Are you trying to understand the key components of a landing page?
Landing pages are one of the most crucial components of successful marketing and sales funnels. In fact, your landing page may just be THE deciding factor in the success or failure of your marketing campaigns.
That’s why, in this post, we’ll look at the key components behind the world’s most successful landing pages.
Let’s get started!
What Is a Landing Page?
A landing page is any page on your site that you deliberately send traffic to for a marketing campaign. Here’s an example from Shopify’s “free trial” landing page:
The goal of this page is to specifically get people to start a free trial with Shopify. You can compare that with Shopify’s homepage:
While “Star Free Trial” is the CTA from this landing page, the design and layout are completely different. The homepage is more informative about Shopify as a platform. The landing page is shorter, has more social proof, and pushes that “free trial” CTA more aggressively.
Technically speaking, ANY page of your site can be used as a landing page (even your homepage) if you’re driving traffic to that page with a purpose.
There are many companies that will run PPC campaigns directly to their homepage. Here are some examples from Monday.com and Rocketlane:
They’ve targeted a competitor’s name (Asana) to run an ad, but those ads run directly to the businesses’ respective home pages.
Landing pages can also be used for lead generation campaigns where you collect contact info from visitors. Usually, this is in the form of an email address, as in this example by BelowTheFold:
From there, companies will likely have email sequences attached to each page to nurture leads further down their funnel.
Why Are Landing Pages Important?
In short, landing pages are geared toward conversions.
For that reason, landing pages are the fundamental cornerstones for any marketing campaign. If you don’t have high-converting landing pages somewhere in your marketing/sales funnel, you’re likely leaving a fair amount of conversions on the table.
The real value of a landing page, however, is how versatile they are for distribution. When you see that your landing page is converting at a good rate (let’s just say 2% of all visitors for simplicity), you can send traffic to it from tons of channels, such as:
- Emails
- Push notifications
- Social media platforms
- Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns
- Blog posts (by redirecting traffic)
- Organic (by targeting keywords and optimizing your landing page to rank naturally)
With the exception of blog posts, each of these other channels requires your landing page to really convert.
Here’s a typical sales funnel that relies on landing pages as it’s core tool:
Social or PPC campaigns send traffic to the landing page.
That landing page gets a conversion (usually an email address somewhere along the way).
That email address gets sent through an automated email series that guide your new lead toward a sale.
There are a million iterations of this funnel, but you get the idea. Once you have a landing page converts, you’ve essentially built a “money printer.” Now all that’s left is to send traffic to that page through various distribution channels.
Ok…
With ALL that in mind, let’s dive into the 5 key components of a landing page.
5 Key Components of a Landing Page
If you’re serious about optimizing your landing pages, then you’ll want to specifically look at these factors:
- Create a compelling headline
- Add context with your sub-heading
- Get clear on a single call to action (CTA)
- Insert social proof wherever possible
- Use high-quality images of your products (for B2C landing pages)
Let’s look at each of these factors in more detail.
1. Create a Compelling Headline
When people arrive on your landing page, the first thing they’re likely to see is the headline. Head to most any website, and you’ll see this in put into practice.
Here’s an example from Tushy’s homepage (and remember, home pages CAN act as landing pages if you’re intentionally driving traffic to it from other marketing campaigns):
You want something that grabs your audience’s attention and stops the reader in their tracks. That way, they’ll take the time to continue reading your sub-header which gives more details about the benefits of your product.
To craft the perfect heading, try the following tips:
- Start with an action verb and avoid gerunds (verbs that end with “ing”)
- Focus on your customer (there should be no mention of “we” or “us” in the copy)
- Prioritize being clear over being “clever”
- Make it intriguing to your target audience
Again, Tushy’s heading works because it’s such an odd (but effective) header: Stop wiping your butt.
Literally no one in modern history has ever advised people to “stop wiping their butt” which engages the reader. To solve that cognitive dissonance, the header continues: start washing with TUSHY.
Now the reader is intrigued and will likely head to your sub-header. Which brings us to point #2.
2. Add Context with a Sub-Heading
Your sub-headline is simply a continuation of your heading. The goal is to give your reader more context about the product and, ideally, push them toward your CTA.
In some cases, you’ll want to highlight the benefits of a specific product or service. Here’s a great example by OptinMonster:
The heading is great and tells me instantly what I can achieve. But the sub-heading goes even further into the wants/desires/goals of the reader.
