3 Ways Landing Page Software Can Improve Your Business

3 Ways Landing Page Software Can Improve Your Business

Should you build your landing pages from scratch?

That might be an interesting challenge if you are learning to code.

But in the business context, even if you have the skills to do it, it’s a terrible idea. Everyone is using landing page builders for a reason!

Introduction to Landing Pages

What is a Landing Page?

A landing page is a web page designed with a specific conversion goal in mind.

Classic landing pages are standalone web pages with their own domain names that don’t have any clickable elements except for the call-to-action buttons.

This means no navigation bar, no links to the blog, no links to social media, etc. If the visitor wants to leave the page, they need to either press the “Back” button in their browser or close the tab. 

The reasoning behind this is simple: every clickable element that is not a call-to-action button lowers the conversion rate because it distracts the visitor from the conversion goal!

Lead Generation Landing Pages

The purpose of lead generation landing pages is to convert visitors into leads by persuading them to give you their contact details.

Typically, this means offering them a lead magnet in exchange for either just their email address or their name and email address. 

That being said, some companies ask for more information on their lead generation landing pages as a way to qualify leads. 

That might mean asking the visitor for additional contact details such as their phone number or for more context such as the name of the company that they work for, the size of that company, their job title, etc.

Something to keep in mind here is that the more information you ask on the landing page, the lower the conversion rate of that landing page is going to be. So you want to think carefully about what information you need at this stage in your sales funnel.

Generally, we recommend only asking for the visitor’s email address because that will allow you to get the highest number of leads that you can then qualify in the next stages of your funnel.

Of course, if you find yourself overwhelmed by the number of incoming low-quality leads, then you might want to start asking for more information up front to weed out the ones that are the least likely to convert into paying customers.

Sales Landing Pages

The purpose of sales landing pages is to convert visitors into paying customers by persuading them to buy your product or service.

Typically, online marketers refer to lead generation landing pages as “landing pages” and to sales landing pages as “sales pages”.

Though sometimes you do see them call sales landing pages “landing pages” as well. It can be somewhat confusing!

That’s why whenever you are reading something about “landing pages” you need to make sure that you know exactly what type of landing page that person is talking about!

What’s the Difference Between a Landing Page and a Website?

A landing page by definition has only one conversion goal while a website can have several conversion goals.

While classic landing pages don’t have any clickable elements except for the call-to-action buttons, websites typically feature a navigation bar, email opt-in forms, a blog, links to social media profiles, etc. 

Consequently, due to all these potential distractions, websites tend to convert much worse than landing pages. 

In fact, you don’t even need a website to start making money online, you can build a sales funnel and then drive traffic directly to your lead magnet landing page. That being said, you should probably still have one because that’s what people have come to expect.

After all, if someone googles your company and can’t find a business website, that might sketch them out. Remember that it’s important to not just be legit but also to look legit in the eyes of your dream customers!

Can You Have a Landing Page on Your Website?

Nowadays, it’s common to use a hybrid approach where a website’s homepage is basically a lead generation landing page except that it has a navigation bar.

Typically, the homepage is the page that gets the most traffic, so using a landing page design for it makes sense because it allows business owners to make the most out of that traffic.

For example, our homepage has a navigation bar like you would expect from a traditional website but it was designed with a single conversion goal in mind like a landing page.

In fact, not just our homepage but our entire website has a single conversion goal: we want to persuade visitors to sign up for our free 14-day trial.

That’s why most of the pages on our website feature “Start Your Free Trial Today” call-to-action buttons.

This allows us to meet the expectations of our dream customers who are used to software companies having traditional websites while also making the most out of the traffic that we get.

That being said, we also have a bunch of classic standalone lead generation landing pages with their own domain names.

We recommend using the same hybrid approach: implement landing page design principles on your website and also have standalone landing pages for your lead magnets. Why limit yourself when you can get the best of both worlds?

How Landing Page Software Can Help You Improve Your Business

Okay, so now that we are clear on what landing pages are, let’s discuss the three key benefits of using landing page software.

#1: Landing Page Software Enables You to Quickly Test and Validate Ideas

One of the most common mistakes that entrepreneurs make is taking ages to get things done. They lack speed of implementation!

This might seem like a productivity issue at first glance but when you take a closer look, it quickly becomes obvious that it’s in fact a mindset issue. How so?

