Successful lead capture pages are conversation starters: They introduce visitors to an offer, spark their interest and encourage them to convert, typically by asking for their email address in exchange for free content or a discount. Strong landing pages in general can yield an 11% conversion rate – about 5x higher than the average, and creating a great lead capture page specifically can help you achieve those results and take your business to the next level.  

Through working with thousands of clients over the years, we’ve learned which lead capture page elements convert the best. Use these proven strategies to see your conversion rates go through the roof.

1. Be Specific

According to tests run by online marketing guru Neil Patel, highly specific pages outperform generic pages and increase form submissions by 115%.

There are many factors that will encourage a prospect to stay and explore your page. One way to have them immediately engage is to create a single, highly refined offer that provides real value. Don’t try to jam multiple offers onto one page; you don’t want to overwhelm visitors with choices. Create your copy and the design of your page in a way that speaks directly to your visitors and leads them to take one desired action.

2. Homepages and Landing Pages Are Different

A common misperception is that landing pages and homepages are one and the same; however, these pages have very different objectives.

Your homepage will provide an overview of your business and will house all your permanent pages in the navigation menu. Some common permanent pages are your “welcome” page, “about us” page, “products and services” page, and “contact us.”  

Your landing page is a customized site that is designed to have prospects take a specific action. Effective marketers craft a new landing page for every unique campaign, funnel, offer and promotion they utilize in their business — and you should too. For example, if you are promoting a webinar and the goal is to get attendees, you can send them to a lead capture landing page with information on that specific webinar and an opt-in form for prospects to input their email information.

3. When It Comes to Copy, Sometimes Less Is More

The amount of copy and how specific it gets depends on the goal of your lead capture page. If your page is intended for lead generation, through a free ebook offer for example, the page should be short and to the point.

On the other hand, pages for expensive products generally need more copy to show visitors why they should purchase from your brand.

Marketing Experiments found that a long page copy for a high-priced product generated 220% more leads than a landing page with less copy. If you’re selling a premium product, more is actually, well, more.

4. Consistency Converts

Trust is vital to conversion — and one of the best ways to gain trust through landing pages is to keep your messaging consistent.

Let’s say you’re using Facebook ads to drive paid traffic to your page. It’s important that the ad you use matches the design and offer on the landing page it’s sending traffic to. If the messaging differs, people will get confused and may leave your site altogether. Maintaining the same look and feel through your color and image choices immediately lets site visitors know that they’re in the right place, and you’re a credible and reliable source.

5. State Your Offer

Your landing page is an opportunity to boldly state your offer. It’s a place to provide more detail about why your product or service is the solution your leads are looking for. The idea is, by the time they land on your page, they know what they are going to see based on the marketing that led them there.

The content should revolve around the offer and guide your leads to take the next step. Consumers have a lot competing for their attention, so be as clear as possible. Keep it simple, straightforward and true to your brand.

6. Get Personal

Researching your leads’ needs and marketing to their specific problems are excellent ways to create a personal message that speaks to your audience. Rather than using one generic page to capture an enormous and diverse audience, create multiple pages with highly targeted messaging for each group based on their pain points.

For example, if you’re selling marketing consulting services to the head of a nonprofit who doesn’t have time to review all of the written content, use messaging that explains how your services can help free up time and ensure the content is professional. If you’re selling that same service to entrepreneurs who need help creating their marketing campaigns, you might use language focusing on how you can assist them in their overall brand development. Your overall message and conversion goal need to be targeted at the unique problems of the people to whom you are selling.

7. Limit Links

Make sure to create your lead capture pages with as few outbound links as possible. Adding multiple outbound links can be overwhelming to your potential leads and ultimately distract them from filling out your opt-in form if they click on the other links and leave  your page. Think quality over quantity. By limiting the options available to your visitors, you remove possible exit routes and guide visitors to what you built your page to do: convert.

8. Utilize Video

Videos are a powerful tool to increase engagement, quickly create connection, and get more conversions on your pages. Research shows that including a video on a landing page can increase conversion rates by 80%. Rather than just telling your audience about the amazing features and benefits of your product, video allows you to show them.

In a survey of consumers, Neil Patel found that most people leave web pages in 6-10 seconds. That means every second a person stays on your page counts, and it is imperative you communicate the value of your product within that time. To capture your leads’ attention for longer, you must show your value rather than tell.

9. Take Time to Craft Your Headlines and Subheads

Your headlines and subheads are the most important parts of your lead capture page. In fact, eight out of 10 people will read only the headline copy on your page.

Headlines and subheads are tasked with capturing the attention of people who visit your page — they are your bait, your lure. Most visitors scan your page and may leave after only a few seconds, so your headlines and subheads should be crafted to grab their attention.

Some tips for writing effective headlines and subheads:

• They need to be simple and easy to understand so that visitors know at a quick glance exactly what the page is offering them. Can a stranger understand the purpose of your page in 10 seconds?
• Write persuasive headlines and subheads that showcase how your visitors can benefit from your offer.
• Creating urgency is proven to boost conversion rates, so try adding trigger words that encourage visitors to take action immediately.
• Headlines need to stand out and gain attention. Subheads should reinforce, support, or add more value to the headline.

10. Don’t Forget SEO

While lead capture pages are separate from your homepage, they can still function as a page on your website, so don’t forget about SEO (Search Engine Optimization). Creating an optimized experience and offer is key to earning organic traffic and conversions. To SEO-optimize your pages:

• Be strategic about how and where you add in keywords.
• Make them mobile-responsive.
• Make sure your content is reliable and trustworthy.
• Focus on user experience.
• Use data to determine which keywords drive the most results.
• Write relevant meta descriptions and title tags.
• Write compelling H1-tagged headlines.
• Clean up messy page urls.

11. Track Your Pages

If you’ve put all this effort into optimizing your landing page, you’d be remiss if you didn’t set up tracking. Adding various tracking scripts to your pages will allow you to understand how users are interacting with your content across multiple platforms. Knowing where your leads are coming from, how long they visit and how they interact with your page is critical to forming strategies and tactics for future business decisions.

12. Include Testimonials

Page elements such as customer testimonials, awards, partner logos and security badges are validators and a great way to build trust with your visitors through association. If visitors trust your business, they are much more likely to convert.

Customer testimonials are especially powerful endorsements when they appear on your pages. Visitors want to see how people similar to them have succeeded — they want to relate to these people. When gathering testimonials to post, keep these tips in mind:

• Make sure they are relevant to your audience.
• Place them on the page in a way that compliments, not overpowers the call-to-action buttons.
• Consider using video testimonials to make them more visually appealing and engaging.

13. Split Test for Optimal Results

Split testing is one of the best ways to know exactly how your landing pages are performing. With split testing, you create two or more versions of the page — using different images, copy or audiences — to see which resonates more with your leads. Then, you review the data, make the necessary tweaks and eliminate the pages that don’t convert to focus more of your marketing budget on those that do. Split testing is an excellent way to fine-tune and dial in exactly what works on your lead capture pages.

The post Optimize Your Lead Capture Pages appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

No matter how enticing your ads are or how cool your landing pages look, the words on the page are what visitors use to decide if your product or service is really for them. Copy is arguably the most important aspect of your landing pages, and it’s often marketers’ biggest problem area.

“The real problem here is that you only have a limited amount of space to explain what you do and also a limited amount of time before people get bored and leave without ever converting,” says Pedro Cortes on the Prototypr Blog. It’s true. Despite the amount of effort we put into creating interesting copy for our visitors, most won’t meticulously read it. At best, your landing page visitors will skim the text on your page. That means writing eye-catching copy with only text that really adds meaning to your pages is key.

The good news is, you don’t need to be a ninja copywriter to create successful landing page copy. By following a few smart guidelines, anyone can write great page copy that actually converts.

Your Audience and What You Can Do for Them

You’ve done something right to get visitors clicking on to your landing pages. Once they’ve arrived, though, they might be unsure about whether your offer is something they need — or what your offer even is. It’s the copy’s job to get those points across, and doing so is imperative for conversions.

To make sure your copy is clear and relevant to your visitors, start by zeroing in on who your ideal customer is. If your product is a meal delivery subscription, your target audience might be working parents, families of four, or people looking for an easier, healthier diet. Understanding exactly who has the problem that your product solves is necessary for moving on to the next stage: understanding how your audience perceives their problem.

