 I'm Sheila Oliver. My company is WP with Sheila. I am a website designer and a WordPress coach and trainer. So I love teaching people how to build their WordPress website. And more importantly, I love creating confident WordPress website owners because if you're going to have a website, you need to know how to make it work or at the very least how to add content and stuff like that. So my passion is teaching a lot of newbies how to work with their WordPress website. I'm located in Gainesville, Florida and I also help run the WordPress Meetup in Gainesville. So today, we're going to talk about creating an effective landing page. Even though my slide says, Ladding Page, sorry about that. Apparently I need a proofreader as well. So we're going to talk a little bit about what a landing page is, why you would use a landing page and then I'm going to give you some tips on what makes an effective landing page. Things that should be included on your landing page, all right? So what is a landing page? Basically it's any page that you go to that you send somebody to for a very specific purpose. So it's usually, you'll usually see them attached to like an ad if you do Google AdWords. The page that you send somebody to from your ad is going to be a landing page. A lot of people will create a landing page for a QR code or even from an email newsletter. A landing page basically is some place where you want somebody to take a very specific action, okay? So how can you use a landing page? So a lot of people will do it to capture emails. You want to build your email list. You're going to have asked for people to sign up. It may be the landing page that they get to that asks them to sign up. You can sell a product or service. So a lot of people will use them, say they have a new product release or I was talking to somebody last night who was working with musicians and they had a new single. That's a perfect use for a landing page. So you want to get them there. You want them to either buy something or sign up for something. If you have a conference or a webinar that you want to get people involved in. It's a great way, again, being very specific in what the page is doing. The choice is yours. Be clear and very specific in what you want them to do. Your call to action is probably the most important thing and we'll talk about that in a little bit. What is an effective landing page? So it's going to grab your visitor's attention. So how many of you have ever been on a landing page that had a title that you looked at and you go, oh yeah, I've got to go see what that's about, right? A lot of times what's going to grab our attention is the emotion. It's a pain that we have that somebody says they can solve. Are you clicking on that? Probably. It communicates in a simple, clear and concise way. Don't give me any extra stuff. Keep it simple. Anybody ever read the book Don't Make Me Think? Don't make me think about it because I'm very specific and focused on what I do. It builds trust and credibility because it's saying that you are the expert, you have what they want and you're going to build that trust into your landing page as well. And then lastly, what do you want them to do? Make sure you have a very clear and strong call to action and we're going to talk about ways that we can do that. So here's a landing page for the yellow pages. It's pretty clear what they want you to do, right? It's visual. It kind of explains exactly what yellow pages does and what you want them to do. So it has a clear purpose and it has a clear call to action. So we're going to talk about some of the elements that make up a good landing page. Any questions so far? Yeah, absolutely. Right. And I know I debated on whether I wanted to put landing page versus home page, right? Because a lot of people automatically put their home page as their landing page. You're going to drive them to your home page. But we're going to talk about a couple of reasons why you don't want to do that, why you want to have a separate page. And most of that really boils down to focus, clarity and focus on what you're trying to get them to do, okay? So let's look at some of the ways to make an effective landing page. And if you have questions, please feel free to raise your hand and ask. I kind of like to do it as we go along. Yes, I have the link to it at the end, okay? So there you go. I will honestly tell you how old that is, but... I'm really wondering what it was all about. So the first thing that we want to do is limit our navigation. Why would we do that? Because we want somebody to perform a very specific action. So here's why I say don't... And this is my opinion. I've read lots of... I've done a lot of research on this topic about how to get somebody to do what you want them to do. My whole goal is to drive traffic to this page so that I can get you to perform a very specific action. I want you to sign up for my newsletter. I want you to join my group. I want you to register for a class. Whatever that may be, it's very, very specific. I can have that on my home page, but you're also distracted by whatever else because I can guarantee you my offer is not the only thing on my home page, yes? Right? It's not the only thing that's there. You have a whole agenda for your home page because basically your home page says this is who I am. This is what I do. This is how I can help you. This is one specific piece of that. And that's why a landing page can be much more beneficial than just your home page, okay? So don't distract them. Don't give them a reason to go someplace else. Keep them there. Keep them focused on what your purpose is. Does that make sense? Yep? Should it be available if somebody is in your website and how they wouldn't be able to write that way? Right. So, yeah. So her question