Curious about landing pages? In this guide, I’ll explore what landing pages are, their types, the vital role they play, and tips for creating persuasive, high-conversion landing pages for your business.
Let’s start with the basics.
What are landing pages?
A landing page is the first page where your audience “lands” after clicking on an ad or marketing campaign.
They’re designed with a single purpose – to generate a conversion. Because of that, they’re often short on information and big on the sell.
What is the difference between a website and a landing page?
A website and a landing page serve different purposes and have distinct characteristics.
Websites are typically very comprehensive and contain a lot of information about a business or individual. They usually include numerous pages, such as Home, About Us, Services, Contact, Blog, and more. They offer a holistic view of who you are or what your business is about and allow users to navigate freely, exploring various sections at their own pace.
Landing page, on the other hand, is a standalone web page created for a specific purpose, often as part of a marketing or advertising campaign. Unlike websites, landing pages are designed with a single focused objective, known as a call to action (CTA). This focus makes landing pages the best option for increasing the conversion rates of marketing campaigns and lowering the cost of acquiring a lead or sale.
So, while a website is designed for exploration, a landing page is designed for conversion.
We cover that in more details with the Growth Marketer himself on our podcast!
Why do you need landing pages?
Landing pages are essential for a bunch of different reasons — from boosting your conversions to giving you a better insight into your target audience. Let’s explore these a little bit.
1. Landing pages are the best tool for converting visitors into leads
Think of landing pages as super magnets that attract visitors and turn them into potential customers or leads. On average, they do this job better than any other tool we use in marketing, with about a 7% conversion rate across all kinds of businesses.
Here’s why they’re so good: they offer a fast reward. It could be a helpful ebook, a special discount, or an invitation to an online event. This quick payoff tempts visitors to give their details like email and name right away to get the reward.
Doing this has another benefit. It helps you learn more about the people you want to reach.
In our own campaigns, we often see conversion rates ranging between 20-30%, however, the results vary depending on the type of traffic we drive to our landing pages. Cold traffic coming from paid advertising campaigns will usually convert less likely than visitors coming from your email campaigns or private social media group.
2. Landing pages help you learn more about your visitors
You might have a good guess about who your ideal customers are, but without solid facts and figures, it’s like trying to hit a bullseye blindfolded.
That’s where landing pages show their magic. They can keep track of who signs up or buys something and give you helpful clues about how they got there, like which ad campaign or social media platform they came from, which kind of content they prefer, and if they engage with more of your marketing stuff after they sign up or make a purchase.
With this knowledge, your marketing team can make better plans for future campaigns, ensuring you spend your ad money wisely and share the content your audience really enjoys seeing.
3. They help you run your marketing campaigns faster
For a typical marketing team, getting a new page live takes weeks, if not months.
You would need to make sure the page matches your website’s structure, and you would need to bring together a team – likely a designer, a web developer, an SEO expert, and someone knowledgeable about web analytics.
But, landing pages let you move faster. You can brainstorm new ideas and test them out much quicker.
If you’re using a landing page builder that comes with prebuilt templates or AI-generative features, you can create effective landing pages in less than an hour.
The following video explains how you can create landing pages using the GetResponse Landing Page Creator.
Naturally, there are also other tools available. If you’d like to shop around, here’s our in-depth review of the best landing page builders.
💡Discover how WOŚP, the biggest charity organization in Poland, achieved a 41.74% signup rate with their landing page created using GetResponse.
Landing page types and examples
Landing pages come in all shapes and forms.
You can see this clearly in our article featuring some of the best landing page examples we’ve seen around the web.
Although they vary so much, marketers have tried to categorize them either by focusing on the page’s goal or the type of offer that’s featured in them.
