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Build Your Tribe | Grow Your Business with Social Media
How To Create High Converting Landing Pages - 816
00:13:30
In this episode of Build Your Tribe, Chalene Johnson is breaking down exactly what it takes to create a landing page that actually converts. If you're trying to grow your email list or get more sales, you’ll love these super practical tips. From...
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Yo. Hey. Welcome to this edition of Build you'd Tribe. Today we're gonna just do a quick review. I know many of you understand the importance and the significance of building your email list. You've listened to the previous episodes that we've done about freemiums, opt in pages, the importance of having a lead magnet, something that attracts people and they're giving you their email address. You've probably developed some really great freemiums like premium content that you're giving away to your customers or potential customers in exchange for their email addresses, but it's just not converting the way that you want it to. The problem might not be with the actual giveaway, the thing that you're giving to your customers. The issue might be that your landing page isn't converting. So today what I'm going to do is a quick review of the essential elements that every single landing page was. Whether it's a sales page or an opt in page, you name it. If you're trying to get people to do something, these are the essential elements that every landing page must have. All right, let's get to it. In order to capture someone's best email address, we've gotta be better than before. Here are some elements of high converting landing pages, which is something that's constantly evolving because consumer habits are always evolving. But one thing has always been important and that is a clear and compelling headline. I mean, look at any source of media. Look at anything that you pick up in the newspaper or in a magazine. Even when you're browsing the web, we're looking for compelling headlines. That's the hook. And when it comes to a strong landing page, a landing page that's going to convince someone to give you their email address, you need a very strong attention grabbing headline that clearly communicates the value proposition. In other words, why should they give you their email address? The copy needs to be persuasive and very concise. Now, I know there are those who disagree and think that the long form sales pages, long form copy converts better. And if you know your audience and that to be true, well, you certainly can split test that, which we'll talk about in just a second. A moment. But generally speaking, short benefit driven content is what will speak directly to your target audience. Now, instead of offering all the features like when you give me your email address, you're going to get this, this, this and this. People don't care about what they're going to get. They want to know what's the benefit. And remember, people, they want to avoid pain they want to save time, they want to save money, they want to feel a certain way, they want transformation. So the next thing you want to consider is your visuals. You want to use high quality images or videos that support the claim, that support the value proposition, that support the message. And they should create an emotional connection with the person when they land on your page. And by the way, when I say high quality images or videos, this doesn't mean you have to hire a professional photographer. It does mean, however, that your images should be clear, concise, they should be professional, and they should be high resolution. Next, you need a strong, prominent call to action. That call to action is what it is you're telling people to do when they land on the page and they read that compelling headline. So they're gonna make a split decision. Okay, this headline grabs my attention. This is something I need. I understand the value in it. I'm persuaded to give my email address. I want this solution. I want this thing that's being promised to me. And you've got to make it very clear to them what is their next step. So your CTA button should stand out, and it should direct the user to take the next step when it comes to the color of your call to action button. There's a trend right now with a lot of web designers to put together a page that's aesthetically on brand, like it matches your brand's aesthetics. It's very common to see web designers use a design where one of your secondary colors is used as a call to action button. So it stands out a little bit, but it still kind of matches the page. Now, I agree that this is very aesthetically pleasing. It looks beautiful, it looks on brand. But in my personal opinion, and in our personal experience, that CTA button does not stand out. Ask yourself what's more important, a page that is aesthetically pleasing or a page that converts. For me, personally, for Team Johnson, we are far more interested in a page that converts than a page that is aesthetically pleasing. At the time that I'm recording this, our general practice is to use a color that stands out and a color that the average consumer associates with action. For us, that's almost a neon green, a bright green, a chartreuse green. It's a green that most people associate with a button that you're supposed to click on most websites. But I'm a big believer in this next point, and that is to have a high converting landing page, you can't guess. You need to do some A B split testing, regular testing of different elements including your headline, including the color of your CTA button, including the visuals, is going to give you the information that you need. You don't have to guess at which page is going to convert better if you're split testing them. Just remember how important it is to just split test one element at a time. So in other words, if you're changing the images and you're also changing the button color, and now that page starts to perform better, you don't know which element it is that made the difference. So although it's time consuming, although it can be tedious, it is worth your effort to split test all of these things that I'm discussing. The next important element of a high converting landing page is, is personalization. The content should really feel like it's custom tailored to the visitor, to the person who's landed there. Like it should match their demographics, it should match the way that they respond to things. So think about the age, the gender, the personality, the behaviors of your ideal