is, should it be accessible from like navigation or something like that? It can be, however, it's most effective because I'm driving traffic specifically to that page. And however, you're going to do that. So again, it could be in your email newsletter. It could be a QR code. I had a client that was launching a new product. So they literally created these little squares with QR codes on them and just handed them out to everybody. Because... I'm going to see it in addition to this. Right. So you could. I don't because... And that kind of goes to when I do it because it's easier for me to track. So I'm tracking how people are using the landing page because so not so much... I don't necessarily care that they come from when they're in my site because they're going to get that information. Again, I may have a page that describes what they're doing. It'll be on my homepage, someplace for them to register or something like that. But when I'm doing a camp of specific campaign, I want to be able to track that this is what's leading them to that page. Does that make sense? Okay. So limit where they can go and what they can do on your site, on your landing page itself. Okay. Get rid of the navigation that you can. Make it all about that one specific thing with that one specific task. Logical flow. Doesn't that sound intuitive? Right. But it's not. How many pages... Have you ever been on the landing page? You get there and you go, what am I supposed to do? Because you're not really sure. A lot of times they have too many calls to action, right? Your landing page, I can't stress this enough, is a specific action, okay? So make it a logical flow. It's just as important as the content that you put on it. There is... You can't control what happens and we're going to talk about some of those elements, how you can control that. But things like your header and where you position things, where you position images. You want the visitor to come to your page and see that flow that leads them to exactly what they need to do. Okay? All right. So how do we get there? How do we get that logical flow going? A great headline is where everything begins, okay? It goes back to that headline that you read and you go, if it makes you go, maybe it's something that's interesting to you. If it strikes an emotion, you're going to want to click on that, right? So it's got to grab that reader's attention and it should tell what it is that you're doing. A lot of people like to be cute and that has a purpose sometimes, but it should not distract from what you're actually trying to get them to do. So don't be cute just for the sake of being cute that it's going to get them to your page because how many of you have read this really cool headline and then gone to whatever it is or read further and it's not anything you thought it was going to be? It's frustrating, right? And the first thing is, what's your first thought? Exactly. I don't trust them because now they just did this to get me here. It has nothing to do with what I want. So don't deceive them, but make it a good headline. So it should be short, 20 words maximum, usually less than that, try around 10 is a limit. Again don't get wordy, be specific. So here's an example, I'm tired of being awkward. So this is how to talk to anybody. This is, it's cute and it's kind of cliche-ish, but it gets my attention and if you are the person who is awkward, are you looking at this and going, they're talking right to me. So make sure it's big, it's bold, that kind of thing. I want to make sure that this attracts the attention, it gets the attention that it deserves because if I do this right, they're going to read the rest of it. So the next thing is, if the headline makes the user look, then the sub-headline should make them stay. So if you look at this one, now our sub-headlining, not knowing what to say can be so embarrassing. Look at these painful comments I found, okay? So it's usually positioned right below your headline, it doesn't always have to be and you may decide to use this in your copy instead of a sub-headline. The reason I like headline and sub-headline is it's quick and easy to read, right? Because when we get to a landing page, me personally, I don't want to read five paragraphs. Anybody else? Right? I don't want to get that much information. I want you to be very clear, I want to use this information, these lines, to help you determine that this is something for you, okay? It should have some element of persuasiveness, if at all possible, kind of like the why. So your headline is going to be kind of like that pain that you're trying to solve and your sub-headline is going to be how you can solve that problem or pain, okay? And it can go into a little bit more depth and detail, okay? So Slack, where work happens and this has a sub-headline, basically is kind of a paragraph that tells you what Slack is all about, all right? So if you're not sure, you can read this and say, okay, I get that. So far, so good? Okay. Yeah. One, right, so they did do a menu on this one, kind of. So they didn't make it an obvious menu, but everybody knows that that's a menu. And a lot of pages will do that. They won't put a full menu on there because it's still considered part of your website. I opt not to do, I try very hard not to put any other kind of menu in there, okay? But some people will. All right, so you want your copy to be concise, on-brand and relevant to your audience, all right? So it kind of gets back into that trust. That's what also builds trust. I'm not getting you there on false pretenses, okay? The body of your information should be simple. And tell me exactly what you want to tell me. Take out all the fluff words, okay? Why not to use all of that? I want to be very clear and very concise. In my body, I'm