Here’s a list of the most common landing page types & names you may hear:
- Squeeze pages and opt-in pages
- Lead capture a.k.a. lead generation pages
- Splash pages
- Sales pages
- About us pages
- Services pages
- Thank you pages
- 404 landing pages
- Coming soon pages
- Paid advertising landing page
- Video landing pages
- Click-through landing pages
- Viral sharing landing pages
Let’s take a deeper look at five of the more popular ones.
1. Squeeze or opt-in landing pages
An opt-in page or a squeeze page is specifically used to convert landing page visitors into subscribers.
You won’t use this page to sell your products or services. Instead, its goal is to add these subscribers into your marketing funnel, where you can nurture them with email and marketing campaigns into the future.
Here’s an example of what we mean:
This landing page sticks to the basics:
- A striking heading & ebook cover to let the visitor know they’re in the right place
- A call-to-action with a simple ask: “Send me my free guide”
- A quick list that summarizes what the guide is about
After your visitors opt-in using a landing page like this, you’ll have a wealth of data you can use to send them unique, personalized email campaigns and hopefully — turn them into paying customers.
As your offer a.k.a. lead magnet could be anything that’s valuable to your audience, you could further divide your squeeze pages into such categories as ebook landing pages or webinar landing pages.
2. Sales pages
Sales pages can encompass a whole range of offers, from annual holidays (like Thanksgiving) to product launches or discounts.
The most important part of any sales landing page is that the offer is front and center. Like any landing page, the offer must match the advertisement that led the visitor there in the first place.
So, if your advertising campaign is offering customers 15% off all your company’s white papers and guidebooks, make sure it’s the first thing they see when they get to your landing page.
In your sales offer, you can also add a sense of urgency by highlighting that the offer’s available “this week only” and placing a countdown timer that’ll count toward the offer’s expiration date.
Here’s an example of a long-form sales page:
You may also enjoy:
1. 7 lead generation landing page examples & why they worked
3. Paid advertising landing pages
Landing pages are an ideal way to carry a message from a paid advertisement because they keep a visitor’s interest and boost conversions with convincing copy and a call-to-action.
With the help of a template (or some serious coding skills), you can create a landing page template to follow through with the message on your paid ads to help visitors convert. For example, a paid ad advertising a new app could lead those interested to a landing page that looks like this:
Not only does the page highlight the app’s features, but it also has an explainer video and pricing options.
Plus, it sticks to some of the main landing page rules we’ve talked about already:
- A single call-to-action ask
- A clear, concise, persuasive headline
- Minimal text with maximum information
4. Thank you pages
A thank you page is a page that website visitors are sent to directly after they’ve completed a goal on your website.
Whether you’re capturing leads or selling tickets for your next event – you’ll want to create an effective thank you page.
Through this page you’ll want to 1) reassure the user that everything worked well, and 2) guide them to the next action you want them to take.
Here’s an example of a thank you page we’ve used for one of our recent webinars.
Even though it’s very simple, we’ve managed to:
- Confirm that the user has successfully subscribed to our webinar
- Inform them that they’ll receive a confirmation email shortly
- Guided them to either log in or create a free trial with GetResponse
Best of all? This thank you page had an impressive 5% free trial conversion rate & lead even more of our existing users to the new tool we were promoting.
5. Coming soon pages
Teasing a product launch or feature release is an exciting time for any business, and the right landing page can help get your message out there.
Landing pages can persuade visitors to keep an eye on an upcoming product launch or feature release by offering early sign-up deals or discounts. Take this landing page example, which offers visitors a chance to try out a product before it’s released:
Using a tool like GetResponse, you can even create your own landing pages to suit any upcoming product launch or event you want to create some excitement around. No need to know how to code or worry about setting up a separate domain if you haven’t purchased one yet – everything’s done for you.
Now that we know what landing pages types there are and what they look like, let’s explore how you can design an effective landing page.
Below, are eight landing page best practices you’ll want to keep in mind.