Say you’re creating a landing page targeted towards working parents because you think they can benefit from your subscription service. Put yourself in their shoes and think about how they perceive their own situation. Do they feel they don’t have enough time to go to the grocery store? Do they feel that they’re dropping the ball on family dinners because they work too much? Understanding how your audience views their problems allows you to write copy that resonates with them and shows them how your product solves those problems.

Writing a draft as if you’re speaking directly to your audience and explaining how your product is a solution to their problems will help you get in the right mindset to create your most compelling landing page copy. You can ask yourself questions to get into the mind of your customer:

• Why do my customers feel they have this problem?
• What options, besides my product, would also solve this problem?
• What other products are out there that would fix their problem?
• How big of a problem is this in their life?
• What about my product specifically relates to them?
• Will my product solve their whole problem, just part, or just alleviate some of the stress from the problem?
• What is the number one reason they need my product?
• How can my product take them from where they are now to where they want to be?

After you’ve gotten a good feel for who your visitors are, you’re set to write copy that really resonates with them. Using the strategies we’ve outlined below, coupled with your knowledge of your audience, anyone on your team can easily create compelling landing page copy.

General Tactics for Conversion-Driving Copy

When writing your landing page, it’s important to be unique and try out different conversion strategies. You might use an emotional appeal or a scarcity tactic to convert more leads. Whatever theme you choose to go with for your copy, though, there are a few basic ideas to keep in mind.

First, you want to make every word in your copy focused on your leads and the outcome they will get from converting. When you have a product or service you really believe in, it can be difficult to remember that your leads don’t really care. What they do care about is the outcome that the product or service will give them.

For example, in your meal delivery business, your leads care about the time they’ll save cooking, the money they’ll save on groceries, or the health benefits of eating your food. When they buy, they’re buying that time, money and health benefit, not your subscription. Focusing your copy to specifically reflect those outcomes and not your product or service will give your leads a clear image of what their life will be like if they convert.

Using second-person point of view in your copy is another helpful tactic for focusing the copy on the leads and outcome. Stephen Covey’s famous book, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, says people love to talk about themselves. By using second-person pronouns like “you” and “yours,” you show your leads that converting is about what your offer does for them — not about you and your product.

You also want to create copy that exudes simplicity. Your leads are busy and want to find the solution to their problems quickly so they can reap the benefits quickly, too. Digging through your copy to find the important content isn’t on their to-do list. Creating copy that is simple and to-the-point ensures that your leads don’t get overwhelmed with fluff words or irrelevant text. They can see the value in your offer right off the bat.

Your copy should also be specific. For the meal delivery service, terms like “food” would be considered too general. What kind of food? Does the food come prepared? How much food is it? You should specify that you deliver fully-prepared dinner for two to four people. Using specific, informative copy makes sure your leads don’t leave without converting purely because they didn’t understand the offer and how it would help them. If a lead wanted prepared meal delivery for four people, but your copy only said “Food Delivered to You,” your lead might immediately leave your page, assuming you only delivery groceries or restaurant food for one person.

When writing your outcome-oriented, simple and specific copy, you can ask yourself these questions to keep your copy in line with your goal:

1. Who are you?
2. What are your offering?
3. What does it matter to them?

All of the copy on your page should be answering these questions. If it’s not, it’s probably not relevant to the offer and doesn’t need to be there.

Approaching Your Audiences’ Problems From Different Angles

Your offer should consist of only one clear solution to one clear problem — nothing more. But as long as you’re focused on the leads and keep the copy simple and specific, you have free rein on the tone of your message. There are different ways you can adapt your offer to be more enticing to your page visitors.

Some copywriters like to use an emotional appeal to convert leads. Creating stories can help leads connect with your offer on a personal level and imagine their own lives after receiving your offer. In the meal delivery example, this might look like descriptive copy painting a picture of their lives with more free time and readily available meals to keep their family happy and healthy.

You can also use fear as a powerful motivator to push leads to convert. By making leads think, “What would happen if I don’t take this offer?” they will imagine themselves in the future after passing up this opportunity. Assuming your product solves a problem they have, this image will not be as pretty as it would be if they didn’t pass up the offer. When using the fear tactic, however, you should be careful to not cause too much fear. Negativity can steal the focus away from your offer.

Urgency and scarcity are other powerful motivators for landing page copy. You might have seen an event page that counted down the number of tickets left, or a sales page with a discount that will only be valid until Sunday night at midnight. This type of copy makes people think they’re going to miss out on this opportunity if they don’t act now.

There are many different tones, themes and tactics you can test in your copy to find what works for your business and what doesn’t. A depleting discount code for a meal delivery service might be a great way to get visitors to purchase, while a scarcity tactic might seem feigned or forced. Playing around with different ideas and testing them using A/B testing will help you convert more visitors overall.

Perfecting Individual Components of Landing Page Copy

When writing your landing page copy, you can break up the text into its different components: headline, call to action, body copy, and social proof. Your tone and message should be consistent throughout each component of the copy, but the actual words should offer different value in each section.

Headline

For the headline of your landing page, you want to be specific and focus on one thing that your leads will find the most desirable part of your offer. As the headline is usually the first thing a visitor will read, it’s important that it’s not vague or irrelevant. It should clearly show who you are and what you’re offering, in an eye-catching way.

For example, “Your Path to a Healthier Life Starts Now” is vague and could be for anything from vitamins to exercise. The subhead “Food Delivered to Your Door With One-Click” is also vague, since “food” doesn’t clarify that it’s pre-made dinners. The headline “A Healthier Lifestyle Starts With a Healthier Dinner” and the subhead “Get Junk-free, Ready-to-Eat Dinners Delivered to Your Door” clearly show you are promoting healthy dinners that are delivered already prepared.

Keep in mind when writing the headline that clarity should always trump catchiness. Although it’s ideal to have both, you should never settle for a headline that isn’t 100% clear to your visitors. If you’re stuck trying to think of something both catchy and relevant, you can try one of these ideas:

• Use a testimonial.
• Give a teaser of the most important part of your offer.
• Show how your offer takes customers from Point A, where they are, to Point B, where they want to be.

Call to action

A call to action on a landing page can be many different things, from “Learn More” to “Buy This.” The key to writing a call to action that converts is making sure it directly corresponds to the other messages on the page. Telling leads to “Buy Now” when you’ve offered them a free ebook to list build, would clearly be inconsistent copy. But it’s not always this obvious, so reading through your messages to be clear on what you’re asking leads to do is ideal before writing your CTA. You also want to be sure there’s only one call to action. Your landing page visitors should be able to read your messages and easily pick out one thing you want them to do — not many different things they can do.

Body copy

Your body copy can really benefit from pre-writing and qualitative research about your audience. Since this is the copy that will actually answer all of the questions your leads might have about your offer — specifically, “Why should I convert?” — it’s important to step into their shoes when writing your content. Avoid writing too much content in the body so that you don’t overload visitors. You want to get straight to the point, saying just enough to address your leads’ concerns but not so much that they know things about your product that don’t affect whether they convert.

Social proof

Testimonials and social proof can be riddled throughout any components of your landing page copy. If you haven’t used any yet, though, a section all on its own would benefit customers and your conversion rates. How often do you buy something on Amazon.com or Sephora.com without reading reviews? People are often more willing to buy something that others have tried and recommended over something completely foreign without real reviews. Adding testimonials, reviews, users’ social posts or any other kind of social proof can make your visitors feel more comfortable buying from you.

The post How to Write Compelling Landing Page Copy That Converts appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

Your landing page may contain lots of great information, but if your customers are leaving your page without responding to your CTA, it can be pretty frustrating, especially when you know your business can help them with their problems.

It’s impossible to appeal to every member of your diverse audience using generic pages. Unlocking the magic formula can be difficult given the different types of customers you have. You may rotate between various ideas or try to figure out which format works best but find yourself still unsure how to arrange your landing pages effectively.

You’re thinking that there must be an easier way to get results.

Others Are in the Same Boat

Getting landing pages right is not always easy. The problems you are facing are commonplace. According to Audience Bloom, landing pages are affected by hundreds of independent variables, so it can prove difficult for many to see a high conversion rate. Adquadrant says that a failure in effective design of your pages can lead to a low conversion rate.

Less is More

There are certain key elements to your landing pages that, once perfected, will draw customers to your page and increase conversion rates. For example, the clearer your CTA is, the more likely customers will be motivated to click the link you provide. Personalizing your landing pages for your diverse array of customers will also help convert more customers. Most importantly, a crisp and concise design will keep your customers engaged and will help you reach your desired objective faster.

