing page) from the reason our potential customer clicked.

Let's see what are the most important aspects to focus on to build effective landing pages by taking the current home page of Valerio.it And other examples of perfect landing pages.

I will explain everything, step by step, through my exact and proven 7-step procedure:

1. Create key content above the fold.
2. Pay attention to the headline and the value proposition.
3. Offer Quality graphic content.
4. Explain the content but focus on the transformation.
5. It uses a single CTA (Call To Action).
6. Include reviews, testimonials or social proof.
7. Add a guarantee, storytelling and a touch of personal branding.

The effective landing page in 7 steps.

Slack offers everything you need to know at the top of the page, without scrolling.

  Step #1: Content above the fold.

You need to think about a Landing page as effective as to a store, and to your visitor's computer screen as the ground on which to build it.

Like any good contractor you need to make the best use of the land at your disposal to take advantage of its features, and you certainly need to make sure that anyone who sees the new construction, understands at first glance what it is.

All screens, PC, laptop, tablet and mobile, have a size and viewing area; your job is to make sure that the most important things appear there, above the fold, above the fold, that is, without your visitor having to scroll down the page.

So it is critical that the headline, benefits, and call-to-action appear immediately And that the page should not be scrolled.

Make the design fit this principle, and strive to put the most important things right away, in your head.

The rest of the landing page can safely remain below.

What is it for Notion? It is explained in one line, the headline.

  Step #2: Headline and promise

If you don't immediately grab your visitor's attention with an extremely effective and explanatory headline or title, you're just wasting your time.

As many as 8 out of 10 visitors read your headline and only 2 out of 10 will read your entire landing page.

You will understand for yourself that if your headline doesn't work, you have lost from the start.

The best thing you can do then is to study something catchy, explanatory, direct and very fast.

No mincing words.

No complicated concepts.

Using an opening question-often rhetorical-is a good strategy, but always remember to add a sub-headline or subtitle to clearly answer the question.

Trustpilot uses high-impact photos and colors of the highest quality.

  Step #3: Quality graphic content.

Whether your landing page follows a minimalist or extra-bold style the important thing is that the content you include is of high quality.

Photos, diagrams, charts, info-graphics-all strictly in high resolution.

Remember that users of new devices use high-pixel density screens, such as the Apple Retina display, and low quality images become more obvious, showing only poor attention to detail on your part.

Some super useful resources in this case are Unsplash For high quality photos with free commercial license, and Vizzlo To create quality info-graphics and diagrams.

The landing page of Teamwork speak clearly: this is the software that works for you. 

  Step #4: Outline the benefits and transformation

There must be a reason why you created the landing page and someone might be interested in what you are offering, right?

Well, this is the key to everything.

Many make mistakes by writing rivers of text in the landing to explain the features of what they are offering without dwelling enough on the transformation, of what they are offering.

Let me give you some examples:

• Do you buy a piece of fitness equipment for its features or for the result you hope it will give you?
• Will you buy your next car for the accessories or for the comfort or convenience it will provide on long trips?
• Do you order a dish at a restaurant for the ingredients it contains or for the taste pleasure it will give you back?

As you see, every choice is dictated by the resolution of a problem or the need to fill a need.

Features are functional to the transformation you want to achieve through that product, they are not the real reason you decide to open your wallet.

Your effective landing page absolutely must reflect this principle.

The CTA of AppSumo is immediate: "SEND ME DEALS."

  Step #5: One CTA (Call To Action)

When you create a landing page and you want it to be really effective, you need to include only one CTA - Call To Action.

What is CTA?

If we want to put it bluntly, it is the order you give your visitor to do what you want them to do.

CTA is expressed in the form of text, for example, already in the title of the landing page, in buttons, sign-up forms, graphic signs...

You have to follow three very simple rules:

1. The CTA always goes above the fold, must be highly visible, and must command attention-in short, it must be foolproof to any human being. Anyone looking at your landing page must understand that they have to do that specific thing (e.g., click on a button) to get what was promised.
2. The CTA must be well distributed for the entire page. I recommend creating several "blocks" of CTAs that systematize appropriately throughout the rest of the page.
3. The CTA is one and only one: you are sending traffic to this page with a specific goal and your conversion is one. Don't put multiple CTAs on the same page that make people do different things. For example, if your goal is to make visitors OPTIN (capture the email address), avoid also putting in commercial offers, follow on social, or anything else that will distract the user.

What Kajabi shows immediately under the head are a number of testimonials who use the platform daily for their own business and web marketing operations.

  Step #6: Reviews and social proof

There is nothing better to build confidence in your cold-coming visitor on your page than to show them what people are saying about you, how many reviews you have received, how many people are doing OPTIN or have just purchased.

Some tips for making your landing page effective with testimonials:

• Create an account on a serious platform that can collect and certify your reviews (I chose the best one, TrustPilot), and show the reviews you get from your customers online.
• Use testimonials from people who have purchased from you, you can grab them from social (using the embed / include command) or you can ask for them yourself by having them email you text and photos.
• If you have a business you may already have reviews on Google. Check and include them on your page.
• Use a real-time social proofing system that shows with a badge , the latest OPTINs, purchases or actions taken by those you have converted. You can find many creative examples of effective automatic notifications around in this regard.

Of course, for each element you add to your landing page, make sure it works properly on any device.

I remind you that the best landing page editors, such as. Kajabi which I use, give you the ability to optimize the page and show or hide certain elements based on the device your visitor uses.

