If you want to learn what a landing page is, then you’ll LOVE this extensive beginner’s guide.

Back when I wanted to learn what a landing page was, I had to go all over the internet to find answers to my questions.

Reading blog post after blog post, piecing together information from all over the place to get a better understanding of what it was.

It was a pain, and something no one should have to go through.

Landing pages are an important part of any business, that’s for sure…

And spending days looking for answers is such a waste of time, when you could be using that time to generate new leads.

So, if you’re brand new to the landing page game, this no-nonsense, actionable guide will help you get started in record time.

Let’s dive right in.

What Is A Landing Page, Exactly?

A landing page is typically very simple, so simple in fact that anyone can build one in under one hour.

Don’t believe me…stick around and I’ll show you.

But what makes a landing page so simple?

Because in 90% of the cases, they only consist of two pages.

1. An Opt-in page
2. A “Thank You” page.

As you can see, landing pages are essentially highly targeted single-page webpages with one single CTA (Call-To-Action).

This CTA could be as simple as a sign-up form, but you’ll also see landing pages containing offers or even contests.

And no matter how you look at it, these pages all have one thing in common, they are built for conversions, nothing more, nothing less.

Just to make things extra clear…

Landing pages are used by everyone these days, from large businesses and entrepreneurs, to single individuals and marketers.

And if you take a closer look, you’ll see that people tend to use landing pages to either:

• Generate leads to an offer.
• Build email lists (which then leads to an offer).

However, everything still starts with the traffic source.

Because a landing page without any traffic is pretty much useless.

And we’ll talk more about traffic in a little while…

But for now you need to know that the ultimate goal is to fill your landing page with as many targeted leads as possible.

This will give you the best possible chance for a conversion to take place.

But how does this conversion happen…let’s have a look.

How does a landing page work?

A short second ago, we briefly talked about why highly targeted pages and good quality traffic equals the best chance for conversions.

But how does it work?

The first thing you do is that you create a landing page targeting one specific goal…

This will give you the highest relevancy, the best user experience and the highest conversion rates.

A good rule of thumb is – For every idea or offer you have, you create one landing page.

Sure, this means that the number of pages you have will build up quickly, but that’s okay.

In fact, a study from HubSpot shows that more landing pages is actually a good thing.

Then you do some marketing research to find your target audience.

With both the page and the audience found, you start driving traffic by either creating content, or by throwing some money at it with paid ads.

The conversion process looks like this…

No matter how you go about getting traffic to your page, the process for a conversion to take place stays the same:

1. The prospect sees your link as an ad or in the description of your YouTube video for example.
2. If the prospect decides to check out what you have to offer, they’ll click on your link (or ad) and land on your page (hence the name).
3. If your hook, story, and offer (more on that later) resonates with the visitor, a conversion will most likely take place.

By using highly targeted landing pages that removes all the distractions, chances are much higher that some of the prospects will take action and convert.

Compared this to if some random person were to visit your regular homepage which isn’t made for conversions. This person will most likely leave without taking any action at all.

In short: Targeted landing pages will help you convert more of your page visitors into qualified leads.

Building a Landing Page

A good landing page should hit your audience in the face with a strong offer and entice them to act.

And your benefits and features should be written and placed in such a way that the readers quickly understand what your offer is about.

So you need to build well-designed landing pages that grab attention, build excitement and are easy to take action on.

You do this by including curiosity-based headlines, easy-to-consume content blocks, nice images, a few CTA buttons, and at least one sign-up form.

In short: Landing pages are purposely built for quick, distraction-free conversions. Whereas traditional pages (like homepages) are built for information purposes only.

The good thing is that creating pages that accomplish all of the above isn’t that difficult…

Nowadays, thanks to dedicated landing page software, marketers of all kinds have access to fully customizable templates that makes it easy to create highly targeted landing pages.

Pages that have all the necessary items to grab the visitors attention, spike their curiosity, and get as many of them as possible to take the action YOU want.

This means that building high converting landing pages has become very intuitive and user-friendly.

Honestly, there is no reason to learn coding or use regular a page builder to create your landing pages anymore…

A good landing page software will beat both coding and regular page builders by miles.

So, no more gluing things together and hope for it to work.

