Creating Optimised Landing Pages

Here at Capsule, we’ve run hundreds of campaigns, and the majority of our retained clients have a baseline of PPC or paid social ads running. Each of these campaigns has required an optimised landing page to make them successful, and with the data we’ve collected over the years, we know the differences between good and great landing pages. Here are our top tips for creating a landing page that drives conversions.

Content Hierarchy

The way you lay out and structure the content on your landing page is a key part of making it successful. All good landing pages follow a similar structure, and although you might want to stand out from the crowd, there is a reason that so many landing pages follow the same structure. You can always test changes to the structure of your page once you start to see conversions come through on a regular basis. It’s important that throughout the content on the page, you weave in your USPs and brand proposition.

1. Headline
   The first thing people will see on your landing page, other than the imagery, will be the headline or title of the page. The title needs to clearly convey what the product or service is about, and a good way to test this is the 5-second test. If someone saw the page for just 5 seconds, would they know what the page is about?

2. Hero image or video
   Alongside your headline, you should include a hero image or video. This could be an image or video of the product in action or a showreel of your previous work. Ideally, this section shouldn’t take up the whole screen as it dissuades users from scrolling further down.

3. Supporting copy/subheadline
   Underneath your headline, you might want to add some supporting copy that expands on the title. If you’re offering something that your audience is already familiar with, you may not need this, but if you’re bringing a new product or service to market, readers will need more information than just the headline. This is a good place to start incorporating your USPs.

4. Contact/Download form
   Ideally, your form should be placed as close to the top of the page as possible. This ensures it’s prominent and easy to spot on the page, but it also means that users who are ready to convert after just the headline, supporting copy and hero image don’t have to scroll down the whole page to find your form. For those who need more info, you can create jump links that take them back up the page to the form.

5. Social proof
   Social proof builds trust with the user by showing testimonials from other people who have filled out the form that they’re about to. By placing this in close proximity to the form on the page, you show users that the social proof is directly related to the action they’re about to take

6. Further supporting copy
   Users will likely need more information than just your headline and sub-headline. This is your chance to provide more details on your product or service and why they should purchase from you.

7. Benefits
   A short list of benefits in the form of a checklist or a set of custom icons quickly conveys to the user the benefit of using your product or service and how it will improve their lives.

8. Features
   If they still haven’t been convinced to fill out the form, then adding some of the most popular product features and expanding on the benefits of those features will help convince them to take action.

Contact/Download Form

When creating a landing page, there is always an action you want the user to take. This is usually facilitated through a form of some sort. This might be to get in touch with your business, get a quote or download a guide or report. The way your form is structured and the form fields you decide to use can make the difference between someone completing the form and someone giving up. Our top tips for an optimised form are:

1. Think about the fields within your form
   Keeping the number of fields and the information you collect to the bare minimum you need will increase the number of people that will fill out the form.

2. Include a form header and supporting copy
   This helps to reinforce what the user will get in return for filling out the form.

3. Think about the information you ask for
   The more personal information someone has to give up, the more friction there is for them to complete your desired action. If your landing page is to access a download, then do you really need to know which country they live in, their full name and mobile number, or will a first name and email address suffice?

4. Anti-spam methods
   There is a delicate balance between reducing spam enquiries and reducing friction for the user. There are a number of solutions out there, with reCAPTCHA being one of the most popular; however, other solutions like simple maths problems and matching up shapes can be another option. Whatever solution you choose, take the time to see how they affect the conversion rate of your form.

5. Button copy
   Make the text on the button relevant to the action the user is expecting. For example, if you offer a download, then “Download The Guide” is much more contextual than “Click Here” or “Submit”. Some examples you can use are “Download”, “Start Your Free Trial”, “Get Your Discount Code”, or “Place Order”.

Social Proof/building trust

Social proof shows people that visit your landing page that your business is trustworthy, and they can feel comfortable giving their information to you. There are many ways this can be shown depending on the aim of your landing page as well as your sector. Some good ways to build trust with your audience are:

1. Customer Reviews
   A simple one, especially for established businesses, is to include customer reviews on your landing page. If you work with well-known, high-profile brands, then this can be especially effective. If you can include customer images and real names, this helps to build trust further.

2. Contact Details
   Adding a range of contact details to your landing page gives the perception that you’re a real business. A phone number and address is a great way to improve the trust someone will have with your business, and these can be added to the footer of the page so as not to distract from your main messaging.

3. Show Off Your Team
   Showing members of your team is another way to show you’re a real business and helps to build a human connection. For a service-based landing page, this could be the team members that will work on the project. If you’re promoting a download, then it could be the person who put it together.

4. Show your experience
   Another way to build trust is to show your experience in the service you’re promoting or the expertise of the person who created the download. This can be tied into the customer reviews you display on the landing page. People are much more likely to get in contact with you or download something if they know it’s been put together by someone that’s an expert in the field.

5. Add your privacy and cookie policy
   Adding your privacy and cookie policy to the page is another way to show users that you’re a reputable business and not someone that’s going to be selling their information or spamming them.

