Landing Pages Are Crucial for Your Marketing Strategy
Secure the attention of your potential customers with a good first impression on your website.
When doing business online, every aspect of your online presence needs to be carefully aligned to your overall marketing strategy. To gain leads and ultimately make conversions, you will need effective landing pages.
Although there are many aspects of your marketing effort that work to boost traffic and generate leads, there is sometimes too much emphasis placed in some areas, such as paid advertising, while other critical areas are overlooked. You could have the best advertising in the world, but if you don’t have the landing page that persuades and obtains buy-in, then you’re not going to see results.
At Blackstone Agency, we work with you to create compelling landing pages that can help grow your business.
Gain Attention with Eye-Catching Headlines
Your headline will determine whether your audience stays engaged or moves along to the competition. Are your headlines working for you, and are they eye-catching and relevant enough to keep your audience interested? A powerful headline will immediately draw a reader into your content. It will be to the point, relevant to what you’re offering, and convincing enough to persuade readers to learn more.
What Is Your Value Proposition?
If you’ve pulled the reader in with a compelling headline, then you need to continue delivering content that is of interest and offers something your reader needs. Whatever your niche is, you’re in business to serve wants and needs.
You must position your offering in a way that empathizes with what the audience is experiencing while offering satisfaction for something they desire or a solution to a problem they have.
Relating to your audience is essential. Building rapport through your content will help them determine that you understand their needs, and you’re the authority when it comes to satisfying those needs. This means you will never talk ‘at’ your audience; instead, you will converse with them naturally.
Testimonials, a short list of benefits and interesting case studies are all examples of ways you can relate to your audience and help develop a mutual understanding of the problem or desire while establishing trust in your brand.
Your Content Is Essential
A landing page needs to provide enough information to obtain buy-in but should not overload the reader with unnecessary information. Your marketing strategy should, therefore, have an emphasis on quality content. You should take great care to ensure that every word has meaning, the information is accurate, and there is no unnecessary fluff that adds nothing of value to your reader.
Taking the time to develop effective content, whether you do it yourself or engage with content marketing professionals, will help you to increase lead and conversion rates.
The Right Way to Use Images
Images can add visual appeal, but from a marketing standpoint, the information they provide is limited. Make sure you select images carefully and have a good balance of images and text on your landing page.
Images can be used for branding but also showcase what you’re trying to offer. If you’re offering a service rather than a product, then infographics are a great way to create visual impact while also providing valuable information.
Your Call to Action
You’ve developed strong content and a landing page with visual impact. Your readers like what they’re reading, and they see your value proposition as compelling.
How do you take this opportunity and have the reader opt-in to the next stage? With a strong call to action, of course.
- Don’t underestimate the power of your opt-in button. It should be conspicuous, in contrast to the main copy, and clearly labeled. Text links or simple graphics are most effective.
- Relate back to the content in your call to action. Repeat the need or desire, reinforce why your offering is the best solution, and challenge the reader to take the next step by doing business with you.
Remember, by the time you reach your call to action, your reader should completely understand what it is that you have to offer and why it’s the best option on the market. Even with this, if you don’t challenge them to take action by clicking through, then all of your marketing strategies will go to waste.
Grow Your Revenue with Your Landing Pages
Don’t waste your time and financial investment by neglecting to develop effective landing pages. Your marketing strategy should be viewed holistically, with all of your advertising copy and content being designed to lead your audience to a sales funnel. A landing page is crunch time, where all of your efforts come together to bring in leads.
Highly informative, interesting, eye-catching and relevant landing pages are essential to ensure that you are able to increase revenue and grow your business.
You Can’t Build A Business on A $300 Website
In a world gone digital, those with a secure foundation online succeed, and why building your house with hay won’t stand up to the competition.
In business there is a conversation that usually starts with, “I’ve been in business for a few years and I’m ready to take my business serious. I have money to invest and want to do it correctly because I know it’s going to cost to do it right and compete in my competitive market.” After a discussion with the customer about marketing and options, we usually send over a proposal that is well above the $300 mark. Three or four days usually pass and the email or phone call comes back with, “I’ve talked to a friend and he turned me onto a website that builds websites for under $300. I’m going to go that route instead of your agency.”
