Landing pages, squeeze pages, opt-in forms and sales pages. The terms are often used interchangeably. All of these types of pages basically do the same thing. At least they all have the same goal: to encourage people to give up an email address or payment information in exchange for a product or service.
Landing pages can be set up using a variety of services or plug-ins. They can even be created from scratch if you have coding experience. So, which is better? Paying for a landing page service that has templates or getting exactly what you want by creating a landing page from scratch?
What Does a Good Landing Page Need?
In online business, we talk a lot about conversion. The number of people who see something and convert into a customer or a subscriber. Landing page builders have done extensive research on what converts well and what doesn’t. But is it worth it to pay for that research to get a landing page that converts?
Check out this week’s video for my answer.
In short, a good landing page needs to convert. If it doesn’t convert, you’ll never know if your offer is any good. And highly converting landing pages all have the same things in common.
They have:
- A structure that works. The language flows, there’s transformation, the buttons are in the right places, and there are multiple CTAs (calls to action) throughout the page.
- Integrations for your email service, your WordPress website, your payment processor and your Facebook pixel.
- Analytics – the landing page software collects data which allows you to see how it’s converting – the results of your A/B split tests, reporting testing, etc.
Can I Create a High-Converting Landing Page in WordPress?
Certainly there are highly paid web designers who can create amazing landing pages. There are even people who specialize in creating landing pages for their clients. But hiring a designer each time you need to have a landing page or sales page created is not only impractical, it gets expensive very quickly. Additionally, custom pages don’t allow you to make changes on the fly as you receive customer feedback or new ideas. Each time you want to make a change, you need to pay your designer.
What About Free Landing Pages From My Email Service Provider?
Sure, there are services out there which include landing pages as part of an email service or hosting service. And some of them might be good. But if you’re using a free service like MailChimp and counting on it to have high converting landing pages, you may be disappointed. Sometimes you get what you pay for. I believe this is definitely one of those times.
Email services which offer landing pages as one of their services often don’t have the template choices, the conversion data or the ability to track analytics as well as those which specialize in only creating the best landing pages possible.
Why I Recommend Leadpages for Building Landing Pages…
Here’s my take on it… if you’re going to put the time and hard work into creating an offer, you want that offer to attract clients and get them to opt-in. Why take a risk with a landing page that you don’t know converts? Why give yourself another variable to worry about?
If you’d like more information on landing pages, squeeze pages and opt-in forms check out this blog post: Landing Pages & Squeeze Pages: What They Are
