5 Key Elements of a Successful Landing Page Design

The success of your landing page design is directly proportional to the success of your online marketing. How can you achieve success with your landing page design? Well, creating a successful landing page design comes down to a few key elements. There are 5 prime landing page elements that can help you create a landing page that will generate conversions and leads for your business.

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Now, try to understand what these elements are and how they can be incorporated into your landing page design.

1. Unique Selling Proposition:

When you’re starting your marketing campaign, you want to ensure that you can communicate your message across with all your customers. What is it that you want to deliver to your audience about your product or services? What differentiates you from your competitors and make them want to choose you? You need to express that in your landing page. If you can’t capture them right away, the chances are, they won’t convert. Your USP (unique selling proposition) is like the elevator pitch of your business. Try breaking down your offering to the most basic level and illustrate specific benefit(s) your customers would receive from your products and services.

M&Ms chocolate has a great USP that targets an issue we always encounter with chocolates - "The milk chocolate melts in your mouth, not in your hand."

A USP that is crafted well, let’s your customers set very clear expectations, and helps them understand why should they care. Crafting a strong USP is important for your landing page.

The unique selling proposition can be further divided into 4 sub-elements:

• Main headline:

The first thing your visitor would see and read on your landing page is the headline. It's critical for the headline to express very clearly, what the visitor would get from your landing page. The message should be strong enough for the visitor to know where they have landed and encourage them to scroll further down.

• Supporting headline

The headline can't say much if it is kept easily digestible and concise. To have a clear headline, you can add a supporting headline. You can do this in two ways:

(i) As the main headline’s direct extension, where the supporting headline would follow and look like an extension of your main headline

(ii) Extending the message by adding another persuasive message to support the main message.

• Reinforcement statement

People often skim over pages rather than reading it fully. So, it's very important to have your titles, like the main headline, benefit/feature titles, etc., to stand out.

You can communicate your landing page's purpose by using another title – the reinforcement statement. This statement lies about halfway down the page and is a sort of mid-experience message, which you wish to convey to the visitors. It's quite similar to a second headline.

• Closing argument

As the landing page reaches towards its bottom portion, there is a final chance for you to convey your offering's benefit to the visitor again. Similar to the reinforcement statement, the closing argument backs up the page's main message. In case of click-through pages, this statement should be teamed up with a repeat of your Call to Action.

Note: If your page is very short, the closing argument is not a necessity, since the headline would be visible.

2. Hero Shot

In this digital age of short attention spans, it makes more sense to use pictures instead of plain text. Yes, “a picture is worth a thousand words”, so it can help visitors understand your products or services even better. Hero shot is your offers' visual representation. With such an image, people can get a better idea of what your offer is or what your offering looks like. To create the maximum impact, this image should show visitors how your offering would be used and how it’s beneficial for them.

You can do this by employing photo(s) or videos.

• Photo(s):

Let's take collapsible step ladder as an example. A standard image of the ladder, with a white background, would work as the hero shot. However, to deepen the impact, you may provide some more images of a person unfolding it, using the ladder for reaching a height, and then keeping the ladder in a small cupboard neatly after use.

• Video:

A video makes an even better way of showcasing your service or product. Not only attention-grabbing, videos also feature the direct benefits provided by a product in everyday life.

3. Your Benefits

Following directly from your USP, this element describes the features and benefits of your offering in a more detailed fashion. An effective headline has helped you draw the attention of the visitor, and now, your job is to answer the questions the visitor may have, by providing some details about your offering. Focus on providing the answer to the question - “What will this product/service do for me?”. This would help you craft a copy answering the questions of your customers directly.

• Summary of benefits in a bullet point list

Maintain a balance here, and try not getting into so much details that the page appears to be full of text. Create a brief summary of one paragraph, and have 3 to 5 bullet points to give clarity. Review this section again and again, to remove any unnecessary text.Check these Carrd templates for inspiration. They all have well thought out design for best landing page performance.

4. Social Proff

Social proof is a strong persuasive concept. In simple words, it's using social signals to show that people have bought and used your product or service, and are glad to use it. This can increase the chances of creating a sale with a visitor. Customer reviews, testimonials, case studies, awards from reputed organizations, etc. make good examples of social proof.

Basecamp shows a social proof in its homepage in an excellent way:

5. Conversion Goal

Conversion goal refers to what you’re trying to attain from your landing and the purpose of it. While designing your landing page, you need to be focused on your conversion goal.

To the visitor, your conversion goal is put forth as the Call to Action (CTA). The CTA may be a part of the lead generation form or a standalone button in a click-through page.

Your CTA is extremely important for getting conversions. You want visitors to interact with the CTA on the landing page. The way you design the CTA, its location on the page, and what it communicates, are important things to consider when designing your landing page.

Those are the five elements that are extremely crucial to your landing page design. With this knowledge, get ready to design a great landing page that brings stellar conversions and success to your business. Let me know in the comments below what other elements you include to create strong landing pages that generate conversions.