Are you stuck with a landing page that isn’t performing on your blog?
Are you ready for a new landing page idea but don’t know where to start from?
In this post I will explain how to get rid of the conventional rules for building a landing page and how to radically increase your chances of building the right one.
I can guarantee you that if you search now on Google for “landing pages examples” or “landing page ideas”, the results will show you one of these contents.
The first content is this one:
A blog post listing 100 or so well-designed landing pages.
A list of famous brands with a commentary by the author that explains what the obvious already states: there is a button here and some text there.
Ok, yes I can see those things already, thanks! If you see an article like this one, it’s time to get back into search results and click to the other page to find a better answer.
Some landing pages have a prevalence of blue, others are yellow and black.
So what?
The second result will most probably be this one:
20 or 30 tricks and tips on what to add to your landing page, from CTAs to special offers. In some cases you need to add original research to support your statements, in other cases, you need to add customer success stories.
So I am 100% sure that you will put into practice one or more of the above suggestions in your landing page because these blog posts are on Google #1 position, they represent the leaders in your industry.
Actually, it’s only the Google’s algorithm telling us what we need to add in our landing page, according to someone’s else opinions.
That’s sad because these Google #1 results are just a creation of the authors’ minds according to what they like to see on a landing page.
I think there are only two ways of building landing pages.
But before we get into the 2 methods, let’s start with straight conversion rates fact.
Higher conversion is not the end game. I have recently worked with a software company with more than 40 landing pages, the marketing team is putting all the efforts into increasing conversion rates.
Instead of using their own CMS for building landing pages, they used Unbounce, which is specialized in building landing pages. They worked so well that they were overwhelmed by the volumes of leads with some pages reaching as high as 58% conversion rates.
They had to nurture all these unqualified leads and they were overwhelmed by such high volumes.
The two ways of building landing pages when you have no idea
1. Referral traffic landing pages
Do you want leads to convert? Obviously!
A study revealed that persuasive content is key to conversions. What is persuasive content? Is it the beautiful design of a landing page?
Does this mean that when someone is landing on a page that shows a beautiful layout instantly users say “oh, look at this yellow CTA button colour how well it matches with the black background colour? I am going to become a lead now!”
Not one single user has ever said that.
I am telling you this for a reason. I have been in a situation where my AB tests on my landing pages were inconclusive. I have tried changing the CTA colour, text copy and three hundred more elements on the page with inconclusive results, over and over again.
This is what in science is called Sensitivity Analysis, the analysis of factors that influence the outcome.
So, what was the problem? Was my not sexy enough landing page?
The answer is no, it’s not how the landing page looks like. So, what is makes people convert into leads on a landing page?
It’s persuasive content. But on a previous page.
What do I mean by that?
Let me explain where I am going with this. Stay with me because we are going to do a mini content audit.
Persuasive content is not even on your landing page. It’s elsewhere, on your referral traffic sources, for example.
In B2C marketing, when persuading someone to buy from you, the best thing you can do is show independent, positive reviews from referral websites.
“Have a look at what this other website has to say about us”.
Try and receive traffic from this powerful website that talks so well about your brand and see the effect it has on your landing pages.
Ok, now that you have conversions arriving from this source of traffic, the next step is to adjust the copy of your landing page to match what users are already looking for, to increase the relevancy of the topic.
Look at this average 18% conversion rate from a referral website to the landing page of a company that offers nutrition courses, versus the 5% average on the website.
Look at this second example, of high conversion rate at 27% vs 5% average for the website:
The second example above is the NRPT, the National Register of Personal Trainers sending traffic to a personal training course provider, and they show a 26.92% conversion rate.
What does this mean for the content of your landing page coming from that referral source?
It means start writing your landing page copy with a question.
One of the best methods of writing great and converting landing pages is with a question, that matters to your users.
How do you phrase a problem that your audience is facing?
That’s why you need to go back to your referral source website and find out what that review or blog post is saying about your users’ pain points.
Then, when people land on your website from there, you are in a better position to ask them a question and give an answer.
So, in summary, find your referral traffic sources, analyse their users’ pain points and give an answer to their question on your landing page.
2. Google Analytics Reverse Goal Path Reports
The second best way to build a landing page, when you have no idea where to start, is to analyse Google Analytics reverse goal path reports.
If you don’t have goals set in your analytics system, you are wasting your career, honestly.
Set them up now!
The situation with inconclusive AB tests is in front of us, again. This time, instead of finding persuasive content elsewhere on the Internet, look for it in your funnel, in the pages of your website.
This is when the reverse goal path report can help. In Google Analytics, go to Conversions > Goals > Reverse Goal Path
The report shows you the steps people take to convert on each of your landing pages, from the very first starting point on your website to the last one.
Why should you bother with this report?
First of all, it tells you which funnel is bringing more conversions (= more money) to your website. Second, it sets the workload for what you need to do next.
The problem with this report is that it doesn’t tell you how many pages visits each page in the funnel has:
So you need to find out by yourself the number of sessions or users for each page. Go to Behaviour > Site Content > All Pages and answer these questions:
– How many visitors are on the home page?
– How many visitors are on the page after the home page? Let’s call it the product page…
Then insert the product page into the search bar and find out. The last thing you need to do is to add a second dimension, Previous Page Path
When you find the following Previous Page = Home page, this means you have matched the Reverse Goal Path Report.
Why is this relevant?
This allows you to calculate the CTR on each page. For example, the product page shows 3,000 visits, but only 600 come from the “previous page path” home page.
This is the same funnel as in the Reverse Goal Path Report and BINGO! You have found the page CTR.
600 visits on the product page lead to conversions, coming from the home page. This is a great insight to have and it’s even greater as you have all the traditional metrics for the funnel for each page: bounce rate, exit rate, avg. time on page.
For example, if this funnel where the users arrive directly on the product page from Google, shows a higher bounce rate than normal, it’s because maybe the page is not optimised for search. The bounce rate is 66%.
But when people land on the home page, then visit the product page and then they convert, the bounce rate on the product page, the bounce rate is 0%.
Same page, product page, two different bounce rates, exit rates and avg. time on page according to where users come from.
Amazing insights!
How do you optimise the product page for search results?
It’s time to start your AB test on the product page for users coming directly from search results, you need to filter your traffic when setting up the test, so you don’t impact other users.
Conclusion
These two examples show you how to find landing pages on your own website, chances are that you already have them, you don’t have to look elsewhere on Google, you have them right there in your analytics report.
Stay away from pre-cooked landing pages advice, you need to earn your own landing page results by understanding users’ behaviours.
Use the 2 methods of referral traffic and reverse goal path for identifying issues and creating persuasive content both for your referral websites and for your own landing pages.