If Neil Patel Says It, It Must Be True

Marketing expert Neil Patel lists several tips for effective landing pages on his blog. He emphasizes there is only one purpose of landing pages — to get the customer to act. In order to do this, it is important to be as concise as possible and lead your customers to a clear pathway with your CTA. There should be a single focus of your page to avoid customers from getting distracted with any external links or blocks of text. Patel also says to choose the right format, or tool, to engage customers depending on the objective of your landing page. One size does not fit all — it is important to customize each page to bear the best results.

Reach Your Objective Faster

Using a more minimalist approach to your landing pages can help engage customers faster and increase conversion rates. Here’s what you can gain from adopting these strategies:

• Having a clear and compelling CTA will grab customers’ attention and will help you reach the objective of your landing page more efficiently.
• Paring down the design of the landing page will draw more customers effortlessly and will make your page easier to navigate through.
• Including only one link — that of your CTA — on your landing page will keep customers from getting distracted or drifting off to another link on your page.

For landing page templates you can use to convert more customers, check out our Landing Page Optimization checklist.

The post Overcome Your Landing Page Challenges appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

Below, we’ve broken down the top five landing pages essential to any growing business along with the elements that go into making each one successful.

Attract New Contacts With a Free Value Offer Page

Before you can market your product or service, you need leads to market to. The goal of the free value offer page is to prompt visitors to provide their contact information in exchange for a reward or free content. As you build your page, there are several key elements you’ll want it to include.

Key Elements of a Free Value Offer Page

Typically, these pages feature compelling free content and a strategically-placed opt-in form, but the first thing your visitors will notice when they view your page is the headline. Research has shown that you have only 7 seconds to make an impression, so it’s important to capture your visitors’ attention right away with a compelling headline that will spark their interest.

Once you’ve won them over with a strong headline, you’ll want your viewers to see your free value offer that highlights what you can do for them. Present a brief description of your free offer and the value you provide with feature/benefit bullet points or short paragraphs, and make it interesting with attention-grabbing visuals. Relevant videos have been shown to increase conversions by 86%, so try adding a testimonial or explainer video to increase your credibility. For maximum effectiveness, place media above the fold.

When it comes time to earn your leads’ contact information, you’ll need a compelling opt-in form. This can be either embedded or pop-up. Keep it simple — viewers will be more likely to opt-in for your reward if there are fewer fields to fill out. To entice page viewers to fill out your opt-in form, include a compelling call to action (CTA) that tells viewers exactly what they’ll be getting when they click. Your CTA button should practically pop off the page.

As a final touch, include social share links on the page to allow your viewers to share your offer with their friends and expand your reach.

Draw Attention to Your Offer

When visiting your free value offer page, visitors should be focused on one thing: your offer. To ensure their focus on your offer, eliminate distractions such as navigation menus and outbound links from your page. Also make sure your copy is clear and consistent throughout  — your headline should be the same as the messaging on any emails or ads that direct them to the page.

Entice Visitors With a Compelling Sales Page

Once you’ve mastered the free value offer, you can transition from gathering leads to actually selling your product. If you’re selling anything — a physical product, digital tools, a 1-on-1 coaching session — your sales page is where the magic happens. It exists to inform visitors about the value and benefits of your product, which will ideally entice them to make a purchase.

Sales pages can come in short form or long form, depending on product price and complexity. Higher-priced and more complex products, for example, require more explanation and detail than basic entry-level products.

Short or long, there are a few key components your sales pages should always include. As with your free value offer page, the right headline and subheadings should compel your visitors to check out the rest of your page. Even if readers only skim your content, you’ll have their attention.

Once your leads are intrigued, it’ll be time for your sales page to do its job. Your sales offer copy is the most important element of the page — it’s your chance to dazzle your leads and showcase your product’s value. Great offer copy will be enticing, persuasive and easy to read.

Depending on your product, it may be a good idea to supplement or replace your offer copy with a video. Videos can improve conversion rates by 80% and make it easier for your customers to remember you and your product. You can create a convincing sales video to demonstrate your product, its benefits and its shortcomings to instill buyer confidence. Or, you can include customer testimonials to establish social proof and build trust in your brand.

Ultimately, the goal of a sales page is to drive visitors to an order page to purchase your product — and your CTA should make that clear. Like on your free value offer page, your CTA button should command site viewers’ attention. To keep readers on track towards purchasing your offer, avoid adding links that lead anywhere other than to your order form. If your sales page works, your interested leads will be ready to move on to the biggest step: making the purchase.

The post 5 Landing Pages All Entrepreneurs Need appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

The good news is, you don’t have to be a seasoned designer to create visually compelling and effective landing pages.

Before Laura Casanova, Ontraport’s VP of Creative, joined our team, she served as Creative Director at Shopkeep and holds degrees in art history and graphic design. We asked her for best practices in landing page design. Over the years, Casanova and our marketing team have run countless campaigns using Ontraport Pages and have gained a lot of insight about which design practices withstand the test of time. Whether your landing pages need some polish so they’ll convert better or you’re just started out with landing pages, these tips will set you on the right path.

Clean Above-the-Fold Design

When people talk about “above the fold,” they are referring to anything you see on a webpage at first glance, without scrolling downward. The imagery and text that is visible above the fold should be a complete, well-designed concept. This means that you don’t want to have an image or headline cut off so that the viewer must scroll down to get the full picture.  

Remember that most people who land on a page don’t even go below the fold, so what you put above the fold really does matter. People will only scroll down if they are engaged by what they see right off the bat.

It’s important that your branding is represented consistently with your other marketing assets, and you include captivating imagery and your CTA (a form or link/button taking them to another page) above the fold.

When we talk about “clean” design, we are really just talking about making it easy and pleasurable for the eye to navigate. The questions you want to ask yourself are: What is the viewer going to take away from this landing page in five seconds? Is she going to read the headline and know what I am talking about, or will she be confused?

Remember that the eye reads left to right. As Casanova explains, “It’s like a painting; your eyes have to have an entrance point and an exit point. If you look at a painting and it doesn’t make sense to you visually, you aren’t going to like that painting. You have to curate the experience.” On a landing page, if the eye doesn’t know what to look at, the viewer will want to leave the page.

Strategic Use of Color

Many people will tell you to use colors on your landing pages that relate to specific emotions or personalities and to use contrasting colors for emphasis. While there is certainly validity to these guidelines, Casanova notes that the more important discussion is around use of color as it has to do with the hierarchy of information on your page. That is, color should support the flow of what the eye is drawn to first, second, third, etc., and what it deems most important.

For example, one of the golden rules that Casanova emphasizes is to avoid making your CTA and logo the same color. You want your logo to be iconic and totally stand out. If you use similar colors/fonts in your CTA as you used in your logo, the two will compete and your logo will also be less memorable.

Headlines: Hierarchy Matters Most

As with color, the size of the copy on your page should follow a hierarchy so that the reader understands what is most important. Use attractive and balanced type and, in general, big and bold is best, but make sure that you stick to your style and branding. Always be authentic to your brand in every element of your design.

Again, the most important rule for effective headline design is to ensure that the hierarchy of your copy is obvious. This means, the headline is the biggest, most obvious text on the page. It’s what you want your reader to see first. The subheading comes next in the hierarchy, and your body copy is third in line in terms of priority to the reader.  

Hierarchy is more important than which font color or size and type you use. When it comes to landing page headlines, hierarchy is king (how’s that for a mnemonic device?)

Imagery and Illustrations

You want your landing page images to be beautiful and eye-catching as well as original.

One trend we’ve seen gaining traction is the use of illustrations in place of original photography for website imagery. Since it is less expensive and faster than good photography, illustrations can easily become a default. Ontraport uses original illustrations created by graphic artists in our branding to mix it up, but we also have a staff photographer who curates our photography, ensuring that our collateral is always original and aligned with our branding.

If you want to use photography and don’t have a photographer in-house, there are freelancers and agencies you can hire to get your photos done right. If you don’t have the funds for that, then you can take photos yourself, but make sure they’re authentic to your brand.

Whether you’re using photos or illustrations, it’s important to keep them consistent with your brand’s visual tone and appearance. As Casanova puts it, “Your authenticity declines the more you use stock photos or stock illustrations.”

Authenticity Wins in the Long Run

Your branding is your identity as a business, and people are much more likely to follow you if they feel positive about your brand.

