Mar 6, 2020

Are Landing Pages Necessary?

In short – yes. Landing pages are absolutely crucial to any successful website. But before we get into the logistics, what are landing pages?

A landing page is the first impression someone has when they visit your website after clicking a link from Google Search results, an email link, or a referring website. Your landing page needs to set the tone for your brand and persuade the user to follow your breadcrumbs – to viewing other information, opting into an offer, purchasing something, or contacting you.

Humans have a short attention span, on average 8-seconds. This means your landing page needs to grip the visitor before they lose interest.

You need strong Calls To Action

Every landing page needs breadcrumbs, commonly known as a Call to Action (CTA). A CTA is a piece of content intended to persuade the user to perform a specific task. This task could be anything from purchasing your product to signing up for your newsletter. Sometimes the CTA only has the intention of moving the user further through your sales funnel.

Moving them further through your sales funnel could look like:

  • obtaining their email
  • getting them to view a short video, or
  • guiding them to more information about your brand on another page.

A Call to Action is typically presented as a phrase enclosed within a button that begs to be interacted with. However CTAs aren’t exclusive to landing pages, every page on your website should have a CTA – such as an 0800 number or an ‘add to cart’ button.

What about bounce rates?

If your landing page isn’t persuasive and the user leaves your site without further interaction, they will be placed as a bounce in your analytics. A bounce is a user who leaves your website after only viewing your landing page. This means they didn’t interact with your Call to Action and didn’t explore other content on your site. Having a large bounce rate could be due to any number of reasons such as:

  • you didn’t offer them what they were expecting
  • your content wasn’t persuasive
  • they don’t trust your brand, or
  • they learnt everything they needed to know from your landing page without requiring further input on their part.

What’s your value proposition?

Let’s say your current landing page isn’t up to scratch. What can we do to improve it and your overall image to visitors? One of the most important parts of a landing page is to have a compelling value proposition. Users want to know what’s in it for them. A good landing page should quickly and effectively communicate what your business stands for; it’s your argument of why customers should buy from you opposed to your competitor. It has to go beyond what you sell, it has to focus on the needs of your prospect. This proposition can be communicated through more than just written text. The images, layout, and overall design are an equally important part of your 30-second elevator pitch. All elements have to work harmoniously with one another to convey your message in a persuasive and meaningful way.

The ultimate goal of a landing page is conversions.

This means we want to persuade visitors to complete one or more desired actions on our website. Let’s say we’ve covered the above and we still have a high bounce rate – what’s wrong? It could be that the user doesn’t trust your overall image so you should add social proof to your site. Social proof can come in the form of:

  • Personal testimonials from customers
  • Client case studies
  • Positive customer reviews & ratings
  • Awards from reputable organisations
  • Trust seals to confirm information security
  • Celebrity endorsements, etc.

Social proof is essential to gain trust

Social proof is especially important with new customers that may not have heard of you. It’s also important to have your website optimised for mobile. It’s the 21st century, and a large number of people are using their smartphones to find information that’s likely to be on a business’ landing page. Having a mobile optimised site shows you care about the user’s experience. 

You don’t just stop at having a landing page though Your goal is high conversion rates wherever you invest marketing funds, which means you should consider investing funds into running paid targeted ads on Google and/or social media such as Facebook and Instagram. Running paid ads will ensure larger traffic flow to your site, which assuming your landing page is good, means more new conversions.

If you’re not making a good ROI with your ads

If you’ve gone through the trial and error of paid ads without your conversion rate improving, we recommend assessing your landing page(s) and see whether they have the following:

  • A Compelling Value Proposition
  • Social Proof
  • Call to Action(s)
  • Optimised for Mobile.

We’re here to help too so feel free to reach out.

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