How to Create a Landing Page

Why Should You Create a Landing Page?

A post-click landing page is any web page not connected to your main website’s navigation. It’s the targeted page where your visitors land after they click an ad — this could be a PPC ad, a display ad or other types of online ads.

This is a PPC ad for Sendible, a social media scheduling service:

This is the post-click landing page connected with this ad:

This is a display ad for Kapost’s free demo:

Here is the post-click landing page visitors arrive at after clicking the ad:

The purpose of creating a post-click landing page is to encourage visitors to perform a specific conversion goal. The conversion goal varies depending on the campaign you’re running. Typical post-click landing page conversion goals include:

1. Free product demo
2. Sign up for email newsletter
3. Download an ebook or white paper
4. Watch a webinar
5. Request a quote
6. Get a free consultation
7. Sign up for your service

Creating a post-click landing page is integral to the success of your marketing campaigns. Unlike homepages that typically promote every product and feature, a post-click landing page focuses on one offer — eliminating all distractions and increasing your chances of conversion.

To understand the importance of creating post-click landing pages, let’s compare Outbrain’s post-click landing page with its homepage and identify the main differences.

Here is Outbrain’s homepage:

The page includes:

• A navigation bar at the top
• Description of the features the service offers to publishers

• Company badges

• Statistical proof of the effectiveness of the service

• Customer testimonials

• Footer with many links directing you to different pages on the website

By contrast, here is Outbrain’s post-click landing page that’s promoting their content discovery feature:

The page has:

• A clear headline describing the offer
• A call-to-action button with a simple form
• A relevant image that explains the feature
• A customer testimonial that promotes the feature

• A pricing plan for visitors to learn more

• No navigation links

So, what are the main differences between Outbrain’s homepage and post-click landing page? The post-click landing page is much better for conversions because it has:

• No navigation links
• Only one conversion goal

When you create a targeted post-click landing page, you focus your visitors’ attention on one conversion goal. Any distractions (extra links and unnecessary page elements) get eliminated, which offers you a better chance of converting them on your post-click landing page.

Dedicated post-click landing pages help you target specific audiences while enabling you to collect valuable data in converting visitors… to customers.

What Should I Do Before and After Creating My Landing Page?

Prior to building your post-click landing page, you need to fulfill certain prerequisites to ensure your post-click landing page will be a success. Before you begin:

• Decide your post-click landing page goal: Have a clear objective in mind before you start working on the page elements. What do you want your page to achieve? Are you planning a soft sell and want to offer your visitors an ebook? Or, are you taking a more direct approach and want your visitors to sign up for a product demo?
• Complete your offer before you begin: Make sure the offer you’re promoting is completed before you create the page. Doing this allows you to start collecting leads as soon as you publish your post-click landing page.

As you’re building the page:

• Tailor it for your target visitors: For your page to get conversions, it’s important to understand your target audience’s pain points, wants, and needs. Then, create page elements that address all three, so your visitors have no choice but to convert.
• Create a “B” variation to test: Building another variation helps you determine which page element is helping conversions more. If you’re new to A/B testing, a good practice is to first test the most “disruptive” (obvious) elements such as headline, image, background color, or form length.
• Make sure all of your variations are mobile-responsive: If they’re not designed well and responsive to mobile devices, your conversion rates will suffer.

Once the page is completed and published:

• Direct traffic to your dedicated post-click landing page, not your homepage: You should never send visitors to your homepage or any other website page because these pages typically have too many distractions. To maximize conversions, your traffic should only be sent to a dedicated post-click landing page that focuses on a singular conversion goal. For more information on promoting your page, go to chapter 6.

Once you’ve addressed these areas, you’re well on your way to generating conversions and can begin nurturing them down your sales funnel.

What Should I Include on My Landing Page?

To create an optimized post-click landing page you should strike the right balance between the following core elements:

1. Headline: Your headline should grab your visitor’s attention the second they land on your page and compel them enough to stay on the page. The headline must be clear, understandable, and include your UVP (unique value proposition). Accomplishing these three things will help convince your visitors why they need to do business with you, and not your competitors.

MindShift includes their UVP in the headline, “Total IT Management & Award Winning Customer Support” persuading visitors to convert on their form:

2. Copy: Your post-click landing page copy should explain your offer in just enough detail for visitors to convert. It should be written with benefits in mind — not features — and written in a way that visitors feel that you’re talking to them and not at them. Include the word “you” as much as you can, showing visitors that they’re the primary focus of your page.