“Just be authentic — at the end of the day, that’s how you break through the noise. I think people often forget about that,” said Casanova.

There’s no need to subscribe to a formula when it comes to your branding or to do things because someone else says you should or that it converts well. What converts well for you is going to be what is true and authentic for you as a company, as a brand.

“You want to convert customers because they are sold on your brand, not just sold on the landing page they’re on,” Casanova says.

The post Follow These Landing Page Design Best Practices to Keep Visitors’ Attention appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

Even if the primary purpose of most of your landing pages is to feature marketing copy and generate leads, they’re still ultimately designed to make money. Landing pages are for you to share your knowledge, build your credibility and, in the end, earn leads and sales.

If your business does this well, you’ll have a sustainable advantage over your competition. If you struggle to put together pages that work, you’ll be in trouble.

It’s not hard to make dramatic improvements to your landing pages, though. It really boils down to a few basic ideas: Meet your visitors where they are on their journey; don’t oversell; and make it exceedingly easy for them to make a decision.

Like any other piece of sales or marketing content, your landing pages must make it easy for people to make a decision. If it’s easy and they’re motivated, they’ll be more likely to buy from you.

When creating a landing page, your goal is to give potential customers the right information about your product and make a persuasive argument that it can solve a problem for them or make their lives better.

Connect the Headline

Let’s say you have a basic funnel that includes a text-based paid ad driving traffic to a landing page with a form. When someone reads your ad, they’ve done three things in your favor. They:

1. Took the time to read your ad amidst everything else on your page
2. Decided they liked the ad
3. Decided to click on the ad to see where it goes

If a person clicks into your page and the ad text is different than the headline on your landing page, they may be surprised — an emotion you don’t want your landing pages to evoke.

When someone is compelled to actually read your ad, something caught their attention. So why, when you send people from the ad to the landing page, would your headline include anything other than the text from your ad? It’s confusing and doesn’t capitalize on what worked in the first place.

In the example below, simply matching the headline to the ad text eliminates confusion for the reader.

Ask for Less Information

Has anyone ever asked you to apply for a credit card or register to vote? They need a lot of information, and the excessive form fields can be overwhelming and annoying to fill out.

Do you want people to get the same feeling when they see the form on your landing pages?

Of course not, yet it’s easy to get contact-information greedy as business owners and marketers. It’s tempting to ask for your visitor’s address, work phone, and the name of their first born child, but it’s never a good idea. Statistics show that asking for too much information will cost you conversions.

The hard thing is that there’s no “perfect” number of forms on your landing pages. There’s a tradeoff: Asking for more information reduces your conversion rate but potentially increases the quality of your leads and provides you with more information to guide your sales conversations. Asking for less information increases your conversion rates but also drives down the overall quality of leads.

My solution: Collect as many email subscribers as you can with a simple one-field email opt-in, then provide subscribers offers to become leads or buyers, and ask for more information at that stage.

Don’t Oversell — Have a Process Instead

There’s a strong temptation to build every feature and benefit into your landing pages, to answer every objection and question that a visitor can possibly have, or to throw in those additional testimonials and social proof points. All this extra information is exhausting for the reader; it’s overselling.

Resist the urge.

Instead, think of your landing pages as stepping stones to move people along the path of their own journey from stranger (to you and your business) to customer and evangelist.

When they hit your landing page, supply just enough information for them to decide if they want to move to the next step. Nothing more.

Your landing pages should fit into a process that goes something like this:

As you write your landing pages, ask yourself this question about each element and piece of copy: Is this information compelling and necessary for someone to decide to move to the next step?

If the answer is no — cut it.

By cutting extra information, you focus the message and avoid fatiguing your readers. If you give them too much information, they probably won’t remember anything, and wouldn’t it be much better to have people remember just a few important things?

Click for Benefits

Asking someone to take action is a big step.

They have to decide if your product or service is for them. Then they have to decide if they like your approach, personality and specifics (such as features). And they have to decide if they like it all enough to take action right now.

And you want that outcome to occur over and over again.

If you’re in B2B, the benefit is probably something like saving money, making money or avoiding risk. If you’re in B2C, it might include having fun, being healthy or saving time. No matter what your product is, you must provide some distinct, easy-to-articulate benefit so that there’s a compelling reason to buy.

So why in the world would you ask them to “submit” at the end of the process? You’ve promised exciting benefits along their entire journey, and now your copy has turned bland.

Your headline or subhead makes a promise. If someone is intrigued by that promise and makes it all the way to your call to action, remind them why they came so far. That’s right — say the same exact thing in your call to action that you said in your headline.

Let’s pretend you’re selling the fastest internet router on the market. It hasn’t launched yet, but you’re collecting email addresses from people who want to be notified when it’s available. Here are a few examples of exciting, benefit-driven copy, and a few pedestrian button copy examples for contrast:

The good copy examples work because they reaffirm the reason the person is on the page in the first place. If they’ve gone to the trouble of reading everything on the page, they probably wanted those initial benefits really badly. Give it to them.

Make the Decision Easier

Making the decision to buy something can be challenging for people, but there are many tactics you can use to appeal to consumers’ natural aversion to risk.

The most common is to offer a money-back guarantee, reducing the commitment a person needs to make before trying you out.

Here are a few variations on the concept:

• 30-day trial, no questions asked
• 200% money-back guarantee
• Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back
• Lose your income and we’ll take your car back (Hyundai)
• You’ll love it or you can slap me in the face (thank you Andrew Warner of Mixergy.com)

Another effective form of risk reversal is the free trial. This works wonders for products that your buyers want to try before they buy, from soap to software. Here’s a free trial example:

The reason risk reversal is so powerful is that you demonstrate confidence in your business. People are very risk averse. By reducing their risk, you’re reducing their stakes. If they have less to lose, you’re making their decision easier.

Show Some Proof

Another way of reversing risk is to show that other people have used your product or service and liked it. That’s where testimonials and other forms of social proof come in.

Before there was the internet or the Better Business Bureau, it was hard to tell if someone — an individual or a business — was lying or misrepresenting their claims.

Naturally we relied on other people to tell or show us that something was low risk. It’s called social proof and it’s simple: If other people like it, it must be good.

There are a few easy ways to show social proof on your landing pages:

• Testimonials
• Companies using your product
• Number of shares
• Numbers of users/dollars/installs
• Case studies

Social proof is as effective as risk-aversion guarantees — it provides valuable word-of-mouth evidence that your product works.

Take a few of the lessons you’ve learned today and implement them right away. I recommend setting up a test to see which techniques work for your product.

The purpose of landing pages is often lead generation, but think further to your ultimate goal — generating revenue. Landing pages must convert and, with these five hacks, you’ll watch your landing pages become top performers.

The post Conversion-Boosting Tips for Your Landing Pages appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

In fact, there’s a pervasive myth in the digital marketing world about lead generation that far too many entrepreneurs assume is true. It goes something like this: a beautifully designed website with lots of information about a product or company will attract new leads simply by virtue of it being a great website. Ah, if only.

Let’s bust this myth right now. Although a smart, professionally-designed website definitely helps establish your brand, it is not enough to generate new leads for your business. Why?

Take a step back and look at the origins of business websites. Before the internet made it easy for businesses to showcase their products and services online, many companies relied on printed brochures. These glossy publications helped customers make buying decisions by giving them heaps of information about the product or service as well as supplying them with the company’s contact info. Follow-up interaction took place only if the customer decided to pick up the phone or visit the business in person.

The first generation of websites emulated these printed brochures. They were viewed simply as publications that enabled customers to do their own research about a company. Many of these “brochure” sites still exist today.

Brochure sites just don’t work anymore

The brochure format may have worked in 2005, but there are many reasons why these sites are no longer competitive in the modern digital world.

They don’t offer a way to measure your marketing ROI

Brochure sites make it nearly impossible to measure the return on your marketing investment because you cannot tell how many leads were converted into customers solely by visiting your site. Even if your website played a role in their decision, you wouldn’t know about it unless you surveyed all your new customers to find out.

They do little to improve your SEO

Brochure sites are also terrible for SEO because they usually don’t include a plan to add and integrate new content, which means you miss out on opportunities to optimize for trending keywords that potential customers would use to search for solutions to their challenges.

They don’t leave the visitor wanting more

Your prospects and/or customers will have little reason to return to your brochure site — which is crucial for nurturing them into loyal customers over time — because these sites are essentially static and can’t function as a hub for new valuable information.