Now, thanks to these software, you can use battle-tested templates to get yourself started in record time.

And thanks to simple drag-and-drop interfaces, you can create landing pages that are tailored to your business…

Pages that are built for conversions rather than just views.

Resulting in you getting more prospects into your sales machine.

Use the “Hook, Story, Offer” method…

When you’re building a landing page there is a concept you should implement that will make your life much easier…

It’s called the Hook, Story, Offer concept.

I first learned this from Russell Brunson, and it revolutionized my page building game.

This concept works like this:

Every page you build that you want people to take action on (opt-ins or sales) should have a clear hook, a story, and an offer.

The Hook:

This is what grabs the visitors attention. This is usually done by adding a really good curiosity-based headline at the top of your page.

This way you ensure that everyone that lands on your page will see it.

Don’t be afraid to use a big font size to make it stand out from the rest of your content on your page.

If you want some inspiration for landing pages and headlines, check out this article from CrazyEgg.

The Story:

The story is the copy on your page, the paragraphs if you like (could also be video).

Here you tell the visitors the “story” behind how you came up with the solution for the pain point you’re trying to help them solve.

This is the time where you get personal and share your own frustrations and struggles with the problem, and how you came up with a solution. Also, make sure to tell the viewer why your solution is unique compared to the rest.

A good starting point for writing these kind of copy is to:

1. Find the pain point that most of your visitors want to overcome.
2. Focus on the benefits.
3. Keep it short and sweet, it’s a landing page not a message to the president.

And always remember this – Features tell, benefits sell.

The Offer:

This couldn’t be more straightforward, it’s where you present your offer.

When using sales pages, this is most of the time an order form.

But we’re working with landing pages now, so this is your opt-in form.

Make it easy for visitors to sign up to your list, and remember to tell them what benefits they’ll get from doing so.

If you want to boost conversion-rates even more, make sure to use a good, valuable lead magnet.

Even if a lead magnet is given away for free in exchange for visitors’ contact information, it still needs to be good and provide real value.

If you give away something generic or low quality, people will unsubscribe and chances are that you’ll get a bad rep from it.

The structure of a high performing landing page

If you want to build a landing page that has a good conversion rate, you can’t just throw things together like a four-year-old.

You need to learn how to build pages based on a structure that’s been proven to work over and over again.

But coming up with such a structure on your own is hard…

The good thing is that you don’t have to. When I analyzed some high performing landing pages, I quickly discovered that they all use a similar structure:

1. Open strong

Open strong, with an unmissable, bold headline that instantly grabs the visitors attention.

This will get the visitors to stick around to find out more.

Depending on what your goal is, the angle of the headline could be either:

• Curiosity-based
• Value-based

2. Easy to consume content

Write easy to consume content that is focusing on the benefits of your offer, not the features.

Keep the sentences short to make them easy to read (no weird fonts), remember, you’re not writing a love letter.

3. Highlight your offer

Include images and content-blocks that highlight information about your offer.

This can be done by adding images of your offer, testimonials, feature boxes that highlight the best part of your offer, etc.

And if you don’t have any testimonials, it’s okay to use other accomplishments to show proof.

4. Simple forms

Have a simple form with a clear call-to-action button.

Oftentimes the form is either added to a pop-up or at the bottom of the page to remove distraction.

This way, you only need to add buttons at strategic places on your page.

And when one button is pressed, the page will automatically scroll to the bottom (or open the pop-up).

I personally like the pop-up method, because it makes the entire page look much cleaner.

Also…

Don’t add too many form fields, that will only increase the barrier for a conversion to take place.

Only add the ones necessary ones for what you’re trying to accomplish (name and email will get you a long way).

5. Unmissable CTA buttons

When it comes to CTA buttons, make sure that they stand out from the rest of your color scheme.

A bright color combined with a bold font makes them pretty much unmissable.

So if you have a blue theme, don’t add a light blue button, it’s far too easy to miss.

Here it can pay off to research converting button colors.

For example, red CTA buttons have been proven to convert better than blues.

6. Quality images

If you’re using images, which you should, ensure that they are of high quality, and if you can, make them personal (aka. not using stock images).

You should also learn this simple psychology trick…

When in doubt, people like to do as other people, this makes us feel more safe in our decision making process.

