5 Landing Page Headline Formulas You Can Test Today. You wouldn’t bake a chocolate soufflé for your mother-in-law’s birthday party without referring to a recipe, so why would you craft a headline that way? (Image source) Ever notice those “conversion copywriting” techniques you read about for ugly, hard-to-stomach long-form sales pages? When you implement those techniques, you end up with lengthy, nearly impossible to believe headlines, like this one: That’s great for niche info products.
But it’s BAD for the products and services most of us are actually selling – like productivity apps, games, SaaS, consulting services, ebooks, quilts, clothes, hardware… the list goes on. Here’s the thing: the uber-long headline above isn’t necessarily wrong for short copy. So what if we were to take the best of long-form sales page copywriting… and tweak it for our 2.0 or short-copy landing pages? Sound like something you could stomach?
What Needs to Be in a Headline? I think we can all agree that different headlines work for different page and user goals. Why I Used to Hate Landing Pages… In November 2004 I had my first real encounter with marketing. It was a horrible experience. At the time I came from the user experience (UX) crowd, indulging in usability, interaction design, information architecture and other such altruistic endeavours rooted in a desire to make the web work better for “the customer”. The marketing folks had an entirely different agenda with no real concern for anything but the bottom line. (Not wrong, just different from what I was used to). Landing pages should be designed with a ruthless attention to a single business goal. We were discussing ideas for a new campaign and how to integrate it into the corporate website.
What I hated about the “landing page” The landing page was going to break rules I usually worked hard to uphold. My thinking: This will just lead to annoyed visitors and lots of attention being paid to the back button. Gather Round as I Admit to Being Wrong I don’t say “I’m wrong” all that often. Landing pages aren’t so bad – Oli Gardner.
Why I Used to Hate Landing Pages… It's Not My Job: Why Marketing is Broken - InShare163 I was in Moscow last week with Jeffrey, waiting in the lobby for a taxi. I passed the time taking screenshots of “promotional” emails and ads with their corresponding landing pages. After clicking through some ads and emails I needed to vent. I posted the following message on my Facebook profile: Frustrated at the state of email marketing. Decided I would look at some of the “promotional” emails whisked away from my Inbox and decided to click through to some of the landing pages. If you went out to eat and saw the sign below on a door, what would you expect to see on the other side?
What would you think of the place if when you opened that door you saw this: Would it give you second thoughts about eating there again? Yet, this happens all the time in email marketing, display advertising, ppc advertising, etc. Let me show you just a couple of examples from that day: Email from Beyond the Rack: What would you click on? Email from Marmot: Register? Fantastic! “Not my department. 1. 2. After the Click: Optimizing landing pages for conversion. Landing Page Optimization tips: analysis of 50+ sites to find out what increases sales and conversions. Last week I offered free conversion rate optimization advice on a popular forum (known as Hacker News).
Within a single day I got 50+ requests for help. It was definitely an enriching experience analyzing and dissecting all those websites and landing pages. As I was replying and providing my feedback to those 50+ sites, I started sensing a few common issues that affected conversion rates of all those pages. Without naming any specific URL or site, in this post I will detail where those sites lacked and what you can learn from my analysis to fix your homepage or landing page. Four common issues with landing pages According to my analysis, one of these four issues (if not all) were the most common causes of poor conversion rates.
Let’s analyze the issues one by one. Issue #1: Too much text Example of a homepage with too much text Example of a balanced webpage (text + images) So, what you need is a proper balance between graphics and text. Issue #2: Lack of descriptive headline Conclusion Tags. 3 Principles of a High Converting Lead Gen Landing Page. If you don’t balance the expectations of your customers with what you’re giving away, you’re basically kissing your customers goodbye. (Original image source) You’re probably wondering why there’s a photo of a gymnast above. This is to illustrate one of the most important conversion element of lead gen pages – balance. Read on… 1. Clearly the hurdle was too much in this case. One of the biggest factors in whether you’ll capture your lead is whether you are able to balance the size of the prize (what you’re giving away) with the perceived barrier to getting it.
This is where A/B testing can come in really handy. 2. Now I’m not saying “make it look beautiful” – although it never hurts to look professional. The architecture of a great lead gen landing page This is really all you need on a lead gen landing page. Next up, is your hero shot or the image/video that shows what you are offering. For social sharing (you want people to pass on your great offering right?) 3. . – Oli Gardner. 23 *Slam Dunk* Landing Page Posts You Shouldn’t Miss. Michael Jordan would be proud: Here are “23” new articles to keep your iPad full and your mind on marketing 24/7 (hey, it’s only fair – that’s what we do). If you read all of these, please feel free to do a celebratory dunk before leaving a comment to let us know what you think. We’ll be covering: Landing Page Design (also see this: 35 Beautiful Landing Page Design Examples to Drool Over [With Critiques])Mobile Landing Pages (tip: Unbounce has some)Miscellaneous – #categorizationfail Landing Page Design 1.
Quick is good. 2. 30 Useful Landing Page Templates For when you feel like you’ve reached a design dead end, here is some inspiration to recharge your momentum. 3. Codecademy is a platform that teaches people technical skills. 4. Airbnb balances graphical robustness with a community look and feel. 5. Your landing page probably doesn’t deserve a spot in a museum, but it is still a work of art that balances form with function. 6. 7. 11 Quick Tips for a Better Landing Page 9. 11. 13. 14. 17. 35 Beautiful Landing Page Design Examples to Drool Over [With Critiques. A professionally designed landing page can improve your conversion rates. This post is all about showcasing awesome landing pages, to give you some inspiration for your next design. It’s worth stating that no page is ever perfect – or conversely, every page can be better. With this in mind, we’ll be offering perspective on what makes each page special or interesting, while providing some insight into what we would try out in an A/B test experiment to optimize for higher conversions.
But what is it that makes a landing page design effective? There are many factors, but the principle reasons are an adherence to the fundamental rules of conversion centered design: Note: All of these landing pages were built using the Unbounce Landing Page Platform – huzzah! For this post we’re going to do something different. 1. Critiqued by: Oli What I like It’s sexy: Predictable response? Things I’d change or test Site*: www.Manpacks.com 2. Site*: FluidSurveys.com 3. The form header: Apply now? 4. 5. 6. Nada. 7.