must have often heard the term landing page on websites. In today’s article, we will provide you with a comprehensive explanation of the concept of landing pages, and we will answer all the questions that may come to your mind about this concept.
What is a landing page? What is its importance? Who needs it? What are its types? What are the best tips for designing a professional landing page? What are the best plugins for designing a landing page on a WordPress website?
Finally, we will discuss a practical example of designing a landing page for free using one of the drag-and-drop plugins.
The concept of the landing page and its importance
Exactly as its name suggests, the landing page is the page to which the visitor lands on your site, that is, it is similar to an airport or reception hall, as it is considered a stop on a journey, where the visitor arrives from a specific place and departs from it to another destination on your site.
If the visitor likes this station, he will continue on his way through the site, otherwise he will leave it immediately, and here lies the importance of the landing page.
This was the general idea for the landing page, now let’s delve deeper into the details.
The importance of landing pages is that they are one of the best ways to improve the conversion rate on your site. The important question here:
The importance of improving conversion rate
Suppose you own a blog or an online store that provides a service or product, or any other website. In any case, you need a lot of visitors to your site. But just the visitor’s arrival at your site is not enough. Rather, you often want him to take the next step and perform another task on your site, such as purchasing your products, subscribing to your services, or subscribing to your mailing list.
That is, you want to convert this visitor into a customer, and the conversion occurs when the visitor performs the task or action that you ask of him, that is, when he fulfills the call to action (Call To Action), which is known for short as CTA, and this is added. The invitation on sites is usually in the form of a button, such as a Log in button or a Subscribe button.
Therefore, we can say that the conversion rate is the ratio of the number of visitors who answered the call to action (i.e., converted into customers) to the total number of site visitors.
Therefore, most website owners seek to improve the conversion rate to increase their profits from the site. This process is called Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) for short, and it is one of the important factors in the success of the site, as it is the main influence on the volume of your site’s sales.
One of the best ways to improve the conversion rate is strong landing pages, which are defined in this context: as a page that is designed with the aim of convincing the user to perform a specific action . The strength of the landing page lies in its simplicity and clarity. The focus is entirely on just one CTA, omitting all other page elements such as the header and navigation bar.
How does the user reach the landing page?
A landing page is usually landed within the scope of a pre-planned campaign and not randomly. When you want to promote a product, service, or even a website, you must take into account what is called the User Journey, which is the set of steps that the user follows to reach a specific goal.
Ideally, the user will search, find your service or product, browse your site, and request the service. But in reality, the matter is completely different from that, as there are millions of web pages and thousands of services similar to yours, and you must make every effort in the following four steps to build your relationship with customers:
Start by attracting the customer to your site, then converting him into a potential customer (lead), then into a real customer, and finally into a permanent customer.
Attracting the customer begins by conducting promotional campaigns (campaigns), via email, Google ads, or social media platforms.
If this campaign is successful and the user clicks on the ad, he will be taken to the landing page, which in turn generates potential customers and plays the role of an intermediary in moving the customer to the next step to become a real customer. As for the customer returning to the site again, it depends on the quality of your services and your commitment to the customer.
But why is it preferable to direct the customer coming from the ad to a landing page and not to the home page or to the product page directly?
Simply because these pages are filled with a lot of options and details, and they may cause the visitor to be distracted and withdraw from the process, while the landing page is designed for only one goal, which is presented to the visitor in a clear and concise manner, which facilitates the selection and interaction process for him.
Now that we fully understand the importance of the landing page, let us delve more deeply into the components of this page, its types and uses.
Basic components of a landing page
Below we talk about the most important components of a landing page and how to customize each component as an essential part to blend in with the entire page design.
1. Headline
The main title reflects the content of the page and indicates the main purpose of the page. It should be written in bold, clear, specific, and concise. Its length must be sufficient to convey the desired message to the user, but not to such an extent that it becomes difficult to read.
In order for the title to be effective, try to highlight directly the benefit that the user will receive if he performs the requested action.
2. Text
The text (or subtitle) reinforces the main title message and provides some necessary details about the presentation. It focuses on the strengths of your product and encourages the visitor to take the action, in a brief and specific manner as well.