For example on the current Valerio.it home page, my photo is NOT loaded if you access it with a smartphone, this is to speed up the loading even more and make it easier to navigate on a small screen.

This last note brings us to the last step.

On the landing page of Valerio.it immediately find the 5 stars and the link to read Trustpilot reviews.

  Step #7: Assurance, storytelling and personal branding.

Three super important elements that make a difference especially when you send cold traffic.

Let's look at them together.

1. Warranty. If you are selling something, it is a must to include an effective warranty, possibly one that goes well beyond the legal terms and allows you to give anyone peace of mind. If the warranty is 14 days, extend it to 30. This is one of the main reasons Amazon has been so successful with the public.
2. Storytelling. People love stories, and they love to know more about you and why you are pitching your CTA. At the very least, you need to tell them who you are, and I recommend doing it in a conversational way, with a storytelling or formula such that it can help visitors empathize with you.
3. Personal branding. Obviously only if your branding is personal or if your product branding can be tainted in some way. Add photos of yourself, a profile of yourself, a slice of your personal life, an activity you've been involved in--there are 1,000 ways to get your personal branding on your landing page, and they are all very effective.

These last three tips are obviously to be carefully dosed and evaluated according to the goals of your page, it is still good to test.

  Step #8 BONUS: Split test (or A/B t est)

There is no one version of your landing page, and you can't know which one will work best.

I recommend that you test several pages that can be differentiated by graphics, text, layout, and you name it.

The way to do it is super easy and it's free, you can in fact use Google Optimize, find the instructions in Italian here.

  Step #9 Recommended Tools

Of course, there are several tools you can use to create your own effective landing pages, among them certainly stand out KAJABI (of which I am a brand ambassador) that has many, indeed all the features you may need to run a great online business.

Consider that the page you are reading now, like all of Valerio.it's business is on Kajabi, which, among many other things, also allows you to build funnels and landing pages.

Here you can find some of my previous posts on the subject:

• Kajabi FAQ The answers you were looking for
• How to put 10K in your pocket with Kajabi
• Kajabi vs Clickfunnels
• Building customer loyalty with Kajabi's mobile app

And if you want to sign up for Kajabi and take advantage of my bonuses, go here: https://www.valerio.it/kajabi2x

BUT-what if Kajabi is not right for you?

Or what if Kajabi is "too much" for your needs (maybe you don't need a member area) or you want to create different landing pages for different situations or domains, for you or your clients?

What to do?

A viable alternative to Kajabi for landing pages: Fast Pages.

It is a start-up that has created a great landing page editor and is offering it as a LTD (life time deal - meaning you pay once in a lifetime).

For only $197 - without subscriptions or other fees--you can take home a great editor to design your own effective landing pages, hook them up to WordPress, assign up to 15 domains, and your all with SSL certificate and stratospheric upload speed.

Look at how it ranks against competitors:

Take a look at it, because as I told you a few lines above, right now they are offering the whole platform with these incredible features, at One price, no subscriptions.

  Update July 2021

Kajabi and the new page editor

Kajabi, in their continuous cycle of updates, has redesigned the entire landing page editor, taking a huge step forward, bringing it to be the absolute most effective yet easy-to-use tool.

While most geeks go crazy (in every sense of the word) with WordPress and a few plugins like Elementor o WP Bakery, Kajabi created an editor that does not involve deep knowledge, programming skills in CSS, server hosting and other devilry.

Simply start from one of the many available templates to do whatever you want, adding elements to the page and then customizing them.

Once you choose where to start, the screen is quite simple.

On the left we find all the elements we can add, while on the right we have a real-time view of how our page is rendering.

Mind you, though, it is not a drag-and-drop editor like Clickfunnels, and that is a huge advantage.

Clickfunnels, while widely used, has an editor that is nonetheless outdated and outdated because it is not very versatile for creating effective landing pages on mobile devices.

Kajabi, on the other hand, allows very precise control, offering for each section of the page, and for each individual element, the ability to manage its visibility and distances.

As you can see from this image, you have one menu dedicated to the desktop version, and one (which you see exploded here) of the mobile version.

The highlighted element on the page (right) can then be hidden-so as to create for each display mode an optimized version-and managed in alignment and internal (between border and content) and external (between element and other adjacent elements) distances.

This way of managing landing page elements, allows po move each section quickly, changing the layout of the landing page in less than a second, which updates in real time.

So no more errors due to clumsy mouse dragging or elements suddenly getting stuck, inside other sections.

  Conclusions

Using landing pages is a must; you cannot avoid putting web pages online that talk specifically about one of your products or ask users to do something you really care about, such as signing up for your newsletter or community.

The biggest difficulty you will find in the beginning will undoubtedly be choosing which tool to use; you will have to take into account both cost and time for learning and management.

That's why I recommend that you use only and exclusively platforms born specifically for this, such as ClickFunnels or Kajabi (here you will find a review of both systems) and avoid WordPress or its plugins as much as possible, unless you already have the skills or staff trained to use them.

The moment you start using your landing pages you can go further and create marketing funnels (here you will find a guide) and thus connect multiple actions within the same path, maximizing the return on investment and squeezing every visit to the maximum.

I'm sure this 7-step guide will be useful to you, whether you're just starting now to create landing pages or you've already published plenty of them.

As always, I would like to know what you think, and I will be super happy to answer your questions.