So instead of just adding generic pictures, add images that have people in them, these tend to convert much better.

If you can and have a product, add images where people are using it, that’s a killer move.

7. Brand consistency

Ensure that your landing pages match your brand to keep everything consistent.

This will make you look more professional and it will also help you build brand recognition and trust.

The only exception to this is the main headline of your landing page…

This one is supposed to catch people’s attention, which means that it’s okay to go a bit crazy and use a font that really stands out (while still easy to read).

8. Strategic use of colors

Colors can be a powerful tool in marketing, since they are great at sending out subliminal messages.

These messages can make a visitor feel a certain way just by viewing your page.

So to amplify your message, use color schemes to help trigger certain emotions.

If you want to increase trust, try a blue scheme, want a playful touch, use yellow.

Getting Traffic To Your Landing Page

The way you go about getting traffic to your landing page is pretty much the same as the ones you’d use for sales funnels.

I mean, the goal is to get traffic that has a high chance of converting.

And no matter how you look at it, there are only two ways to get traffic.

Either you use free organic traffic, or you use paid traffic, that’s it.

Sure there are some black-hat traffic methods out there, but I’d suggest that you stay away from those since they’ll only hurt your brand.

I like to focus 100% of my time on ethical traffic generation tactics that have been proven to work over and over again.

And if you have a goal in mind for your landing page, say 1,000 conversions a month, you need a legit way of generating good, high-quality traffic.

The free organic traffic alternative

Using free organic sources to get traffic to your landing pages is very simple…on paper at least.

This is due to the fact that it takes a while before the ball gets rolling and the traffic starts flowing.

But once it gets going, you can expect to see long term traffic gains..

In reality, don’t expect to see any real traffic gains overnight using free organic traffic, that’s not how this game works.

Using organic sources, in most of the cases, means that you need to be consistent and keep on creating assets and build a following.

But how do you create online assets that generate traffic?

This can be done in many ways, so here’s a list of some of the alternatives:

• Start a blog
• Create SEO optimized pages
• Share images and posts on social media
• Create a YouTube channel
• Start socializing in Facebook groups
• and many more…

As you can see, most of these require you to become a content creator of some sort.

If you want to write blog posts, create videos, or be active on social media is completely up to you…

No matter what you choose, you need to stick to it and keep on creating content so you can rank for more and more search terms. In the case of social media, you need to keep posting new content so the algorithm doesn’t forget that you exist.

The ultimate goal with this is to get your content to rank or go viral, then you can reap the rewards and drive some serious traffic volumes to your landing pages.

Think like this, if people are searching for information or inspiration, you want to be the first one that appears in the search results.

The paid traffic alternative

Unlike free traffic, using paid traffic can get you results within a few hours.

Great…right?

Well, this comes at a price, literally.

As long as you keep on throwing money at your campaigns they’ll bring in traffic…

But if you stop paying, the traffic also stops flowing.

My suggestion is that if you’re brand new to traffic, look into the free alternatives first, then compliment them with paid traffic.

Don’t make the same mistake that I did and go all in on paid traffic without really knowing what you’re doing.

That’ll only cost you a bunch of money, ask me how I know.

But one you get the hang of traffic and have offers that are time sensitive, paid traffic sources can be awesome.

For example, affiliates can come across a situation where traffic needs to be generated within days not months. Then this is a great option to boost conversions quickly.

But again, make sure that you know what you’re doing, and whatever you do, never spend money that you don’t have and can’t afford to lose.

As you probably understand by the name alone, you pay for traffic, but where can you do that?

You can for example use:

• Google Ads
• Meta Ads (Facebook)
• Microsoft Ads
• LinkedIn Ads
• Native Ads
• and many more…

Pretty much every free media platform has a paid alternative for you to use if you want to place ads on their platform.

How To Make Your Landing Pages Perform Better

If you’ve built your landing page using the structure I just talked about not too long ago and have decided on a traffic generation method…

You should start seeing some results of your work. This also means that things can go two ways…

Sometimes it doesn’t go as planned and your landing page isn’t performing as you expected.

Now you need a way to improve your landing page so it meets your goals.

Other times, things just work out and you want to improve on a winning concept.

Then you need to start testing things to improve your conversion rates even more.

