Landing Page Structure — How to Easily Create the Best Landing Pages

Launch Your Online Business in Just 7 Days

Are you looking to increase conversions and boost your online business sales?

A well-structured landing page can help you do just that! According to a study done by GMP, the average landing page converts at a whopping 9.7% (that’s a lot in the digital marketing world).

In this post, we’ll outline the must-have components and elements you should use when building your landing page.

As a bonus, we’ll give you the 5-step formula you can use to build one from scratch!

Let’s get started!

What is a landing page?

A depiction of all components included in the landing page building process

A landing page is a standalone web page where people “land” or “end up” if they click on one of your ads, emails, or any other targeted digital location.

Generally, landing pages are designed with specific goals in mind—to convert and build a stockpile of leads.

It's different from the rest of your site's pages because it meets both of these conditions:

It has a form that lets you collect information from visitors in exchange for a desired offer.
The landing page's only goal is to turn visitors into leads (a homepage with a form on it isn't a landing page, since it has other goals as well).

Landing pages are useful for the following 4 reasons:

1. Improving the conversion rate

2. Tracking visitors

3. Attracting a target audience

4. Providing information to the audience

So, how can you get started?

The key elements of a good landing page structure

The design, copy, and the offer you put on the table are just a few of the variables that make a landing page successful.

These 9 landing page best practices will help you with designing and optimizing your landing pages to achieve your goals.

Unique selling proposition

Unique selling proposition depiction

What makes you stand out from the crowd?

What distinguishes your offering?

The ability to establish what sets your organization apart is critical to the success of any inbound marketing strategy.

This is where your Unique Selling Proposition, or USP, comes into play.

USPs could be the way your product benefits people or that product or service you offer that isn’t available anywhere else, and it could even be the experience you provide when customers do business with you.

When you’re developing your USP, make sure to keep the following in mind:

Resonance — Create a sense of need for your product or service
Difference — Ensure that it’s possible to distinguish your offer from competing offers
Substance — Keep to the promises you make and show proof that you do

Remember: Landing page optimization for conversions is all about communicating the right value to the right individuals at the right time.

A compelling main headline and supporting headline

Your landing page headline is your opening line and the first thing your visitors see when they land on your page.

David Ogilvy, better known as the 'Father of Advertising’, said that “5 times as many people read the headline as those who read the body copy”— So, you want to make sure that your headline is unbelievably effective!

Now, how exactly does one write an effective headline?

There are 3 key characteristics that ensure headline efficiency:

1. Clarity — Write clear, non-ambiguous headlines that get right to the point and immediately connect with the visitors as they land on your page

2. Relevance — The ad, email, or other digital location that sent your visitor to your page should be relevant to the page they land on

3. Empathy — Show empathy towards your visitors’ problems by demonstrating the benefits of the product in your headline

To keep your landing page headline clear and to the point, you can only say so much — As a result, you’ll need to add a supporting headline.

If your main headline gets people's attention, your sub-headline should succeed in keeping their attention.

There are 2 ways to think about your supporting headline:

1. As a direct extension of your main headline

2. As an additional persuasive message that supports the primary one

Here’s how Vinny Welsby approached the headline and subheadline design of the page Fierce Fatty:

Source: fiercefatty.com

Why does it work?

The headline and subheadline clearly state what the product is and what you will learn if you decide to invest therein.

Keep in mind that design decisions can easily affect the overall impression you’re trying to portray — we recommend giving some thought to how you’ll display your page’s headline.

Here are a few design tips for creating a jaw-dropping landing page headline:

Always choose high-quality, contrasting typefaces that are readable at any size.
Make your headlines simple and understandable. Most people don’t read, they skim!
Test the typography to try and highlight the emotive words or phrases in your headline (capitalizing every word can do wonders).

Engaging copy and design

Both the UX design and the copy of your landing page contribute to its effectiveness.

Although both your design and copy’s goal is to convert visitors, the approaches to reaching that goal are completely different — let’s see how:

1. Copy

Copy refers to the actual writing that’s written to drive sales.

Source: systeme.io

Systeme.io shows that they know what they’re writing about and what their audience needs by keeping their copy direct, simple, and to the point.