6. Certifications
   If your business has any accreditations that are important in the sector you work in, such as PCI-DSS for payment processing or HIPPA for the healthcare industry, then we always recommend adding them to your landing page. If they’re a requirement for a potential customer, then add them front and centre. If they’re optional, such as an ISO accreditation or an industry membership, these can be featured further down the page.

Testing

While most landing pages will follow a similar wireframe, each sector, audience and even brand will have its own nuances, which makes testing a great way to further increase conversion rates. Some potential things you could test on your landing page are:

1. Call to actions
2. Social proof
3. Copy length
4. Different types of content, e.g. video
5. Contact form fields
6. Content hierarchy
7. Removing your website navigation
8. Pricing

CTA

Your call to action on your landing page is something that should be repeated throughout the page, but it should also remain consistent. As mentioned in the content hierarchy, some people will need more information before they act compared to others. This is why you should repeat your call to action throughout your page. This doesn’t have to be in your face, but it can be a small banner between two sections with a button that scrolls that to the contact form.

While it’s important to make sure your call to action is consistent, you can still give people several ways to take that action. If the desired action of your landing page is to get people to contact your business, there is no harm in providing a phone number, an email address or even including live chat alongside a contact form. Your call to action is still consistent, but you’re just giving users a number of ways to achieve that.

Tracking

Tracking is a key way of improving your landing page over time as it gives you insights into how people interact with the page as well as what action they take after landing on the page. We recommend including both traditional website tracking as well as visual tracking. 

Traditional website tracking, such as Google Analytics, will show you how long people are spending on the page, what pages they visit after and how your landing page plays a role in the overall customer journey. 

Visual tracking, such as Hotjar or Microsoft Clarity, gives you a much deeper understanding of how people are interacting with the page. With heatmaps, you can see what people are clicking on and how far they scroll down on the landing page. Session recording can help uncover hidden friction in your landing page.

With the information that your tracking set-up provides, you can make changes or test new ideas to make your landing page even more effective.

Consistency

A common mistake we’ve seen in the past is the lack of consistency between the ad copy and the landing page, this is especially important for PPC ads. In the example of PPC, you want to make sure your keywords match up with your ad copy and the landing page matches the ad copy as well as the keywords.

You want to make sure your landing page is as specific as possible so that the user landing on the page doesn’t have to do any hard work. For example, if you offer confined space rescue teams and you also offer training for confined rescue teams, you’d ideally want to create two separate landing pages. Although there will be a crossover between the two services, the user is expecting one thing, and they’re now having to work to find the information that’s relevant to their search.

Video

Video can be a great way to get your message across as it’s easy for people to digest, you can convey a lot of information, you show your expertise, and you instantly start creating trust between yourself and the user. Adding video to your landing page can come at an extra cost if this isn’t something you’ve already produced, but the benefits it can bring generally outweigh the extra cost.

We would recommend using video when promoting services or concepts that users may not be familiar with, such as new-to-market products, training courses or service-based offerings.

When adding video to your landing page, make sure that you’ve added subtitles to your video, as not everyone will be able to have the sound on. We also recommend adding video as an extra to your landing page rather than using it to replace the text on the page. This is because there will be those that prefer to quickly scan the text on a landing page rather than sit through a video to find the information.

Page Speed

Page speed will be a key factor in your conversion rate; however, this will depend on the sector you operate in. Making sure your landing page loads quickly, even with older devices or slower internet speeds, is key to keeping your conversion rates high. In a commonly referenced study conducted by Amazon, they found that every 100ms in added page load time cost them 1% in sales. 

Page speed affects all industries, but it will have a greater impact on B2C than it will B2B. This is because consumers of B2C products will be using a range of devices, from high-end Macbooks to older Android phones, which have different levels of processing power. They will also have differing internet connection speeds, with some people using WiFi at home and others using 3G in a rural area. Another factor will be whether you operate in multiple countries across the globe, as poorer countries are likely to have slower internet speeds and older devices compared to richer nations.

While there is no best speed to aim for, faster is always better. We always recommend testing your landing page on a range of different devices and connection speeds based on the audience you’re targeting.

Putting this into practice

With everything you’ve now learnt about landing pages, it’s time to put this into practice. Start by reviewing your lowest converting landing pages and see if any elements are missing from the page. With your higher-converting landing pages, take the time to think of 2 or 3 tests you can run in the future to see whether you can improve your conversion rate further.

Depending on your website and the flexibility you have, it can be worth considering platforms such as Unbounce, Instapage or Webflow. These SaaS products are specifically designed to make building optimised landing pages quick and easy without the limitations of your current website templates. 

If you’re looking for support with reviewing or even building landing pages for your next campaign, then get in touch with Capsule. Our campaign landing pages are always a collaborative effort between the digital, design and development teams. The digital team will brief and work alongside the design team to create a UX-focused wireframe. It’s then handed off to the development team to build the page and make sure the page speed is optimised. 

Once the landing page has been built, it’ll be signed off by the digital team and handed over to you ready to run your campaign.

If you require advice with your landing pages or need help with design, digital or web, within your business, then please get in touch with us today.