going to tell you what I want you to do. How I'm going to help you, what I want you to do, kind of thing. And one thing that I find that a lot of people miss, and I see this all the time, is in the footer or somewhere, include your contact information. Why is that important? Have you ever been on the landing page and instantly had a question? And then looked around and said, how can I get this answered? When there's nothing there, right? There's no way, there's the email box that says, sign up for my newsletter or something like that. But there is now no other way to contact me, okay? Know that you are going to have a majority of people that are going to get to your landing page and have a question. Make it easy for them to be able to email you, call you to get their question answered. So while a lot of us think this is, you know, for our basic website, it's also great on the landing page. And it's a great place to put it in the footer, so that if somebody needs to ask the question, or wants to know more information, they can use that, either an email address or a phone number, preferably both. Don't limit how your customers or your visitors can contact you, okay? One thing is you have to make it relevant to the product or service that you're selling, whatever you're trying to get them to do, as well as how the audience is going to perceive it. So one of the things that I tell my clients all the time is your website is not for you. Everybody knows that, right? Your website is not for you. And just like your landing page is not for you. It is to get your visitor to do something that you want them to do, okay? And it's answering a solution to a problem that they're having most of the time, okay? Visual content, okay. So visual content is important. How many of you in here are not visual people, anybody? Not one, right? So our brain processes, images, 60,000 times faster than words. So when you hear the saying, a picture is worth 1,000 words, exactly true, okay? We follow pictures, we're scanning people, we don't read anymore, we scan. And images help to make sure that we're getting the right message. So when you're using images on a landing page, you want them to be pretty large, right? You want them to be grabbing the attention. You want them to be relevant to your headline and your sub-headline, okay? If I'm talking about widgets, I don't want to be putting cats. I know everybody loves cats, everybody loves puppies. But if it's not relative to what you're trying to get them to do, then it's confusing them, right? Have you ever gone onto a page and seen this cool picture and go, but what does it have to do with what they're trying to sell, right? Again it decreases your credibility because somebody, I look at that and go, yeah, okay, they're just trying to be cute, right? They're just trying to catch my attention without providing me value. But what it also does is if I'm going along and my headline is good, my sub-headline is good, and I get a picture that doesn't match any of that, my brain is going, wait, what just happened, okay? I'm not now following the logical flow, okay? So I've interrupted your thought process by putting something that's not even relevant to what's going on, okay? Make sure that they're quality pictures. It's so important. I know you love the pictures that you take and some of them are really, really good. Some of them don't belong in your marketing. So if you have to, if you don't have a good quality picture, you can't get a quality, a good quality picture, go find a stock photo that you can use. There are plenty of free stock photo resources out there or very inexpensive resources out there. There is no reason, none, no reason, right? Let me reiterate that. No reason why you should not have a really good picture. Yep. Sure, you can do that. So if it's talking, if you're talking about doing an internet research, you might want to put a picture of somebody sitting at a computer with research on. As long as it relates to whatever your topic is, of what you're trying to do, because people will look at that and go, okay, I mean, I've even had people say, associate whatever it is, that picture with me, like it's me doing it kind of thing, right? And that's kind of like the feeling you want to get, because they understand, they look at the picture, they go, oh yeah, that's research, I get that, okay? Anything else about images? A big bold image is always good to have. When we go back to the, when we looked at the yellow pages ad, right, well what is the yellow pages? It's about a little bit of everything, finding all of those different things. It had popcorn, it had weights, right? So all of the things that you would normally think to look on yellow pages for, again, because it visually conveys what I'm trying to get you to think about, okay? They're a necessary evil. How many of you love filling out forms? Come on, one person, okay? So we want to keep the form. It is the way that we collect information. Everybody knows that. Don't ask me for more information than what you absolutely need, okay? I can always get more information from you down the sales cycle, but to get you on board with what I'm trying to do, I want to keep my form simple. So that may be just an email address. That may be a first name and an email address. How many of you have gone on to a site that asks you your name, address, phone number, where you went to school, how many websites, right? You'll get this long list. How many of you filled them out? Why not, right? So a lot of times, if I may want to collect all that information, but when I get you to my landing page, you're thinking, first of all, why do they need that information? I am signing up for a webinar. Why do you need my address, right? You know you all thought that, right? So I can get your address, again, sometime down the line, but right now what I really need is maybe your first name and your email address, okay? So keep it really, really simple, okay? And if you can incorporate it into a great image, right? So we got the word free. So you see how this is working? This making sense? I hope? Okay. Okay. Trust signals. 