If you want to enumerate the product’s features, for example, use bullet points instead of listing, and always remember that order and brevity are very important.
3. Visuals
Because a picture is worth a thousand words, adding an image to your landing page is a good idea. The image must be high-resolution and large, preferably a realistic and exclusive image, not a ready-made image.
For example, if you want to send a free book, you can support the page with a picture of the book, or put your personal picture or a picture of the product you want to market.
Visuals are not limited to images only, but you can also present a short professional video that supports the idea in a clear and specific way.
3. Call to Action (CTA)
This element is the most important element on the landing page, and the main reason for its existence. So the focus must be given to it. So do not add more than one CTA per page.
The call must also be clear and innovative. Stay away from traditional phrases such as “ Click here ” or “ Register now .” Use an attractive color for the button and a large, clear font.
The best example you’ll find of a simple custom landing page (with a very high conversion rate, by the way) is that of entrepreneur Neil Patel.
We find the design on this page clean and comfortable for the eye, and the title occupies approximately half of the screen and catches the eye and provides a clear, concise message about the service that will be provided. The text is directed personally. It addresses you as if it knows you, and even identifies your location and mentions it within the text. Finally, and most importantly, the call to action button is prominent and has a distinctive color.
The secret to a high conversion rate here is providing a high-value, motivating service to the user.
Types of landing pages
Most likely, your site will need several landing pages, each directed to a different audience and for different goals. Therefore, there are several types of landing pages depending on their use, and the following are some common models for landing pages:
1- Landing page to grab potential customers
The landing page that aims to register potential customers ( Lead capture landing page) , or also called the email list opt-in page, is considered one of the most effective ways to push the visitor to register on the site.
It relies on offering a free gift to the visitor in exchange for giving him his email information for the site. This gift is symbolized by the term (Lead Magnet), meaning it must be strong in attraction like a magnet.
You can also request more information about the visitor, but we advise you not to make too many requests so that the customer does not hesitate to fill them out. This information will help you analyze data about your potential customers, which means a deeper understanding of your target audience, which will help you improve your upcoming campaigns and suit them.
The gift may be a free e-book, a weekly newsletter, or any other idea that is so tempting that the visitor will not be able to refuse it.
In fact, the idea of giving valuable gifts to your audience is an effective marketing strategy and a great way to improve the conversion rate on your site and motivate the customer to return to it. You should look at it as a future investment.
For example, this page from hubspot :
2- Intermediate landing page
As for the intermediate landing page (Click-through landing page), the visitor comes to it from an advertisement for a product or service, and it plays the role of the sales employee in your online store, that is, the role of the mediator between the advertisement and the product page.
So what’s the difference between this page and the product page?
This page introduces the product. The product page is more comprehensive and contains many items and links to other products.
While the landing page for the product is more specific and encourages the purchase of this exact product, it may also contain a discount coupon or a free subscription to the service.
The landing pages for the product are often temporary and related to its marketing campaign. As for the product page, it remains permanently on your site. For example, this page from the lumosity website :
3. A landing page to start browsing the site
When a visitor arrives at the site for the first time, he will find several options before him, and he may not choose the optimal direction to explore the site. Here comes the idea of this “Start here landing page” page to create a special experience for this visitor, guide him through the various sections of the site, and present the best of them in a smooth and simple manner. For example, this page from our WordPress website
4. Thank you landing page
This page must be added after the user converts and performs an action on the site. He will be transferred to the Thank you landing page . This means that he is interested in the content of the site, and it is the perfect time to strengthen your relationship with him.
You could ask him, “What is your next step?” Follow it with, “What do you think about reading these articles?” ” and add the most prominent articles of your blog, or “How about following us on social media?” There are several possibilities that you could add here, so do not miss this wonderful opportunity. For example, this page from the crazyegg website , after you subscribed to their newsletter:
These are just four examples of taking advantage of the principle of landing pages, and there are many other types, such as the Coming Soon page , for example.
Just brainstorm all the possible ways to reach your site, and link them to a specific landing page to increase your conversion rate.