They haven’t tested their idea, they haven’t gotten market feedback, they haven’t gathered and analyzed the data… Yet they are obsessing over irrelevant minutiae!

In the startup world, this phenomenon is known as “premature optimization” and it’s a trap that pretty much all entrepreneurs continue falling into until they learn their lesson. But what does any of this have to do with landing pages?

Entrepreneurs often spend way too much time tinkering with landing pages because they want to get the design, the copy, and the offer just right before they start driving traffic.

And if you are building your landing page from scratch, it will slow you down even more. You will waste time coding the entire thing yourself when landing page software could generate a landing page for you in a matter of seconds!

The problem here is that you are hoping to create a perfect landing page without any market feedback and only then present it to your dream customers. 

But you need market feedback to know if what you are doing is working. And until you put your offer in front of your target audience, you are literally just guessing what might work!

That’s why a much better way to go about it is to create your landing page as fast as possible and then start driving traffic to it to see if it converts. 

Landing page software enables you to do that because it drastically speeds up the process of building landing pages. 

This allows you to quickly test and validate your ideas before you start pouring resources into them!

#2: Landing Page Software Provides Proven Landing Page Templates that Have Been Optimized for Conversions

Pretty much all landing page builders include a library of landing page templates that have been optimized for conversions.

This is extremely helpful because designing your landing page from scratch is a terrible idea unless you are familiar with the principles of conversion rate optimization.

You see, online marketers have been relentlessly optimizing landing pages for at least two decades now. So at this point, it’s pretty clear what works and what doesn’t when it comes to landing page design.

And sure, there are always exceptions, maybe some crazy innovative idea that you have will boost your conversion rate. That’s quite unlikely, though.

Generally speaking, if you want your landing pages to convert, you should follow the established landing page design principles.

So pick a template from the template library, customize it to match your branding, add copy to it and publish it.

Once your landing page is live, start driving traffic to it so that you can establish its baseline conversion rate.

Then, once you have that baseline conversion rate, you can begin optimizing your landing page with A/B testing.

#3: Landing Page Software Enables You to Optimize Your Landing Page With A/B Testing

A/B testing, also known as split testing, is the primary conversion rate optimization technique that online marketers use to optimize web pages for conversions.

The main idea is this: you create two variants of the same page with just one difference between them, then drive an equal amount of traffic to both variants and see which one of them converts better. 

Say, you can create two variants of the same landing page where the only difference between them is the call-to-action button color: on one page the button is red and on the other page it’s green. Other than that the pages should be identical.

Driving an equal amount of traffic to both variants will show you what effect the button color has on the conversion rate.

In fact, this is exactly what Performable did in their famous A/B test that led to online marketers developing an obsession with call-to-action button colors.

Here are the two-page variants that they tested. Which one do you think converted better?

Two nearly identical web pages comparing a green "Get Started Now!" button on the left with a red "Get Started Now!" button on the right, both encouraging user action towards a service called Performable.

When Performable’s team decided to run this test, they expected these two-page variants to have similar conversion rates. Surely a call-to-action button color wouldn’t make much of a difference, right?

But to their surprise, the variant with the red call-to-action button outperformed the variant with the green call-to-action button by 21%!

It’s not entirely clear why that was the case. Some believe that it was because the red button stood out more in that particular color scheme while others argue that it’s related to color psychology and that color red is just generally a better choice for call-to-action buttons. 

The takeaway here is that A/B testing various elements of your landing page can help you significantly increase its conversion rate.

Another takeaway is that you need to keep an open mind: a seemingly minor change like a call-to-action button color might have a drastic impact on the conversion rate. 

You can’t really predict the outcomes of A/B tests so you need to keep running these experiments and hopefully, you’ll eventually stumble onto a big win. 

That being said, you shouldn’t scoff at the small wins either because a 1% conversion rate increase here and a 3% conversion rate increase there can add up over time. 

Typically, landing page builders either include a native A/B testing functionality or can be easily integrated with A/B testing software. So they enable you to not just create landing pages but also to optimize them for conversions!

Specialized Landing Page Software vs. All-in-One Marketing Platforms

There are two types of landing page builders:

  • Specialized landing page apps that only include the functionality that you need to create landing pages.
  • All-in-one marketing platforms that aim to provide everything that you need to build an online business.

Let’s discuss the pros and cons of each option:

Specialized Landing Page Software

Specialized landing page apps tend to be much cheaper than all-on-one platforms because their functionality is so limited.

