Tips for Successful Landing Pages for Your Niche

Tips for Successful Landing Pages

Why build a better mousetrap when the one that exists already works so well? Why not just reproduce the success of the original by producing more of them? Well, that is precisely what you should do when you create a landing page. Don't copy other people's pages. Instead, we can borrow elements from those pages that we know are already successful.

There are a few elements you should focus on no matter what type of landing page you create.

1. Headline: As with any type of page, you need a headline to grab attention and get people interested right away. The headline is the most important element of the page, because it's usually the first thing people see.

2. Media: You'll generally want some kind of imagery, whether it is video or image-based. This is usually a picture of the product or a video ad, but it could be any type of supporting media. This is usually the second thing people notice on a landing page, but of these four elements, it's the least critical. You could still have an effective landing page with no graphics or video, but typically graphical elements and videos capture interest and lead to better conversions.

3. Benefits: Every landing page needs a list of benefits. Whether this is benefits of the product or benefits of your newsletter that you want them to subscribe to, you must give people enough reasons to take action.

4. Call-to-Action : A call-to-action is another vital element for any landing page. You must tell people what action you'd like them to take. This could be something like, "Click here to get your copy of this unique marketing system now!" Or it could be something like, "Enter your name and email address to receive your free copy of this lifechanging report today!" A strong call-to-action can mean the difference between getting the visitor to take action and having them leave, so pay close attention to this component.

A landing page can have other elements, as well. Just remember that the four elements listed about are crucial to the success of any landing page, so time must be spent making sure these elements are finely tuned for conversions.

Copywriting & Conversion

Creating a real Call to Action - Intensifiers Evoking an emotional response is relatively simple if you understand your market at all. It's important to get inside the head of your average prospect and really understand what motivates them.

Here are a few examples:

A golfer might want to improve his swing so he can stop being embarrassed whenever he goes golfing with his friends.
An overweight person might want to look better in order to attract a mate or feel better so he can do his favorite activities without getting out of breath.
Someone who is looking to make money quickly is probably afraid they will become homeless or lose their possessions.
A single person is lonely and feels the pain of that loneliness most at holidays and special occasions or when they see happy couples out together.

Once you're inside the prospect's head, and you know what he feels and why he feels it, you can choose the right intensifier to boost conversions like crazy. Okay, so what exactly is an intensifier?

An intensifier is something that is placed on a page that helps remind the prospect of their pain in order to evoke the emotional response that will lead to an opt-in.

Also, it's important to make sure you turn a need into a want, because a want is always more emotional than a need.

How so? Well, think of a smoker. He knows he should quit smoking. He's seen the warnings. He's heard the news about how many people die every day from smoking related illnesses. His family may have even nagged him to death to quit.

But unless he truly wants to quit, he won't. Period. No amount of warnings, nagging, begging, pleading, and even threats, or bribes will get him to quit unless he really wants to. Even if he's finally nagged into quitting, he'll likely fail unless he wants it badly enough.

Let's look at exactly why this works:

1. It grabs attention. It gets the prospect to identify himself as a person who has a problem he needs to solve.

2. It turns a need into a want, which increases emotional pull.

3. It makes the prospect realize you understand the problem, which makes them more likely to listen to your solution. Thus, they are more likely to read your sales page and purchase the product.

Intensifiers are tailor made for sales pages, but you can also use them effectively on many other pages such as a squeeze:

You can use them on squeeze pages to encourage opt-ins.
You can put them on blogs to engage readers.
You can put them on pre-launch pages to stir excitement.
You can put them over videos to increase views.

They'll work nearly anywhere you'd like to increase responsiveness.

Getting Into Your Prospect's Head

Intensifiers are practically useless, as is any type of sales page or squeeze page, if you don't understand your market fully. You need to be inside the mind of your average prospect in order to understand how to push the right emotional buttons.

You must learn as much as you can about your prospects. Never, ever make assumptions, especially if you don't understand the market on a personal level. (You shouldn't make assumptions even if you do, because you may not be the "average" prospect in your market.)

You also shouldn't blindly trust that your competitors know the market any better than you do, because it's quite possible they made assumptions themselves!