Want to know more about writing sales copy?

You can read our ultimate copywriting guide and learn how to craft powerful copy for your landing pages.

2. UX design

UX, or user experience, refers to any interaction a user has with a product or service — this could be anything from how the user felt when using the product, to how easy the process was to acquire the product.

The goal of UX design is to make user experiences that are easy, efficient, relevant, and all around pleasant.

Thanks to Think with Google, you can create effective and interactive UX designs by following these 4 steps:

1. Take action — Ask yourself what actions your visitors would take on your page, and then write them down and implement them

2. Get emotional — Use colors, shapes, or sounds to evoke a certain emotion from your visitors

3. Start sketching — Design sketches or wireframes of how you would like your pages to look

4. Test, test, test — Test your designs from the start for optimal results

Here’s an example of how HR Brew utilized UX design on one of its pages:

Source: hr-brew.com

HR Brew makes UX design look easy by having created a sleek, informative, and aesthetically pleasing landing page:

They’ve used light, complementing colors throughout the page
Their fonts are matching and easily readable regardless of size
They use stylish visuals in the form of icons to help illustrate and add value to their sales copy

Striking visuals

According to a Venngage study, 10% of people remember what they hear, 20% of what they read, and 80% of what they see or do.

Visuals have the power to engage viewers in ways that words alone can’t.

Using the right visuals in the right way can help you significantly bump up your landing page conversion rates.

So, what kind of visuals should you use?

Here are a few visuals you can include to boost conversions:

1. Images — Convey a message through an image, for example, a hero image that represents your business’s product or service

2. GIFs — Use GIFs to engage consumers by drawing attention to essential features, demonstrating how your product works, or simply injecting some personality into your website

3. Videos — Use relevant video which reflects the brand and conveys the required message, such as product demos, or customer testimonials

4. Illustrations — Create an abstract image that symbolizes your business or the product you’re offering

5. Data visualization — Using a simple graphical representation can help explain complex statistics or data.

Pro tip: Don’t rely on stock photos to make your landing page attractive; rather, use real photos to show your viewers you’re legit and authentic.

Features and benefits

Your landing page won't work as well as it could if it doesn't have a section about the features and benefits of your product.

Note: While ‘features’ and ‘benefits’ are two distinct words, they are often (incorrectly) used synonymously — so, what’s the difference?

Simply put, a feature is a specific quality of your product or service, while the benefits are the positive impact the features have on your customers.

The feature-advantage-benefit (FAB) formula is the quickest, easiest, and smartest way to formulate your offer proposition:

Features — Start by naming all the features your product has
Advantages — List all the advantages and why it’s better than its competing products
Benefits — List out all the reader-focused benefits: What does the product offer them? How do you make them happier? How do you change their life?

Once you have done all of the above, you can start rewriting your promises into benefits and solutions, ultimately crafting a compelling features-benefits section for your landing page.

Let’s take a look at how the systeme.io team approached our features and benefits section:

Source: systeme.io

Systeme.io mentions all the features, how visitors can use them, and even the benefits that come with each feature.

Lead form

Landing page lead forms play a key role in helping your pages convert.

Here are a few tips on how you can create a user-friendly, high-converting lead form:

Ask less — Reduce the number of questions by only asking the customer to provide the necessary information
Ensure a smooth experience — Make sure that loading times are quick and that form step transitions are smooth.
Add a progress bar — Show how far through the sign-up process the visitor is by adding a progress bar
Use auto navigation — Simplify the sign-up process by configuring an action to automatically take the visitor to the next step of the process
Minimize writing — Only give the necessary information, your landing page copy already includes the rundown of the offer
Include a clear call-to-action button — Add a call-to-action button surrounded by some negative space to focus the visitors’ attention

It’s the form your prospects complete in exchange for your offer — So, you need to be sure to make it effective!

