How to Create an Effective Landing Page

The following summary is taken from Julian.com's Growth Marketing Guide.

What's a Landing Page?

A landing page is the first page you see when you visit a section of a website.

There is a template that you can follow that will improve your chances of converting visitors into customers.

Why Landing Pages Matter

75% of your traffic will leave after only seeing your homepage. A great homepage means a great first impression. The template makes what your company does self-evident, reducing the work your visitor has to do to get what they want. People want information quickly, and the template gives it to them.

Landing Page Types

There are three kinds of landing page:

1. Homepage
2. Persona Landing Page
3. Product Page

The guide focuses on homepages, because they're the first thing you'll see.

Homepage

The function of the homepage is to:

1. Increase desire: Make your visitor want your product or service.
2. Decrease labour: It should be easy to use so your visitors don't leave prematurely.
3. Decrease confusion: Every sentence should be easily understood. It should be easy to figure out what to do next.

The first step to creating a good homepage is not to design the homepage. It's to hone the message. Growth is not a design first process, but messaging first.

How to Design a Good Homepage

1. Identify most desirable selling points.
2. Identify text and media that convey this clearly and concisely.
3. Combine 1 & 2: Design your page so your most desirable selling points are conveyed clearly and concisely.

Value Proposition

A value proposition is a statement about how your product will improve your customer's life. It combines a quality with a benefit: something about your product, and why that's a good thing.

For example, imagine your product improves the speed of your customer's workflow.

The quality of being fast provides three benefits:

1. Quicker output
2. Greater output
3. Greater efficiency

This can be translated into three distinct value propositions:

1. Get work done faster.
2. Get more work done.
3. Save yourself time.

Most people write terrible value propositions. Think about that. Good value propositions are both important and simple, and yet people generally get them wrong. The following is a process to systemically create good value propositions.

How to generate good value propositions

Create three columns.

1. In the first, list all the bad alternatives to using your product or service
2. In the second, detail how you do it better
3. Finally, write down your most valuable customer personas (the people who will pay the most). For each persona, note the two product features they care most about.

Let's take the example of a live chat application.

These are your notes. Now, you need to write your value propositions in full.

1. Iterate until it can't be better. Ask others to rank your best attempts.
2. Remove unnecessary words. If you can say something using fewer words while retaining the same meaning, use fewer words.
3. Only pitch the best features of your product: the top 2 or 3.

Value propositions are the selling points that increase customers' desire. Use them wherever you pitch your product.

:::tip
Concise doesn't mean short. It means there's a high ratio of ideas to words.
:::

Landing Page Template

1. Navbar
2. Hero
3. Social Proof
4. Call-to-action
5. Features and objections
6. Repeat call-to-action
7. Footer

Navbar

This is the element at the top of your page, used to navigate around the website. It needs:

1. A logo
2. (Optional) Links to key sections on your homepage
3. Links to the other sections on your site
4. A call to action button (e.g signup)

Hero

A hero is the big section at the top of your page. It's the first thing your visitors see before they scroll down. It needs:

1. Header
2. Subheader
3. Image

Headers

A header describes what you are selling. If this is all your visitor reads, would they know exactly what you sell?

To write a header:

1. Identify a value proposition that conveys the product's core purpose
2. State the high level purpose (the why)

Examples:

:::tip
For a website design tool — "Visually design and develop sites from scratch. No coding."
For a grocery delivery service — "Groceries delivered in 1 hour. Say goodbye to traffic, parking, and long lines."
For a home rental service — "Rent people's homes. So you can experience a city like a true local."
:::

Keep it within 6-12 words so it reads quickly.

Subheader

The header is the what. The subheader is the how.

Examples:

:::tip
Real estate app subheader — "Our network of remote concierges monitor your email inbox and respond to leads when you're too busy to."
Video chat app subheader — "In real-time, our on-call team transcribes and translates your words into over 20 languages."
:::

Image

The purpose of the image is to visualise the value proposition contained in the header and subheader. It should show off the product.

This an example from Slack, that shows employees using their app. It's specific.

Social Proof

Social proof consists of either client logos, testimonials, or the logos of media you've been featured in.

Your aim is to give credibility to your offer, and make your visitor feel like they're being left out of the excitement.

Call to Action

A call to action is a website element that demands active engagement from your visitor, e.g signing up or buying something.

