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You’re hustling – on social, speaking, whatever you can do to gain the attention and visibility you need to grow your business. But if your landing page isn’t up to snuff… all that effort will be wasted!

In this episode, we’ll walk through our exact formula for creating a high-converting landing page. From copy to design to our tech choices, we’ll cover it all. Make sure you have your pen and paper out for this one – we’re giving you the step-by-step play.

Episode 5 – Everything You Need To Know To Create a Killer Headline
Episode 29 – Our simple strategy that generated over 30k from one webinar in the middle of a pandemic
Episode 50 – Which List Build Is Right For Me?
Episode 16 – Good Funnel, Bad Funnel: How to tell if your funnel works and what to do when it doesn't
Want to get your own high-converting landing page done FOR you? Let’s schedule a call and see how we can help https://systemtothrive.com/thriveplan/

Alyson Lex 0:02
Before we talk about our format our formula for a high converting landing page, let's quickly talk about what a landing page is. You have a freebie, a free video, a free PDF, a free, download some templates, whatever you're offering for free. your landing page is the mechanism to get them on your email list. It's designed to get people to take that action to register for that thing. That is the only purpose of your landing page. There are some benchmarks that you should be focused on how many people are landing on that page versus how many people opt in. That's it. Those are the only benchmarks you want to know. If you want to increase conversions, there is a format that we recommend that you follow. There's a look and feel that we recommend that you have. And we're going to break it all down on today's episode.

Jennie Wright 0:54
Also, and I have made this into a little bit of a science, trial and error over the years has helped us get our landing pages with good copy and good looking or good formatted pages, anywhere between a 50 to even an 80 or sometimes even a 90% opt in rate. So if 100 people are landing on your page, how many people do you want actually to opt in? industry standard is somewhere around 26% or 33%. Depending on the industry, there's actually a whole ream of information where you can actually look at opt in rates, depending on your the industry that you're in. Depends, but those are the industry standards. Do you really want 100 people landing on a page? And are you okay, with only 29 people registering? Why not maximize it? Before we get into the format. One thing that we do need to mention is the the technical of it. Building a landing page is not apples to apples on all these different landing page builders. There's clickfunnels and LeadPages and kajabi and kartra and go high level, there's a million different landing page software's they do not all convert the same, I get this question a lot. Why not? Because our eyes have a particular way of accessing and interpreting information that it sees visually, some of these landing pages have worked very hard to make that an experience that your eyes and everything that sensory sort of experience, love and help you convert better, faster, stronger, no better or faster. And, and, and more often.

Alyson Lex 2:38
That was in my head too.

Jennie Wright 2:40
I couldn't help it. You have to you have to it's almost like you have to complete the sentence. So the these this matters, too. So you have to look at your page building, I will tell you that the same landing page that Allison and I built in kajabi, the exact same landing page with the exact same copy the exact same graphics and everything was converting on a landing page in kajabi. At 14%. We moved it to Click Funnels later on the same day and it converted at 53%. Same traffic, different landing different landing page builder, slightly different look and feel in terms of how that page builder made that information. Look when it was live. And that matters.

Alyson Lex 3:18
It does. But we're going to give you that format that formula so that no matter what builder you're using, you at least have the best opportunity possible. Okay, your first step is going to be your headline. I know we've talked about this before. I think we probably have an episode on the headlines. I think it may even be like episode number five. If it is we'll put it in the show notes. Benefit driven, customer focused. You really want actually just go back. I'm good. It's Episode Five. Just go back and listen to Episode Five about headlines. Okay, because I could spend, obviously it did, we spent an entire episode talking about that. Get your headline dialed in. Okay. You might want to do a video. Sometimes, I kind of forego the video, when I'm doing just a quick guide or some some things like that. But when I'm doing a webinar, a challenge, a summit, a video series, a workshop, anything that's a little bit more intense on the effort that we want them to put forth to actually consume our thing. A video is key, we want them to start to get to know you. And this does not have to be a heavily scripted video. It does not have to be I actually I just kind of like, get the details in front of me and I just rambled. But that's my personal style. Go with your personal style. All right, and then we have a button button is usually better if it denotes an action, like send me my report, or save my seat. Right from the perspective of the person visiting the page versus something like download now or just submit. Testing is key. So if you want to test those things out, we could do a whole nother episode on AB or split testing, or you can just Google it. All of this information in a perfect world would be above the fold. All right above the fold is a newspaper term. If you think about newsstands, that would have like the stack of the New York Times, for instance, they're all folded, folded up very neatly, which you can never recapture. But the best stuff is on page one at the top, above where it's folded in half. That's where above the fold comes from. What it means is when they land on the page, it's on their screen. This is for desktop, laptop, or tablet, phones are more forgiving, because we are more used to scrolling on phones on mobile. So desktop, laptop, tablet, tablet, that's really hard to say fast desktop laptop tablet, above the fold phones more forgiving. Your headline your video, if you have one and your button should be above the fold

