How to Create a Landing Page - The Ultimate Guide

We’ve all been on a landing page at one point or another, whether it’s a product page trying to get us to buy something new and novel or a sign-up page for a free PDF or a discount code. 

There are various ways that landing pages can be used, and even though we can’t cover them all, in this article, we’re going to explain a few things about landing pages, then get into how to make one. 

What is a landing page?

A landing page is a single page created for an advertising campaign and is where visitors end up when they click the link to the page in an ad, a post on social media, etc. It also has only one focus for the visitor, whether that focus is getting them to make a purchase immediately or sign up to a mailing list to redeem an offer. 

Because of their design around a single goal, landing pages should have no distractions to deter potential customers from completing that goal. This means a landing page will have any navigation away from the page only in the footer, which should be kept to a minimum, such as required legal disclaimers, links to the privacy policy and terms of service, etc. 

Landing pages often have a single type of audience in mind. For instance, one landing page may appeal to Facebook users, while another might be designed specifically for email subscribers. 

Landing page vs website

A landing page is not the same as a website, but you should have both when you operate an online business. They serve completely different functions and we’ll go over those below. 

Function of a website

A website can function as a few different things, such as an online business card if you’re a professional, or it can function as a real store where visitors can purchase products and services. Websites can be single pages, or they can have hundreds of thousands of pages, depending on what your business model looks like. 

The primary benefit of a website over a landing page is that the website provides flexibility. You can have many different pages that can each have a different goal. But, even if your website only has one page, don’t consider it a landing page. 

You may be able to land people on a single-page website from an ad, but that doesn’t make it a landing page beyond the most literal definition of the term. A true landing page is not only where your visitors land after clicking but is designed to steer that customer to a specific goal. 

Function of a landing page

A landing page should take a visitor from your chosen traffic source and lead them to perform a particular action. This is the sole purpose of the page. Unlike a website, a landing page isn’t designed to give visitors options on how they would like to interact with you. 

On your website, do you have a customer support chat that pops up in the bottom corner of the page or do you have links to all of your social media properties, your entire product catalog, legal disclaimers, etc?

These things don’t belong on your landing page because they distract the customer from the action you want them to take. 

Do I need a website before creating a landing page?

You do not need a full website before creating a landing page. 

If you’re just getting started with your online business, it may be simpler to design a landing page around your desired goal first before going through the process of building an entire website for it. 

For example, a restaurant that wants to get new customers and phone orders may create a landing page that only features their menu and their phone number. They can always build out a more complete website later, including a homepage, contact us page, menu, online ordering page, etc. 

Elements of a landing page

There are certain elements that every landing page should have and the list below contains the ones we believe are the most important. 

Main headline

We humans don’t have very long attention spans, so when you’re creating a landing page that’s going to steer a human visitor to a goal, your headline is what must initially get their attention. If you don’t get a visitor's attention in the first 5 seconds, you’ve lost them. 

Your headline should get an emotional reaction out of your visitor almost immediately. Whether it’s happiness, shock, awe, righteous indignation, or even disdain, getting an emotional reaction guarantees they will start reading your copy next. When they do this, the main headline has done its job. 

Hero image

Your hero image is the most important image on your page and it should be located at the top, above the fold, and close to your main headline. If there is one place you want an image on your page, it’s there. 

Unique selling proposition

Your landing page should have only one goal but also contain a unique selling proposition. This is what sets you apart from your competitors and makes you better than them. 

Any unique selling proposition should be something you can use to make a case against visitors using your competitors instead of you, but it has to prove something that you can prove. It’s not enough to say that your customer service is the best. You have to offer something to prove that your customer service differs from everyone else’s. 

Your USP should be something your customers care about in the context of your business. Free shipping may be great, but what if your customers want a lifetime warranty when they’re rare in your industry? Give your customers something they can’t get anywhere else. 

Call-to-Action

A call to action is how you direct a visitor to perform a specific action. It may be located close to a link or button, but the text may be on the button itself, such as “subscribe now” or “add to cart”. This is nearly always written as a direct command and should be reasonably close to where the visitor can perform the associated action. 

Here are a few standard calls to action you may have seen before:

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• Read more
• Add to cart
• Buy now
• Checkout
• Start your free trial
• Sign Up
• Subscribe
• Learn more

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Calls to action can heavily affect your conversion rate, so they should be split-tested. 

