The main purpose of a “landing page”, also known as “click-through page” (the page that a visitor lands on after clicking an ad with a link to a website) is to boost your digital marketing campaign and make it even more effective. It can help you turn potential clients into real ones increasing the number of successful conversions. This is the page on which a user will end up after clicking on your ad/banner/message somewhere online urged by the desire to learn more about your offer, product, service, etc.

 

Every landing page is unique in itself!

 

Therefore it will be very difficult to find a universal guide that can be applied when creating any type of landing page. In today’s article, we present to you the main and most important elements which can guide your way when creating the perfect and successful landing page for your next advertising campaign. But before choosing which ones will best fit your initial purpose, you need to answer the following questions:

• What do I need the user to do?
• Why does the user have to do it?

 

So, here are the fundamental elements which we recommend that you try to incorporate in your next landing page to make it more effective and successful. Choose the ones that will best fit your goal:

1. A headline, which should be short, precise and straight to the point about what you are offering. It will be even better if it matches the anchor text (the text that links to the “click-through page”). Do pay special attention to your word choice. Words should trigger a genuine interest in what you are offering. If you are not quite sure how to do it, read our blog article “How to write a good title”.

2. A subheadline that complements the main headline and gives more details about what the user will get in return for completing a particular action. Be persuasive!

3. Any additional explanations or descriptions should be included in case the main headline and subheadline do not provide all the essential information a user might need. For example the date and time of your webinar.

4. Advantages and benefits of your offer as well as what differentiates you from your competitors.

5. What will the user gain after doing what you want them to do?

6. What will the user lose, if he/she does not complete a particular action?

7. Logical flow of all texts in the “after-ad-click page”. Your persuasive thoughts should be expressed in a logical succession. Every bit of information should be a perfect addition to the previous one.

8. Images should be both attractive and informative. If your landing page promotes an e-book, a prize in a competition, a webinar or anything else, include a visual of it.

9. SEO optimization of the landing page images and texts (meta titles and descriptions, alt text, keywords, URL, etc.) so that search engines can index it and rank it better in SERP.

10. URL address that includes keywords describing perfectly the page content and is as similar to the main headline as possible.

11. Design that provides a unique user experience. If possible all important information should be presented on a single screen, so that the user does not have to scroll and do any unnecessary actions. However, if that is not possible, try to put the most important information first.

12. Responsive design that adapts perfectly to any type of device screen. Let’s not forget that mobile search has surpassed traditional desktop search. Your landing page design should follow this tendency.

13. Eliminate help menus, extra navigation, top, and sidebars (if possible). Research has shown that including these in your landings negatively affect their conversion rate.

14. Do not use your home page as a landing page. Why? Because in general home pages are filled with lots of information that would rather confuse the user than give him/her any concrete direction of actions. They might not be quite sure what is expected of them. Where to click and what the end result would be. Having a completely new landing page developed for a specific purpose would be way more successful in turning a potential client into a real one.

15. Positive feedback, client testimonials, user ratings, expert recommendations.

16. A Contact form, which can be short or long depending on your campaign requirements and the information you want to learn about your prospects. We advise you to personalize all generic buttons. Instead of using a “SUBMIT” button go for “I want this brochure” button. Do not forget to change the settings so that anyone who has already filled the contact form is not able to do it again.

17. Guarantees and certificates are a powerful tool for boosting the authority of the page, your products and brand as a whole.

18. CTA (call-to-action) is a definite must. Use phrases like “Download now”, “Buy now”, “Check it”, “Try it”, “Optimize your business”, “Win for free”, etc. It is not a surprise that these are among the most widely used CTA. They influence people’s decisions. Of course, the right CTA for your campaign should be chosen elegantly and with style.

19. Sharing options can be included to make the click-through page even more popular. This would help with increasing its traffic, views and consequently conversions.

20. Put a logo to boost brand recognition.

 

Fig. 1 Landing page example

*As we have already mentioned, every landing page is unique and it is not necessary to include all of the elements presented in this article. Elements not used in this example template: 5 and 19.

 

Is there anything more you would like to add to this successful landing page guide?

The term Inbound Marketing was introduced by HubSpot for the first time in 2006 as “an approach focused on attracting customers through content and interactions that are helpful and relevant.” This is a multi-component strategy that includes search engine optimization (SEO), blogging, creating text, visual and video content, email marketing, social network marketing (SMM).

 

Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing is not an invasive way to attract consumers to a brand. It is not intended to interrupt users constantly without their permission as we know Outbound marketing does (billboards, ads, press releases, etc.). Inbound messages are not intrusive at all. On the contrary, they attract those who are looking for answers. By using Inbound Marketing tools, you help your potential customers find you more easily online. Provide them with enough information about your product or services and they will be able to make an informative decision about purchasing what you are offering.

 

 

Nowadays, it would be very unusual if a company does not use Inbound Marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy. To find out where you should put your efforts in 2018, do not stop reading. Here are four Inbound marketing trends that will help your business become even more successful in 2018.

 

Chatbot

We hope that you are still not tired of listening about artificial intelligence (AI) and the benefits it has on business. Chatbots are a type of AI technology that is becoming a powerful tool for Inbound Marketing. Why?

Over the last few years, people have begun using messaging applications more than social networks to keep in touch with one another.  What is interesting is that they use them more and more as a way to communicate with brands too. A chatbot is a computer program that makes it possible for brands to provide 24/7 customer service on the biggest messaging platforms like Facebook Messenger, Viber, Skype, and more. These virtual assistants answer user questions via automated messages. At the same time, they collect valuable information and statistics about their preferences. Companies can then use the gathered data to improve and update their marketing strategies.