Here’s an example of Quickbase’s sign-up process:

Source: quickbase.com

Quickbase ensures a smooth user experience by:

Asking only the necessary
Including a progress bar
Keeping copy short
Adding a CTA button

Social proof

The strategy of including social proof on your landing page is extremely important to:

Build trust and credibility
Validate and guide the customers’ buying decisions

There’s a variety of ways you can include social proof on your landing pages, here are some of the more common methods:

1. Testimonials — Add short quotes from happy customers

2. Embed social media — Collect tagged images or comments from your social media to use on your landing page

3. Number of customers — Show how many customers are a part of your business and use your product

4. Case studies — Add short quotes from customer case studies to show off what your product is capable of

5. Trust badges — Reassure your page’s visitors that your business is reliable

6. Third-party reviews — Collect reviews from third-party websites, like Capterra, and include them on your page

Systeme.io added customer reviews collected from multiple third-party resources and added them as a social proof section on their page:

Source: systeme.io

FAQ section

“FAQ” stands for “frequently asked questions”, and this section’s sole purpose is to provide answers to generally asked questions that your viewers and/or visitors might have.

FAQ sections offer a few benefits, including:

Better customer experience
Less time spent on answering the same questions from visitors
Visitors don’t have to contact you and wait for answers
Increased visibility on Google and other search engines
Boosted sales as visitors have an immediate response to a query that could influence their purchase

When visitors want to subscribe to Native Poppy’s flower services, their FAQ section answers all commonly asked questions to ensure a smooth user experience:

Source: nativepoppy.com

Call-to-action buttons

The main purpose of your call-to-action button is to attract a visitor’s attention and entice them to convert by clicking it.

When it comes to the design of your button, there’s no need to get fancy — keep to the basics and make sure they:

Have a defined shape and border
Are a different, contrasting color
Contain action-oriented copy
Have a working link! (we can’t stress this enough — it’s of the utmost importance)

All the elements mentioned, contribute to creating the ultimate landing page, and when used correctly, you’ll be converting visitors like never before!

The top 3 tricks to achieving a high-converting landing page

Now that you know what should be included on your landing page, here are 3 tips you should keep in mind when starting your landing page design process.

Prioritize above-the-fold content

Difference between above the fold and below the fold

‘Above the fold’-content refers to all the content your visitors see the moment they land on your page.

The purpose of above the fold content is designed to:

Engage your visitors and grab their attention
Slowly guide your visitor to become familiar with the who and why of your product or service
Ensure that your visitors keep scrolling!

Here are a few best practices to optimize your above the fold content:

Add a powerful headline and sub-headline
Include visible call-to-action buttons
Add a hero shot

Pro tip: Make sure your landing page is optimized for all devices.

Eliminate unnecessary elements

A landing page's goal is to convert site visitors into leads or sales — A poorly written or designed landing page will cost you conversions.

Here are some common mistakes to avoid if you want to create landing pages that convert:

Avoid including a menu or any other navigational links
Use bullet points to avoid information overload
Use white space to your advantage, don’t clutter the page with text and imagery
Refrain from creating a page with an inconsistent design
Avoid adding a footer with additional distractions
Don’t use fake reviews or testimonials

Each of these landing page errors is easy to make, but thankfully, each one is also easy to fix.

Test your landing page

Every landing page you create might not perform as well as the other — some might have an acceptable conversion rate, while others might fail.

This is where testing comes in. Testing your landing pages ensures that you display the highest converting page to your visitors.

There are 2 approaches to landing-page tests you should consider:

1. A/B testing

2. Multivariate testing

Difference between A/B testing and multivariate testing

Systeme.io lets you set up A/B tests by automatically setting up the environment.

All you have to do is select the 2 variables you’d like to test, and we’ll set it up in seconds!

We even provide in-depth analytics so you can see exactly which page performs the best:

Aside from testing two or more landing pages, you can also test:

Headlines
Calls-to-action
Content
Design
Social proof
Lead capture form

An optimized landing page calls for a higher conversion rate — One simply cannot be without the other!

You now know what should and should not be included in a landing page, as well as some tips to make sure you create an effective landing page — All you need to do now is actually build it!

How to build the ultimate landing page in 5 easy steps

Before you can start building the ultimate page you need to:

Familiarize yourself with the necessary landing page elements
Consider all the things that you can do to ensure that your landing page is fully optimized

Once that’s handled, you’re ready to start planning!

Step 1: Define your target audience and goals

This step includes the who, what, why, and where of your online business.

