Creating A Landing Page From Your Customers Perspective

Landing pages are the backbone of most on-site SEO, since it is an essential step to understanding your goal-funnel and engaging your customer. However, far too often I see landing pages that are clearly optimized for search engines and not for human beings.

I'd like to attempt to convince you to rethink your methods for creating a landing page from a 'human perspective'.

I have seen astounding results with a/b split-tests when a site starts to look at things from the eyes of their customers. The funny part is; usually that also helps optimize for search engines!

How To Build Your Landing Page

There are thousands of guides available around the Internet that have gone through painstaking amounts of work to create a formulaic answer to this question.

For example, you'll hear commonly that you need a 'call-to-action' above the fold, or to avoid confusing the eye by a certain factor.

I like to focus on major principles of effective design, and then let the creativity take over so I can build. Again, I’d like to stress that people should be the aim, and let the search engine fall as it may.

First, I like to decide on an exact function for a landing page before sitting down to create it. Every website has some sort of purpose, some way to convert visitors, and you want to first plan out how you want people to get a user from a visitor to a customer.

Then, you need to quickly and succinctly grab the attention of your visitors to drive them toward that goal. The easiest way that I have found to do this effectively is to highlight the benefits you are offering. Create a good opening paragraph to peak interest and have a small 'call-to-action' directly in the text.

After this first opening, you are going to have users split into two major categories; "visual users" and "mental users". There are going to be people that process visual information better than text, and vise-versa.

The problem with this though, is that you can't possibly pack all of the text and visual information that you want on a single page without losing your visitor. Instead, I recommend sending the user to an 'intermediary page' that suits their learning style. Essentially, you need to send the visual people to a page with lots of informational graphics, and the mental users to a page with a ton of hard data that is easy for them to absorb.

The general rule to stick to is to send either user to a page that loads quickly and has valuable and unique information.

So for the landing page, give a taste, and do not mislead your customer at all. This is the first part of a three-step process to make someone convert, so take the time to try and enter the mind of your visitor. Answer their questions using his or her words, and make them come back to your site over and over.

The Intermediary

In between the landing page and your converting page are two different types of intermediary pages, one for your visual users, and another for the more analytical users.

The way the two pages are structured will differ greatly, but the essential message has to remain the same. You have successfully taken people from your landing page, and they are looking for more information, so on this page you want to give them what they are looking for, and give them a reason to convert.

For the analytical mind, you want a text-heavy page with a lot of great data. These types of people are like myself; they read often, they like to absorb things freely, and want to make informed decisions. For a page like this, case studies, real-world analysis, and testimonials are perfect.

Now, for the visual mind, you want a picture-filled page that gets across the benefits of your product or service. This type of person wants to feel that they are making the right decision to convert, and that by doing so they are improving the quality of their lives.

Infographics are the way to go here, as you are aiming to create a feeling of fulfillment, more than trying to justify your decisions with hard data.

Here are a few very effective Infographics.

Far too often do I see fellow internet marketers looking for the page that will appeal to all users, and I do agree that it is possible through massive amounts of research and testing, but if you are looking to create a 'goal funnel' from scratch, try your best to speak in the language that will engage your customers, even if you have to do it through different methods.

The Conversion Page

The final step to any landing page is the final goal to any website, which is to drive conversions. Whether you are looking for users to sign up for a newsletter or purchase something, this page is generally similar regardless of goal.

By this point, your users have read a couple of different pages on your site, and have made the decision to finish the process, so thank them!

I was a marketing major, and so customer service is a paramount concern of mine; if someone didn’t bounce from my site, and has made it to the converting page, they are a valued visitor to me. Even if they don't end up converting, they have supplied valuable data for Google Analytics through in-page and the set goal funnel.

After they are thanked, this page is basically a large sale flyer to encourage buying. Have a small graphic for the visually oriented, and a last testimonial or data point for the analytical minds, and make your call-to-action.

We could go on for days as to what makes your page convert, but essentially it comes down to trial and error. Every single website is different, and constant testing and research will improve your conversion rate over time.

To your success,

Jonny Tyson