Read more:
1. How to optimize your landing pages for the search engines
8 landing page best practices
1. Start with a benefit-oriented headline
The headline is the most important part. If the visitors came by clicking on an ad, it must correspond to the ad text that triggered the page. If your banner or PPC ad said „Breakthrough meditation system“, then this phrase should also be included in the headline of your landing page.
2. Keep your copy relevant and short
Make it clear, relevant, concise. Don’t put too much text on the page, as the visitor has to be able to read it quickly. Use bullet points to drive the main points home. Make sure the language in the ad is also present in the copy of the landing page (otherwise visitors will doubt whether they’re in the right place.)
To learn more about how you can make your copy more persuasive, read our guide to landing page copywriting.
3. Keep users focused with one main call to action
There should be only ONE possible action for the visitor to take – be it providing an email address and signing up for something, buying a product or service, or something else. Don’t offer options or the conversions will suffer.
It’s also worth noting that your CTA button placement is important. To learn more about this, check our article where we’re exploring landing page CTA button placement and the use of heatmaps.
4. Skip the distracting navigational links
Remove all extra clutter – links, menus, buttons – that have nothing to do with the particular ad or campaign. The point is that the visitor cannot ignore your message by navigating away and therefore focuses on only that page. This improves user experiences and lower confusion, both of which will help you drive more conversions.
5. Make sure your subscription form is prominent
The one action you want the visitor to take has to be big and obvious. Put a large sign-up form on the landing page, and make it stand out. If possible, place it in the above-the-fold section or right underneath it so that people can’t miss it. If the landing page is long enough for scrolling, duplicate the form or button at the very bottom of the page.
6. Maintain your brand
Don’t make your landing page look different from your overall website and brand. Keep the same colors, fonts – the overall look and feel of your main site. This helps to enforce brand awareness, especially if you’re going to continue the communication via other channels, like retargeting ads or lead nurturing emails.
7. Keep your form short
Unless you need to know everything about your website visitors, it’s best to stick to the essentials and keep your signup form short.
Adding an extra field to your form will increase the so-called friction and decrease your conversion rates – and the drop is quite significant.
Based on the latest GetResponse study, you’re likely to see an average conversion rate of 10.72% if you have one, 6.35% if you have two, and 7.58% if you have 4+ fields in your landing page forms.
8. A/B test your landing pages
There’s no such thing as the perfect landing page, so don’t get discouraged if you don’t reach double-digit conversions right from the start.
When designing your landing page start with your gut feeling. Then ask yourself questions, like:
- Would it be better if I used this copy instead of the other one?
- Should I move the person to the left or right from the form?
- Should I use static images or GIFs?
- Should I add more social proof or trust symbols next to the form?
As you’ve compiled these questions, begin to run a/b tests. A/B testing your landing pages means that your traffic will be split into two (or more) and each group of visitors will see a different version of your page. With each A/B test you’ll learn more about what works best for your audience and what drives you the most conversions – be it free trials, sales, or demos.
9 Best Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Landing Pages
Want to learn how to drive traffic to your landing page and promote it effectively? In this guide, we’ll share 9 effective ways you can do it – even if you’re not an expert.
Common landing page questions
1. Should you really use videos on landing pages?
A landing page’s goal is to convert every visitor — and video can help you do that.
Just take a look at our attention spans. According to Statistic Brain, the average attention span is now down to a ridiculous 8.25 seconds, but studies show that 95% of viewers actually absorb the messages of the videos they watch. So by using videos on your landing pages, you can make that 8 seconds last.
Videos can help conversions, too. TechJury found that using landing page videos can boost conversions by 86%. But this isn’t always true. The latest GetResponse Email Marketing Benchmarks study showed that landing pages that contained videos had 32% lower average conversion rates.
Why such discrepancies? Most likely due to the fact that some marketers share videos that are either too long or that take away the focus from the main offer, i.e. what’s behind the signup form.
