We worked with Riley from RocketThruster to put together an ultimate guide to building a solid landing page - he brought the web design expertise, we brought the marketing and copy skills. You can watch the full discussion or dive into this blog post for some of the high points.

A landing page functions as a separate page from your website that a person reaches through an ad, email, or social platform. In most cases, the function of a landing page is to gather information and introduce people into your marketing funnel.

Your landing page is meant to do ONE thing, whether that is to gather information or to make a sale is up to you. It’s important to streamline the process and make it as easy as possible for people to go from step A to B. If it’s not dead simple then no one will convert, and you can just about guarantee that.

Attention spans have dwindled - you are competing with Facebook fail compilations and a thousand other things. 

Now that you have their attention, how will you convert?

The Essentials of Landing Pages that *ACTUALLY* Close Sales

Continuity and Flow Helps People Remember Why They Clicked

When someone “lands'' on your landing page it needs to look and feel very similar to the ad or email that sent them there. That’s what originally attracted them to click, so why would you make it look different?

We see it all the time, landing pages that have no resemblance to the original ad. If anything, it makes people feel like they’re about to be scammed. Here’s an example, if you have holiday lighting ads running but your landing page has a picture of a freshly mulched flower bed then you’ll most likely lose that ‘would be’ lead. It interrupts the flow, and makes people question whether they are on the right page. They can easily exit and keep scrolling on their feed and they happily will.

Whatever service you are advertising, your landing page needs to fit the bill. Holiday lighting? Have an image, video, or slideshow of your recent projects. Mowing? Show a team member at work. These are the details that your competitors aren’t doing. Everyone uses the same landing page for all of their services, which means you should NOT be doing that.

Copy is (Almost) Everything

As soon as someone hits your landing page they’ll be met with a headline, and it needs to capture their attention once again to keep them scrolling. If you take a page out of many lawn care playbooks, you’ll see that many of them use the same language. Words like “professional” or “reliable” appear on most lawn care websites (check for yourself!).

Make sure they know what you are offering and where. These are facts but they shouldn’t be boring.

Learn to write great copy that converts.

Smiling Faces Keep People Engaged

Having a photo or video will help keep people engaged, and it needs to serve a purpose. Most lawn care landing pages show a close up shot of a mower… are you a Toro dealer? It needs to make sense.

Have a photo of a team member in action or a short video of you talking about your service. They can directly tie a face to the company, and you go from total stranger to them knowing who you are. It’s also important to have eye contact with the camera in the photo/video, that will also grab more eyes.

One Simple, Obvious Next Step

Keep it short, sweet and obvious - you want them to do ONE thing. You can offer more services and upsell them later, but your landing page has a streamlined goal. If you solely want their information, make it a simple form asking for their name, number, and email address. This isn’t an opportunity to interrogate, we’re just getting our foot in the door.

Give them the path of least resistance. 

People should be able to see a CTA button at all times. If your copy is lengthy then insert a CTA mid-page. Make it pop and stand out from the rest of the page, think of using colors like orange and yellow.

Specific Forms Make Attribution a Breeze

It’s more work on the front end but it will work for both you and the customer. Again, we want to make this as easy as possible. Having them click a bunch of boxes and specify what they want just gives them an excuse to back out.

Also, this will benefit you on the CRM side of things. You know exactly what they want, and that makes following up to close a sale that much easier. Plus, this allows you to track how your marketing campaigns are performing rather than having them all funnel through one form.

Building Trust = More Selling

This is part of almost every purchasing decision whether people know it or not. A large part of building trust is getting the support from your community. This is where reviews can do so much for your business.

Having a 5-star Google page is great, and the first step, but you can leverage those reviews to work even more for you. We recommend incorporating them everywhere, including your landing pages. An INDISPENSABLE resource would be to have video testimonials of actual customers. It can feel a little strange asking for these, so look to ask your favorite and consistent customers. If they aren’t camera shy most likely they’ll vouch for you. You can edit these videos and use them everywhere, including social ads. 

Answer their questions before you’re asked.

Implementation is Key

Let’s get to it! You have everything you need to get started building strong and converting landing pages. Start by creating specific forms and go from there - this will help you track how your landing pages are performing by each individual service.

To boil it all the way down, here are the essentials for a successful landing page:

• Keep the landing page looking very similar to the original ad (similar style copy, color palette, etc.)

• Attention Grabbing Headline

• Copy that compels and answers their questions

• Photo and/or video that directly relates to said service. Show off you and your team!

• Call-to-Action

Get after it and best of luck!