Your advertising campaigns will always start with an ad. Your ad can be in the form of text, a banner, a video or a blog post, for example.

After your ad has captured your visitors’ attention and has gotten them to click on your link, they will be redirected to your landing page.

Your landing page is a crucial element in your sales process. It reinforces the message delivered in your ad and, more importantly, convinces them to give you their email addresses.

By getting their email addresses, you are building the most important and valuable asset of your business—your email list.

A poor landing page could be catastrophic to your business. Not only will visitors not part with their email addresses, but your advertising dollars would be wasted, as well.

A successful landing page MUST contain certain elements. Without these elements your page will be flirting with disaster.

Headline

Let me start by saying that I prefer short, uncluttered landing pages . Your visitor has already shown interest in your offer by clicking your link. I believe it’s best to get right to the point and not risk confusing your prospect with unnecessary information.

Your headline is the most important element of your landing page because it’s the first thing your visitor will normally focus on.

Your headline MUST be congruent with your ad and must reinforce the message you already delivered. Anything else will only serve to confuse your prospect. It should promote your lead magnet offer that originally convinced the visitor to click.

Golden nugget: Testing by various landing page experts has proven that the best word to always use in your headline is the word “free”. People love getting things of value for free. That word has always been a strong enticement to action and it still is.

You can also use a sub-headline to add support to your main headline and add additional information about your lead magnet.

Images

You should have a clear, sharp image of your lead magnet. Remember, “A picture is worth a thousand words”. A picture of your lead magnet makes it real for your audience and will cause them to be more likely to opt in.

Golden nugget: As an alternative to a picture of your lead magnet, use a picture of yourself. Up until this point your audience has no idea who you are. A picture of yourself creates familiarity and makes you seem like a real person.

If you’re already well known, a picture of yourself will reinforce your message and add comfort for your visitor to be more eager to give you their email address.

Bullet Points

Your bullet points should list the benefits of your lead magnet. They should tell the visitor what’s in it for them when they opt in and receive your free lead magnet.

Never use your bullet points to explain the features of your lead magnet. The features are of no real concern to your prospects. They only want to know, at this point, what the product can do for them.

Your bullet points must be congruent to the message you’re delivering. They should be short and directly to the point. Also, three to four bullet points should be enough.

Opt In Button

You can and should test various messages for your opt in buttons. Different messages work better than others—so make sure to test different messages against each other.

Golden nugget: Test have also proven that the use of scarcity will help increase your opt ins. Let prospects know that the lead magnet is only available for a limited time and they should get theirs while it’s still free.

Also, make sure to use the word “free”to once again reinforce your message.

Golden nugget: People frequently enter false email addresses just to get the free lead magnet. You can dramatically reduce the false addresses you receive by adding the following (or similar) language directly under your opt in button.

“Your free (lead magnet) will be sent to the email address you provide above. Please check the address you entered for accuracy”.

Call To Action

This is a crucial element of every landing page, but it’s surprisingly often overlooked. Make sure you have a compelling call to action. Don’t assume people will do what you want them to do—tell them exactly what you want them to do.

Once again, tests have shown that a compelling call to action will increase opt in rates dramatically.

These elements are imperative for a landing page to do what you want it to do—reinforce your ad and gain an email address.

They are all really simple to put into action and they will all increase the success of your landing pages many times over.

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