Landing page design concepts
Designing a landing page is easy and simple, as you need to be able to grab the customer’s attention with very simple components and in the fastest time.
A study indicated that it takes a visitor to a web page one part of a twentieth of a second (120) to form the first impression of the page, on the basis of which he will make the decision to stay or leave.
So you are here in a race against time, and your goal is clear: to push the customer to take action; But within a period of time that does not exceed the blink of an eye! So, in the following paragraphs, we have collected for you the most important tips that you can follow to improve the conversion rate through landing pages.
To simplify things, we will focus the advice on three directions: creating landing page content, then designing the page, and finally designing the web interface and the necessary tools.
Here we mean the written and visual content that will appear to the visitor. The basic rule here is “the best speech is that which is little and indicative.” Following these simple steps can increase your conversion rate:
1. Know your audience well
Before designing content, start with a comprehensive view of your goal for the campaign you are implementing, and answer the following questions: Who is the target audience? What is the best way to reach him and convince him? What is the benefit to him if he carries out my invitation?
You need to provide a clear solution to a difficult problem that this specific audience has. So stay away from generalities, and pay attention to customization as much as possible.
You will notice that we repeated the words specific and clear several times throughout this article, to emphasize their importance.
2. Add only necessary details
Once again, stay away from distractions. If you want to capture the user’s attention and direct it towards a specific, clear goal, stay away from any detail that does not add anything of high importance and does not affect the user’s decision.
Also, make sure that the landing page is consistent with the advertisement leading to it, by having the same format. This gives a feeling of continuity to the user and keeps him away from confusion.
3. Use social proof and provide evidence and evidence
People prefer to hear facts rather than promises, so you can add available numbers and statistics about the quality of your work. The best marketers for any business are previous customers, as most customers read product or service reviews and opinions of previous customers before they make a purchase.
Take advantage of this idea to enhance your landing page by adding positive reviews from your previous customers.
You can also increase the degree of trust between you and the customer by adding a return option within a specific period. This way, you will relieve the pressure on the customer and make him more motivated to carry out the procedure.
Landing page design tips
1. Keep it simple
The strength here lies in the simplicity of the design and its effectiveness in achieving the desired goal more than in its artistic value. Choose appropriate sizes and positions for each content according to its importance on the page. The title must be large and bold to catch the user’s eye as soon as he enters the page. The colors should also be completely calm to allow focus on the rest of the important details on the page, such as the product image and the call to action button.
2. Focus the entire design on the call to action button
Since the call to action button is the most important element on the page, the designer should focus on drawing attention to it. For example, you can use a prominent color for it or add an image of a person looking directly at the invite button, as a person tends to look at something if he finds another person looking at it. Semantic arrows that point to the invite button can also be used.
Speaking of simple, attractive design, we cannot miss talking about the design of Apple’s pages for advertisements for its products. It is characterized by the simplicity and strength of the designs and focuses attention on the image of the product. As in this picture:
3. Responsive to mobile screens
Most people today use their phones and tablets to browse the Internet and even make purchase deals, and they now only use the computer for work. So do not neglect this topic while designing and make sure that the landing page is compatible with the mobile phone screen.
4. Page loading speed
If the page loading speed is low, the user will leave it before he even reaches it. Imagine the number of potential customers who could be lost due to this technical error! So do not hesitate to solve this problem, and to improve the speed of your site, we advise you to read this article .
5. Check the page and follow it continuously
If you have successfully launched your page, now is the time to monitor it and evaluate its performance. Fortunately, there are many great add-ons that can help you evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of a page, such as Google Analytics tracking or heat maps .
The most popular WordPress plugins for building landing pages
There are many WordPress plugins dedicated to building landing pages, and they are so easy to use that they save you from hiring a website developer whenever you need to design a landing page, especially since you will need them a lot after you realize their importance.
The advantage of these additions is that they provide many ready-made templates for pages of various possible types. These templates are also editable and you can save new templates after modification.
It also provides many design tools such as call-to-action buttons, email sign-up boxes and visitor information. With all these facilities, it will only take a few minutes to create the page and launch it on your site.
