I have been doing a bit of research into landing pages lately, and I thought I would put together my landing page 101 – a beginners guide to the essentials parts of a landing page. Obviously there is a lot more to landing pages than what I can mention here in a blog post(I still have a few more books to read on the topic!) – however I’ll do my best to give you the essentials so you can make your own successful landing page.

- Define the pages conversion activity.(What is the page meant to convert the viewer to? Make sure you define it so you have a clear goal from the outset)

- Find out what your visitors are looking for and what offers work(Do your market research)

- Do not be generic or broad. Landing pages need to have a single specific goal – if you try sell more than one thing you will distract the potential customer.

- Eliminate unneeded elements.(Try reduce the amount of distractions you have on the page – the goal after all is simply to get that click through to conversion)

- Match the ad creative. (Make sure you can truly provide what you say you can)

- Make it easy to convert! Make it easy for the customer to signup, or buy your product – making it too hard will only cause them to bow out half way through.

- Lead the eye along the page towards conversion exit.

- Optimize your forms so that users can easily tab between fields.

- Use headers, sub-header and bullet lists.

- Choose a font thats easy on the eyes.

- Testimonials are important(and don’t fake them!)

- Build trust(this can be done through testimonials and other methods) – trust is very important in order to get the conversion.

Once you have finished your landing page, take a look at it and ask yourself these questions:

- Is the page focused?
- Does the message match the advertisement?
- Have distractions been reduced?
- Are there enough conversion exits?
- Does the page enhance your brand?

If you have anything to add to this – leave a comment and I’ll gladly add it.

All the best,

Mark