Let’s get straight to the point: a good conversion rate for a landing page is above 50%. Optimized, it can even exceed 70%. Not your case? Here’s how to create an effective landing page. Really
effective.
When you want to generate results with your website, there are two crucial phases to optimize:
Acquisition
This stage corresponds to the fact of developing the traffic of a website by attracting qualified visitors. For this we can combine several marketing levers (natural referencing, emailing, social networks, ads campaigns…).
The conversion
This second step aims to convert website visitors into leads. That is to say, transforming an unknown visitor into an identified and qualified prospect. We can then make him mature with various actions before creating a commercial relationship with him and make him a customer.
We often see that companies only work on their acquisition, but neglect the conversion part.
If they work correctly, they generate visitors, but they don’t do anything with them. They visit pages on the site, but are not encouraged to take action and leave as they came.
Why do they do this? Because there is no conversion point, no landing page on their site!
I can hear you behind your screen: “yes, but I have a contact page with a form! Ok cool! And how many contacts do you generate with it?
The contact page is not a real effective conversion page because it doesn’t have a specific purpose. It doesn’t meet a need of your visitor and doesn’t provide any particular value to them.
(No, your visitors don’t want to be “contacted as soon as possible” by Jean-Mi, your sales representative, to praise your offer)
A poor quality landing page can ruin your marketing efforts. All by itself.
You can create the best content in the world, optimize your SEO, communicate on social networks and even advertise online… If your landing page is not good, you will not get results.
So yes, you’ll increase the number of visitors to your website but that’s not what’s going to increase your sales.
What is a landing page and what is it for?
Before we go any further, let’s make sure we’re all talking about the same thing and agree on what a landing page actually is.
A definition of a landing page
For those who didn’t skip their English classes, the landing page can be translated as “landing page” in good French.
It’s a bit of a mouthful, you might say. But this translation helps to illustrate the concept.
The landing page is exactly that. It’s the page you want to take your visitors to, the final step of their stay on your website in a way.
And just like during a trip, this is where you will collect the visitor’s contact information and where they will check in with you.
What is the objective of a landing page?
We saw it just before. Creating and adding this type of page on your website will allow you to generate leads.
These leads are obtained by transforming simple visitors into identified prospects that you can then convert into customers, and therefore into sales.
If you hope that your visitors will contact you on their own because they have been impressed by the quality of your content, you are mistaken.
You need to set up a real conversion tunnel to guide them step by step towards your goal: to get their contact information with your landing page.
How to convert with a landing page?
Converting clicks from your ad campaigns
If you use the marketing lever of advertising campaigns on Google or social networks, the links of your ads must lead to a landing page dedicated to each campaign.
This is an excellent way to quickly capture new leads in addition to or while waiting for your acquisition strategy via SEO to be fully operational.
The best practice here is to always make sure that the landing page is consistent with the message, visual and promise of your ad.
It is about putting the visitor in the best conditions to perform the desired action. They should not have clicked on an ad promising content and arrive on a landing page that tells them about a completely different subject.
Nurturing your existing prospects
Another use case for the landing page is when you already know your prospect.
If you have started a lead nurturing process, then you can send them targeted emails that will incite them to visit a specific landing page according to their level of maturity and the interest you have identified in them.
You will then be able to collect additional information (budget, project status, main objective…). This information will allow you to better evaluate the commercial potential of your prospect and identify the right time to contact him.
Converting your website visitors
As we have seen before, in most cases, your landing pages will be used to convert your website visitors into leads. This is part of the inbound marketing methodology.
You’ve certainly heard it, from us or elsewhere. To attract visitors to your website, you need to create search engine optimized content.
But be careful! It’s not about writing about anything without any objective. You want to attract qualified visitors, right?
So write content that responds to their problems, at each stage of their buyer’s journey.
But now, how do you send these visitors to your landing page?
With call-to-actions!
Call-to-actions (or CTAs) are buttons or banners that you integrate into your content to encourage readers to visit your landing page.
But here’s the thing: the visitor doesn’t know you. You’re not going to convince them with just a button and a message that says: “hey please visit my landing page”.