 

Guest blogging

Everybody knows that having a blog where you publish articles regularly is an extremely successful method for generating organic traffic to your site. Millions of articles are published online every day. Blogging has grown into an actual industry. It evolves continuously and competition is becoming fierce. A good way to spice things up while attracting new customers is through guest blogging. This means that your article will be published on another website or blog. Although this is not a new practice at all, 2018 has set big expectations about it.

NOTA BENNE! Publishing an informative and quality article on a website that has less than 1000 visits per month and users who do not share its content would be totally meaningless. When you blog on popular websites with good rating and of relevance to your business, you will bring quality traffic and adequate potential customers back to your page. And this is directly related to the number of sales if the page offers some kind of product or service, such as “eCommerce website development” for example.

 

Podcast

A podcast is an audio show that is broadcasted over the Internet. More and more companies are incorporating such type of content creation in their brand awareness strategies. Consumers can listen to podcasts anywhere, even in the shower! Although this is a relatively new tool for Inbound Marketing, 11% of marketers are planning to include it in their marketing strategy in 2018.

Podcasts provide informative content in a very convenient way. They are extremely user-friendly. It’s nice to listen to something interesting without the need to constantly stare at the computer screen, phone or tablet. Podcasts are the favorite blogs of people with limited spare time.

Creating a podcast does not require any investment. The best part is that after broadcasting it, you can transcribe the dialogue and publish it as a blog post with a link to further increase the traffic to your website. Eric Siu, co-host of Marketing School along with Neil Patel, says that once they began making podcasts, their website traffic increased by up to 25-30%!

 

Live video

When we talk about trends in Inbound Marketing, we cannot miss mentioning live videos which will still keep a top position in 2018. People like live streaming and statistics show it clearly:

• 82% of users prefer watching a live video to reading a blog post;
• Live videos are viewed three times more than regular videos on Facebook;
• The most viewed live videos are about breaking news and conferences (56%) followed by concerts (43%);
• 67% are more likely to buy a ticket for a concert or conference after watching a live video about.

That’s why your brand should start live streaming interesting brand happenings. Share about an event you are attending or an interview with an expert someone, show people behind the scenes stories, anything that matters to you and your target audience.

 

What other Inbound marketing trends you think will rule in 2018? Share with us in the comment section below.

Last month Facebook announced that they are making three major updates in the way the whole social media network works. The changes will completely revamp the algorithm which is responsible for the order in which posts appear in individual News Feeds.

As it’s already clear from our blog article “Facebook News Feed – changes and their impact on business” the platform is constantly being updated and changed. Here’s what Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg shares on his wall:

“We’re making a major change to how we build Facebook. I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to help you have more meaningful social interactions.“

So about the last three updates and they are:

 

1. More posts from friends and family

Facebook and users

With the new Facebook version, people will see more photos and posts from their friends and family. The same goes to publications that encourage better communication between users in the form of comments, conversations, likes, shares. As a result, there will be fewer public posts from companies, brands, media, celebrities.

Posts that encourage engagement in communication will see a boost in the News Feed. These are for example live videos, group posts, business and media pages that share local events and news important to readers. Have you noticed that the changes are already taking effect and that your News Feeds is dominated by such posts? If not, try. You will definitely see the difference.

 

Facebook and business

Since space in the News Feed is limited, the new update will undoubtedly have an effect on public and corporate pages. A decline in their traffic is expected. Of course, the magnitude of the changes will vary from page to page depending on the content they publish and how people react to it. Pages that generally cause less interest, have no comments, shares, etc. will notice the biggest decline in reach on Facebook. On the other hand, pages that create prerequisites for dialogue and interaction between friends will not see a significant change.

!Nota Bene: Of course, your content will not disappear completely from the Facebook News Feed section. Facebook now offers to See First, an option where users can set their preferences and thus not miss posts from their favorite pages. The change is not supposed to eliminate public posts, but simply to display more publications from friends and family. The update does not apply to paid Facebook promo!

 

2. More posts from trusted sources

Shortly after Facebook prioritized posts from friends and family, from the management announced their next step towards bringing communities closer together – optimizing the quality of public posts. This change is aimed to reduce the amount of misleading and fake news. News that users rank as credible and from trusted sources will appear higher in Facebook News Feed. Thus the Facebook team wants to make sure public posts are of good quality and are useful to the global community.

However, it will take awhile for these changes to take place. A considerable number of surveys needs to be conducted. The process has been initiated in the United States and by the end of the year, it is expected that credibility will become one of the signals for post ranking in Facebook News Feed.

3. More regional and local news

There will be more local and regional news in the News Feed according to the latest Facebook update from 29^th of January. Your location, the pages you like and the posts from local publishers will determine what you will see first in your Individual News Feed. It is easy to predict that this will have a positive impact on public pages that share local news and are targeted specifically to local communities.

But how does it work?

Is this domain local?

Facebook says: “To determine if a domain is local to you, we look at where its readers on Facebook come from. If you live in the same area as the majority of those people, it is considered local to you.”

 

Is this domain a news source?

And: “We use a variety of signals to identify news sources on Facebook. These could include hard news, sports updates, a neighborhood blog, or other local sources.”

 

However, the change will initially start in the US and will gradually spread to other parts of the world.

 

Don’t forget to follow our blog and be one of the first to find out what other Facebook updates are coming! For now, only time will show.