target audience and what do they like? Maybe your audience is one that likes to read a really long landing page. For me, most of my target audience is someone who's easily distracted. They just want the facts, they want it in bullet point style. They want the bold benefits to stand out. They don't need to spend a lot of time reading. It's also important that your landing page have trust signals like security badges, privacy policies, especially as it relates to how you use their email address. They should feel assured that their information is safe. I think it goes without saying that a large percentage of your audience is going to be coming from mobile, right? We're we're on our phones, we're looking at social media. Not many of us are searching the web or scrolling on our laptops. We're doing this on our phones. So I think it goes without saying that your high converting landing page needs to make sense, both on desktop, of course, but first and foremost from a mobile standpoint. How does it look not just on your mobile device, but all mobile devices? Now, Google has a free tool that you can use to check your website. It is developers.google.com and it allows you to use their tool to easily figure out what your website looks like on a variety of mobile devices. There's in fact many different websites that you can use. Another one is called Browser Stack, Responsive Design Checker and MobileTest. Me. As entrepreneurs, sometimes as solopreneurs, we assume that the consultants we hire know to do these things. But it doesn't hurt to ask how those tests perform just to make sure if you are outsourcing your web design, the consultant that you're using is making certain that your landing page converts for everyone. Even if they have a 10 year old smartphone. We all know that person. Again, because most people will be looking at your landing page from their mobile device. You also want to make sure that the most important content, they don't have to scroll to see it. We call this above the fold focus. I forget why we used to call it the fold. I guess because if you thought of it as like a page, this would be the top part of a tri fold when you're looking on a desktop. I guess that's where the term came from. But really what we mean is the person doesn't have to scroll when they land on the page. They're seeing the most important content and the most important thing that they need to be seeing is the cta. I've landed on so many webpages where they've got great visuals, they've got the right headline, but I have to scroll to figure out that I need to do something to see that call to action. So make sure all of that appears without anyone having to scroll. Next is social proof. So many landing pages miss this, and it's probably not the thing that's going to be above the fold, but this is an important element. Remember, social proof is what convinces us that something works. It's one thing to hear something works from the originator, from the creator, from the company, but when we hear it from people who look like us, people who are in our similar situation, it's just very convincing. So don't forget to use social proof. Even if you don't yet have any paying customers, you probably have someone who's been helped by your service, by your knowledge, know how. Get a testimonial from those people you've helped. Even if they're not paying customers, ask if they would be willing to share a couple of sentences about their experience. I have found that most people are very busy and they don't have time to do that. So what I'll often do is write a very generic, a very basic testimonial that I think would be consistent with their feelings. I'll send it to them and say, hey, tweak this as needed. Or if this is exactly what you would say about fill in the blank, service, company, product, et cetera. Would you be willing to allow me to use this on my website? And 99% of the time people are going to say absolutely and they're going to love you. For saving them that extra step. Now, as a bonus point, it works very nicely if you could use an image of that person. We like to put a face to a name. We don't have to user last name, but it is nice to go like, okay, this is a real person. This isn't a fictitious testimonial. But social proof helps conversions. Lastly, do not forget your exit intent pop ups. I know, I know, I know, I know. We all hate pop ups, but we hate them because it's like a pattern disrupt. It's like someone tapping you on the shoulder just as you're about to leave a party and say like, wait a second, where are you going? Nobody wants to that to happen, right? But without question, landing pages that have an exit intent pop up perform much higher than pages that don't. So even though you might find it annoying, it actually works. Whether it's you offering the visitor a bigger discount or maybe you're offering them a special bonus or something to let them know that this is a one time offer or that this is an offer that expires, you're giving them a reason not to leave the page. And I guarantee you're going to capture more potential customers and have a much higher converting landing page. Now, as I mentioned, landing pages and what is working and what isn't working is always changing. Which is why it's so important that you stay plugged in, stay plugged into the community, stay plugged into the experts who are studying this stuff and make sure that the elements that are working that you're always testing to see if you can get just a slightly higher conversion rate. Even if you have a page that's performing beautifully, sometimes making one tiny, teeny little change can increase your conversion rate by, you know, 1 to 2%. And that all adds up. One example I can share with you is we had a very high converting landing page and we just kept tweaking and tweaking and tweaking and one simple change, just switching out the photo. They're almost identical, but in one of the images, the model or the person in the image was kind of looking off into the distance. We swapped that out with a photo where the individual was looking directly at the viewer. And that minor change increased our conversion rate by several percentage points. So it never hurts to test. And that's why it's also always important to do that. A B split testing. That's it. Thanks so much for joining me on this edition of build your tribe. As always, my goal is to be brief, to be bright, to make it fun and then be done. We're done. Catch you next time.
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You.
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