No matter where you end up, there are things you can do to solve both “problems”:

1. Experiment with headlines

Like I talked about earlier, as soon as someone visits your page, you need to hook them. If you can’t hook your visitors, try changing things up and add a more catchy headline.

2. Make the sign-up form super clear

One reason why your landing pages aren’t converging could be because your sign-up form message isn’t super clear.

A way to see this is if you have a lot of viewers, decent on page time, and a very low conversion rate.

When someone sees your form for the first time and gets confused by what they’re signing up to, no-one will sign-up.

Because a confused visitor will never take any action, no matter how small.

Honestly, would you sign-up to something if you weren’t 100% sure of what you were getting yourself into?

Make sure that as soon as someone sees your form, the message is crystal clear to what they’re signing up to.

No hidden subscriptions or spam lurking in the background…

Be honest and tell your visitors why you want to be able to talk to them in the future.

3. Mobile friendliness

In today’s tech soaked world, lots of your traffic will come from mobile devices, it’s unavoidable. This means that you need to ensure that your pages work and look just as good on a mobile as they do on a desktop.

If you’re into paid ads, this is even more important. Since a landing page that looks like trash on mobile devices will hurt your quality score on most ad networks.

4. Make it visually appealing

It’s true what they say, you eat with your eyes, and the same goes for landing pages. If your page looks like it’s been designed by a two-year-old on a crayon overdose, people will leave faster than they came.

It’s worth spending a few extra minutes on the design aspect of your pages, because it will reflect back on you and your brand.

The only time where this isn’t the case is if you’re an expert copywriter. Because I’ve seen examples of “horrible” pages with insanely good copy that convert like crazy.

But until you’re an expert copywriter, spend some time on your designs.

5. Focus on your unique selling points

This probably goes without saying, but if your landing page isn’t converting as expected, focus more on your unique selling point (USP).

Don’t create generic pages…

Create pages where you highlight why people should sign-up to your newsletter or buy your product.

What makes you special?

What do you have and what can you offer that no-one else can?

We’re all special and we all have a unique story to tell.

And even though it might sound ridiculous…

Once you start to focus on your authentic self, your own story and your unique position, people can feel it in the way you talk and write.

To sum up, find your unique ange and use it to your advantage.

6. Ensure security

This is probably one of the most important improvements you can do, no matter how your landing page is performing.

Ensuring that your pages are safe can really boost your conversion rates.

By publishing your pages using the https protocol, you show that the network is secure for communication.

A page that shows “not secure in the address bar raises concerns from the visitors. First of all it makes you look unprofessional, secondly, visitors will feel more unsafe and leave your page because of it.

So if you collect any form of data, like email addresses, use the https protocol to make visitors feel safe.

Also, make sure to add a SSL certificate to your websites and pages, this way you can ensure that customers’ information stays private and secure.

There isn’t any way for visitors to see this, but you can include a little text below your input form that says something like “Your information is safe and will never be shared”.

Landing Page FAQ

Are landing pages free?

Yes!

Bet you didn’t expect me to say yes to that…

Today, many landing page software offers really good free options for you to use if you want to get started with landing pages.

For example, Systeme.io and GetResponse both offer free-for-life plans so you can start building without opening your wallet.

However, these free plans are limited so don’t expect tons of features and templates.

If you want the best design and form features, more templates, more pages, and in general more creative freedom, you should invest in a high-quality paid alternative.

How much does a landing page cost?

To create your own landing pages, you need to get yourself a high-quality page builder.

Then it’s up to you if you want to go for a software with a free alternative or if you want to get a paid one.

Understandably pricing can be a very important aspect if you want a page builder and are on a slim budget.

The software on the market today starts at around $10/month and then it’s up from there. Some are over $200/month, but you don’t have to start there if you don’t want to.

How much you pay is based on the features you want, this includes how many pages you need, domain hosting, amount of leads, if you want sales funnels, email marketing capabilities, and more.

My personal opinion is that you should go for a paid alternative since it will give you the best possible chance for success and the best feature sets.

Don’t see it as a liability, see it as an investment in your business to get it to the next level.

A tip is to start with a lower tiered plan and then grow into the next tier, instead of the other way around.

How do landing pages make money?

Most of the time landing pages are used to generate leads and build email lists.