Zoho’s post-click landing page is a great example. Not only does the page address the visitors with multiple uses of the word “you,” but it also explains how the service benefits users:

3. Call-to-action button: Your CTA is the gateway to your conversion goal. It’s the last place your visitors act before you get a conversion. Therefore, ensure your call-to-action copy is clear and the button is designed in a contrasting color. Also, the more personalized your button copy, the better it is for your post-click landing page conversions.

Hootsuite has a bright green, optimized call-to-action button on their post-click landing page:

4. Images: post-click landing page images have a greater purpose than simply being nice pictures on the screen. Your images need to be relevant to your offer and help explain what your product or service does for users.

The Help Scout post-click landing page uses images of their dashboard to show visitors how the service can be useful:

5. Lead capture form: The lead capture form is where you collect visitor information such as name, email, phone number, job title, etc. A form shouldn’t intimidate your visitors and discourage them from converting. Rather, it should be easy to complete and only ask for information that is necessary to your offer at that particular stage in your sales funnel. This combination makes your form optimized.

Autopilot’s free trial click-through post-click landing page has an optimized lead capture form:

In addition to these five core elements, your post-click landing pages should also include customer testimonials, trust indicators, and video.

What Options Do I Have to Create My Landing Page?

To get your post-click landing page built and published you have two main options:

1. Hire an outside designer create the post-click landing page for you. However, this will likely be very costly and time-consuming. Another disadvantage of hiring a designer is that there will often be communication delays because the designer is not in-house. Furthermore, since you should be creating separate pages for all of your campaigns, do you want to repeat this hiring-and-delayed-feedback process every time?

2. Request IT and engineers create the page. Similar to hiring an outside designer, this is not a feasible option either because it’s not easily scaleable. Plus, all post-click landing page edits require significant coding and too much time. Once you start creating variations of your post-click landing page, connecting the page to other marketing software (e.g. CMS, marketing automation, etc.), and creating new pages for other offers, having in-house staff create post-click landing pages becomes unrealistic very quickly.

3. Use a dedicated post-click landing page software to create the pages for you. Many post-click landing page services on the market offer a do-it-yourself option. Simply create an account and build customized post-click landing pages for all your campaigns.

Instapage is the simplest and most customizable post-click landing page software available to marketers because we offer:

• Free 14-day trial
• Provide more than 100+ pre-made, mobile-responsive templates
• Design-friendly builder
• 20+ marketing integrations

These help you get your pages built fast and synced with all of the programs you already use, such as WordPress, Salesforce, MailChimp, Google Analytics, GoToWebinar, and more.

In addition to a custom post-click landing page builder, Instapage allows you to quickly A/B test your pages with the best analytics in the industry — giving you more insight on your leads and a greater chance to improve your conversion rates.

Step by Step Process to Creating Your Landing Page

Marketers who choose Instapage as their post-click landing page software are making the smart choice. To get started, sign up for a 14-day trial here.

Once you’ve created your account, click on the “Create New Page” button on the dashboard:

You will then see two options to build a page: choose from the template library or upload an .instapage file:

If you select the template option, you’ll have access to the template gallery, where you can browse from the following types:

You can build a page from scratch if you’d like, or select one of our templates from the categories in the left margin.

After you’ve chosen a template you can edit individual post-click landing page elements by selecting the item, and then clicking the “Edit” option:

When you’re done customizing your post-click landing page, click “Preview”, once you’re satisfied with your page, click “Publish” in the top-right corner:

Instapage takes the pain out of creating post-click landing pages, plus it allows you to easily A/B test your post-click landing pages. For more information and a detailed look at A/B testing, please read this guide.

How Can I Promote My Landing Page?

Just creating a post-click landing page doesn’t get you conversions, it’s only one-third of the conversion equation, after all. You also need to generate traffic, establish a follow-up process, and promote your page on the proper channels.

There are two general ways to promote your post-click landing page:

1. Paid Promotion

Paid promotion techniques include PPC such as Google Ads and Bing Ads. Social media ads are another effective paid promotion technique and to read more about paid promotion, go here.

2. Free Promotion

Promote your post-click landing pages via your email marketing campaigns – simply include a link within the message body or below your email signature. Guest blogging and social media posts are popular methods too, and available free of charge.

After you generate traffic and start seeing some conversions, it’s time to improve your conversion rates with A/B testing.

A/B testing allows you to create different variations of your post-click landing page, split your traffic between the two variations, and see which variation generates more conversions.

Are you ready to build your post-click landing page?

Building post-click landing pages provide you the best chance to increase your conversion rates and help you promote your offers in the most efficient way possible.

Get started building your post-click landing page with a proven post-click landing page software. More than 250,000 users trust their post-click landing pages to Instapage. Why not join them and start enjoying a better ROI from your marketing campaigns?