There are several criteria that help you choose the appropriate add-on for your site, the most important of which are:
- Ease of use: Drag-and-drop plugins are a good option, as they help you design the entire page without the need to write any programming code.
- Suitable designs: Browse the designs in each add-on to choose what suits your site. Each site has what suits it according to its nature, the target audience, and the purpose of its landing pages.
- Speed: As we mentioned previously, speed is one of the most important factors that affect the effectiveness of the landing page, so focus on choosing a light add-on that does not cause the site to load slowly.
- Flexibility: You will often need to link the landing page to other services such as email marketing and mailing list building services, so you must choose an add-on that is compatible with it.
- Price: Price certainly plays a major factor in choosing the appropriate add-on, but investing in landing pages remains a good option.
Based on these factors, review the various add-ons and choose between them according to your options. To help you choose, we will provide you with a list of the best WordPress plugins available for designing landing pages.
All of these add-ons are easy to use and rely on drag and drop. The first three plugins also provide a free version (Lite) that you can activate on your site and usually contains limited features. You can then upgrade to the paid version (Pro) which contains templates and additional tools.
1. Seedprod
- It is the first addition to landing page design. It has a rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars, and is used by more than 1 million active users.
- This plugin works on any WordPress theme, and is compatible with mobile screens.
- The paid version provides more than 150 ready-to-use templates, many elements that will help you design the landing page, and a library of 2,000 free images that you can use in your own design.
- It is also compatible with many email marketing services such as Mailchimp, Convertkit, Zapier, and others.
- Its paid plan prices start at $39.5 per year.
2. Beaver Builder
- This add-on has a rating of 4.9 out of 5 stars, and is used by more than 300,000 active users.
- This plugin works on any WordPress theme, and is compatible with mobile screens.
- The paid version provides more than 50 ready-to-use templates.
- Paid plan prices start at $99 per year.
3. Elementor
- It is considered the most popular add-on in the world, as it has been used in the design of more than 5 million websites. It comes with a rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars.
- It is compatible with most WordPress websites, and the free version provides more than 30 ready-to-use templates, and it is also available in Arabic.
- Paid plan prices start at $49 per year.
4. The Divi Builder
- This plugin comes with the Divi template, but you can add it to your site if it uses other templates.
- It is characterized by the ability to edit and modify the web page in real time, that is, while you are browsing the site without opening the control panel.
- It contains more than 20 ready-to-use templates, and more than 46 elements.
- There are two payment plans: either you pay $99 annually, or you get the higher plan for $249, which is paid only once, meaning you do not need to renew the subscription.
5. Leadpages
- You can use it even if you don’t own a WordPress site to create landing pages.
- It comes equipped with many ready-to-design templates, the ability to edit while browsing, and is compatible with many of the best email marketing services.
- Its drawback is its high price, as prices start at $180 annually.
6. OptimizePress
- This plugin comes with the OptimizePress theme, and you can use it with any other theme.
- It contains more than 40 templates ready for landing pages, but its drawback is that modifying these templates is more difficult than other plugins.
- This add-on is compatible with many email marketing services.
- Prices start at $99 per year.
We previously talked about the 6 best visual builders using drag-and-drop
Practical landing page design
Now let’s try to apply everything we’ve learned with a practical example. We will create the landing page shown in the following image to ask the visitor to subscribe to the site’s mailing list. We will place a title and text on the page to encourage and urge visitors to subscribe to the list. We will of course place a prominent CTA button to activate the subscription, and finally we will place an elegant, high-quality background image for the landing page. Follow the steps below to learn how to create this page.
1. Install the Seedprod add-on
From the sidebar of your WordPress site’s control panel, choose From, Add-ons > Add New
Look in the search box for the name of the extension, then choose > Install now
After completing downloading the add-on, click on the Activate button to activate the add-on on your site.
After activating the add-on, its name will appear to you in the sidebar of the WordPress control panel as follows, and a window will display informing you that you are using the free version of the add-on, and if you want to get all the templates and features, you must upgrade to the paid version.
