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Landing Page Layout/Design for Local business

by Colm Whelan
11 replies
It's my opinion, as both a marketer (novice) and business owner (old hand) that main purpose of any business website is to elicit an action from the visitor that will bring that visitor closer to (or right to) spending money in that business.

Any element on the page that does this is a "Call-To-Action" and they take many forms - "CALL NOW" "SUBMIT YOUR EMAIL FOR ...." "GET OUR FREE APP" etc. etc. I think this is most important on landing pages,for obvious reasons.

Specifically for LOCAL businesses, how many calls to action should be on the landing page? Should they ALL be above the fold? Should there BE a fold at all? What about trust building tools e.g. a Testimonials widget or the like? What about other layout elements?

What do you all think? Any great examples?
#business #landing #layout or design #local #page
  • Profile picture of the author maricelu
    Yes, this make sense. But first of all I would be interested in how you structure your website. I see many website approach in a wrong way their homepage and all they do is only focus on a specific spectrum of audience........ THIS IS A WRONG APPROACH! Your homepage should not be a landing page but in many cases it can be so if you are offering a single product, a single service and all your visitors are there because of a single reason. I would recommend you to browse thru a series of "Web Clinics" from About Web Clinics. The site itself is a golden source for those who want to better market their own websites or their clients' website.

    Related to Call-to-Action I think there should be only one call to action on your page, and it should stand out by using different color and font size. But you also need to make sure your Call to Action comes right after the 'problem-solver' aspect of your site. The problem with many sites is that they want the visitor to "listen" to their Call-to-action without a specific reason. I see many sites using this kind of approach: "We are the best! Call us now at ***", but this is not what I want to see when I enter a landing page, I want to see how I can get rid of my problem and how you can solve it.

    A call-to-action is only the top of the marketing funnel and you need to follow a visitor thru a series of steps in order to make him choose you, sometimes it can be less, sometimes it can be more of these steps but, you always want him to choose you not because they have not found a better solution but because YOU are the best solution.
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    • Profile picture of the author TimD
      This is a terrific answer by Maricelu. It's hard to add any more. I do have a couple of points.

      I agree, you want to think about what your home page is doing. Some businesses offer only one thing. A car accident attorney is an example. They don't offer a smorgasbord. They win cases, and all most visitors want to know is - do you win? So a good page is a sales page.

      Home cleaning services offer lots of things. So the home page is a portal to one of their services. And you want to tell people why they should click the button. "For the fastest window cleaning you can find...".

      If you were optimizing the landing page, you'd have one call-to-action (call, email) in the main reader path, not the sidebar. You can do it in the sidebar but then have a big arrow pointing to it. You use the sidebar for supporting stuff that lowers friction to taking advantage of your call to action: a testimonial or two, a guarantee, logos of the brands you rep, etc.

      I also agree with Maricelu that marketingexperiments.com is a goldmine. Their research shows that you don't need the call-to-action button above the fold. But you do need to let people know there's something special they can do, and let them know above the fold. For example, I work with a home maintenance company. So we might say in our title, "Get Your Gutter Cleaned for less than Half the Price of..." That needs to be above the fold. But then you can spend several paragraphs telling them why you're better, why your'e giving the deal, why they should trust you, and why they should act now. And the actual button/form can be below the fold (and it's better in the main reader path than in the sidebar).
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  • Profile picture of the author maricelu
    For the purpose of not letting this thread die as I think it is a very important topic to be discussed, I'm going to try my own forces and do an optimization session for a website of a home-remodeling company (or whatever you suggest) tommorow.
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    • Profile picture of the author AussieT
      Originally Posted by maricelu View Post

      For the purpose of not letting this thread die as I think it is a very important topic to be discussed, I'm going to try my own forces and do an optimization session for a website of a home-remodeling company (or whatever you suggest) tommorow.
      Looking forward to seeing it. Are you looking for suggestions for a niche?
      Will you be doing a home page or a landing page for one service?
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      • Profile picture of the author maricelu
        Originally Posted by AussieT View Post

        Looking forward to seeing it. Are you looking for suggestions for a niche?
        Will you be doing a home page or a landing page for one service?
        I will Screen Capture a homepage and give suggestions to it.
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  • Profile picture of the author Colm Whelan
    I agree that it's very important and I'm surprised I haven't seen more interest in discussing it. Maybe it's more meant for the Wed Design sub-forum?
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  • Profile picture of the author linkmetro
    maricelu,

    pls do can't wait to see it.
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  • Profile picture of the author rbrShorty
    There is a great infographic with awesome stats on what elements a good local landing page should contain here. And then another awesome infographic on general landing page structure here.
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  • Profile picture of the author marketingcompany888
    Hello there!
    In my opinion and basing on my experience when I try to visit other websites, it is better to have just one CTA button. It is distracting to find several in one page and some customers might get too distracted and confused that they will not continue on contacting you at all. Less is more. The more you make it easier for your clients, the better results you have in your business.
    Regards
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    Top Online Marketing Company
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  • Profile picture of the author localvseo
    In my experience I don't think there is "one size fits all" approach to how many CTAs you have on a page and where. For example, I have a client that is only available to answer the phone during regular business hours and doesn't have an answering service. For their site, we have the phone number prominently displayed above the fold, as well as a form (above the fold) to request an appointment. About 1/4 of our leads are from the web form. I think there are 2 reasons for this: 1) someone is at work and doesn't want to talk on the phone in the office 2) people submit at night when they know they are closed and want to get a call back the next day.

    So my point is, I think you need to understand your industry, customers etc. and then test what has the best conversion for your target in terms of what elements you use for the CTA and how many per page.
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  • Profile picture of the author ukcarl
    A good example of good landing page layout is The Anatomy of a Perfect Landing Page - Formstack

    In my opinion you need to identify the users problem have a few strong points of how you can solve it for them followed by a strong call to action, also a little social proof can always help.

    More importantly don't assume, test everything, the fact is most of the time your assumptions will be proved wrong
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