Landing Page Basics to Increase Conversions

You might be driving plenty of traffic to your landing pages yet you aren’t seeing the number of conversions you’re hoping for. Low conversion rates for landing pages are frustrating, but you can take several steps to increase landing page conversion rates for your teen programs to make your marketing more effective and ensure a better payoff.

Like many other aspects of marketing, you might need to do some A/B testing to find what works best for your audience. And chances are, there isn't a single reason why your landing pages aren't converting well, which is why testing landing page variations is so valuable.

What Are Landing Pages?

A landing page is a standalone web page designed for a marketing campaign. This is where you’ll send visitors to learn more after they click an email or an advertisement. You might use a landing page if you’re running a search engine or social media ad. Landing pages are designed with a signal goal: conversion. The call to action is clear, simple and short.

The focus landing pages offer can help increase your conversion rates. Generally, these pages don’t have a menu and often not even a sidebar with options. Unlike your website pages, you also will keep in-text hyperlinking to a minimum since you don’t want your visitors to leave the page that is hyper-focused on that one conversion goal you have.

While you can use your general website pages as landing pages for campaigns, the conversion rate on these pages will likely be lower due to that lack of focus on a singular conversion tactic.

How to Use Landing Pages

Once a prospect clicks on a link, you should be directing them to a landing page. Some examples of marketing tactics that might point to a landing page include:

• Email
• Direct mail
• Paid ads

Many landing pages direct users to a subdomain under your main website. For example, your main website might be ourteenprogram.com but your landing page might be marketing.ourteenprogram.com. 

Using a landing page for these types of campaigns can have many benefits when compared to using standard website pages.

1. Provide higher conversion rates than standard website pages
2. Can be targeted to a specific persona or segment of your target audience to speak to their unique needs
3. Useful when working to grow an email list
4. Easier to test than your main website
5. Communicate a special offer only available through that campaign or to that audience segment

5 Landing Page Design Tips

Ready to improve your landing page conversion tips? Follow these design tips to convert more visitors.

1. Focus on One Goal for Your Landing Page

The purpose of creating a landing page instead of using your main website is to create a singular goal for your visitors. Pages with too many options or too deep of a page structure can distract users from the action you desire from them.

Make your landing page message clear, focused and simple. For example, don’t offer a downloadable information booklet about your teen programs at the top of the page, have a popup box to start a chat with a counselor once the visitor has been there for 15 seconds and then ask them to fill out a form to show their intent to attend your program.

There would be way too much going on to ensure a smooth conversion process. Instead, keep the call-to-action consistent throughout the page. Depending on how detailed the landing page is, you might have it at the top, middle and bottom of the page for ease of use. But the call-to-action should match throughout.

If you’re offering more than one call to action, build out separate landing pages and messaging for each. Chatting online with a counselor is a great call to action. So for more targeted campaigns where the prospect is further down the conversion funnel and might have questions, design an FAQ-related landing page that offers a chance to interact with a counselor seamlessly.

Landing pages can be great for getting a student to commit as well. But you wouldn’t want that cluttering your booklet download page. So create a separate landing page for prospects at the bottom of your funnel ready to enroll and take the next step with your organization.

2. Reduce Distractions

As you create a landing page template that will work for your campaigns, consider ways of keeping them distraction-free. You don’t want users to leave prematurely before converting.

A navigational menu can distract users and give them a chance to navigate away from your offer without completing a form. Don’t include internal or external links on your landing page. For example, you don’t want to have menu options in your footer or have hyperlinked text in the body of your landing page.

The only link within your landing page should be the link to submit information or convert.

3. Use Color Wisely

You might be surprised to learn that color impacts conversion rates. But it does to some degree. Color psychology automates a mental response from the prospect. And different hues trigger different responses.

For example, companies that use blue automatically start building trust and dependability with a prospect. And brands that choose green start showing their fresh perspective immediately.

Hopefully, you already have a set of brand colors to work from that match your mission and what you're offering teens. Now the key is using those colors appropriately to best ensure conversions.

The easiest content to read is dark-colored text on a light background. While you can get pretty splashy with colors today, it’s best to keep it simple and save bold colors for your call to action to funnel your visitors’ attention there.

4. Keep Copy Concise, Easy to Read

This is not where you want to write hundreds of words about how great you are. In fact, landing pages should not exceed 500 words. When you can, use video to show your story instead of just telling it with words.

Use bulleted and numbered lists to help break content into short, digestible chunks. And when you have more to say, keep your sentences and paragraphs short so that the text is easy to read on mobile devices.

As you think about your content, consider how to build it out in sections under various headings to give readers a break between each section and take advantage of headings to grab attention and explain the various benefits your teen programs offer.

5. Entice with Clear, Compelling Headlines

Headlines are the first thing that a visitor sees. Make them good and entice the visitor with something very compelling.

When drafting headlines, keep them concise. You should communicate your main message for the landing page in seven words or less. Too many words and the headline might seem more like a sentence and your reader might feel bogged down by its length.

While you want to be compelling, it’s more important to tell the visitor what you need them to know. So getting too cute or creative can actually lead to lower conversion rates if you aren’t careful. 

Focus on your teen program’s benefits and bring those out in your headlines to communicate the most important information clearly. 

Increasing Traffic to Landing Pages

Ultimately, you can’t convert traffic you don’t have. If you’re looking to increase awareness for your teen programs or services and traffic to your landing pages or website, TeenLife offers many advertising opportunities to help you grow. Contact us now to learn more.