What is a landing page?
A pure marketing tool, the landing page is designed to convert visitors to your website into leads or customers.
A landing page is a separate web page designed to promote an offer, product, or service. It directs traffic to where you want your visitors to go—hence the term “landing” in its French translation. You guide them through a conversion funnel tailored to your project or business.
Action: The Primary Goal
The goal of a landing page is to convert visitors by encouraging them to take action. If there’s one thing to keep in mind when designing a landing page, it’s this concept. To do this, you need to invite users to “do something,” which is why the concept ofa “call toaction”is used in the vocabulary of a landing page.
Actions depend on the imagination. Do you want your visitors to solve a puzzle to access your latest book? Go for it! It’s entirely possible.
However, it is essential to be familiar with the most common strategies used by companies for one simple reason: they work.
The first is to encourage a visitor to enter their email address so they can subscribe to a newsletter or access a downloadable resource.
The second is to encourage the purchase of a product or the use of a service by offering an irresistible deal through several strategies outlined in the next section.
Action against what?
What can you offer your visitors to encourage them to take the action you want them to take? How can you convert them? That’s the question! There are many different incentives, and they depend on the goals you’re pursuing with your landing page.
Are you looking to collect email addresses in preparation for the launch of your flagship product? Offer early access.
Do you already have a product on the market and want to boost your sales? Offer a promotional code in exchange for your visitors' email addresses.
Are you a consultant looking to attract new leads? Offer your visitors a free white paper or e-book in exchange for their contact information.
Do you write a newsletter with valuable tips on a specific topic? Encourage your visitors to sign up for it to gain access.
However, keep in mind that the reward you offer in exchange for an action needs to be appealing to your visitors, and that the simplest solutions are often the most effective… 😉
Running out of ideas? Take a look at what’s already out there. Companies and freelancers are competing to come up with creative ways to turn their visitors into leads or customers.
Examples of Effective Landing Pages
There are many examples of effective landing pages on the internet. Let’s take a look at three from companies we’re all familiar with.
Uber
Uber clearly outlines the benefits that drivers who sign up for its platform will enjoy: generating income and gaining access to the “largest” network of active passengers—and thus potential customers.
Here, the call to action is to click a button to access a registration form. This action is encouraged by an enticing, bold headline as soon as we arrive on Uber’s website. Once Uber’s commitments have been presented, a “Sign up to become a driver” button is displayed once again.
Spotify
In the headline, Spotify directly highlights the offer of a free 1-month trial of its Spotify Premium service. The text that follows outlines its benefits, noting in the subheading that users are free to cancel at any time—a sense of freedom that customers increasingly appreciate.
Visitors have two options: either click the“Get Started” button to begin their free 1-month trial, or click the“View Plans”button to learn more about the different plans in a comparison table. Each column features a “Get Started” call-to-action button to make the action easily accessible and encourage the visitor to take action.
Vinted
The title of Vinted’s landing page highlights a problem that visitors may encounter—and one that the company can help solve: helping them sort through their closets. This is the“problem → solution”principle found in virtually every business.
The call-to-action button shown below suggests that users can quickly and easily list and sell their clothes on Vinted.
Finally, a photograph shows a young woman happily tidying up her closet, allowing visitors to relate to her more easily.
Now that you understand the concept and how a landing page works—as illustrated by three compelling examples—you’re probably eager to learn how to actually build one and which solution(s) to use. Let’s take a look at the tools available for creating an effective landing page with WordPress.
The Structure of a Successful Landing Page
First of all, it’s essential to examine the structure of a landing page to get a clearer idea of its design.
Its design will depend on your goals, your offering, and your product or service. Keep in mind, then, that the structure of the elements we’ll go over point by point is just one example among many. We’ll omit any mention of menus and footers to focus on the essentials.
Title
A landing page should begin with a headline that conveys a simple and concise message. The promise of an offer or the benefit provided by a product or service should be clearly displayed.
This title may be accompanied by a subtitle to provide a brief clarification.
The call to action
A call to action takes the form ofa form or a button.
The form may consist of one or more fields for entering personal information for the purpose of signing up: creating an account, subscribing to a newsletter, etc.
The button can redirect the visitor to a service or product page, to a detailed description, or to an external website.
To be effective and compelling, this call to action must be placed so that it is visible as soon as a visitor arrives on a landing page.
The Reward
The reward is what a visitor receives when they take action. This reward can take the form of a free trial, a discount on a product purchase, or a downloadable e-book or white paper.
This benefit should be placed so that it is visible at the top of the landing page. Therefore, prioritize the space between the headline and the call to action.
The illustration
If a product or service is promoted through a landing page, it's important to illustrate it.
A background photo, an image of your final product, or a mock-up of a service currently in development will give your visitors a visual representation of its benefits.
