Tips for a Good Landing Page

A landing page is the first page of your website a visitor sees when they click on your link or ad. You have about 3-7 seconds to get their attention, make a good impression, and convince them to take action. So design this page thoughtfully.

In no particular order, here's a few tips to craft a high performing landing page:

TARGET YOUR AUDIENCE: Is your page relevant to your visitors? You must first identify, specifically, who you want to see your landing page? You will design your page differently for millennials vs. seniors, men vs. women, business execs vs. consumers, etc.

ATTENTION GRABBING HEADLINE: You're about to learn the secret to solve your problem. Whatever it is your selling, you must nail down the pain point, and let your visitors know they must keep reading to find the solution. This grabs attention, it sorts out people who are not ideal customers, and it uses the psychological trigger of curiosity.

BUILD TRUST: There are many ways to build trust, but often only one way is needed to break trust. So make sure every word, every graphic/image, each video, every element on the page is necessary, appropriate, and reinforces the action you want your visitor to take. The mistake here is to have several good elements on your page, and then have one really stupid element ruin everything.

Heres some elements to consider having. Make sure each one is needed. And only include it if it looks good and increasing the chances a visitor will take action.

--Logo: Simple and clean or don't have one at all.

--Social Proof: Have facebook likes, customer pics and testimonials, video testimonials, etc near the top of your page. Visitors may not scroll all the way down on a long page, so make sure they know your page is proven by others quickly.

--Contact Info: Who are you? How can people reach you? Visitors don't like blind optins, they trust offers from real looking people and businesses.

--Call to Action: Clear and specific. Asking people to contact you for more info is vague. You must pick one thing you want visitors to do. Optin via email, buy now, fill out form, etc. Pick one, and make sure its reasonable for the type of offer.

--Headline & Subheadline: Test these. They're very important. Think like a newspaper or magazine. What would make a real person want to pick it up and read it.

--Bullet Points: People usually don't read every word. They skim. So make sure you have short statements with lots of white space around so their eyes can get the main idea quickly. People scroll down fast, so your message must be clearly seen in a split second.

--Images: Don't grab free clipart or cheesy stock photos. Take the time to find good quality looking images, and it's usually best to just pay for them. Make sure the images create or reinforce the emotion you want the visitor to have.

--Guarantee & Disclaimer: Helps reduce buyer anxiety. Have something professional here.

DESIGN: Does your landing page look pleasing to the eye? Is it proportioned, symmetrical, consistent color and theme. You don't want it looking like a patchwork you just threw together.

MOBILE: Does it look good on a phone? Half or perhaps more of all your visitors will be on mobile.

SECOND CHANCES: What happens when visitors try to leave? Do you have an exit pop up? Are you retargeting this page to display ads later? Yes, you do get a second chance to capture a visitor. Make sure you aren't loosing most of your traffic.