Jennie Wright 6:26
button that she's talking about the button is the action taken. If you click on the button, it should open a pop up. Or it should lead to a form later on during the page where somebody can enter their name and email, the button has to go somewhere. So make sure that button gets people to take an action. Below that is one of my favorite parts. This is the problem that you're solving. This can be in paragraph format, it connects them, it connects them to the pain of the problem they're experiencing, and it offers the solution. So you can do this in I like doing this in like the three secrets, or the three keys, or the three something or the four something, it doesn't have to be nine points. We don't want to overwhelm people in this area, you're not trying to solve nine different issues, you're solving a very distinct issue, probably maximum of three little issues, to get people to see a result. And guess what comes right after that. Another button, multiple buttons on the same page. The reason being is we've done one scroll, we've been above the fold for the first part. Now we're at that second, we're at that, you know, we've already passed that first scroll and we're at the second scroll up, you practically want to have a rule of thumb of having a call to action or the button every time they have to scroll up their screen. So it's constantly in front of them to take action.

Alyson Lex 7:54
This is a big deal. The button on every one to two scrolls, or one might be too many to you know, go like one and a half to two. Okay, we do not want them to have to go all the way back up to the top of the page to do your thing. amazon.com breaks this rule and it drives me crazy. I wonder how many more sales they would have. If they had a Buy button or an Add to Cart button below the reviews.

Jennie Wright 8:28
Right or even just one that like hooked on statically at the bottom.

Alyson Lex 8:32
I don't understand it. But whatever. Okay, after that button, we're going to have a Who is this for? This is three columns, three bullet points. And if you don't have a who this is for, which I really suggest you do, you could do like three things you'll discover, which I have done in one of my lead magnets. And it does have a high conversion rate. So they work. These are just maybe a little icon with with some text under it or something like that in three columns across the page. We'll talk about the look and feel but it does help break up the page. Then, even if you're doing a PDF or a quick download, tell them about you.

Jennie Wright 9:26
This breaks rules by the way this break some rules, lots of rules

Alyson Lex 9:30
that we were tighten. We're creating our own rules here,

Jennie Wright 9:33
but it works.

Alyson Lex 9:35
It totally works. Now this is not like a full comprehensive resume. This is not I do not want to see a bullet point that talks about your college degrees. You're going to introduce yourself. You're going to say something like I've seen XYZ problem, and that's why I'm excited to solve it. I understand that problem. You know, you're feeling This way, get on their side. And we have a landing page that we have a bunch of landing pages that you can check this out. Alright, just look for us, you'll find it go to System to THRIVE comm slash content, you can pick up the content generator there. But you can also see how we set up a landing page. All right, you're going to put all of this in terms that they care about. And then what do you think you're going to put under it?

Jennie Wright 10:28
Two guesses, the first one doesn't count

Alyson Lex 10:31
a button. This is the end of your page. And again, we don't want them to have to scroll back up. So the last thing they're gonna see is a button, you're gonna have a nice headline a call to action headline like, you know, don't miss out on I don't know, I'm writing this as we speak, right. So if I'm offering a guide on how to lose 10 pounds, it might be get rid of that stubborn 10 pounds for good button. Write just a headline and then a button. And that's it. So it's still pretty short and sweet when you compare it to a sales page for a program or product. But it's longer than just a headline, and an opt in form. There's a real reason for this. There's a lot of marketing out there these days. And if you want people to want to engage with you, they have to know who you are.

Jennie Wright 11:35
There's also different types of learners and readers. There's the skimmers, there's the I read just the headline and I'm in third, the I read every word on the page, before I make my decision. There's multiple different types of readers and learners and you need to appeal to them. I'll send an eye we're both taught the method way back in the day of headline, opt in video, opt in box, nothing else. Okay, headline, opt in video, opt in box. And that's it. There's a problem with that there's a very, very big problem with that. Did it work back in the day, the super wild west days of the online where didn't really matter what you put out there, people were going to register for it. Yeah, it worked. But now people are a lot more discerning people read more of the fine print, people are a little bit more skeptical because a lot of people have been taken for a bit of a ride. This is why it is so important that you lay this out exactly what they're going to get exactly what they're they're going to learn exactly what it is that you're trying to connect with. And exactly the pain points in the language that your ideal client uses to help to share their story.

