Five Essential Elements Every Landing Page Needs

If you’ve ever clicked on a link from a search result or a social media ad campaign, then give yourself a pat on the back, because you’ve landed on a great digital marketing tool: a landing page!

Where your website serves to offer a broad overview of your company, history, products and services, etc., your landing page instead focuses on one specific conversion goal, like getting someone to sign up for your newsletter or claim their free trial.

They’re an incredibly powerful vehicle that guides viewers towards doing business with you — but you only have 8 seconds to make an impression on a landing page (TrueList).

But that’s okay! If you include these five essential landing page elements, then you’ll be well on your way to watching those conversions — and sales — roll right on in.

Element No. 1: Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) is a brief explanation of who you are and what you can provide people. Essentially, it should serve the function of showing your visitors what makes you special, how you can fix their problems, and change their lives for the better through your products or services.

For example, FedEx Corporation used to have the USP, “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”

Or this one from M&Ms, saying that their chocolate “melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” 

For best results, keep the focus on the viewer — don’t try to shove your greatness down their throats by including a pushy or salesy tone. Simply show them what you have to offer!

It’s important to remember to focus on one specific thing that will guide your viewer towards taking a certain action. Forty-eight percent of landing pages contain more than one offer — and going this route can decrease conversion rates by up to a grand total of 266 percent (TrueList). 

So when writing your Unique Selling Proposition, be sure to keep it clean, concise, and clear!

Element No. 2: Engaging Visuals

Whether it’s a hero shot, a graphic, a video, a virtual tour, an infographic, or a gif, having engaging visuals on your landing page will help guide your viewers towards making a purchase.

For best results, keep your visuals simple and clear. You want them to serve as an addition to your message — not a distraction point.

Especially if your product or service is a bit difficult to understand, creating an infographic to help explain some of their intricacies is another great route to take.

In addition, emotion is a huge engagement factor, so if you can create visuals that appeal to human emotion (like humor, for example), great job! Just make sure that you stay on topic and on brand.

A final note: If you really want to see the fruits of your labor, it’s vital that you use organic, branded imagery and videos — not stock photos or footage, as including these types of visuals can drive off your viewers.

Element No. 3: Compelling, Clear Copy

The third essential element of a landing page is strong, compelling, and clear copy that explains the main benefits of your products or services.

Your explanations should be easy to understand and scannable — remember that pages designed for cursory reading are more likely to be read (UX Myths). Try using bullet points and lists to guide you along, and always remember to include only the things that are connected to your conversion goal.

Element No. 4: Social Proof

Instead of talking about why your products and services are so great, it’s much better to have others speak on your behalf.

That’s why you’ll want to include a testimonial or two on your landing page to provide social proof to your visitors!

Instead of choosing a testimonial that says, “X Company is great!”, try your best to select one that has more of a story behind it that really drives home the benefits of your product or service. Of course, it’s important to keep it on the shorter side, but it’s also important to include specific details if you want to increase conversion rates even more. 

Element No. 5: Concrete Call to Action

Last but not least, you’ll want to include a concrete call to action (CTA) that guides viewers towards taking a specific action — otherwise your landing page won’t land you any conversions at all.

Personalized CTAs convert up to 202 percent better than a normal CTA (HubSpot), so you’ll want to write something a bit more detailed than “Sign up!” or “Give us a call!”

“Sign up today and receive 10 percent off your next purchase!” is a much stronger CTA than the former options — of course, you don’t necessarily need to give something away, but you’ll want to do what you can to be specific about the benefits of what closing that sale will bring for your viewers. Percentages off and giveaways are just one of the many ways to do that!

A Final Note

Now that you understand what needs to go into a landing page, you can have tons of fun trying different things out and seeing what brings you the most conversions!

Testing is super important where digital marketing is concerned, so don’t be afraid to think outside of the box or create separate landing pages with different elements and track what does best. After a couple trial periods, you’ll have a better understanding of what achieves the most sales.

But if you think you could still use a hand in designing an effective landing page, wording your USPs and CTAs, or creating visually striking branded graphics, our team here at OpticTour would love to lend a hand!

Whenever you’re ready, you can get in contact with us by filling out this form, and we’ll get started on helping you along the path to a more concrete, unique, and tailored-to-you digital marketing plan.