They don’t offer an opportunity to follow up with your leads

The biggest problem with brochure sites, however, is that they don’t provide a way for you to turn web visitors into actual customers. Curious, potential customers visit your site, read about your product and are interested but may not be ready to buy. Then what happens? Unless they decide to call or email you, you lose their business. Even though they expressed interest, there’s no way you can begin nurturing those leads because you have no way of contacting them. All you can do is cross your fingers and hope they remember you.

The alternative: landing pages

While brochure websites focus on you, interactive and engaging landing pages focus on your customer and greet them wherever they are on their buying journey. If you want to convert web visitors into customers, you must focus on solving the problems your potential customers are facing. Creating an interactive experience with a landing page is the perfect way to do this.

When customers land on your page, you don’t want to leave them guessing about what to do next. Make the most of your opportunity, and invite them to take action. The most important factor making a landing page different from a traditional website is that it focuses on a single, powerful call to action. While a website offers dozens of navigational options and includes general information on your company, a landing page motivates readers to take the next step toward further interaction with your brand. When this happens, you’ve generated a lead.

Three reasons to focus on landing page lead generation

1. Measuring marketing ROI is much easier

Marketing is expensive. Landing pages that capture leads are a smart strategy to generate a return on your investment. When your focus is on lead generation, you have a reliable, concrete way to measure the outcome of your efforts in advertisements and other channels for driving traffic.

2. You can stay in touch with visitors who are interested

Instead of losing customers who aren’t ready to buy, you can either direct them to your website or collect contact information so you can follow up and send free content. As a bonus, because each of your landing pages is focused on one specific problem and solution, you can use retargeting ads to continue showing related content and offers to people who visit your page but don’t opt in.

3. Your potential customers are more receptive to future offers

According to Dr. Robert B. Cialdini’s highly regarded Six Principles of Influence, people have a strong desire to be consistent with their past behaviors. Think about how the need for consistency might work to your advantage in your lead generation strategy. For example, if someone subscribes to your blog or opts in to receive a free piece of content (a relatively small commitment), they are more likely to take further actions because, in a way, they already see themselves as your customer and want to remain consistent with that.

How to get started with landing pages

Any of the three strategies below are great ways to begin transforming your web presence from a static brochure site into a dynamic and engaging lead generation machine.

1. Offer free content

Think about how you can meet potential customers along their buying journey. What are their current needs? What might be valuable to them given their pain points (which you are ready to help them solve)? How can you provide the most value to your audience? By nurturing and educating your potential customers, you build trust and empower them to make a decision they can feel great about.

If you’re extremely knowledgeable in a certain area or have a particular expertise, try writing an ebook that teaches a specific skill your average buyer is interested in. You could even write an ebook that helps them better understand a concept closely related to your product, setting yourself up as an authority.

You can use a landing page to position your free content as a solution to the problem they are experiencing right now. Try building a page that explains what you’re offering and why your visitors need it, and encourage them to opt in.

2. Collect more information about your leads

For customers who are a bit further along in your buying cycle, use an online form to make it easier for them to share more information with you when they request a demo, a strategy call or a free trial of your product/service. To motivate them to fill out the form, explain what they will receive if they take advantage of your offer.

Create a page that walks visitors through the benefits of your offer and what is going to happen when they take the next step. If you want to collect more data by including several different form fields, consider using a lightbox pop-up form.

Creating a lightbox pop-up form supplies you with more information about your leads so you can provide potential customers with an experience specifically tailored to their needs. You can also segment them in your CRM based on the information they share with you and customize the follow-up communications they receive depending on their responses.

You’ll want to carefully consider what fields to add on your forms. Keep in mind that too many fields may turn off potential leads, while too few fields may not provide enough information to have a productive call or demo with them.

If you’re worried that your leads won’t be willing to give you all the info you need on the form, you can split the form into multiple steps by setting another lightbox as the “thank you” page that pops up right after they complete the first form. This helps to increase conversions by asking for only their basic info upfront and then asking for more later on following the diversion of the “thank you” page. Even if a lead doesn’t fill out step two, you’ll still get all the critical information from step one (such as contact info).

3. Improve your follow-up process

What happens to customers who respond to your calls to action? Do they get a prompt response from you? How easy is it for them to fall through the cracks?

The biggest pitfall of many websites is that they are not seamlessly integrated with the tools that entrepreneurs use to manage follow-ups. When a new lead is collected, that information might go to a number of different places — someone’s inbox, a CRM tool, or just into your email marketing platform’s subscriber list.

Some of those tools can automate the process for what happens next, but it often results in a complex system. With several different software tools relying on people to move information between them, the results are often inconsistent. When you or your team forget to do any of those tasks, you stand the chance of losing your new lead. If new leads are simply getting delivered to someone’s inbox without automatic follow-up, it’s time to set up a process to reliably touch base with them.

In Ontraport, you can trigger a response email message that is automatically sent as soon as the form is submitted. Regardless of the email service you’re using, make sure you’ve set up a thoughtful autoresponder. Receiving an immediate response after filling out a form reassures customers that you value their decision to interact with your site. Making sure that you don’t drop the ball on any incoming leads can tremendously boost your bottom line.

Any of these three strategies will help turn your landing pages into a stronger representation of your brand and dramatically improve user experience. Don’t forget that the key to a great page – one that moves your business forward by generating leads – is to focus on your customer. When customers find you online, you have the opportunity to solve their most pressing problems, no matter where they are on the buying journey. Embrace this focus, and you will create relationships with your prospects that benefit all parties involved.

The post Use Landing Pages to Accelerate Your Lead Conversion Strategy appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

Once you’ve been noticed, you want to get your potential date’s “number” so you can start a conversation — and on your landing pages, your goal is similarly to capture your prospects’ contact information so you can stay in touch.

Lead capture forms are the avenue for gaining that critical piece of information, such as your prospects’ name and email address so that you can add them to your email list and continue marketing to them.

There’s an art and a science behind optimizing the way you use forms to increase your chances of prospects filling them out. Here are five strategies to keep in mind:

1. OFFER SOMETHING VALUABLE

Most people aren’t going to provide their name and email address for no reason. One of the most common approaches to lead capture forms involves offering something highly valuable for free. By doing this, you’re providing your new leads something in exchange for them providing you their contact information.

Your valuable free offer could be a downloadable piece of content, such as an ebook, or it could be a discount on a future purchase, a free trial, or any other offer that your leads would find enticing.

This offer also serves the purpose of qualifying your leads. In fact, those who accept your free value offer tend to move from opt-in to purchase much more quickly than those who have not. Through this simple exchange, your prospects get high quality content and you get new, more qualified leads — it’s a win/win.

2. ENGAGE WITH LIGHTBOXES BASED ON VISITOR ACTIONS

You’ve probably had the experience of scrolling through a page on a website, perhaps reading the content or just perusing to get a feel for the product or service, when a pop-up form, also called a lightbox, grabs your attention.

Many websites employ lightboxes to grab your attention; rather than simply placing the form in a static location on the page, pop ups are front and center.

Lightboxes can be triggered by a specific user action which you, as the form builder, can set. For example, you could set the form to pop up based on the amount of time a visitor has spent on the page. To set the ideal timing for your page, you can determine how long it takes to consume the first section of your content. This way, you’ll know they have an interest in your topic and are likely to fill out the form.

Another trigger is “exit intent,” which is when the mouse heads up toward the “back” or “close” button. As a sort of last-ditch effort to get visitors to give you another chance to win their favor and hopefully their business, you can set a pop up to appear just as they are about to leave.

Any combination of these (and other) triggers is possible, allowing you to be sure that visitors see what you’re offering. Either way, lightboxes bring your forms to your visitors, rather than your visitors having to find your forms.

3. AVOID FORM ABANDONMENT

We’ve all done it. We began filling out a form online and then we got a text message that stole our attention, clicked back to a previous page, or we just simply changed our mind. Whatever the case may be, form abandonment happens often, and an incomplete form means a lost lead.

The good news is that there are steps you can take to reduce the likelihood of form abandonment. One step is to make sure that your form has an appropriate amount of fields given your objective. For example, too many fields can discourage visitors from filling them out entirely, but too few may not give you enough information to properly segment your list or ensure that they are a good fit for your product or service.