2. Add a new page
From the control panel, select the Seedprod tab . Clicking on this tab will take you to a page that shows you four options for designing ready-made templates for landing pages on your site, of which two templates are available for free: (wait for us soon) or (under maintenance).
As for creating a new landing page: From the same page, choose the option shown at the bottom: Add New Landing Page
A new window will appear showing a set of ready-made templates (Templates) that will facilitate the process of designing a landing page, including six free templates.
If you want to build your own page from scratch without relying on ready-made templates, choose a blank template as shown in the following image:
You will then see the following window asking you to enter the name and link of the page. Enter the name you want, for example, booksnewsletter <, then click the Save and Start Editing the Page button at the bottom to start building the page.
The Page builder window will appear , enabling you to design and build your page as shown in the following figure. At the top of this page there are three main tabs. The first tab is Design , which allows you to design the page. It consists of two parts. The first part on the right of the page includes design elements (Blocks and Sections), while the second part is the page preview part, where you can see first-hand all the changes that you apply. On the page.
As for the second tab, Connect , you use it if you want to link the landing page to one of the services supported by the paid version of the Seedprod add-on (in the free version, we can link the page to Google Analytics only).
As for the third tab, Page Settings , you will be able to access various settings for the page. For example, under the General Settings section , you can change the title and link of your page, and other features, as shown in the following image.
3. Add the image in the background
To add a landing page background image, go to the first Design tab, then click the Properties button at the bottom right of the screen, then choose Background. To use an image on your device, tap Add Your Own Image:
From the window that appears, choose Upload Files, then choose Select Files:
After the image has finished uploading to the site, select it and then click Select:
You can see the background image immediately in the page preview in the center of the window.
4. Page layout
Now from the preview pane, change the page layout by choosing the number of columns you want to divide the page into. We will choose from the Choose your layout menu the first option to make the page consist of only one column, as shown in the following image.
5. Add items
After choosing a page layout, choose Page Components from the Blocks section on the right of the window. This section contains the main blocks and elements for building the page, such as the block for adding text, the block for adding an image, and the block for adding a button (as for the rest of the tools, they are closed because we are using the free version in our example).
Choose Add Headline to write the page title and insert it into the page using the drag-and-drop feature. When you drag the Headline element, the page will look like this:
By clicking on the words written within the text box block <, a side menu titled Editing will appear on the right side, enabling you to edit the block’s various properties. Through the Content tab in this menu, you can change the font size, center alignment, and other properties. As shown in the following image:
You can also access additional options under the Advanced tab, such as changing the color of the text or adding shading to the text and to the text box.
Then add the following text box in exactly the same way and control it as you wish.
Now you need to add the last and most important element, which is the CTA box. Drag the Button from the Blocks section onto the page:
Then make the desired modifications to it, such as changing its color and the size of the font written above it, in exactly the same way as modifying a text box.
After adding the two text boxes, you will notice that they appear very close to each other, so you can put a space between them, by dragging the Spacer component from the Blocks section and adding it between them. By clicking on it, you can specify the height of the space you want, as shown in the following image:
6. Check the page’s compatibility with the mobile phone screen
Finally, check that the page appears appropriately for the mobile phone screen by clicking on the Mobile Preview icon located at the bottom left of the editing window.
The following image shows a preview of the page on the mobile screen, and if you want to apply any modification, you can apply it as you did in the previous steps:
7. Publish the page
You can preview the page before publishing it by clicking the Preview button at the top of the window to have the page displayed in a new tab.
If you have finished designing your page and want to publish it, click on the small arrow next to the Save button at the top, then choose the Publish command :
Thus, your page will be ready on the site.
Conclusion
With this, we learned about the concept of landing pages and their importance in improving the conversion rate on websites, in addition to the most popular types and the best tips for designing them. We also learned about the most important WordPress plugins that help in building a landing page in an easy way through drag-and-drop technology.
Always try to focus on the purpose of the page and how it attracts the viewer’s eye to interact with it and take the required action as quickly as possible. Tell us in the comments your experiences about creating landing pages for your own website
