More often than not, landing pages are mistaken with the page that appears as your site’s homepage. Not to say that your homepage can’t be set to a landing page but the standard home page that you have created for your site to welcome users to your brand is not a landing page on its own. That is because landing pages are there to serve a specific purpose.
Landing pages are essentially any page that people arrive at after clicking on an online marketing CTA (call-to-action).
Social media sites like Facebook will display ads to certain audiences that you specify and once those audiences have been exposed to your ad, traffic is then pushed to the corresponding link on the ad (your landing page link). So, say you have a new book you would like to launch. You will run Facebook advertising giving away the first chapter for free to encourage people to interact with your brand before they take the leap to purchase from you. Once people click through the ad they are directed to the landing page which will then have a place for them to enter their details in order for them to gain access to the free content you are giving away. Details are usually name, email and/or telephone numbers in order for you to contact the leads should they not go on to purchase immediately.
While capturing leads is indeed one of the main functions of the landing page, its purpose is also to act as a warm-up for potential clients to the product you are trying to get them to purchase before they enter the sales funnel any further. Think of it as an introduction to the product/service you are selling.
Types of Landing Pages
There are two types that exist when it comes to landing pages. These are:
Lead Generation Landing Pages and Click-Through Landing Pages.
Lead generation pages are all about collecting leads. This is done by capturing the most important piece of information you can from a potential client – their email. When people add their emails to a lead capture form, they are giving permission to continue talking and/or marketing to them.
Examples of this kind of landing page would be something called a ‘Squeezepage’. Squeezepages are designed to capture people’s information in return for some kind of lead magnet giveaway. This can be a free ebook, cheat sheet, video, audio programme etc the list is quite endless and all depends on what angle you are taking with your marketing campaign when generating leads.
Another example landing page would be an inquiry page. You can use an inquiry form that will capture people’s information in exchange for helping them with the information they are looking for. Different sites can have different purposes for these types of forms, some may have it on a standalone page but others can have this as a central feature on their landing page. For example, places that require client information/wants will have this feature in order to customize the information they supply.
There is also what you’d refer to as a webinar registration page. Perhaps you’ve run a Facebook ad that talks about the webinar topic when people click the signup button they are directed to your landing page. Here they register their details to attend this webinar class and at the same time, you are capturing their information for future marketing purposes.
Click-through landing pages are usually the link between the initial advert and the final destination where the lead needs to land up. These kinds of landing pages are more commonly used for e-commerce sites because they supply the potential client with enough info to inform them about what is being sold and prepares them to buy. The leads then ‘click-through’ further into the funnel and are introduced to the product/service you are marketing and leads are usually directed to a shopping cart or checkout page of some kind.
Videos are commonly used on this kind of landing pages, to provide a value-add on the product/service benefits. The product/service is the focus of the page as your goal is then to educate the lead on your product as much as possible to warm them up for proceeding through the sales funnel.
A good example landing page would be a sales page. This page is designed with a purpose to sell in mind. At this stage in the funnel, you would have already collected the lead’s information and introduced them to your main offer. Perhaps you work up to this offer by offering a smaller offer first then introduce the main offer as a one-click upsell. Or maybe you get into the sales page directly after you would have sent off their free lead magnet in the squeezepage section of the funnel. The sales page is designed to walk the lead through the pain of their problem, how you have helped others solve this same problem and how you can help them solve it…for a price.
Why Do We Use Landing Pages?
Landing pages are ideal for specific product/service promotion. Whereas a normal homepage will supply more general information and not really have anything specific in mind, a landing page’s sole purpose is to capture leads that will translate into sales. Their content is product/service oriented and aimed at convincing people they need the product/service that is being marketed. It is the starting point of a sales funnel and the first step in creating customers.
Landing pages are separate tools from that of your main website as it allows you to focus on single-product/service offerings. You are able to push sales in different areas of your business with the different campaigns you can run to push leads towards the products. While you can have several different landing pages running all at once, each needs to remain focused on one item/service because setting up the analytics and tracking to see where your site needs optimizing or which services sell better than others. Essentially then, landing pages are there to simply receive campaign traffic while your website is a representation of your brand.
Top 5 Landing Page Builders
If you’ve decided that your business could do with a landing page, you’re going to need to sign up for a reliable landing page builder. Luckily, these days that is pretty easy and we’ve rounded up our top 5 choices that can set you on the right path towards funnel success!
Clickfunnels
Clickfunnels offer a range of different types of funnels you can build each geared towards the specific outcome you are looking to achieve. The user-friendliness of setting this up is also fairly simple by the way. Basically, whether you are looking to set up a simple 2-step lead capture funnel whose purpose is to capture visitor info and email and then send them to a thank you page once done, or a more sophisticated funnel that requires user registration, a webinar, perhaps an upsell and downsell then it is all possible within this program capability.
Unbounce
This company has been around since 2009 providing its subscribers the service to build landing pages in a fairly quick and easy manner. With it, you can create, publish and test your landing pages before you make use of them for commercial purposes. This helps you get the best performing funnel suited for your customers which is great for bringing in new business. The pages are easy to build and customize making it perfect for all kinds of businesses and getting it to look exactly the way you want it to.
Hubspot
This is an all-in-one product that does not just concentrate on landing pages but more the entire process from funnels to marketing campaigns and CRM features. Users are able to build, administer and use the landing pages to create a subscriber list, sell services, engage with leads for things like product launches and webinars to name a couple examples. There are lots of templates to choose from which makes the building aspect fairly easy to navigate around. It’s best to choose what your outcomes are when using Hubspot to make sure you get the most out of its functions.
Leadpages
Although the company is fairly young, Lead Pages has managed to gain the following and support of a lot of people around the world. With it, you can build landing pages that can boost your conversion rate to a great extent. All you require for a good business website is available at Leadpages, and all it takes to discover its power is a quick look at its features.
Some great integrations and templates will accompany your experience with Leadpages making this a great choice should you be looking for those features.
Optimizepress
When you are looking to build a site or pages to aid your site’s traffic and lead generation, you are most probably looking for something that you can customize to your exact needs and taste. OptimizePress 2.0 is exactly that. In terms of being able to customize sites to your branding, look and feel as well as functionality, OptimizePress certainly comes with enough punch to do just that. For sites that require payment or other integrations, this is also not something to worry about as the site offers a choice of API level integrations. The membership portal can also be used with a good choice of membership programs and analytics and insight tools are compatible with its use also. This platform is an all-rounder that seems to be able to serve many needs when it comes to building out landing pages and funnels.
To conclude
It is important to understand that your homepage cannot serve the same purpose as a dedicated landing page and you should not confuse the two types of pages. While you can have a form on your homepage, it should be focused on providing an information-based service, like a newsletter or reminder communications. Sticking a form on to your homepage does not instantly turn the page into a landing page which is why it is important to decide what kind of landing page will best promote the product or service you are looking to sell so that you can focus on driving the right kind of traffic to the page.
Additionally, remember to check your analytics around this kind of page because the simple fact that you have a landing page does not guarantee it will convert and after all, the conversion is what you are after. If you are unable to convince people from your landing page you have the solution to their problem, it may be worthwhile to always run split pages to see what works best for the promotion of your product/service.