85% of consumers trust online reviews or recommendations by others. Have you bought something in the last six months that wasn't recommended by somebody that you know and trust? If you need something, if you're looking for a contractor or if you're looking for a specific product, what do you do? You go find somebody who's had an experience with something, right? And say, how many of you have gone on to Facebook and said, hey, I need a plumber? Who do you know, right? That's the way we do it. Because we're going to go with people we know and trust. So all of the stuff leading up to this is helping build trust and credibility. I know, you know, I'm talking about what my service is or what my product is or what my offer is. I'm doing it in a way that's not being cute or salesy or something like that. I'm trying to emotionally connect with you by telling you, here's your issue. Here may be your problem. And here is how I might be able to solve it for you, okay? So what things cultivate trust? So testimonials. I can put a list of customers. And you can just use like one little section. A lot of times what I'll do is if I can get a picture of a customer that has a testimonial, right, you put the little picture there. You write out their testimonial because it came from them. Visually, somebody looks at that and goes, okay, I can connect because there's a picture there of a person, all right? How many of you go on to those kind of things and say, that's fake, right? You start wondering if it's fake? Right. Okay, so here's the thing. Who's going to know? Really? Who's going to know? So how am I, how are you going to know that that's not my customer? So you can use, I mean, you can use stock photography. I don't do that. I'm a big proponent of being honest and open and because here's my luck. Somebody would meet that person and go, hey, you don't look like that, right? That would be my luck. Right, right, because it's been used on 5,000 other sites that they've gone and looked at testimonials on, okay? So other things that you can do, if you've been mentioned in press, okay? So if something, an article has been written for you, about you, you can take a comment of that article and put it in there and then note where it's come from. So the things that you work with, you can just put like logos, these are the kinds of companies that we work with and stuff like that. It helps to build credibility. My favorite is the testimonials. It really is because I don't think there's a better way to build that trust than from people that you've worked with and that have had a great experience working with you. So here we have trusts, these are testimonials with the picture, who they are. I see a lot of people that will say, okay, I'm just putting the first name, okay? But that's not really, it doesn't help you build trust. Make sure they're okay with that, but use their full name, put their title, what company they're with, because they are a reference to you, for you, okay? And then, so this also uses some of the companies that they work with. So somebody can say, ooh, look, they work with Avis, they work with Intuit, okay, that's cool, right? It makes them more real and more trustworthy. A powerful call to action. So this is the most important piece of your landing page. What do you want them to do, all right? This is why you've brought them here, so you better make really, really sure that they know exactly what you want them to do, all right? The bigger the better. Use a button or a form, use a contrasting color. So in other words, if I'm going to do, I want to make something that says, you know, click here, which by the way, don't ever put that on a button, ever, okay? Be a little bit more creative and tell them why, what they're going to get, right? Learn more is another one, submit. Those learn more, don't do that. How can I help you, maybe, right? Try to find, anybody else that have seen like a good one, oh, I like that. Tell us about your next vacation, right, yeah, right? So what you want to try to do is use words that get them excited to take the action, all right? So if I want you to sign up for my newsletter, I am not going to say sign up for my newsletter. Everybody says that. So what are you going to get out of my newsletter? So maybe I'm going to say something like be in the know of new classes coming up or something like that, right? So why are you coming? Why am I going to go to that landing page? I've already seen something that said I need to go find out more about this, okay? And then when I get there, you're going to tell me why I need this, all right? And then you want me to get, so all along in every step of the process, I am trying to build your excitement and your need for doing what I want you to do. Does that make sense? Right. So there's two kinds of forms that you can use or landing pages. One is to collect, like email addresses to collect information, and one is called a click through. So maybe I want you to click through to the next step, okay? So I'll take an example of when I do, I have a client that's an RV dealership, okay? So I do a page that says this is what we have going on this week. It's my featured RV, all right? So I create that and it has a picture of the RV and a little bit of information with the button will say make this yours, all right? And they click on it because they see what they like and it takes them to the full listing of the RV with a form that