Two components to a CTA:

1. Header
2. Button

CTA Header

State specifically what you'll get by clicking the button, e.g. "Get a new logo in 24 hours."

CTA Button Text

This should be one word or phrase, e.g. "Start", "Signup", "Browse", "Buy"

Visual contrast

1. Make your CTA stand out.
2. If you have multiple CTAs on one page, visually weight the them, so the more important ones imply a larger commitment (e.g. by making them bigger or more contrasted)

Features and Objections

A feature means a desirable aspect of your product. An objection is something that would stop somebody from buying it. This is where you deliver your complete sales pitch, and address common objections.

There are usually 3-6 features. Pair each feature with a response to its most common/likely objection.

Each feature subsection consists of:

1. Header that states value proposition
2. Paragraph that explains value proposition and handles objections
3. Image to reinforce value proposition.

Ongoing Narrative

Each feature should link back to the value proposition pitched in the hero section. Your landing page should exhibit a logically coherent narrative.

Value Proposition Header

3-5 words describing the value proposition. Be specific.

For example:

1. Cooks and Sears
2. No Prep or Cleanup
3. Cooks More than Just Meat

Feature Paragraph

Each paragraph should contain 3 concise sentences. Describe the feature and address common objections if they would stop people from buying. End each paragraph with an open loop so your reader is invited to continue to the next feature. The cliche: "But that's not all…"

If you really need to go in depth, you can conceal your paragraph text in a spoiler element so the reader has the option of reading more without disrupting the flow of your landing page.

Feature Image

Should demonstrate the product in action. GIFS work too.

Video

Don't include video unless you're selling a visual or physical product that is intriguing to see in action.

Rules for video:

1. Explain your product in 5 seconds.
2. Keep the video under 45 seconds total.
3. Show the product in action from start to finish.
4. Use real language, not salespeak.
5. Audio should be optional.
6. Conclude with a CTA.

Getting Feedback on Your Page

Two types of reviewers:

1. Those in your market.
2. Those not in your market

In Your Market

Learn if your message is compelling enough for those high in intent to choose you over the competition.

Not In Your Market

Learn how appealing your copy is those not familiar with your market or product. Do you give them enough context to want to know more? Useful for people on the edge of your market who could become customers if they better understood your offering.

Assessment criteria

For both audiences, ask them to assess the following:

1. Are you willing to hand over payment details right away? If not what's stopping you?
2. How well did the page sustain your interest, out of 1-10?
3. What's unclear or confusing?
4. Was there anything you wanted more information on?
5. If you had to cut the page in half, which 50% would you delete?
6. Did anything feel fake, salesy or inauthentic?

Landing Page Design

Your site has to:

1. Be enjoyable to visually skim.
2. Look thoughtfully put together.
3. Be clearly structured and partitioned.
4. Represents the personality of your brand.

How to Design Your Site

Use tools such as Webflow or Leadpages to do it yourself, code-free, or use Dribble to hire a designer.

Product Pages

If you sell multiple products, product pages go in-depth on each product you sell. The can be identical to your homepage, except:

1. Rewrite the hero subheader to highlight the value prop most appropriate for why someone would have clicked on this in-depth product page.
2. Increase the length of the Features section from 3 or 4 features up to 5 or 6. Go further in depth on each now that you know which specific product or feature set the visitor is most interested in diving into.

Persona Pages

Persona refers to the fact that these pages are targeted at certain kinds of people. This is where you send your ad traffic. Identical to homepage, except:

1. On the page's hero, repeat the value proposition that was written in the advert. Consistency between ad and landing page copy reassures visitors the ad didn't mislead them.
2. Call out the audience in your header, subheader, or feature text. Reassure them your product is appropriate for their interests. For example, if your ad was targeting salespeople, your hero header text could say, "Finally, a spreadsheet app built just for salespeople."

Assessing Landing Page Conversion

A conversion event is an action a visitor takes on your site: buying, signing up, submitting an email address…

Your conversion rate = [# of Visits Containing the Conversion Event] / [Total unique visitors]

This assumes that each unique visitor can only convert once. If not, you might prefer to use total visits on the denominator – but generally, conversions do only occur once (e.g. signing up for an account).

:::tip
You should only include visitors from geographies you service.
:::

Google analytics tracks these measures.

Note that you want to track conversion over time from each source:

• Google searches (organic traffic)
• Content marketing (blog posts)
• Ads
• Social media
• Referring sites and press

Per source conversion performance is more important than total traffic.