One solution is to build multi-step forms, wherein each step saves your leads’ responses and directs them to another form that asks for more information. Make sure that the first form asks for the essentials: full name and email address. Once they click “submit,” you’re free to start asking more in-depth questions on subsequent forms if need be. That way, if they stop at form two or three, you still have their information as a lead.

4. DESIGN FORMS THAT ARE CONSISTENT WITH YOUR BRANDING

Your forms should be eye catching in order to increase the odds of being filled out, but that doesn’t mean they should stand out in a dramatic way. They should be designed consistently with your branding on the rest of your landing page — using the same fonts, colors, and tone of voice.

If your form, especially if it’s a pop up form, doesn’t match the landing page or your other branding, it can be an immediate turn off or be mistaken as an unrelated distraction.

5. MAKE YOUR CTA RELEVANT AND CRYSTAL CLEAR

Similar to ensuring your form matches the branding on your page, make sure that what you’re offering is in keeping with the content of the page. For example, if someone is on your page for your fitness program, the offer could be a free trial of a fitness class or a free download about at-home workouts — not about your nutrition classes or other offerings. By doing this, you’ll be more likely to gain their interest and more targeted in your messaging.

When it comes to the actual CTA button your visitors click after filling out your form fields, use clear and active language that reiterates what they’re going to receive when they click on it. For example, rather than simply saying “Submit” or “Enter,” your button could say “Get my free download!” or “I’m ready for my free trial!”

On every lead generation form, your goal is to craft a powerful offer and compelling CTA so that it’ll be 100% clear what you want your visitors to do and what they will get in return for doing it. Doing so will build trust with your page visitors and increase their chances of completing your form and becoming a new lead in your pipeline.

The post 5 Pro Tips for Using Forms to Convert More Leads appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

If your visitors trust that what you’re offering is valuable to them and that your business is reliable and reputable, they will be much more likely to engage with your page and follow through on your call to action.

In addition to building trust, your landing pages are your opportunity to build your brand’s reputation and move visitors to the next step of your customer lifecycle. The elements you include on your pages, as well as your design and copy, work together to support those objectives.

Here’s how to incorporate these concepts onto your pages from the moment visitors arrive until they complete your call to action.

Make a Strong First Impression

The first things your page visitors see and read when they get to your page will impact whether they trust you and stick around.

Message Match

When your page visitors clicked on an ad or email to get to your landing page, it was because they were interested in the promise made in that ad or email. When they get to your landing page, you should show them what they expect to see with a similar or matching headline and images. That confirms for the visitor that they’ve reached the right page, and it shows them that you fulfill your promises. It reiterates that you are neither tricking them with click-bait headlines nor out to squeeze them into buying something they don’t want.

As marketing strategist and Chief Creative at Good Funnel, Liston Witherill wrote, “When someone is compelled to actually read your ad, something caught their attention. So why, when you send people from the ad to the landing page, would your headline include anything other than the text from your ad? It’s confusing and doesn’t capitalize on what worked in the first place.”

Attractive, Balanced Headlines

In addition to fulfilling the promise of your ad’s headline, your page headline should be persuasive and informative but not too “salesy.” People can tell when someone is trying to sell them or push them into buying something — and it’s an immediate turn off.

Instead, convince your visitors to stay on the page by clearly and succinctly representing the value of what’s on the page — there’s no need for anything more than that. Your headlines and subheads should be easily understandable so visitors know, at a quick glance, exactly what the page is offering them. Get right to the point — you only have a few seconds to keep them.

Mobile-responsive

If your visitors can’t easily view and read your page on a mobile device, they’re going to exit immediately. When creating your page in a landing page builder, you can often simply click a mobile icon to view what your page will look like on mobile devices with varying screen sizes. Some builders will allow you to adjust your layout to be different on mobile than desktop so you can further ensure your mobile version is as readable and attractive as possible.

Clean Above-the-Fold Design

If visitors come to your page and feel overwhelmed by too many colors, images or content that’s not aligned or sized appropriately, they’ll bail. It’s important that your content, especially “above the fold” — the content that’s shown within the parameters of the screen upon visiting, before the visitor scrolls down — is easy to grasp and easy on the eyes.

“It’s natural to want to explore all the colors, fonts, sizing and other settings available in your  landing page builder — but that doesn’t mean you need to use all of them,” said Ontraport VP of Creative Laura Casanova. “Stay true to your brand’s look and feel, and avoid cluttering up your page with extras that detract from your main message and goal.”

Also, keep the navigation labels at the top of your page to a minimum — or don’t use them at all. Your landing page should be focused on one product. Including navigation to explore other products or parts of your website is only a distraction that takes away from your goal. It also can cause confusion for your visitors, which leads to distrust.

Keeping your page design clean is not only important for keeping your visitors on the page, but it goes a long way toward expressing that you’re a trustworthy, professional brand.

Proof

You can tell your customers how great you are as much as you want, but it’s not going to be nearly as effective as if outsiders tell them.

Validation from a third party is often the critical tipping point that keeps people on your page. You can show this by displaying any of the following on your page:

• Logos of recognizable media outlets that have written positively about your product
• Five-star reviews from Yelp, Google or other popular review sites
• A quote or video testimonial from an industry expert
• The number of clients you’ve served or logos of your well-known clients
• Badges or certifications representing awards you’ve won

Be sure to place one of these items above the fold to make a positive initial impression and instill that you’re a trusted brand.

Keep Their Attention

You’ve got your visitors’ attention enough to get them to scroll down the page. Here’s how to keep them there.

Continuity and Congruence

All the guidelines you followed above the fold should continue below the fold — the overall look and content tone of the site should remain throughout.

Design-wise, use the same fonts, colors and image style. For example, if you used images with people in the header image, continue using similar people in other images rather than introducing illustrated drawings of people.

Likewise, be sure the copy on your page fulfills the promise of your headline and subhead.

Together, your design and copy should be congruent. They should tell a story in tandem. When everything relates, your visitors can more quickly understand your point and comprehend your business as an authority on the topic — which builds their trust in you. On the other hand, when your copy and images don’t play off one another and are going off on tangents, your readers can get lost and confused — which will make them think your brand and product must be imperfect, too.

Share Your “Why”

There’s a reason you created your product or service — tell your visitors what that is. Your reason most likely relates to your desire to solve a problem, relieve a common pain point, or fulfill a need. People can relate to that; in fact, they probably came to your page because they’re looking for it. Be clear about how your product or service will serve your visitors and what their life will be like after they use it.

Sharing the benefits of your product or service speaks directly to your visitors and hints at the mission and purpose of your business; it shows that there’s a human behind the screen, not just a money-seeking company. That’s what people relate to, and that’s what builds trust and lasting relationships.

Back Up Your Claims

Similar to the third-party proof you provide at the top of your page, you’ll also want to show proof of what you’re saying within the copy of your site by using statistics or sharing more examples of third-party validation.

This could include quotes extracted from customers who’ve found success with your product, industry experts who support your business, media coverage about your product, or online reviews.

Testimonials are powerful endorsements when they appear on landing pages: Visitors want to see how other people like them succeeded — they want to be able to really relate to these people and think, “That guy was just like me and now he’s a success. I can do that too!”

You can also use video, graphics or imagery to back up your claims. Often, “showing” goes a lot further than “telling” when it comes to how a product works. It’s visual proof that keeps your visitors from questioning whether what you’re saying is true.

Close the Deal and Move Them Forward

Your visitors have stuck with you; they’re liking what they’re seeing and reading. Now it’s time to instill an even stronger level of confidence in your brand and make a pact based on the trust you’ve built.

Proactive Answers

Even after reading your whole page, your visitors might still have some lingering questions or might still be on the fence about following through on your call to action. An FAQ section serves to answer the questions you expect them to ask at this point. This shows them that you’re looking out for them and want to help them, and that you’re not hiding anything. It also resolves any unknowns that would inhibit the visitor from taking action. All of these things provide assurance to your visitors that they’re making the right choice to purchase from you.

When creating your FAQ, put yourself in the shoes of your customer and think about what they would want to know. They may be wondering:

• Is this product/service really right for me?
• Is this really high-quality?
• What is the return policy if I’m not satisfied?
• Is there a guarantee?
• What is the shipping process and cost?
• Is there a customer support team I can call if needed?

Guarantee

Similar to your FAQ, a guarantee serves to quell your visitors’ fears or concerns about purchasing. By simply stating that you’ll make it right if they don’t feel you fulfilled your promise, you’re expressing your confidence in your product. This subtly alludes to the mission-oriented content you featured earlier on the page and reiterates that you’re here to support them, not trick them or merely make money off of them.

