Landing Page Design: Top Design Tips You Can Use to Boost Conversions

Operating an ecommerce business is all about making sales. Unlike other online businesses that might generate revenue with other tactics, your business depends on having customers buy your products. It sounds simple enough, right?

One time-honored method of improving your revenue is creating landing pages for specific products, services, or promotions. A landing page is hyper-focused on one thing and one thing only: making a compelling case for why a visitor should become a customer. 

Improving your conversion rate is the ultimate goal of any landing page. The average conversion rate for a Shopify store is 1.5%, with the top 10% of stores boasting a conversion rate of 4.6%. Now, consider that the average landing page conversion rate across all industries is 9.7%. It’s easy to see how creating potent landing pages can improve your store’s overall conversion rate. 

Today, we’re going to examine how to build landing pages that turn browsers into buyers. Then, we’ll show you real examples of how top brands are building landing pages that boost conversions. 

Landing Pages vs. Product Pages: It’s All About Focus

Isn’t a product page all about selling a specific product? So, why do you need a landing page?

A landing page focuses on making a sale. It combines several elements that copywriters and marketers have used for decades to persuade people to click ‘Buy Now.’ 

Conversely, a product page has a different goal. A product page imparts all the information that a potential customer might need. For example, if you’re selling laptops, you need to detail all of the technical information about the product that consumers will need to know. 

A landing page for the same laptop isn’t worried about listing every spec. Instead, it needs to highlight the most impressive specs, positioning them as benefits. For example, instead of listing the graphic’s card, a landing page will speak to the outcomes it unlocks, such as high-end gaming, next-generation graphics, or something similar.

Lastly, landing pages will typically accompany a paid ad campaign. Therefore, the campaign will drive traffic to the landing page rather than a product page or your home page. 

What’s the takeaway?

• Landing pages are heavily targeted and designed for conversion. 
• A landing page focuses on benefits and outcomes
• They should be direct and to the point.
• They must include a relevant CTA to compel a potential customer to act.

How Do I Build a Landing Page in Shopify?

Shopify has a generic page builder that will work for creating your landing pages. Although, there are also Shopify apps designed specifically for creating landing pages that typically come with templates and other features you might enjoy. It’s up to you to decide if you want to use the generic builder or try out a landing page builder app; many have free trials. 

Elements of an Effective Landing Page

The nuts and bolts of building a landing page will depend on using the default builder or a third-party app. Still, every landing page will need the following elements to convert visitors to customers.

We’ll be providing examples to help you fully understand each element. Let’s get started. 

Begin With a Powerful Headline

The headline is undoubtedly the most critical element of any landing page. It’s the first thing people see and will encourage them to keep reading. 

ExpressVPN’s headline directly addresses the common concern of someone looking for a VPN service – is it even going to work? The headline assures a visitor that the platform will ‘just work.’ 

Writing headlines is an entire skill, but you can skip the learning curve by using a headline analyzer. MonsterInsights has a free analyzer; try to score over 70 for a quality headline (the headline for this post scored 73). 

(Optional) Add More Value with a Subheading

You don’t always need a subheading, but it can often add more value to your heading by conveying more information. Using the same ExpressVPN example, the subheading claims that they’re the “#1 trusted leader in VPN.” 

Even though we don’t know what they mean by ‘trusted’ until we reach the social proof further down the page, we know that users trust them without scrolling.

Use an Incredible Visual

People love visuals. Content with visuals earns 94% more views than content without any, so craft a compelling image or video for your landing page. Page speed is critical. If you opt for a video, make sure your page loads within 2 seconds to keep people from leaving. 

Row House is a dedicated exercise facility focused on row machines, so they want to highlight that it’s fun and not a burden. The right visual will showcase the product and highlight its uniqueness. Our screenshot from Row House is actually from an autoplay video that showcases people working out and having a good time. 

You can visit the Row House landing page to see the impressive video that doesn’t harm page speed. Also, take note of other elements on the landing page, too. They do a great job of overcoming objections. 

(Optional) Tell Them What’s Next with a Call-to-Action

The purpose of a landing page is to incite the visitor to act. In our case, it’s typically to buy a product. But when should we ask them to buy?

A call-to-action is the ultimate element of a landing page. You can include a call-to-action right under your subheading, as we saw in the ExpressVPN example. In the above example, you can see how CodeAcademy goes right for the conversion with a sign-up form at the top of the landing page.

However, some experts say to only have one call-to-action towards the bottom of the page. Try both methods with A/B testing to discover what’s suitable for your product.

Connect Features to Benefits

What’s impressive about your product? First, you need to tell visitors about its features but highlight the benefit of each feature.

Breather is a service that lets businesses find workspaces. We can see how they describe each aspect of their service as a benefit, rather than simply stating the feature. ‘Equipped for productivity’ is a benefit of its service, and then the text below describes the actual features that provide the benefit, such as WiFi. 

What benefit does each feature of your product provide? 

Make Your Social Proof Obvious

Let’s revisit the ExpressVPN landing page. At the top of the page, it told us that ExpressVPN is the most trusted VPN service. Now, they back up that claim with a ton of social proof. We see a Trustpilot score, App Store score, two review quotes, and logos of websites that presumably recommend them. There are even tabs to view Tweets or media quotes. 

You don’t need to have as much social proof, but ExpressVPN shows you what’s possible. In the case of VPN services, consumers are suspicious about if the service will even work, if it logs user activity, or if it has good download speeds. However, the mountain of social proof provided shows us plenty of people have been happy with its services. 

What type of social proof would help show your legitimacy? It might be Google Maps reviews, Amazon reviews, or social media posts. 

Identify and Overcome Objections

Addressing your buyer’s fears and objections head-on can increase your landing page conversion rate by 80%. 

Sunbasket is a meal kit delivery service similar to Blue Apron. The top portion of our example might seem like a benefits list, but it’s actually addressing common objections. 

You can tell that difficulty is a common objection to its service since they talk about ease in two out of three sections. First, they highlight that each meal is easy to make, and then using the service makes meal planning easy. Then, they back up each point by showing what you’ll be getting your first week.

What’s preventing visitors from becoming customers? What common objections apply to your product?

Conclude with a Potent Call-to-Action

Your call-to-action (CTA) is where you go for the sale. Most landing pages have a call-to-action towards the bottom of the page after all of the other elements we’ve discussed made a persuasive argument about why they should become customers. 

CarMax is a car buying service. Its CTA gives us four reasons why we should shop its inventory of cars. Plus, it shows a happy couple and their dog on a road trip, which adds an emotional element. 

A CTA can be as simple as a single statement and a button like we saw with ExpressVPN. The goal is to have the visitor take the next step towards buying, which might be directly making a purchase, or becoming a lead to talk to an expert before buying. 

(Optional) Consider Adding an FAQ

You don’t need to add an FAQ, but it might be worthwhile for more complex or high-value products. 

Canva is a platform that makes graphic design accessible to anyone. Its landing page has a brief FAQ focused on pricing that follows the page’s primary call-to-action. You can see that its FAQ is secretly another opportunity to overcome objections. 

Would an FAQ help your product? Consider adding one and seeing if it helps. Of course, you can always remove it later. 

Always Test and Revise to Boost Your Conversion Rate

An effective landing page is constantly refined for as long as the paid ad campaign drives traffic to it. 

You can use A/B testing to explore changes to the above elements, such as changing the phrasing to remove them altogether. The key to A/B testing is only to test one element and measure the results for a few weeks to a month.

Do you want to discover more ways to improve your revenue? Parkfield Commerce helps ecommerce businesses explore the direct-to-consumer model. Contact us today to discover how we can help your business reach new heights.