A landing page is the difference between a visitor and a customer. When someone clicks an ad, an email or a social post, the page they land on decides whether they act. This guide from Loudmouse, a Perth web design and digital marketing agency, covers what makes a landing page convert and how to improve one you already have.
What is a landing page?
A landing page is a page built for one desired outcome: a conversion. That might be an enquiry, a booking, a download or a purchase. Unlike a home page, it does not try to do everything. It carries the message from the ad or post and makes the next step obvious.
Landing page, website or microsite?
- Landing page: one page, one goal, usually for a campaign.
- Microsite: a branded content hub outside your main website, for a campaign, product, event or app.
- Website: the home of your brand, serving many audiences and goals.
Eight elements of a landing page that converts
- One clear goal. Remove anything that distracts from the action you want.
- A message that matches the click. The headline should continue what the ad promised.
- Copy written for the audience. Speak to their problem and the result they want, in their words.
- A visible call to action. Repeat it down the page so it is always in reach.
- Proof. Reviews, results, logos and case studies reduce doubt.
- Speed on every device. The page must load fast, scale to any screen and stay reliable.
- Short, simple forms. Ask only for what you need to follow up.
- Accessibility. Colour contrast, captions for audio and video, and clear structure help every visitor.
Case study: Make Smoking History
Make Smoking History is a public health program supported by the WA government, Healthway and Cancer Council WA. It needed a seamless journey from social media ads to a landing page that helps people find support to quit. Loudmouse ran user experience and heat mapping analysis on the existing site to find the top-performing pages, rebuilt the information architecture, kept the site responsive on every device, gave the client an easy-to-edit backend and built to a minimum of AA accessibility.
The results: a 94.02% increase in average session duration on the campaign landing page and a 685% increase in conversions on that page, alongside a 37.4% increase in Facebook ad reach and a 477.7% increase in YouTube click-through rate.
How to improve a landing page you already have
- Check where visitors drop off, using analytics and heat maps.
- Compare the ad and the page side by side. Do they say the same thing?
- Test one change at a time: headline, call to action, form length or proof.
- Make sure conversion tracking is working, so you can see what each change does.
Search and paid traffic need different pages
Landing pages built for paid campaigns can also be search engine optimised, but each page should still focus on one audience and one action. For Google Ads, the closer the page matches the search, the better it tends to perform. See our guide to Google Ads management.
Landing page design in Perth
Loudmouse designs and builds landing pages, microsites and websites that turn campaign traffic into customers. See our web and landing page design service or browse our work.