However there are instances where they’re used to sell products as well, even though I like to use sales funnels for that.

Sure you could sell less expensive things or even free things, like a free trial using a landing page. But as soon as the price of your product goes up, a real sales funnel will be better.

So how do you make money using landing pages?

You have two alternatives…

One – You use a bridge page to collect information and then send the lead to an offer.

Two – You use it to generate leads and build email lists, then you make money on the back-end.

Option one is very simple, you bridge the gap between traffic source and an offer, this is known as a bridge funnel.

The idea is that you capture this visitor’s contact information before proceeding to the actual offer.

Affiliates love using this method, because they can use the bridge funnel to build hype and also offer extra bonuses to those who purchase the offer on the next page.

Simple and effective.

The second option is to create a landing page where you trade a lead magnet in exchange for the visitors contact information. This is known as a lead magnet funnel, lead capture page, or squeeze page.

You use that landing page to build a list of high-quality, targeted leads, leads who you then market to over email.

So the landing page just acts as a middle man, and the actual sales will come from the offers you promote over email.

This is a very effective strategy, and when done right, you can build large lists of super targeted people – resulting in a massive potential for $$$.

Do you need a website for a landing page?

No, absolutely not.

Years ago you needed one, but today, thanks to dedicated landing page software you don’t need it anymore.

All you need today is a domain name, sort of…

Honestly, you don’t even need that.

Almost all page builders have features that allow you to build pages and publish them under a domain that they provide you with.

So, as long as you choose a high-quality software, the need for a website and even your own domain name isn’t necessary.

However, having a custom domain name that is connected to your brand will make you look more professional.

The food thing then is that in 99% of the cases you can buy a domain name right inside the landing page software.

What’s the difference between a landing gage and a website?

I’ve talked about this before, and it’s probably not the last time you hear me say this…

Websites are built for information.

Landing pages are built for conversions.

And that’s the main difference between them.

A website is built to host a bunch of information about you and your business.

Here you’ll have a homepage, contact pages, blog posts, resources, and much more.

All interlinked with each other to build a structure that is easy to navigate and will rank well in search engines.

Landing pages on the other hand, are built with one single goal in mind, typically to convert visitors into leads.

Therefore are these pages hyper targeted towards that purpose.

Everything that can cause a distraction and isn’t necessary for conversions is removed.

Most of the time these pages aren’t even indexed in the search engines, so they rely on you to send targeted traffic to them.

How do I add a landing page to WordPress?

The easiest way, in my mind, for you to add landing pages to WordPress is by using a plugin called Elementor.

But there are other plugins that’ll get the job done as well, and you’ll find the guide to those here.

Elementor is a drag-and-drop website builder that works really well with most WordPress themes.

The best part is that you can start using the landing page feature in the free plugin.

However, the free version is sort of limited in what you can and can’t do, so you have to do a lot of designing on your own. Chances are that you’ll need plugins like Essential Addons if you want to get the most out of it on a free plan.

But, if you go with a pro plan, you’ll get access to tons of tools that you can use to make beautiful landing pages.

The best part is that it costs about the same as a cup of coffee a month and they have their own lightning fast theme that works flawlessly with the pro version of Elementor.

And you also get access to a bigger library of templates if you want a quicker start.

The cool thing about using Elementor is that it isn’t just a landing page builder, it’s a website builder, meaning that you can use it to build and design your entire website.

I call that a win-win situation.

Where should I put my landing pages?

Well, this depends on what you do, and how many resources you have.

Let’s say you have a small internet business, where you have:

• Website
• YouTube channel
• Some social media accounts

On your website, I’d recommend that you create a section on your homepage that is linked to the landing page.

Then you could add links to your page in the sidebar of your blog, in the footer, and if appropriate as a pop-up.

On your YouTube channel you’d add a link to your page in every relevant video description and also in the about section (under links).

To add your page to your social media accounts, just past the URL to the page in the bio of your account. Then use the #linkinbio in your posts.

It’s that simple to add your pages to all your organic traffic sources.

If you’re also running paid campaigns, you’ll naturally use a relevant landing page for every single campaign.

How do you test a landing page?

To test a landing page, the first thing you need to do is to make it live and start driving traffic to it.

