Landing Page Winners: Design or Content?

Yes, Design Matters, but Copy is Crucial

Unsurprisingly, this same preference for images prevails when it comes to landing pages. A recent survey examining almost 37,000 English language pages that were active between March 2019 and March 2020 compared the relative importance of copy and design on landing page conversion rates.

The findings were startling: the written word had twice the relative importance of design. This applied across sixteen different industries, with copy scoring 65% to 70% in importance, while design trailed well behind at 30% to 35%.

Content is all about Convincing

Effective copywriting means conveying the right message at the perfect time, convincing readers to take action. This means structuring landing page information skillfully, ensuring that high proportions of visitors are persuaded to take the desired actions.

Whenever a consumer clicks on a link (in an email or an ad) they’re redirected to a landing page that provides further information quickly and easily, together with specific calls to action. Favorites include strongly positive action phrases like: Sign Me Up Now!, Tell Me More!, and Yes, I Want Mine!

How Can I Write High-Conversion Landing Pages?

So if you really want to pump up your conversion rate, the trick is to focus most of your attention on words that speak to your target audience. This is because a landing page is a stand-alone stepping-stone created specially for individual advertising or marketing campaigns.

Here are some hot tips on writing copy that will boost your landing page conversions:

1. Identify Your Target Audience:Before crafting your message, you must define who you’re talking to, and why. What do they want? How can you meet their needs? And what will compel them to convert?
2. Consider your traffic sources: visitors to your landing page have different expectations, shaped by their origins. For instance, email recipients are already familiar with your brand, and are probably product-aware as well, while anyone attracted by paid social ads is likely to be problem-driven, seeking solutions but unacquainted with your wares;
3. Establish Visitors’ Core Values:What resonates with your target audiences? Who and what do they identify with, what are their pain points? This can change very quickly, so smart marketers stay well-informed about global events, always attuned to trending topics;
4. Define the Page Goal:  Establish exactly what you expect your landing page visitors  to do, from signing up for a newsletter through to making a purchase. Designed to support each campaign with a laser focus, any unrelated links or information are distractions for readers. This is even truer for many social network users, whose steadily shortening attention spans are already shrinking to a goldfish-in-a-bowl duration.
5. Spotlight your Value Proposition: Expressed as succinctly as an elevator pitch, this statement tells people why they should prefer your wares over the competition. These advantages can (and should, whenever possible) range from individual comfort and convenience to saving the planet and protecting human rights. Buyers will pay premium prices to support their personal beliefs.
6.  Plan Your Presentation Hierarchy: Call it a roadmap, a blueprint, a game plan, or an archetype. You need a step-by-step prepping guide with an information hierarchy, so you include only high-impact content on your landing page;
7. Match your Messages: Staying on point provides visitors with reassuringly consistent experiences as they move along the sales funnel, delivering on the original promise that got them interested. Whether it’s lower interest rates or smoother skin, your landing page copy should use phrasing similar to your emails and ads, conveying the same messages in greater detail;
8. Use Jaw-Dropping Headlines: Headings are the most visible copy on any page, so every word must contribute to that WOW! factor. Sub-heads should be intriguing and informative, grabbing visitors’ attention through relevance and resonance;
9. Craft Persuasive Body Copy: Consumers want to know about benefits, not features. That’s how your bodycopy turns leads into buyers, by meeting their unmet (and often unperceived!) needs;
10. Showcase Convincing Social Evidence: Provide proof of your presentation promises, from real-life users. Unpaid social validation – like testimonials and reviews – buttresses the claims in your content, building up trust in your wares among visitors;
11. Calls to Action that Trigger Conversions: Once your visitors are convinced you’re offering what they want, you still need to seal the sale. This is where dynamic calls to action attract attention and drive deals that fatten your bottom line.