In other words, to determine your target audience and goals, you need to answer the following questions:

1. What are you selling?

2. Who are you selling to?

3. Where is your audience?

4. Why are you selling it?

5. Why should they buy it?

Factors to determine your target audience

If you know your ideal customer and their goals, you can tailor your landing page to meet their every need.

Step 2: Plan your landing page layout

Think of your landing page layout as a blueprint — a design plan, mockup or a even a simple drawing.

To create your blueprint, consider the following:

Get — Define your target audience
Who — Describe the main pain point your target audience faces
To — Lay out how you would like your target audience to respond
By — State the message you want to communicate and the value proposition that will motivate action

Now it’s time to start designing.

Well, almost . . .

Step 3: Write your sales copy

This section will be kept to a minimum as this post is on how to build a landing page rather than how to write your sales copy.

However, when it comes down to writing a compelling copy for your landing page, you’ll need to:

Know your product — Answer these questions: What makes your product unique? What features does your product offer? What are the benefits customers will enjoy?
Know your audience — Understand what your target audience is looking for and how to speak with them
Write well — Be precise, persuasive, and know your copywriting “buzzwords”
Include a call-to-action — Ensure that the action you want your visitors to take is clear and actionable

If you need a more in-depth explanation of how to write compelling copy — click here.

Step 4: Design your landing page

Well would you look at that — It’s time to design your landing page!

Here's a brief step-by-step checklist for how you can create a well-designed landing page with systeme.io:

Step 1: Create a funnel

Start by clicking “Create”.

Choose the name, type, and currency of the funnel you are creating.

Step 2: Create a page

Next, click on “Create step” to create a page.

Thereafter, you can choose the type of page you want to create (Opt-in pages, sales pages, webinar pages, and others).

Step 3: Pick a template

You can pick one of our pre-designed page templates or begin from scratch with our custom template.

After you’ve chosen the template you want, you can edit it to your needs with our drag-and-drop editor.

Once you start editing your landing page you can add your unique content and visuals — and watch how it all falls into place!

Step 5: Put it all together

The last step is to launch your landing page and make some conversions and sales!

Here, you want to choose a name for your page (number 1 below) and set up your URL path to make sure that it sends the clicker to the exact location of your landing page (number 2 below).

Finally, after building and launching your landing page, it could look a little like this landing page created by Phil Wilson with systeme.io:

Source: funnelscene.com

Systeme.io: The only landing page software you’ll ever need

systeme.io logo

Systeme.io is a simple, affordable, and intuitive all-in-one business-building tool for anyone who is looking to grow their online business.

With systeme.io you can:

Easily create the ultimate landing page with our easy-to-use drag-and-drop builder
Speed up the building process with one of our many proven templates
Integrate your email list, payment system, and online courses

And so much more!

Additionally, if you join systeme.io you’ll have access to some of the following features:

systeme.io main features

Running your online business has never been this simple — and affordable!

Systeme.io’s pricing

systeme.io’s pricing plans

Systeme.io comes with 4 plans to choose from:

Free — $0/month
Startup — $27/month
Webinar — $47/month
Unlimited — $97/month

The Free plan is free forever and requires no credit card details to get started.

Our other plans also scale as your business grows, offering more features like evergreen webinars and access to more of our core features.

FAQs about landing pages

Source: Freepik.com

1. What’s the difference between a landing page and a homepage?

The main difference between a landing page and a homepage is that the two are created with different goals in mind:

The stage is established by your website's homepage, while a landing page is a page that helps visitors to achieve a certain goal.

2. How do I promote my landing page?

You can promote your landing page by copying the URL and sharing it in your email campaigns, social media platforms, or even using paid ads!

Conclusion

Creating and maintaining your landing page might seem like a big challenge to take on.

However, by following our guidelines, including all necessary elements, and using a tool like systeme.io, you’ll be running a successful site in no time at all.

Start creating and selling your coaching membership with systeme.io right away!

Other posts about landing page building:

- 11 Top-Tier Landing Page Builders

- A Guide To Creating SEO-Friendly Landing Pages

- Leadpages vs. Systeme.io: Which Landing Page Builder is the Best?

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