Social proof

For the purposes of your landing page, social proof is evidence that real people use your products and services. The more well-known these people are, the better your social proof will help convert visitors into customers. 

Social proof can be made up of screenshots of people talking about your products on social media, testimonials, number of Facebook likes, email subscribers, etc. 

Benefits of the offering

You should always have a clear list of what the benefits are of the offer you’re making. In this age, fast and often free shipping is commonplace and expected to be considered unique benefits for your landing page. 

Offer benefits are different from your unique selling proposition. 

What should I use to create a landing page?

Now that you know the basics of a landing page and the elements that make it up, it’s time to learn how to create one. You can build a landing page by itself using software like Leadpages or Unbounce or build it into your existing website. One may be easier than the other, depending on your situation. 

Best landing page builder software

There’s a long list of landing page builders that you can use, but below, we’ve listed the ones that we believe are the best. 

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Leadpages

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Leadpages is a great drag-and-drop builder for landing pages, but you can also use it to build your entire website, create pop-ups, sign up forms, and more. The platform includes the ability to optimize and split test your creations and take payments directly from the pages you want. 

You can also choose between creating your own landing page template with their drag-and-drop builder or you can choose from hundreds of templates to customize. Regardless of which way you go, it’s quick and easy to create a functioning landing page with Leadpages. 

ClickFunnels

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Click Funnels is so confident they’re good at what they do that their homepage is formatted as a landing page. They have been one of the top names in sales funnel marketing since their founding in 2014, and with over 101,000 users under their belt, it’s no wonder. 

If you want to create real, high-converting sales funnels, Click Funnels can help you build it from landing page to checkout. 

With Click Funnels, you can:

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• Generate leads
• Sell products
• Reconnect with your audience with “follow-up” funnels

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Start your journey with a 14 day free trial, then upgrade to $97 per month or purchase annually and get a discount. If you go with their Platinum plan at $297 per month, you’ll get access to their FunnelFlix training course and video library. 

Instapage

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Instapage is another long-term player in page builders and has been around since 2012. Here are the primary benefits you get when you sign up for Instapage:

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• Landing pages
• Personalized landing pages for every ad and audience
• Split testing
• AdMap for measuring ad campaign effectiveness
• Collaborate with team members
• Fast loading landing pages

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They’ve been used by top-tier companies such as Verizon, HelloFresh, Vimeo, and Lattice to speed up the creation of marketing assets like landing pages without waiting on a developer. 

The biggest downside to Instapage is that the difference between its annual and monthly pricing is huge. If you pay annually, your monthly cost works out to $199/mo. If you pay monthly, it goes up by a whopping 50% to $299/mo. 

But this platform is also designed for enterprise-level marketing, and their second-tier plan is available only after a demo and consultation. 

Hubspot

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Of the companies on this list, Hubspot is the oldest, having been founded in 2006. 

It’s not just a landing page builder, though. When you sign up with Hubspot at $50/mo, you’ll get the following:

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• Up to 1,000 marketing contacts
• Form and email automations
• Hubspot branding removed from forms, emails, landing pages, and live chat
• Email and in-app chat support

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Like Instapage, Hubspot is designed to be very scalable and their pricing reflects that. At $3,200/mo for their Enterprise level plan, they make it clear that you can go from beginner to expert using their platform. 

Visual Composer

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Visual Composer is one of the best drag-and-drop page builders for Wordpress. It was originally released in 2011 and was the first Wordpress editor to be usable from the site's frontend. 

A subscription includes the following:

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• Drag & drop builder
• 300+ content elements
• 200+ page templates
• Font manager
• Theme builder
• Popup builder
• Insights
• Free stock images
• Premium support

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You can purchase Visual Composer as a subscription at $49 a year for one website or you can purchase a lifetime license for $149 that includes two years of support. The only drawback here is that there is no option for a monthly subscription. 

If you’re using Wordpress for your website, this is the best solution for building landing pages directly on it.

Conclusion

We’ve come a long way the last 20 years from creating landing pages with HTML and Dreamweaver. Drag and drop interfaces are more intuitive and useful than they’ve ever been and you can use them to create marketing masterpieces capable of generating hundreds, thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue. 

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