Unknown Speaker 12:53
Now,

Jennie Wright 12:53
the last thing in our formula is a pop up. There are two camps, the lovers and the haters. pop ups tend to get people into one of those two camps. I'm a lover. I know lots of haters. But I love my pop ups because they do help at about a 5% opt in rate, they actually improve your upgrade by up to 5%. Three to 5% is the average. And if they're well written and they're short and sweet, and they look good, they can help up to 5%. And this is for both mobile and desktop, tablet, and laptop. So I always use a pop up, because it does help with those conversions. And so the actually the last thing people see as they try and leave and by the way, the pop up is not a 10 seconds in and I'm going to keep popping up and driving you say insane. It's, it's generated only when you try and leave the page. That's it.

Alyson Lex 13:49
Yeah, so that's called an exit intent pop up. And a lot of times, pop up haters just hate those ones that show up on the page. Okay, they don't mind the exit intent, especially if it doesn't prevent you from taking the action you wanted to take. The ones that I don't like are the ones that gray out the whole screen. I can't do anything until I find that little tiny. No, no, that's so scary. Right. Now, also, I mentioned button and Jenny said it can scroll to a form. I actually like using a pop up form. The reason is that it's a micro commitment. Alright, and this is like, well, all psychology here. They click the button that says you know, save my seat, and then a pop up happens. They're already halfway committed. They've already said yes, they want it. Now they just have to make it happen. So micro commitments are really helpful. pop ups help with that. And you can use the same pop up as your exit intent. And that only shows up when they go to exit the page.

Jennie Wright 14:58
There's a really interest conversation around look and feel whether or not your page has to be pretty or ugly, there was a period of time way back in the late like late 2008. Early like up until about the early 20 1320 fourteens. were ugly pages worked. They worked, they converted, because people didn't care. They didn't care. It was down and dirty. And you know, it didn't matter if the colors look good, or the fonts were good or anything, it was, wow, this is something I need. I don't care what it looks like, I'm going to get it. Ugly versus pretty. People are a little bit more discerning now. And yes, I absolutely think that visually, things need to be more appealing. You know, don't have six different fonts on your landing page. Don't use 12 different colors, and one of them being fuchsia pink, you know, or bright pink, neon yellow, whatever. Try unless it's your brand. Okay, but try and making it more pretty Alison's giggling her head off at me right now. But the ugly vs pretty thing still live, I still see ugly pages. And I can prove to you I can prove to you that pretty converts better than ugly. And I don't mean pretty with flowers and fairies and crap, I mean, pretty in in, it's just visually more appealing to your ideal client. So if your ideal client, if you're going to teach your ideal client, how to use a potato gun, and you want to sell potato guns, then you're going to have cammo and fun and a bunch of teenager teenagers and the colors are gonna be different, and the coffee's gonna be different. If you're speaking to women who want to be boss babes, it's going to be a little bit of a different look and feel if your whole opt in is how to help your puppy puppy training, it's going to have pawprints and dogs and stuff, right? So pretty versus ugly is going to depend on your market and your niche. Just to put that into perspective. Images are no images. Oh, this is a pet peeve of mine, a huge pet peeve of mine. Back when I first started, the way to get people to opt in was just to have text on the page. We mentioned that before text, opt in video, if you're lucky button. That's it. Now, we're a little bit more visually discerning. So we want images. And we want to relate to those images. So we want to make sure that we as the potential consumer are seen in what it is being offered. So your whole page isn't pictures of you, or pretty flat lays of pencils with golden paper clips and stuff necessarily. Although those look really cool. People have to see themselves actually getting the thing and joining the thing and doing the thing. Now, it again depends on the audience. But this does help more than hinder.

Alyson Lex 18:11
When you write your bio, do not write it as if you are creating a research paper. Make it first person, make it real, make it as if you're speaking to them. I start mine with Hi, I'm Alison, I'm a copywriter and a crazy cat lady. I was Once bitten by a giraffe but that has no bearing on this, like I put my personality into it and I am speaking directly to the person on the page. Okay, I could probably do a whole nother episode on just the bio, and maybe I will maybe I'll do a quick tip on it. But I mentioned earlier, you don't always have to have a video. But if you're asking them to invest time and energy and effort with you, a video is better. Video is essential if it's a larger thing, like a webinar, or a summit or a challenge or something like that. Okay. I also want to take a minute to talk about readability. This is something that a lot of people miss. And frankly, I just thought of it when Jenny mentioned neon yellow. Okay, yellow is a really hard color to read. And if you've seen a picture of me, you've seen these nice black square glasses on my face, which means I am very qualified to talk about what is and what is not hard to read, because my eyesight sucks. And my eyesight has sucked for a very long time. So consider that you do not know what kind of screen your OPT in page is going to be shown on what kind of eyesight your person is going to have and what kind of conditions the room or area will be. If I can't read Your opt in page, I'm not going to opt in. Consider your colors. Yellow is hard to read yellow on blue hurts. Reverse color, which is light text on dark background should be used sparingly. It hurts after a while. Script fonts look really pretty, make them too small. I can't read them. They're they're hard to read. And the younger your audience, the less likely it is that they can read cursive at all. Okay, and that is not at all Allison's opinion about the school system. But

Jennie Wright 20:45
I'm with you, though. I'm with you.