In this case, it is the customer’s right to look at the other options they have. But the bigger question is whether or not you were ever really serious about investing in your business. As the old saying goes, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” It’s impossible to combine fast, professional and cheap when it comes to your website. You get what you pay for. Anyone who is actually serious in business will tell you that you cannot build a website for less than three hundred bucks. The reason is that there are actual expenses that affect the quality of the product you have.
I know that sounds like a rant, but really, it is a very profound principle that portrays how serious business owners or entrepreneurs are regarding their business. If you want to be successful, you must strive for perfection. I’m not saying you have to have an unlimited budget; I’m just saying do it right. My father always told me, do it right the first time; even if it costs you more money, it’ll save you headache, hassle and even more money in the end. The missing part of that is the lost revenue that is the result of poor marketing. Remember that first impressions are everything. Your first impression for a new client or customer only gets one shot, and you will never have a chance to get them again in most cases.
So what is the difference between a $300 website and a $3,000 website? Well, if you consider a small professional website takes over 30 hours to complete, you’re looking at the difference between a $10 an hour person and $100 an hour professional in a numbers perspective.
The Importance of Having a Professional Graphic Design
It takes time and costs money to create graphics for a website. You cannot simply copy and paste some images online and use them. This sets you up for a copyright complaint if you do. Additionally, if you use the free resources online, you are reusing images that won’t make your business stand out. Professional graphic design ensures that you have a visually stunning set of images that leaves a lasting impression with your customers when they visit your website. After all, would you rather have a plain website to do business with that is a jumbled mess with amateurish graphic design or one where the web design truly shines?
Strategic Calls to Action And Messaging
On a $300 website, you have no professional thought put into the website. There is no strategic planning, and all that has taken place is that a person threw together a website without any effort at all. That means while a basic $300 website can get you something assigned to a URL, you are left with nothing more than a hobby website when compared to the work of an actual professional.
In this case, think about a website you’ve been to for a business that looks like a high school student has thrown something together. It looks like a hobbyist created the space over a true professional, and in this case, that would be true. You’ll never find a true professional website for only $300.
Built Taking into Effect Search Engine Optimization
A website can be set up in a few hours. By the time it is done, you have the framework of what you need to successfully operate your website. The problem is that you aren’t going to have the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on the page. SEO is a complicated process that takes time, and your average $300 website builder won’t take the time to make sure your website uses the latest approved techniques while following the guidelines of Google through their Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird updates. A professional web designer can take your website and ensure that it is optimized so that you have real results the moment that your website goes live. All it takes is a few simple online adjustments to things like links and your web design.
Instead, for the $300 you have a bare-bones unprofessional looking website that won’t have any traction online.
Technically Sound And Secure
Realistically, the $300 website will be a simple WordPress that incorporates a few plugins. In most cases, they have done nothing more than quickly changed a template and require you to update your version frequently. Eventually, these templates stop being updated and new security issues arise. In 2016 and beyond, you need to take your website security seriously, otherwise your website will be taken down by hackers.
When you pay a professional company, you don’t have to worry about someone hacking into your website because firewalls and other prevention tools are already in place to protect you. That way, you have some peace of mind that the website for your business will always be up and running when you need it the most. A lot of the inexpensive websites out there are designed with the same set of templates. This makes them look like a copy and paste job of every other website out there. While this is fine if you don’t care about innovation and standing out, it won’t leave a lasting impression with your customers. It also will not look professional, and people will question if doing business with your company is safe. Instead, you want to take the time to ensure that your website stands out in the sea of competition and drives the customer to finalize a sale with you over doing business with anyone else. That depends on having a unique design that is easy to use while being visually stunning. This combination is something that can only be done when you work with a professional web designer.
Built for Your Business Not Just Another Template
As you can see, a $300 website is not a realistic approach for anyone who is serious about their business. It makes you look like a hobbyist who has just tossed something up and prevents your website from being taken seriously in an already competitive market. Instead, take the time to work with a professional company who will go the extra mile and ensure that your business has everything it needs to be successful online, with fewer threats, and be a website that people notice and feel comfortable with thanks to the quality web design it has.