they can fill out. So mine is on a sidebar, so it has the whole listing, it has all the pictures, it has all the details about the RV, and then right in the right hand column is a form to get more information to contact me, okay? So that's a click through. So I'm going to, a lot of times we'll do that with, if you're doing email marketing. So it kind of works with that too. In your email, I don't want to say go learn more or sign up now, okay? Reserve your seat, right? I want to get them to take the action in as little clicks as I possibly can. So for me, if I want you to sign up for something, I will usually not have you get on a page and then click on to another page unless, so like when I sign up for, when I do my webinars or if I do boot camp, okay? I use Eventbrite to get them signed up, so I have to get them to go. So I'm going to tell them all about it and then I am not going to put the Eventbrite button, right? I'm going to do reserve your seat or be in the class or something like that that's going to take them now, it's a click through, but it's going to take them to my event registration page, okay? Does that make sense? I know Eventbrite does that, see to me that doesn't do anything in that kind of thing. However, countdown timers to, you know, you have one day 12 hours and 36 minutes until the early bird pricing goes away, that works, right? Because you're on a timeline, it shows importance and it conveys like a little bit of scarcity, like, oh, time is running out, right? That kind of works. I think it depends on what it is. So if I have, if I've used the landing page, so a lot of this, a lot of what I do are short little landing pages. They're very, again, very specific, sign up for a class, sign up for something like that, I may need them to take another step. So instead of, I may say this is a $125 product, but then I might say, you know what, let me, let me tell you how this might work for you and just have them fill out an email form that's going to contact because there are some things that we can sell and they'll sell pretty easily without us having any interaction with that, but sometimes you'll need more of that interaction. So don't go right from that. So do your ad that, but what you want them to do now, instead of buying the product, do you want them to contact you so that you can explain to them why that's a good fit for them? Does that make sense? Okay? Anybody else? Okay. So what's my call to action? How do you know that's my call to action? Big red button in the middle of the page, right? So other things, you know, the other thing Instapage does good about this is it, and we didn't talk about this, but videos as well. So sometimes a great way instead of having images, so they don't have any images really, but they have this video explaining like what their product of service is about. Okay? So you can use video as well as instead of a picture. All right. The last thing is to test. Test and see what's working. You know, try it and then see what kind of response you're getting. Try switching out a button or changing a location of a button on a page or the form on the page. Okay? Remember that you want to try to get as much of it as you can on the page that they see without having to scroll or anything like that. If you can make your case for why they should do what you want them to do in as little space as possible, that's what you want to try to do. All right? But then test it. A, B, split test, all that kind of stuff. Use the button color. Only do one thing at a time though. So if you're putting it out there and you're like, hmm, this is not really working for me, you can, again, try, change stuff, the copy a little bit or, but only try one thing at a time and then test it for a little while longer and see if anything will make the conversion better. All right? It is a process and the more often you do it, the more you will learn what works and what doesn't work. Okay? Right. Yes. Yes. That is a good idea. I mean, that's one way to test it is to say, have people go look at it. Even your customers, all right? Have your customers go look at it and say, if you have, everybody has some really good customers, go say, hey, can you just check this out and see what this does for you? If it makes sense, if it flows right, they will be more than happy to help you. So maybe you're not going to put all of that in your ad, so don't put it all in your landing page, but know that they're going to have questions and send them to a page that addresses those issues. Exactly. Yep. That says, you know what, these are the most common issues we've seen. Here's how we address that. So again, you're automating it. It's not taking up tons of your time, but they're still taking the action of clicking through. Every time they click through, it's one step further for them to become a customer. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I always say, we are in a mobile world designed for mobile first, period, designed for mobile first. Did you have something? Right, right, but not all the time. And then sales pages tend to be a little bit longer. You can put more. You're really going to go heavy on the trust and that testimonial kind of stuff. So it depends on your purpose. But basically these are the things that I have found that work really well that help get people engaged with what you're trying to have them do. OK? So here's some resources. This is the landing page course.com is a whole course on creating landing pages. It's by UBounce, or on UBounce, I think it is. It's tons of really good information. Also, Neil Patel has the definitive guide for creating highly effective landing pages, converting landing page, and kiss metrics also. Also, you can get my slides on slide share. And that's it. Thank you very much.