Alyson Lex 20:47
The older they are, the worse their eyes are the older older eyes not as great as young eyes, the younger they are the right like you really need to consider all of this and look at every element of your page is I have seen pages where there's a background image and you can't read the text that's overlaid on it. They compete if you really need to be critical of your design, to make sure that it's consumable. Absolutely.

Jennie Wright 21:23
I think the last thing to mention is the video versus no video. But you don't necessarily have to have a video, but Allison was talking about this before, if you are going to have a video, it should be something that actually helps for people to take a deeper commitment and understand you better, you don't necessarily need a video for a PDF download or a checklist. But if you're asking for more of a commitment in terms of time and energy from people, such as a webinar, a challenge or summit, then you should be doing a video, you should be doing a video that helps to connect people to who you are and what you do. And also it again speaks to those different learners, there's different types of people who land on the page. I think that's important. I promise to keep this to the point and help you understand a little bit of the formula that Allison I use, there's more to it. And if you want to connect more with Allison and I on this, and go to System to thrive.com, and see what it would be like to work with us, you can go and check out the work with us page. And if you need more help with something like this, if you actually just kind of want to build so you don't have to worry about all this stuff, because this isn't stuff to take into consideration, then you know what, look at us see if we can hire, see if you can hire us to take care of this for you a couple takeaways from today's episode, which I think are going to be helpful. You want to cater to the different types of visitors that you'll have on your page, skimmers, readers everywhere, people, you want to make sure that you take care of all of them. And it covers it. That's why the formula that Allison and I laid out has all of those different areas, it covers all these all those areas, from the headlines to the buttons to the about them to the about you to the this and that and the problems, right. And it's not the wild west of the web anymore. putting stuff out there and knowing that it will succeed just doesn't happen. You have to give people more information than you originally may have thought. You also help have to really connect with their pain, and really understand what it is that is they're experiencing before they want to take an action with you. So make sure that you do that make sure that you're covering all those bases and all those points.

Alyson Lex 23:27
As Jenny mentioned, your page builder matters. They all have a different look and feel. And that may resonate with your brand. And it may not and it will change your OPT in rates. And I can't guarantee which way which builder is going to change that rate by the way. Right? I we have our experience and our preference. But I make no guarantees that preference and experience will carry on to yours. Hashtag disclaimer. Also, this is the if you take one thing away from this episode, take this one. Do not make your people scroll to opt in because they won't. Okay, I have I will tell you I have abandoned the idea of purchasing something on Amazon because I do not feel like scrolling all the way back up to add it to my cart. I just don't care that much.

Jennie Wright 24:26
And people say a fit in their heads like screw this. I'm done. You're done.

Alyson Lex 24:30
Okay, give them buttons frequently enough so that they can get to that action step easily. Don't overdo it. We don't want to button every third line. But, again, look critically at your page. Look at the experience you're asking your people to have and determine whether you would be willing to put up with that experience.

Jennie Wright 25:02
There's a lot here to look at, there's a lot of things to consider when you're making a landing page. It's actually easier than it sounds though. Once you've done this once, you can pretty much take the same landing page, duplicate it, change it up for whatever it is that you're offering. And then just use it again and, and always try to improve your first landing page may hit the mark all the way through, and it could convert really, really well. Your first landing page may not. And that's okay. You have to sometimes take a couple lumps to learn what works. What works for Allison's audience does not necessarily work for mine. Her audience likes a completely different tone. Mine prefers a different tone on my pages, the look and feel can be a little bit the same. Luckily, our people have that same sort of visual appeal. But the quality and the difference in the in the copy does matter. Look at that as well. If you need help with something like this, again, go to System to THRIVE COMM And check out the work with us tab where Elsa and I can potentially help you figure all this stuff out in terms of either giving you some strategy and a strategy call. Or you can say I just don't want to deal with this, please build it for me. And we shall. So take a look at something like that. Head on over to System to thrive.com. And check that out. We've got a couple of resources for this episode. So make sure you go to the episode page for this particular episode. So you can grab that as well. Chris System to thrive.com forward slash 77 zero to check that out. And if you're listening to the podcast, please do follow us wherever it is that you're listening so that you don't miss any of these episodes going forward with Elsa and I and as well with our experts for the episodes that come out on Tuesdays. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back again soon answering another big question.