When the traffic is coming in, you start what’s called an A/B test.

This means that you make a duplicate of your original page to create a test page.

You then make a few changes to the test page, like changing colors or copy.

Remember to not change too many things at once, this makes it easier to keep track of what made the biggest difference.

Then you make it live and see which one performs the best over a set period of time.

At this stage most landing page builders allow you to alter how much traffic will go to either page. Set the traffic to a 50% split between the pages, this makes it a true A/B test.

Once your test period is over, say 30 days, you’ll look at the data from both pages.

Typically the one with the highest conversion rate will be the one you keep.

Then you repeat the process all over again to improve performance even more.

Are landing pages effective?

Yes, landing pages are definitely effective, and there are several studies that can back it up…

According to this study, landing pages have a 160% higher conversion rate compared to other types of signup forms.

And this study shows that the interest in “lead generation” has grown by 12.2% CAGR over the last 5 years

But in order for it to be effective, you need to have a solid, well-planned marketing strategy and a high-converting landing page.

However, since the majority of landing pages aren’t indexed in search engines and since a big part of them rely on paid marketing efforts to get traffic.

This means that they aren’t as effective as your pages and content that is designed to rank well in the search engines.

A website with a blog or a YouTube channel will have a much easier time bringing in free organic traffic for long periods of time compared to a single landing page.

The ultimate combination would be for you to use the high organic traffic volume coming from your blog or YouTube channel and linking it to your high-converting landing pages.

Should a landing page have navigation buttons?

Well this is a double edge sword kind of question…

Here is what most people will tell you..

Yes, it’s okay to use navigation links on a landing page IF it makes the user experience better.

But depending on the circumstances, you need different approaches…

If you’re targeting people who’ve never heard of your brand before, adding navigation buttons CAN be a good idea.

Because it gives the visitor a chance to find out more about you and your brand…

But you should cut down on the navigation links if you’re targeting an audience that already knows you. This way you remove a lot of distraction.

To me, this sounds like a lot of extra work…

Here’s what I like to do instead

Landing pages are made for conversions, simple as that.

Let your website deal with the information part of your business…

There is no need to mix them up more than necessary.

This means that there is only need for one rule when it comes to landing page navigation.

I learned this universal rule years ago (can’t remember where though) and it made things really, really easy for me:

1. Add your logo at the top of your landing page, either to the left or in the center. Then make it clickable and link back to your homepage.
2. To the right of your logo you add one navigation link, it’s to your contact page (could be a phone number). Then link this to your contact page.
3. In the footer of your page, you need to add:
   1. Your copyright and “all rights reserved” text.
   2. Links to: Privacy policy, terms, disclaimer, and any other disclosures.
   3. Optionally you can add links to other relevant pages here, like to your blog or YouTube channel, but keep it to a minimum.

That’s it, a super simple and easy to remember rule.

Minimal distractions and 100% focus on conversions rather than information.

Following this structure also ensures that your landing pages are compliant with most ad networks policies.

Should you index your landing pages?

The simple answer is no.

It’s true, landing pages are good at selling products and converting visitors into leads, but they should in 99% of the cases never be indexed in search engines.

This is especially important if your landing pages are hosted on your own site and you’re running paid ad campaigns to get traffic.

This is why I like to use YOAST SEO, then I can change the settings so landing pages never are indexed.

Does landing pages hurt your overall SEO score?

No, landing pages will not hurt your overall SEO score.

Your SEO score is based on many variables, but to keep it simple, it’s the content you produce that you want to rank in search engines, like Google.

Landing pages on the other hand are meant for you to send targeted traffic to, not to rank in search engines.

The only time a landing page could hurt your SEO score is if you get your page reported as spam (or fraud), this could then tie back to your root domain and decrease your SEO score.

Conclusion

Thanks to “What is a landing page: a detailed beginner’s guide”, you no longer have to spend days searching for answers to your questions.

Now you should have a clear understanding of what a landing page is, how it works, how to get traffic to it and much more.

And as you saw in this guide, landing pages are much better at converting traffic than a regular web page.

So if you’re looking to convert more of your traffic into leads and customers, a landing page could be a good investment.

Now I’d like to hear from you:

Do you feel like you have the knowledge you need to start building landing pages?

Leave a comment below and let me know.