The guarantee also serves to assure visitors that their decision isn’t going to be regrettable. That knowledge alone is often enough to encourage someone to purchase.

Your guarantee is also a good opportunity to explain your refund and cancellation policy.

Call to Action (CTA)

Your entire page boils down to this. It’s what you want your visitors to do, whether that means making a purchase or signing up for a webinar or consultation call. You’ll pepper your CTA buttons throughout your page, but typically your visitors won’t click until they’ve consumed all the information on your page, believe in the value of your offer, and have faith that you’ll deliver on your promises.

Although it’s often just a word or two, the copy on your CTA button can make a big impact on whether people will click or not. Make sure the tone of your CTA copy aligns with the rest of your content. Avoid drab words like “submit” or “purchase,” and instead opt for energetic phrases like “I’m in!” or “Buy now!” or descriptive phrases such as “Send me my free guide!”

Prior to the final CTA button on your page, you’ll also give a final sell in a sentence or two of copy. This copy should follow the same guidelines as your headline — it should express your promise and the benefits the visitor will receive by following through, without being pushy or scammy. Again, action requires trust and, to gain trust, you need to show that you’re acting with the best intentions.

Payment Security

Buying online is commonplace these days, but that doesn’t mean everyone feels comfortable entering their credit card information on just any site. By the time your visitor has reached your order page or form, you’ve hopefully impressed your trustworthiness upon them enough to encourage them to follow through, but you should provide further assurance by displaying trust seals and security certifications.

This shows your customers that you’re watching out for their best interests regarding their payment. It verifies to customers that your site is legitimate, and their data will be protected.

The most-trusted seals are Norton Secured, McAfee Secure, Verisign and Paypal Verified. You may also want to include your SSL certificate logo to reiterate to customers that their credit card information will be safely encrypted and transmitted to eliminate security risks.

Keep in mind, if you’re using Ontraport Pages to build your order page, your order form is already secure so you won’t need to worry about finding an SSL certificate provider. To improve conversions, try using the seal associated with your payment gateway provider or a custom seal that you create to reflect your money-back or satisfaction guarantee.

Simple Checkout

Your visitors are already slightly insecure about entering their credit card info, so don’t make it harder on them by making the checkout process cumbersome or confusing. One misstep and the trust you’ve built could be gone — and your customer will be quick to close the tab and move on.

Your order page or form should be very simple and clean; don’t clutter it with unnecessary copy or outbound links that can distract buyers and deter them from completing the purchase. Keep your number of form fields to a minimum so as not to deter them from filling them out or make them question why you would need so much information from them — which can raise red flags in the trust department.

Similarly, the level of clarity within the descriptors for your form fields matters. For example, if you’re accepting payments in U.S. dollars, make sure it clearly says that in the “price” field. If you’re offering a subscription service, clearly explain whether the payment amount is per month or per year.

Be sure you don’t introduce any “surprises” at this stage. There’s nothing like getting to an order page and then finding out shipping isn’t really free or that the cost of the product is different than what you displayed on your sales page. Make sure you maintain the same continuity during the order process as you did on the pages leading up to it.

Trust is the prerequisite to moving your visitors along on your landing pages and ultimately to the next step in your customer lifecycle. Every piece of copy and every element of your design should work together to express your value and portray your brand with the utmost level of reliability and authenticity.

The post The Underlying Factor of Landing Page Conversion appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.

They’re the place where your contacts should “land” after clicking on your ads or links in your emails or other pages. From there, you want them to take off toward the next stage in your funnel, whether by making a purchase, providing their email address or otherwise engaging with your page content.

“The age of having just one homepage is dead,” wrote marketing expert Neil Patel. “You need multiple pages that target every kind of website visitor your brand encounters.”

Think of it from the customers’ perspective: If they see an ad on Facebook about your meal planning services and click on it to find a one-size-fits-all website home page that talks about meal planning as well as your fitness and other wellness services — not to mention your upcoming events, backstory, contact information and more — they’ll likely feel overwhelmed and decide to bail.

On the other hand, if they see a page solely focused on your meal planning service — specifically about how it helps busy, working moms save time as the ad they clicked on alluded to — they’ll be intrigued and more likely to opt in for what you’re offering on the page.

From your perspective as a business owner or marketer, that means you’re actually getting a return on your investment in advertising. Creating audiences and related messages for ads is time-consuming, and running ads is expensive. When someone clicks on an ad, it means you’ve done something right — it would be a shame to lose them with a misaligned landing page or a general website.

In order for your pages to be hyper-focused, they’ll need to be thoughtfully created within the context of your customer segments and each stage of your customer lifecycle.

Landing Pages and the Customer Lifecycle

If you’re following the customer lifecycle model for attracting leads, nurturing them into customers and developing lasting referral relationships with them, then you have an entire customer lifecycle funnel dedicated to each of your segments.

For example, if you’re a personal trainer, you might have a lifecycle for the segment of your clients who are interested in weight loss and another for those interested in strength building. You’ll attract the “weight loss” segment with ads that lead to landing pages that speak to the challenges of losing weight and position your services as the solution; you’ll continue the conversation via email with additional offerings until they become a client, and you’ll be their cheerleader for their weight loss, encourage long-term workout commitment and even suggest they bring their friends (new clients) along to your training sessions. You’ll do the same for your “strength building” segment, but your ads, emails and landing pages will use messaging and images that relate more to athleticism and physical power. Either way, you’re speaking in targeted ways to unique audience segments throughout the customer lifecycle.

Your landing pages play a role at each stage. The way you position your message and the type of imagery you use on your landing pages should jive with that of your other channels throughout your funnel for that segment. And the calls to action on each page should relate to what the goal of the page is — their purpose is to move the customer along to the next stage of the lifecycle. Your landing pages are one touch point — albeit an integral touch point — in the ongoing relationships you have with leads and customers.

You’ll use different types of landing pages at each stage of the lifecycle in order to achieve their specific purposes. As Neil Patel states, “By providing different pages to users in different locations of your sales cycle, you can move them along through your sales funnel more quickly.”

Attract Stage Landing Pages

This stage is all about making an initial connection with new leads by introducing them to your product or service and, ideally, gaining their email address or social media handles so you can stay in touch.

A proven way to accomplish this is by offering something of high value for free. For example, a personal trainer might offer a free trial training session.

The landing pages you’ll use in this stage should facilitate the initial introduction and exchange of information.

Opt-in Pages

This is the page where you’ll “sell” your free offer. Using the personal trainer example, you’d have one opt-in page promoting a free trial training session targeted for those interested in weight loss and one promoting the same free trial for those interested in strength training.

You’ll differentiate the two by speaking to each audience’s main pain points clearly in your headline, hero image and every other element of the page.

For example, those interested in weight loss might not have exercised in a while and might fear being embarrassed, unable to keep up with a rigorous first-time workout or unsure of what types of exercises to perform. Your messaging on the page would address these pain points by explaining how a one-on-one training session removes the common worry of embarrassment that might come with a group training or gym environment, how you’ll tailor the workout to their ability level, and how you’ll have the exercise program all planned out so they won’t need to worry about what to do. And your images on the page will be of people this audience can identify with.

Your page for your athletic strength training audience would be completely different. Perhaps you’ve discovered that your current clients who are interested in your services for strength training purposes tend to be athletes who are already actively exercising but want to push it to the next level. They’re struggling to push past a plateau in their abilities, bored with their regular workout routine, or aiming for a specific goal to get accepted into a special tournament or win an upcoming competition. Your messaging will address those pain points, and your imagery will display athletic-looking people who this audience can relate to or aim to become.

The goal of this page is to gain your new lead’s trust and encourage them to sign up for your free trial by entering their name and email address on a form on your page. That’s your main call to action, and it should be placed near the top of your page as well as the bottom.

You can also use this page as an opportunity to get to know your new leads even more so that you can segment them into sub-segments. On your strength training page, you might ask, “What sport do you play?” and provide a dropdown menu of options. Assuming you have a series of follow-up emails and landing pages dedicated to each sport type, you could automatically add your new lead to the appropriate funnel based on their selection. Those who are into bodybuilding will only see bodybuilding content from you, positioning you as a specialized expert while also showing them relevant content.

Thank You Pages

Once someone enters their information into the form on your opt-in page, a thank you page should automatically display. But the page shouldn’t simply say “thank you” and confirm the opt-in; it should provide even more value so the new lead is reassured in their decision to enter their information on the previous page.