Going with a specialized landing page app makes sense if you don’t have anything to sell yet but want to start building an email list.

In that case, all you need in order to set up a simple lead generation funnel is landing page software and an email marketing app. This can be super affordable!

All-in-One Marketing Platforms

All-in-one marketing platforms tend to be much more expensive than specialized landing page apps because their functionality is much broader.

Going with an all-in-one marketing platform makes sense if you have an established business already or at least know what kind of business you want to start!

How to Choose the Right Landing Page Software for Your Business

Here are the three key factors that you should consider when choosing landing page software:

Pricing

Realistically, your budget is probably going to be your main constraint so you need to decide how much money you are willing to spend on software. 

As we just discussed, landing page builders vary wildly in terms of functionality and that is reflected in their pricing.

A basic landing page app might only cost a few bucks per month while a sophisticated all-in-one platform is more likely to be somewhere in the $150 – $300/month range.

It’s important to look not just at the price tag of any given solution but also at how the functionality that it provides will fit into your business workflow.

You may come to realize that paying for an all-in-one platform and paying for a bunch of different apps cost a similar amount of money but the latter option comes with all kinds of additional headaches!

Features

Here are the basic features that you will need in order to build landing pages:

  1. A landing page template library
  2. A visual editor that you can use to customize those templates
  3. An email marketing functionality that you can use to collect email addresses, set up automated email sequences, and send one-off broadcast emails
  4. A way to take orders and accept payments if you want to create not just lead-generation landing pages but also sales landing pages

Any landing page app will have the first two as that is the core functionality of landing page builders.

As for email marketing, you can either go with landing page software that has an in-built email marketing functionality or use a separate email marketing app for that.

And when it comes to taking orders and accepting payments, it all depends on what it is that you want to sell.

For example, if you want to sell services, ebooks, or downloadable software, all you need is a “Buy” button. You can then handle the rest of the transaction via email.

But if you want to sell online courses, start a membership community, or launch an e-commerce store, then you’ll need the functionality that enables you to do that.

In general, the more sophisticated your business, the more it makes sense to go with an all-in-one platform that provides all or most of the functionality that you need to run it.

If this is the beginning of your entrepreneurial journey, you can start with a simple landing page app + email marketing app + payment processor setup and then add more functionality as your business grows. 

That is the frugal approach but it can create problems down the road once you have an established business and need to move everything to a new platform, teach your team how to use it, and change all your existing standard operating procedures (SOPs).

Alternatively, you can build your business on an all-in-one platform right from the get-go, which will be more expensive but also prevent the aforementioned problems associated with making the move later. 

Integrations

If you already have an established business, then you also need to consider how your landing page software will fit into your existing workflow.

Ideally, you want to go with a landing page builder that offers integrations with the apps that you are already using. 

Also, when you are evaluating different options, check for a Zapier integration because it can enable you to connect that landing page builder with thousands of popular web apps. 

Finally, if you have access to technical resources, meaning, you either know how to code yourself or can afford to hire a developer, you might want to see which landing page builders provide APIs.

Having API access can enable you to develop custom integrations and streamline your workflow beyond what’s possible with native integrations or Zapier! 

ClickFunnels: The All-in-One Marketing Platform that has Everything You Need!

ClickFunnels is an all-in-one marketing platform that has everything you need to start, manage, and grow an online business!

ClickFunnels Features

Here are some of ClickFunnels’ most notable features:

  • Websites – Our software includes proven website templates that have been optimized for conversions and a visual drag-and-drop website builder that you can use to customize those templates and create your business website.
  • Lead generation and sales landing pages – Our software includes proven landing page templates that have been optimized for conversions and a visual drag-and-drop page editor that you can use to customize those templates and create landing pages.
  • Lead generation and sales funnels – Our software includes proven funnel templates that have been optimized for conversions and a visual drag-and-drop funnel editor that you can use to customize those templates and create sales funnels for your business. You can also build funnels from scratch!
  • Email marketing – Our software includes an email marketing functionality that you can use to collect email addresses, set up automated email sequences, and send one-off broadcast emails.

    There are also some advanced features such as list segmentation and email workflows that can help you make your email content more targeted and relevant.
  • Online courses – Our software includes an online course functionality. You can use our proven course templates and our course builder to create your courses.

    There are also various course management features that allow you to manage course enrollment, track the progress of your students and control their access to course content.
  • Membership websites – Our software includes a membership site builder that you can use to create a paid online community that revolves around exclusive content.