Detailed description
A visitor can be redirected to a detailed description via a call-to-action button at the top of the page.
The purpose of this description isto provide potential prospects and customers withdetails about your project, product, or service.
This section typically follows the first block—"title – benefit – call to action – illustration." It is recommended to include a few calls to action in this section, depending on its length; at least two: one in the middle and one at the end.
Additional tip: Acknowledgments
A "thank you" is always nice to hear!
These thank-you messages can take the form of a dedicated page to which your prospects or newly acquired customers will be redirected after taking action, a pop-up message, or an email.
Now that you've learned the basics of designing an effective landing page, it's time to take a look at the various options available to you with WordPress.
Designing a Landing Page with WordPress
Creating a landing page with WordPress has never been easier. There are three ways to design one: using a plugin, a template, or a page builder. Let’s take a look at each of them and explore a few ways to implement them.
Create a landing page with a WordPress plugin
There's a plugin to solve every problem!
There are many plugins available to help you easily design a WordPress landing page. Their advantage is that they make your job easier by providing optimized landing page templates and offering advanced features such as sales funnels, A/B testing, sales pages, and more.
In the WordPress directory, we find OptimizePress and Coming Soon Page, Maintenance Mode & Landing Pages by SeedProd.
OptimizePress
OptimizePress is a premium (i.e., paid) plugin that offers tools for creating landing pages, sales pages, and launch funnels.
For $99, this plugin offers a wide range of advanced features for building an unlimited number of pages.
However, for advanced design—particularly through the use of A/B testing—expect a slightly higher price: $199.
Coming Soon Page, Maintenance Mode, and Landing Pages by SeedProd
A true Swiss Army knife and freemium alternative, Coming Soon Page, Maintenance Mode & Landing Pages is the plugin designed for beginners.
Thanks to its drag-and-drop system and numerous modules, you'll have no trouble creating a wide variety of effective landing pages.
For $39, you'll get access to the Pro version, which includes over 100 ready-to-use landing page templates, integration with services like MailChimp, AWeber, and ActiveCampaign, spam protection, and new modules called "blocks."
Create a landing page using a WordPress theme
Another option available to you for creating a landing page with WordPress is to use a theme that includes a landing page template.
Designed to drive conversions, these ready-to-use themes let you quickly create a landing page. However, be aware: your entire website will be based on the theme you choose. If you change it, you’ll have to start all over!
Also, if you want to take the customization of your landing page a step further, you'll need to dive into the code… Technical knowledge required!
LeadInjection
The theme LeadInjection is a premium theme designed specifically for creating landing pages.
For a one-time fee of $39, LeadInjection lets you create any type of conversion page using pre-designed templates covering a variety of topics: consulting, startups, online training, and more.
Astra
Astra is a versatile freemium theme for building WordPress sites. With over a million active installations, Astra is the most popular WordPress theme.
Simple and flexible, its built-in customization tool makes it the most customizable theme for creating any website.
In addition, Astra offers a wide variety of pre-designed templates, including landing pages that you can customize to your liking.
Its $49 Pro version provides access to premium templates, new customization options, and plugin integration WooCommerce plugin to create an online store.
Create a landing page using a page builder
The third option available to you for designing a landing page with WordPress is the page builder.
A page builder is a WordPress plugin designed to create all types of pages—from the simplest to the most complex—without relying on a theme and without the need for coding.
So, with a drag-and-drop system, you can create your landing page from start to finish while maintaining full control over its design.
However, not all page builders offer the elements you want to include on your landing page. So be sure to do your research before choosing a page builder.
Elementor
Renowned as the gold standard among WordPress page builders, Elementor is a freemium plugin that can be used at no extra cost.
Its intuitive drag-and-drop module system lets you customize any element of a landing page, including the design.
For $49 a year, the Pro version unlocks access to additional modules and premium templates.
Divi
Like Elementor, Divi is a page builder from Elegant Themes that lets you create any type of content using a drag-and-drop system.
Divi's template library includes numerous landing page templates that you can customize to suit your preferences and needs. In addition, the Divi ecosystem offers the advantage of being able to access additional themes and templates on the Divi Marketplace for just a few dollars.
To purchase Divi, it will cost you $89 per year. For a lifetime license, the price is $249.
Contact your WordPress agency
There are many different methods for creating a high-performing landing page that converts visitors into leads or customers, each with its own set of advantages and disadvantages.
Of course, to design a landing page with a high conversion rate, you'll need to test and retest different formats and methods to find the winning formula.
Therefore, if you don’t have the time or the skills needed to create an effective landing page, rest assured that our talented experts in marketing, communications, and web development will take care of everything for you.
Creating and convincing are two different things. When you entrust your landing page project to our agency, INGENIUS, you’re choosing a long-term solution that will have a real impact on your visitors.
What about you—did you know what a landing page was? What did you think it was?
