Posted on Monday, 3rd November 2008 by CopywritingCat
Independent professionals often struggle to develop landing pages that convert browsers to buyers. Many fail because they don’t realize that landing pages are not the place to display your creative talents. They follow formulas that are have been tested over and over again. They use very specific copywriting and
design techniques. And they are completely open about their purpose: getting visitors to take one specific action before leaving the page.
(1) Decide exactly what ONE action your visitors should take. Do you want them to sign up for your ezine? Buy a product? Call for a free sample consultation?
(2) Help visitors resist temptation to click away to another page. If you have a traditional website, your home page is designed to motivate readers to click away to other pages. If you are a service professional you want visitors to go to your “about” page and your “services” pages. But your landing page should be completely self-sufficient.
(3) Keep design to a minimum. Choose black type on a white background. Use images to direct readers to follow the message you create in your text: arrows, underlines, big exclamation points. Handwritten marginal notes have become trendy.
(4) Make the copy easy to read. Use bullets, lots of white space, colors and headlines. On the web, most readers will scan your copy. Some readers will just skim through the bold and highlighted copy, all the way to the end. So apply bold type to the phrases you want your readers to notice. Then read through the copy to see if your bold text makes sense without reading anything else.
(5) Force your readers to choose. They can leave the page but if they click on anything, they’ll go to your shopping cart. Period.
Independent professionals often want to include a link to their free ezines or even another product. If you do, then create an exit pop-up with the message, “Not ready? Then sign up here…”
What are your biggest challenges about landing pages? Or what have you learned by trial, error and experience? Click on “comments” and share.
Comments (0)
Tags: conversion, copywriting, landing pages, traffic, web design, web development, web site marketing
Posted in Web Design and Web Hosting, copywriting, strategy, website marketing