Now, there are a couple of different ways you can incorporate video into your landing pages so that they won’t destroy your conversion rates. The most common being testimonial and explainer videos:
- Testimonials: They allow your happy customers to do the talking for you. It’s a way for you to take the social proof you already use on your website and give it a voice. A testimonial video could be a single customer or multiple customers explaining the product you’re trying to sell or the webinar you’re inviting people to join and persuading others with their first-hand experience. This gives your offer legitimacy because it’s one thing for you to say it’s good, but it’s another for someone else to reinforce it.
- Explainers: They let you do the talking. An explainer video will have you or someone from your company give the visitor a short explanation of your offer, what the benefits are, and how to sign-up. Think of it as an elevator pitch: 60-90 seconds where you present your offer as the best one to solve the visitor’s problem.
Here’s an example of a simple yet effective landing page using an explainer video:
What do you notice first?
There’s hardly any text on the landing page. Apart from the landing page header, the only way the visitor can learn about the offer is to play the explainer video. It’s here they’ll learn more about how they’ll benefit from the product the company is offering.
Setting up the video this way not only increases the likelihood that the visitor will watch it but, because of the persuasion used in the video itself, it can also increase conversions on the landing page.
What to consider before adding video to a landing page
While videos can enhance a landing page, their effectiveness depends on proper execution.
Poorly uploaded or large-sized videos may slow down your page, causing visitors to leave. For instance, if a page takes 2 seconds to load, only about 7% of visitors will leave, but a 5-second load time can increase this to 38%.
Additionally, a misplaced video can divert visitors from your main call-to-action, diluting its impact.
Remember, a landing page video should persuade visitors to act, not distract them. So, if used wisely, videos can be a valuable asset to your landing page.
2. What’s the ideal length of a landing page?
Well, it varies based on what you’re promoting.
For simple offers like webinars or free trials, where you only ask for an email and name, shorter landing pages work better. For instance, 911 Restoration reduced their landing page content, focusing on essentials, and saw a 37% increase in conversion rates.
However, for expensive products like a $2,000 software, you’ll need more convincing copy. Studies show that people actually prefer and engage more with longer text if they’re interested in the offer.
So, the ideal length? It depends on your offer. Simpler, low-risk offers benefit from brevity, while higher-priced items may need a longer, more persuasive landing page.
3. How much does it cost to create a landing page?
The short answer – it depends.
If you want to hire a freelance developer from Upwork or Fiverr, expect to pay anywhere between $10 and $100 per hour.
If you want to use an agency, you’re looking to pay between $500 to $3000 for a landing page.
There’s also another solution, to do it all by yourself, using a dedicated landing page creator.
Using a tool like GetResponse Landing Page Creator, you can create beautiful, responsive landing pages that can increase your conversion numbers for a fraction of the cost of hiring a professional agency. In fact, you can create a great landing page completely free, using our free account.
Not only does GetResponse have its own landing page creator, but you can also choose from hundreds of professionally designed, mobile-responsive templates to help grow your contact list and sell your products. And if you prefer a more customize solution, you can use our AI landing page generator to have your whole well optimized landing page built just for you.
On top of the landing page building capabilities, the GetResponse also comes with other useful tools you’ll need to run effective lead generation campaigns:
These include:
- Email marketing
- Marketing automation
- Facebook & Instagram ads
- Google search ads
- Live chat
- Webinars
So as you can see, with just one tool, you’re able to not only generate leads but also nurture them with automated and tailored communication.
Conclusion
Landing pages are a bridge between your advertising campaigns and your conversions.
They are a vital piece of your marketing toolkit that has a single purpose: to get your visitors to sign-up for what you’re selling.
And that’s the reason they’re so successful.
The trick to using landing pages successfully comes down to how well-focused they are, how persuasive your messaging is, and how well they’re executed with design and copy length.
The good news is that because landing pages are now an essential tool in any marketing campaign, most marketing suites — including GetResponse — offer complete landing page capabilities so you can hit the ground running.
Think you’re ready to create your first landing page? Go ahead and try GetResponse for free.