From this one sub-heading, I can see that the product will help me:
- Grow my email list
- Get more leads
- Increase sales
It’s simply a more detailed continuation of the heading.
So what’s the difference? It’s nice to think about it like this:
- Your heading needs to get the reader’s attention
- Your sub-heading needs to show why your product is worth their attention
In other words, the sub-heading should explicitly answer what concrete benefits the reader will get from your products or services.
3. One Clear Call to Action (CTA)
The next key component of a good landing page is, of course, the CTA.
I’m a big fan of A/B testing my CTA buttons. It might surprise you just how much of an impact your CTA text is with regards to conversions.
For example, we tested a few CTA’s from an optin form for a lead magnet on a low-traffic travel blog.
We had 2 CTA’s and they performed very differently.
- Get my free itinerary: Converted at 2.86%
- Download my itinerary: Converted at 5.11%
We’ve since driven more traffic to that lead magnet and, sure enough, the trend continues.
It’s the same with putting CTA’s on landing pages. In some cases, you want to avoid generic CTA’s like “Get started now!” or “Start your free trial.”
But frankly, sometimes those boring and dry CTA’s actually DO work.
So how can you know? That part’s easy: A/B test everything.
Play with CTA’s on your landing page and make specific tests to boost conversions. That way, you can let the data tell you what messaging resonates with your audience rather than simply “going with your gut.”
Note: When designing your header, sub-header, and CTA, you’ll notice a cool visual effect taking place. On high-converting landing pages, the header and sub-header should naturally guide your reader toward the CTA:
You might see some B2B companies have a heading and sub-heading on the left, and a CTA with an optin form on the right:
This works best with large brands with an established reputation.
If you’re relatively unknown or don’t have an established reputation like your larger competitors, this format isn’t ideal.
That’s because you’ll be asking for WAY too much information right from the start. If anything, all you need is an email address.
From there, you can use progressive profiling to gather more information about your audience.
But remember, if you’re a smaller brand, every piece of information you ask of your reader acts as one more roadblock that prevents them from engaging.
4. Insert Social Proof Everywhere
Social proof is invaluable for improving the conversion rates for all of your landing pages. And it makes sense:
Most consumers don’t want to feel like they’re the first ones trying your products or services.
Your landing page is asking people to take action. But before people feel confident taking action, your site’s visitors will want to see what you’ve accomplished for other people.
The good news is that there are many forms of social proof, such as:
- Quotes
- Testimonials (text, audio, or video-based)
- Social media shout outs
- Client lists
- And more…
Here’s a great section with quotes from the CopyHacker’s website:
And here’s a bit of social proof in the form of social media posts:
You can even showcase any awards or certifications your brand has won, as SEMrush does so well:
Finally, here’s an example you’ve probably seen before of showing off a “past clients” list:
Again, there are many forms your social proof can take, but you want to do everything you can to show your audience that you’ve got a reputable solution that’s already solved someone’s problem.
5. High-Quality Images of Your Products
This last one should go without saying, but it’s particularly important for business-to-consumer (B2C) landing pages.
You NEED to have high-quality images of your products.
If you don’t, then everything you pitch is going to look sloppy and unprofessional. Remember, most online consumers are very taken with visual aids. It’s why video and image-based campaigns typically perform higher than text-based campaigns.
If you’ve got a landing or product page for something you want consumers to fall in love with, then make sure it’s visually represented in an engaging/professional way.
And that’s all for today!
Now let’s be clear: your landing page may or may not have more components than the ones listed above. You might choose to add video demonstrations, contact forms, infographics, or many other persuasive elements to your page.
But, in general, every landing page should have the components listed above. That includes:
- An attention grabbing header
- A benefits-driven sub-header
- One clear CTA
- Social proof
- High-quality images
Once you’ve got those, you’ve definitely got the key components to a landing page dialed in.
From there, you’ll be able to review your conversion rates and optimize the page as you see fit to get even more leads and customers!
I hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, you’ll definitely want to check out the following resources:
- What Is B2B Copywriting? + 15 Ways to Boost Conversions
- Become an Email Copywriter Who (Actually) Sells
- Learn to Write by Copying: 3 Expert (& Ethical) Tips
These articles will have even more information that you can use to fill out your sales funnel with high-converting copy!