The additional value you provide could come in the form of links to articles or videos on your blog that relate to each segment. For the weight loss segment, you might provide a video about at-home beginner exercises; for the strength training segment, you might provide a video about foam rolling techniques to alleviate sore muscles.

Convert Stage Landing Pages

At this stage, your leads are familiar with your company and have participated in your free trial or downloaded a free piece of valuable content from you. That means they’ve begun to realize the ways you or your products and services can be of use to them.

The goal of this stage is to sell your core product so your leads become paying customers. You might start with offering an entry-level product before proposing your core product, depending on your price points and business type.

Because you’re asking people to pay and make a higher level of commitment at this stage, your landing pages should thoroughly explain the value of your offer and instill trust in you, your product and the payment security level of your page.

Sales Pages

Similar to your opt-in pages from the Attract stage, your sales pages should speak specifically to each audience’s pain points and address why your product or service is the solution.

Returning to the personal trainer example, let’s say you’re selling your eight-week personal training program. The one for your weight loss group might be named “8 Weeks to Your Summer Body,” and the one for your athlete group might be named “8 Weeks to Peak Strength.” The name of the program itself displays the outcome of the program, and the rest of the content on the page should reiterate the related benefits of participating.

Your sales page is typically longer than an opt-in page because, before people are willing to enter their credit card, they need to feel confident in their purchase. Your page should thoroughly list the benefits of your product or service, explicitly share the outcomes they’ll achieve from it, and use testimonials, reviews or other third-party social proof to back up your claims. You might also include an FAQ to proactively address the common objections to purchasing your program, as well as information on guarantees, shipping or return policies, especially if you sell a physical product.

No matter what, all of the content should relate back to the people in your segment — their common concerns, objections and fears as well as their main interests. It should also remain highly specific solely about the program you’re selling. Even if you offer monthly or annual personal training packages, this page isn’t the time to mention them. Remove distractions, reduce the need for making decisions between products/services, and simply focus on one product/service and one segment.

Order Pages and Forms

When someone clicks on your CTA button on your sales page, they’re taken to an order page where they fill in their payment information, shipping address, email address and any other required information.

These pages should remain consistent with your sales page — the name of the program, the price you stated, the shipping and return policies you noted should all be reflected here to confirm to the buyer that you’re following through on what your sales page promised.

Your order page serves one purpose: to capture the order. Therefore, like all other landing pages, it should remove all other distractions and information. The most successful order pages simply consist of a headline, order form and “purchase” button.

Fulfill Stage Landing Pages

After your new customers buy your product or service, your goal is to get them to use it and find value from it.

During this stage, you might invite your new customers to your Facebook Community so they can collaborate or gain support from others you serve. You might call or text your new customers to welcome them and learn about their specific interests related to your product or service.

There are also a variety of types of landing pages you might use at this stage to support and encourage your customers in using your product or service.

Training or Content Page

If you run an educational membership site or sell a more advanced product that requires onboarding or training, you might send your new customers to a tutorial page or a page to schedule a one-on-one onboarding webinar with your team.

Even if you don’t have a membership site, you might want to create a landing page for the specific purpose of providing bonus content for your new customers that will support their use of your product or service.

For example, the personal trainer might send new weight loss clients to a landing page with resources and videos about home stretches to keep them from getting too sore or to support their flexibility which, in turn, supports the benefit they get from the training sessions. The clients who are interested in strength training might be directed to a landing page dedicated to how to support their exercise regimen with a diet rich in protein; the page might include recipes or your recommendations for the best protein shakes and snacks.

Either way, your overall messaging, imagery and content should follow suit with those from the previous pages in your customer lifecycle.

Survey Page

Because the goal of the Fulfill stage is to encourage your customers’ satisfaction with your product or service, it’s common to request that they fill out a survey to share feedback. You can use their responses to follow up on any needs or dissatisfaction that is revealed, as well as to further segment your audience to ensure you’re meeting their specific interests.

Typically, you’d send an email with a link to a landing page that houses your survey. The survey is essentially a form placed on a landing page. It’s important that customers understand that you’re asking these questions because you care about their satisfaction and want to improve your products and services to meet their needs in the best ways possible. Other than reiterating your “why” and your value proposition, this page should be kept simply focused on your survey form fields.

To keep your survey pages targeted to your customer segments, you might consider two different surveys with questions relevant to each audience.

Delight Stage Landing Pages

At this stage, your customers have been using your product or service and are committed to it. They may be ready for add-ons or complementary products and services that enhance their experience or support their results even further.

During this stage, your goal is to keep your customers engaged with your brand by selling them upsell or cross-sell products or services, as well as events or exclusive loyalty programs.

Your pages at this stage should focus on each specific item you’re selling and the benefits for each specific audience segment.

Upsell Sales Page and Order Page

Similar to your sales pages in the Convert stage, your sales pages in the Delight stage should fully explain the value of the upsell in terms of the outcomes the customer will achieve from it. Because upsells require an additional financial investment — and in some cases, significantly higher investment than your core product — it’s critical that you reiterate to customers the value they’ve received from you so far and the reasons you believe the upsell product is right for them.

The page should provide a detailed list of benefits of the product or service, testimonials or other third-party backup and answer the common questions you receive.

Returning to the personal trainer example, the upsell at this stage might be an annual personal training membership. Just like in previous stages, you’ll have a separate upsell sales page for each segment of your audience. Both will highlight the value of consistency in exercise, but one will be in the context of weight loss maintenance and the other will be positioned as strength achievement. You’ll likely show before and after photos of clients relevant to each audience, as well as testimonial quotes that each audience can identify with.

Similar to the Convert stage, you’ll also have an order page for your upsell product that consists solely of the form and reiterates the basics such as the name of the product and your key policies.

Event Page

Delight stage offers often involve inviting clients to an in-person event, such as a community lecture, networking meetup, conference or a launch event for a new product.

These landing pages will be similar to your other pages but the product you’re selling is an event so your value statements are meant to entice the customers to show up. You’ll likely include specific event details such as maps and locations, as well as images of the event venue or city and information on the event speakers.

The personal trainer might invite clients to a local wellness lecture: one by a nutritionist focused on healthy eating for the weight loss group and one by an orthopedist who treats athletes and talks about avoiding common injuries. Of course, your landing pages here will be unique for each topic and audience, but both will reiterate the value of this added information for their workout goals.

You also might want to segment your event pages even further based on your customers’ locations. If you’re having a meetup in both Sydney and Melbourne, you can use the address data in your customers’ contact record (which they provided when they purchased your product in the Convert stage) to set conditions to ensure you’re inviting the customers to the event near their homes. Your landing pages, likewise, will only include information for one location.

Refer Stage Landing Pages

The last stage of the customer lifecycle, the Refer stage is where you encourage your satisfied, loyal customers to spread the word about you to their friends and family.

The goal of this stage is to garner referrals, so your related pages should be focused on the benefits your customers and their referred friends will receive by referring and purchasing. The pages should also remind your customers of your value and all the progress and success they’ve achieved with you so far, making it natural for them to want to share that with their loved ones.

Referral Sales Page

Referral programs often involve providing a unique referral link to your customers via email and encouraging them to share it. That link will take the referred friend to your sales page — often the same sales page you used in your Convert stage.

If you’re using dynamic content in Ontraport Pages, you can add a unique welcome message that shows up only to those who are coming to the sales page from a referral link. It could say something such as, “Welcome, friend! We’re glad [your friend] told you about us. Purchase today and you’ll each get $10 off.”

Referral Tracking Page

If you have a partner program in place, you can also have a landing page dedicated to displaying each person’s referrals. It can show the names of the people they’ve referred who ended up purchasing as well as the bonus they’ve received for each.

This page should reiterate what your partners are getting by participating in your referral program, provide easy access to their referral code so they can keep referring others, and include resources that support them in making referrals, such as pre-made social media posts or ads they can place on their websites.

Again, the goal of this page and this stage is to gain referrals, so this page should be focused solely on that. Refrain from selling other products, seeking feedback or including other distractions.

There are many types of landing pages you can use at each stage of the customer lifecycle. What’s important is to remember the purpose of the stage and to tailor a page for each of your audience segments to increase your chances of achieving your goals.

The post How to Use Landing Pages Throughout the Customer Lifecycle appeared first on The Ontraport Blog.