By Chantel Hall, Marketing Content Specialist
Landing pages are commonly used in B2B marketing, and when optimized, they can be a high-performing lead generation tool. However, to build successful and engaging landing pages, marketers need to go beyond a simple checklist and approach landing pages as evolving assets that always have room for improvement.
There are certain elements every landing page needs, but to get the most from each landing page, marketers need to continually experiment with different approaches for each element. Through interaction and testing, you can determine what combination of offers, copy, form design, and calls to action (CTAs) creates the outcomes you want.
Here, we’ll discuss each item in the landing page checklist and how each element can be experimented with and improved over time.
Learn how Ironpaper can help you move on from a basic landing page checklist and improve conversion rates.
✅ Creating effective landing page offers
Landing pages usually revolve around a value offer, such as an e-book, webinar, newsletter signup, or even a proposal or quote from a salesperson. Any value offer you build a landing page around should be targeted, compelling, and provide explicit value to leads.
One HubSpot report found that companies that increased the number of landing pages on their website from 10 to 15 saw a 55% increase in leads. Adding landing pages creates more conversion opportunities and marketing collateral and it allows marketers to create more specifically targeted landing pages.1
If a content offer is not performing well, look for small, quick improvements you can make to improve conversions. You might adjust the messaging around the topic of the offer, change the format from an e-book to a template or a guide, or look for ways to communicate the value of the offer better.
The examples below show how you can rewrite just the title of a content offer to make it more valuable and appealing to visitors. Even small changes like this makes the offer's value more obvious.
Content-focused title: Writing Strong Copy for Web Pages
Value-focused title: How to Write Web Copy that Generates Leads and Improves Conversions
✅ Writing effective landing page copy
Landing page copy is the vehicle for quickly drawing in a viewer and telling them exactly why they should stick around. Copy needs to be buyer-focused and explicitly tell viewers what value they’ll get from filling out the form and engaging with your content.
The header of every landing page should grab readers' attention with a value proposition targeted towards the leads visiting that specific page. This copy is not the place to get fluffy or metaphorical; you only have a few seconds to make a first impression, so make your header stand out and pique the reader’s interest.
Company-focused copy: We provide content marketing, lead generation, and account-based marketing services.
Buyer-focused copy: We help our clients generate qualified leads and sustainably improve their conversion rates.
Copy throughout the rest of the landing page should also be easy to read and keep the viewer interested. Use headers and bullet points to make copy easy to skim, include graphics to support your main points and provide visual interest, and above all, communicate value with every piece of copy.
When trying to improve landing page conversion rates, you can always strive to make your copy easier to skim, more engaging, and more personalized to the leads reading it. For example, if you’re working on a landing page that’s targeted toward leads in the consideration stage, high-level, top-of-the-funnel copy isn’t going to engage them. Similarly, if someone is visiting your website for the first time, copy that’s too dense or solutions-focused won’t be valuable to them.
✅ Designing landing page forms that convert
Forms are a critical element of lead conversion landing pages, and there are many ways to customize and improve forms that aren’t performing well. As with the other elements of a landing page, you should customize each form for the leads you’re hoping will provide their information. When designing forms, you need to balance information gathering with delivering value.
Automated forms, like the ones offered by HubSpot, allow you to customize one form for multiple parties — so if a lead and a current customer visit your page they will see a form customized to their place in the marketing funnel.2 Automated forms will help you collect information from leads near the top of the funnel without asking for information from prospects or customers that you already have, creating a more tailored experience for everyone who visits the landing page.
There is a lot of room for experimentation and improvement with landing page forms. Form fields, copy at the top of the form, the call to action (CTA) in the “submit” button, placement on the page, and design elements can all affect conversion rates. When a landing page isn’t performing well, consider whether all of the elements of your form are communicating value and creating a low barrier to entry. If you’re in doubt, make some adjustments and test the new form for a week or two and measure how it’s performing.
✅ Crafting powerful CTAs
CTAs are a small but powerful piece of copy when used correctly. Landing page CTAs must be buyer-focused and build on the value proposition in your content offer and copy.
CTAs should demonstrate value through outcome-focused wording, as opposed to just telling a lead what you want them to do. In the examples below, you can see how even a CTA that’s only a few words long can demonstrate value and encourage the viewer to fill out a form and download an offer.
Action-oriented CTA: Download our e-book.
Value-oriented CTA: Start generating qualified leads today.
Ensure each landing page only has one CTA, and experiment with your copy, formatting, location, and design to narrow in on what kinds of CTAs create the best conversion rates. You might find that buttons convert more leads than links or that CTAs with five or fewer words perform better than longer CTAs — but you’ll never learn if you don’t continually experiment and test different approaches.
✅ Leave your landing page checklist behind
The most important thing to understand is that landing page optimization is a continual process, and it’s as much of an art as it is a science. Checking items off a checklist without collecting data on how they perform and experimenting with ways to improve them will lead to stagnant conversion rates and poor-performing landing pages.
Once you’ve built a landing page, continue to look for small changes you can make to improve conversion rates little by little and take advantage of the traffic you’re working so hard to drive to your website.
Sources
1HubSpot, Why You (Yes, You) Need to Create More Landing Pages, June 10, 2021
2HubSpot, Create smart forms, August 4, 2021
Optimizely, Landing page optimization
Dynamic Yield, The core principles of landing page optimization
Stripe, Writing copy for landing pages