You have to offer him something in exchange. And this something in marketing is called a content offer.
In fact, the idea is to trade a high value-added content for their contact information by filling out a form on your landing page.
It’s a win-win.
The visitor gets content that he perceives as having a high value for him. You get their contact information and you make them think about buying.
What content offer to propose on a landing page?
Now you know what a landing page is for.
Normally, at this stage you ask yourself what type of content to offer.
So I see you coming with your big shoes here. Don’t go sticking all your brochures in landing pages and telling yourself that it’s good stuff and that it will convert a lot.
It’s all about being a little more subtle and especially about following the steps of your prospects’ buying journey.
Let me explain.
Not all your visitors are at the same level in their buying process.
Some are already mature and may be receptive to “Decision” type content such as brochures, customer case studies or demos with your sales representatives for example.
But in reality, 99% of them are in the “Awareness” or “Consideration” phase. They don’t want to talk to you directly and are just becoming aware of their problem or are still looking for a solution.
What is the average conversion rate of a landing page?
The average conversion rate of a landing page is 11.5%.
You read that right, 11.5%.
So why am I talking about 70% in the title of this article? We’ll come back to that.
For the sake of your reflection, if you are wondering what the average conversion rate of a landing page is, it is important that you keep in mind that this indicator varies depending on the traffic sources.
Unsurprisingly, the conversion rate of a landing page is higher for a visitor coming from natural referencing than from paid referencing.
The channel that offers the best landing page conversion rate is email, 13%, but we are still clearly below the 70% I promised in the title.
The reason is quite simple: when you ask yourself about the average rate of a landing page, you are asking the wrong question.
The relevant question to ask yourself is what is a good conversion rate for a landing page.
The majority of companies I meet do not manage to generate
return on investment with their website. The average conversion rate of a landing page is measured from their (poor) performance.
11.5% conversion rate on a landing page is clearly not enough and the causes are very simple.
What is a good conversion rate for a landing page?
Let’s ask ourselves this question.
To determine what is a good conversion rate for a landing page, we just have to look at things in an ultra-basic way: when a visitor arrives on a landing page, he has only two options.
Either they fill out the form or they leave.
In other words, it’s a coin toss. A 50/50 chance. A 50% chance.
If your conversion rate is less than 50% it is for at least one of the following reasons:
The path that brought the visitor to this landing page is not good;
The design of the landing page is not effective;
The value you offer is not sufficient;
We will come back to these points when we will see concretely how to create an effective landing page.
But here again, I see you coming. Yes, 50% is not 70% as I promised you.
In what context to create a landing page?
Here we will make it short: you must create a specific landing page for each of your digital marketing campaigns.
I regularly see companies that create a landing page to which they send their visitors or prospects at the slightest opportunity. I’ll give you a very common example:
Many times, companies only have one landing page on their website. The contact page.
So, when they do a Google Ads campaign, they refer to this landing page.
When they offer a demo or request a quote, they link to this landing page.
When they publish on social networks about a specific topic, they propose to continue the exchange by referring to this landing page.
It’s no wonder that these companies have an average conversion rate of 11.5% on this landing page.
Here are the cases in which you should create a landing page:
Signing up for your newsletter;
Signing up for a webinar;
Downloading a content offer such as a white paper;
Requesting a demo;
Free consultation;
The traditional product/service sales page;
Needless to say, the return on investment of your Google Ads campaign will be nil if you send your ad to the homepage of your website.
No one will sign up for your webinar if it is necessary to make a written request from the contact page form.
Every marketing action has a landing page. That’s rule number one.
The 5 purposes of a successful landing page
To create a landing page with an optimal conversion rate, it’s essential to understand its main purposes.
After all, do you really know why you should create a landing page?
You’ll tell me you want to generate leads. Yes, that’s fine. But how? Why is the landing page crucial for your website’s ROI?
1 – A good landing page attracts attention
2 – A good landing page holds interest
3 – A good landing page creates desire
4 – A good landing page inspires action
As you may have noticed, these vocations are based on the AIDA copywriting technique.
But that’s not all, there is one last key vocation for an effective landing page:
5 – A good landing page collects strategic information