How to Create an Effective Landing Page

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Creating an effective landing page

It is not easy to build a landing page that works the way it should, but we’re going to break it down for you so that you can follow it step-by-step and repeat the process over and over for success! Creating a landing page is a crucial step in Inbound Marketing campaign process and you’ll want to ensure that it can convert your target audience into leads.  Let’s start at the beginning.

Define the Purpose

The ultimate purpose of a landing page is to convert your target audience into informed leads who can become potential clients. That should be the goal of every landing page you create as part of your Inbound marketing process.

Choose Valuable Content

A landing page is typically a gated piece of content. You can choose any form of content, a white paper, a video, or a tutorial. There are plenty of content options that you can choose to gate on your landing page. You’ll want to choose an option that is worth filling out a form. You are asking them for valuable information, be sure your content is not something they would be able to go find elsewhere without the need to fill out their name, email, etc.

Determine the Buyer’s Journey Stage

As we stated above, you’ll want to make sure that your content offer is valuable enough to warrant a form fill. But, you’ll also want to determine where in the buyer’s journey your target audience is. Are they in the awareness stage? Consideration stage? Are they in the decision stage? Whichever stage they are in, you’ll want to cater your content and form to. If they’re in the consideration stage, then you already know some basic information about them and they’re trying to find out a bit more about what you have to offer. For them you would want to offer content that shows the value that your product or service brings your users compared to the competition.

Create a Form

Now that you’ve determined what content and where in the buyer’s journey the reader is in, then you’ll want to create an appropriate form. For example, if they are in the consideration stage – you can ask for some more in-depth answers. This can include:

  • Industry
  • Telephone number
  • Pain points
  • Goals

The form should help fill in more information about the reader and your potential client. You can then use this information in the future to better create content based on their needs, pain points and goals.

Craft Up Copy

Okay, so you have the bare bones of your landing page. Now, it’s time to fill in that page with information that will lead your reader to fill out the form and convert into a customer.  Here’s what you’ll need:

  • A strong headline – grab their attention in 5 seconds or less. If your audience comes to your page and they blink, will they remember what your headline says? Be sure to include an action such as “Download” or “Watch” – this way it is clear what you are asking them to do.
  • Subtitle – describe what the offer is with a little bit more detail.
  • Body copy – explain what the reader is going to get out of the download, what will they learn? What they can expect from filling out the form and downloading the content
  • Bullets – don’t be shy! Break down the key points into a few key bullets. It’s easy to digest and easy to remember.
  • Strong Call-to-action – if you are asking them to fill out a form, make that clear. Include a “download now” button on the form. Or just have a statement that strongly encourages readers to do what you want them to do.
  • An image – include an image that is representative of the content offer. This can be a screenshot of the first page of the resource, or something else that showcases what the content has to offer!

Overall, you’ll want to keep the landing page above the fold and keep the copy short and sweet. It should be memorable while also being informative. Remember, the ultimate goal of your landing page is to get your reader to fill out the form and become a potential lead.

Start Promoting

Now that you have your landing page all set up with your content offer, it’s time to drive your potential customers to that page. There are a variety of ways to promote your content and drive traffic to your landing page including:

If you can drive traffic the landing page, then you’re on the way to converting your readers into customers. To learn more about how to start your very own inbound marketing campaign, download our whitepaper “Guide to Inbound Marketing: Learn to Market Smarter, Not Harder” and launch your first campaign!


Guide to Inbound Marketing