Landing pages are a vital part of any marketing strategy. 

As online attention spans shrink, a short, focused version of your message will convert better than a lengthy, cluttered page. Plus, landing pages are much easier to test and track than a standard web page – making it easier to target specific audiences, support a particular marketing message, or try out new messaging styles. 

Thankfully, creating landing pages in WordPress is easy. So, it’s easy for any business to get started. You just need to ensure and utilize landing page best practices to get the most out of them. 

In this article, we’ll dive into WordPress landing page best practices that will help you create campaigns that inspire action and improve conversions. 

Have a Clear Conversion Goal

Every WordPress landing page you create should have a clearly defined conversion goal, like generating leads, inspiring customers to purchase a product or service, or promoting a special sale. Everything you do on the page should align in supporting this goal. 

Make Your Headline Count

You hooked the person with your digital advertisement, email marketing, or other tactic to push them to your landing page. Now that they’re on the page, you must hook them quickly and move them to your conversion goal. This can start (or end) with your headline. So, ensure it grabs the audience’s attention, lets them know your value proposition, and entices them to continue down the page. If you’re stuck on where to start, try clearly addressing your audience’s pain point and highlighting your unique benefits. 

Establish a Single Call-to-Action

As previously mentioned, landing pages should be singularly focused and targeted on a specific conversion goal. If you have multiple CTAs across the page, this will distract and confuse visitors. Instead, choose one CTA that aligns with your plan. You can and should use it repeatedly throughout your page (top, middle, and bottom). Be sure it’s easily identifiable with contrasting colors, has a good design, and uses action language to encourage visitors to click through. 

Unclutter the Page

The more extra stuff on your WordPress landing page, the easier it will be for your visitors to get distracted. Try to keep things as clean and minimal as possible, using only what’s necessary to support your conversion goal. This will also help you get a faster loading time, which will help improve the user experience. Some landing page best practices even suggest removing navigation bars so nothing else can divert the visitor’s attention. 

Support With Visuals

While you do want to keep things minimalistic and straightforward, well-placed visuals will still help engagement and conversion. Don’t be afraid to include high-quality images, videos, or illustrations where necessary. These are best used to replace any lengthy explanatory copy or when they can clearly demonstrate a use case. Be sure to fully optimize any visuals to ensure they load quickly and look professional on the page. 

Optimize for Mobile

Most internet browsing is done on mobile devices today. So, it’s vital to ensure a streamlined mobile experience. Many businesses are designing WordPress landing pages specifically for mobile first and then considering desktop after the fact. Mobile landing page best practices include quick loading times, responsive design, and intuitive CTAs. 

Communicate Clearly (Without the Fluff)

You’ve convinced the visitor to click through to your landing page. But that doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed unlimited attention spans. Now that they’re on your landing page, it’s time to get to the meat of your offer without anything unnecessary. Try to create a sense of urgency by addressing their pain points. Also, break up the copy so it’s easy on the eye. Use bullet points, subheadings, and short paragraphs for easy readability.

Don’t Forget the Social Proof

It’s long been a landing page best practice to include social proof that supports your conversion goal. Social proof is an excellent way to alleviate remaining doubts or hesitation in your visitor’s mind. Try to include social proof that aligns with your intended action. If you want people to sign up for your email newsletter, give quotes from people who have benefited from content you’ve sent in the past. If you’re selling a service, include customer ratings or testimonials. 

Use Landing Pages A LOT

Many businesses create a couple of landing pages and call it a day. But studies show that jumping up to 10-15 over 1-5 pages on your website significantly impacts conversions. For even better results (12 times the conversion rate), aim for more than 40 landing pages! It might initially seem excessive, but remember that landing pages can get super targeted. The more you can niche down your audience, the more effective the landing page will be in supporting your conversion goal. 

Test and Optimize

Don’t run one page and walk away. One of the most significant strengths of landing pages is that they are super easy to test, and changes are easily applied. A/B testing your landing pages is a fantastic way to find the messaging and design style that works best for your targeted audience. You’ll learn more about your customers and see what works best – a win-win! And sometimes, you’ll discover that particular landing page best practices don’t apply to your target audience. Maybe including visuals lowers conversion rates for your customers or social proof drives traffic away rather than convincing. That’s OK. As long as you’re discovering what works for you, that becomes your landing page best practice. 

Wrapping Up

Well-defined and targeted landing pages are essential to any digital marketer’s toolkit. They make it easy to track and analyze customer data, target specific audiences, and nudge visitors toward particular conversion goals. 

You can even start testing out landing pages on your own site without spending on external digital advertising. Simply use AdSanity’s self-hosting ads feature to place “advertisements” on your site highlighting specific offers or product features. Use these on-page ads to direct customers to targeted landing pages built for particular conversions. That way, you keep visitors from wandering around your site without a clear direction and discover which features or sales tactics resonate best with your target audience!

Get started self-hosting ads with AdSanity now.