5 Essential Elements of a High-Converting Landing Page

An effective advertising campaign is incomplete without a powerful landing page. Yet, understanding what truly drives conversions across diverse companies, industries, and platforms can be a significant challenge. Where do you even begin?

While the specifics of information, design, and calls to action (CTAs) will always vary based on your campaign’s objective, there are fundamental principles that consistently underpin successful landing pages. At Mevan Studio, we believe in building digital experiences that deliver tangible results.

Let’s explore our top tips and best practices, starting with the basics.

What Exactly is a Landing Page?

A landing page is a dedicated page on your website where an online visitor arrives after clicking on an advertisement or marketing campaign. These are typically standalone pages, distinct from your main website, meticulously designed with a single, focused objective. Visitors commonly arrive on landing pages after interacting with a search ad, a social media ad, a YouTube ad, or an email link.

Landing pages generally serve one of three primary objectives:

• To encourage visitors to purchase a product, subscribe to a specific service, or register for an event.
• To collect visitor information (leads) for future remarketing efforts.
• To introduce visitors to the product or service you are promoting.

Regardless of your goal, the necessary information is usually captured through a lead form.

These forms can be customized to gather specific details such as name, email address, phone number, company name, company size, job title, and more. A crucial tip: the simpler you make the form, the higher the likelihood of completion. Focus on capturing only the essential information needed to guide the visitor further down the buyer’s journey.

While there’s no universally optimal form length, conversion rates are influenced by numerous factors. We always recommend rigorous A/B testing to determine what length performs best for your specific audience and offering.

How Do Landing Pages Differ From Your Main Website?

You now know that your landing page should be singularly focused on a specific objective. But what does this mean in a practical sense?

It means that a landing page is intentionally designed to limit user navigation and distractions. Since your aim is to elicit a very specific action, the design of your landing page should make it unequivocally clear and effortless for your user to complete that action.

However, it’s equally important to provide enough compelling information to genuinely convince the user to convert.

In essence, here are the key distinctions you should bear in mind:

• Concise Scroll: Your landing page should typically be designed for a short, focused scroll.
• Immediate Value Proposition: It should instantly communicate a clear and compelling value proposition.
• Lead Capture Form: A dedicated form for collecting user information is a core component.
• Targeted Aesthetics: While visually appealing, your landing page should be graphically streamlined, drawing attention directly to your contact form or primary call to action, and nothing else.
• No Navigation: Critically, your landing page should generally exclude navigational links, headers, or footers that could lead users away from the conversion goal.

In contrast, your website’s homepage does not adhere to these strict rules. It can be short or long, may or may not include a form, can be rich with graphics, simultaneously highlight various areas, and will always include comprehensive navigation and footer links.

Now that you understand the fundamental differences, what elements are absolutely essential to include as you build your landing pages?

5 Key Elements Your Landing Pages Need

1. Keep it Bright, Beautiful, and Bold. The average human attention span is fleeting. If your page isn’t aesthetically pleasing and intuitively navigable, visitors will quickly lose interest. That’s why these principles are vital:
   • Bright: Highly saturated colors are inherently more attention-grabbing, especially when contrasted with a more muted background.
   • Beautiful: Even with limited visuals, ensure they are high-quality and aesthetically pleasing. A well-designed landing page can positively influence a visitor’s mood, making them more receptive to your offer.
   • Bold: With limited space, your text, form fields, and CTAs need to be prominent. Experiment with text sizing, visual cues like arrows, and strategic use of shadows and color to highlight your most crucial elements.
2. Maintain Page Simplicity. Strive for a clean, uncluttered page with obvious, natural visual flow – but without traditional navigation links. A viewer’s eyes should be naturally drawn down the page or towards the side where your form or primary contact fields are located. Provide only the necessary and convincing information, nothing extra. The fewer distractions, the better! This also means avoiding in-body links, making sure images aren’t clickable, and eliminating menus or drop-downs.
3. Collect the Right Information. As an online marketer, collecting data is essential. However, when asking for information, remember the principle: less is often more. The “right” information depends entirely on your specific campaign and audience. If your landing page targets first-time visitors, prioritize the lowest-friction ask, typically a simple email address. This feels less intrusive and allows you to nurture communication long-term.
4. Offer Something Valuable. The likelihood of someone completing your contact form is directly tied to the value you’re offering them. Whatever your value proposition, it must be genuinely enticing.
5. Strategically Use Video – But Test Its Effectiveness! Full disclosure: at Mevan Studio, we are passionate about the power of video. However, we also recognize that video, while highly engaging, can sometimes introduce distractions on a page designed for clarity and direct action.

Despite this, the popularity of video on landing pages continues to grow, and users increasingly expect valuable information to be presented visually rather than solely through text. What does this mean for your landing page strategy?

It means testing is absolutely crucial to gauge how different types of media impact your landing page’s effectiveness. The effect video has can be significant – both positively and negatively. The key is to test and see how it performs for your specific audience and goals. Even how you embed video can influence results; a prominent, autoplaying video might be distracting for some users, while a smaller, click-to-play video embedded further down the page could provide engaged visitors with the information they need to convert.

Wrapping Up

If you haven’t yet integrated landing pages into your digital strategy, you’re missing a critical opportunity. They are indispensable for any effective ad campaign and crucial for building brand awareness and association.

However, launching them the right way is far more important than simply launching them. Therefore, before you begin, ensure you have a robust landing page strategy in place. By focusing on smart design, compelling content, optimized lead forms, and a strong value proposition, you’ll create a powerful landing page that boosts your conversions and maximizes your ROI.

If you need support in developing a winning landing page strategy, or integrating impactful video elements, we’d be delighted to guide you through the process. Contact Mevan Studio to get started!