    This functionality was designed with community “stickiness” in mind and has various features that can help you reduce churn, such as the survey feature that you can use to get feedback from your members.
  • Ecommerce stores – Our software includes an ecommerce functionality that you can use to create an online store.

    Pick one of our proven online store templates, use our store editor to customize it, add products to your catalog and start selling them with cart funnels.

    There are also various inventory tracking, shipping, and fulfillment features that can help you manage the logistics of running an e-commerce business.
  • CRM – Our software includes a customer relationship management (CRM) functionality that you can use to centralize all contact information in one place, make notes about each contact that you can then refer back to later, and see everything that is happening in your sales pipeline on a single dashboard.
  • A/B testing – Our software includes an A/B testing functionality that you can use to optimize your entire sales funnel. What’s cool is that you can test more than two versions of a given variable at the same time, which can really speed up the conversion rate optimization process!
  • Analytics – Our software includes an analytics functionality that you can use to keep track of the most important business metrics. It also allows you to see the short-term and long-term performance of your marketing campaigns and to compare those campaigns with each other. This can help you figure out what marketing strategies work best for your business!

In short:

Our software can replace landing page builders, funnel builders, website builders, online course builders, membership site builders, email marketing apps, customer relationship management apps, e-commerce platforms, A/B testing apps and more!

So why pay for a bunch of different software subscriptions when you can get all the functionality that you need in one place?

Infographic titled "ClickFunnels Gives You Everything You Need To Succeed Online" listing features such as Sales Funnels, Websites, Online Courses, Email Marketing, Lead Generation, CRM, and more.

ClickFunnels Integrations

ClickFunnels offers native integrations with some of the most popular web apps. We also have a Zapier integration!

A grid of icons and brief descriptions for various marketing tool integrations, including ActiveCampaign, Aweber, ClickFunnels Classic, Constant Contact, and others, with a heading at the top.

ClickFunnels API and Webhooks

If you want to streamline your workflow even more, you can use our API and webhooks to create custom integrations!

ClickFunnels Pricing

We currently have two pricing plans:

  • The Startup plan that costs $97/month. A 30% recurring commission would be $29.10/month.
  • The Pro plan that costs $297/month. A 30% recurring commission would be $89.10/month.

It’s also worth noting that the Startup and Pro plans include API access that you can use to create custom integrations!

Comparison chart of ClickFunnels pricing plans: Basic at $127/month, Pro at $157/month, and Funnel Hacker at $208/month. Each column lists features and offers a Free Trial button.

ClickFunnels Official Facebook Group

Screenshot of the ClickFunnels (Official) Facebook group page, showcasing an advertisement for the "One Funnel Away Challenge." The group is private with 297.7K members and a "Join Group" button.

We know that entrepreneurship can be a lonely path.

That’s why we created our official Facebook group which has 297.7k members from all over the world at the time of writing.

This is a super active community: our members created 53 posts just today and a total of 734 new posts last month.

It’s a great place to meet other entrepreneurs, discuss cutting-edge marketing strategies, and make new business connections.

And if you have questions about sales funnels, you can ask them there as well!

What Real Customers Say About ClickFunnels

Image of a testimonial for ClickFunnels by a user named James Smiley, highlighting positive results from using the service, including generating $1.7M from a single webinar.
A testimonial image featuring Jaime Cross. She shares her success story of switching from a Shopify site to ClickFunnels, growing her business from $0 to over $130,000 in 6 weeks selling soap and lotion.
A testimonial from Trey Lewellen about ClickFunnels highlighting improvements in accessing customer data, website building, and self-reliance on other platforms or programmers, with a portrait on the left.
A woman smiling alongside a testimonial stating ClickFunnels simplifies tasks like membership software and landing pages. The quote is attributed to a verified user, Liz Benny.
A testimonial from Rachel Pederson, a ClickFunnels user, alongside her photo. She explains that ClickFunnels helped her expand her business reach and impact by leveraging social media strategies.

Try ClickFunnels Risk-Free!

Let’s be real:

We are biased in favor of our software.

So we understand if you take what we say about it with a grain of salt.

Fortunately, we have a free 14-day trial, so you don’t have to take our word for it. 

You can go and see ClickFunnels for yourself without any risk!

So what are you waiting for? 🧐

Start Your Free Trial Today

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