What is a landing page? By definition it seems clear, right? It’s a page you land on. But what is it and what is it designed to do? Before diving into that, let’s look at what a landing page is not. A landing page is not a website homepage. First off, websites are dead. Second, a homepage on a website is just a mishmash of information with no clear direction.
Visit any typical company website and all you see are endless sections, information, menus, and loads of options. Where do you click? And what do you do while visiting that website? The reason why websites are dead is because the internet has crowned a new king. Today, the sales funnel is the most relevant way to sell and make money online. Not a website.
Okay, if a homepage on a website isn’t a landing page, then what is? Unlike homepages or even other pages on a website, landing pages have a specific focus. They’re designed to lead you down one distinct path. By design, the landing page is there to boost conversions by promoting one specific action. Either they want you to fill out a form, click a button, make a purchase, and so on.
Most people understand how websites work. A website is just a collection of coded pages sitting on an internet-connected server somewhere in the world. You can access that webpage from a browser on your phone, tablet or your desktop. A website can contain a landing page but the intent of a landing page is different than a typical page on a website.
Landing pages are most often seen in sales funnels, which are also a collection of hosted pages on an internet-connected server. They guide prospects in a single direction. The direction depends on the objective. There are many objectives in business. And there is a landing page to fit every objective you can think of.
Landing pages work best when they present a potential solution for a problem the prospect is struggling with. It’s the promise to solve that problem that gets a prospect to take action. And depending on the objective of the landing page, that action could be as simple as filling out their contact details, putting in an application to join something, making a purchase, and so on.
Landing pages (sometimes called “squeeze pages”) are often part of lead generation funnels. In a lead generation funnel, the landing page is designed to generate leads. When you arrive at a squeeze page, the objective is clear. You’ll see a headline, an image, some copy and a call to action. This usually is designed to promote a free lead magnet. But not always.
Lead magnets are valuable pieces of information that come in all forms. They can be ebooks, checklists, cheat sheets, videos, free trials and more. However, the point of a lead magnet is to solve a problem the prospect is facing. The offer on this page is simple—provide your contact details in exchange for the free lead magnet that promises to solve a part of your problem.
Lead generation landing pages make a lot of money by filtering leads into your sales processes and follow-up emails. At that point, it’s your job to convert leads into buyers. Many touchpoints occur between a person becoming a lead and converting them into a customer. You must build rapport with that prospect. Meaning that they must get to know, like and trust you.
Sometimes the purpose of a landing page is to get the prospect to complete an application. These are usually part of application funnels. In an application funnel, the first step is usually the opt-in page. Unless the prospect is already part of your email list, the opt-in page collects the contact information before sending them to the application page.
The opt-in page has to create enough desire in the prospect that they’ll hurry to fill out the application. Application pages usually lead into a high-ticket product or service. Some examples include group coaching, one-on-one coaching, masterminds, home renovations, and more. These are designed to sell products and services from $3,000 to $300,000 and up.
Most arrive at a landing page after they’ve had some interaction with a person or business and want to dive deeper and learn more. Prospects who fill out an application on a landing page are usually experiencing a problem that they hope will be solved after applying. Applications also flip the script by forcing the prospect to prove why they’re worthy to join or purchase some product or service.
Tripwire landing pages have low-ticket front-end offers designed to convert browsers into buyers by dropping the threshold of risk. When you present a high-value but low-priced offer that solves a problem, it substantially boosts conversion rates. You’ve likely seen these many places but just haven’t realized it.
For example, you’ve likely seen free-plus-shipping offers where you can claim a free book (like this one) and all you need to do is cover a small shipping charge. Since it’s both expensive and time-consuming to acquire customers today, companies use these tripwire offers to get people in the door. Once they’re in and they’re receiving a lot of value, you can ascend them to higher-priced offers using ascension funnels.
Tripwires also help you make money fast because once a person takes a tripwire offer, they’re usually presented with the first upsell. An upsell is designed to help you increase revenue by extending a higher-priced offer during the sales process. These are one-click upsells that don’t require the reentry of credit card details. Customers are more likely to say yes after they’ve already purchased the lower-priced product because of the consistency principle. We want to stay consistent with our previous actions.
Challenge funnels have landing pages that drive people into a challenge. It can be a live challenge or a prerecorded challenge. These start as landing pages with the promise of a lead magnet. The next page is often an order form to join the challenge if it’s a paid challenge. The challenge order form may also come at a later date after several emails have gone out to the prospect.
The most successful challenges have been live challenges. In a live challenge you are working with prospects in real time to help solve a problem they’re experiencing. There are so many challenges out there that help with all aspects of a business. If you want to see an example of one of the best-selling challenges out there, look at this one.
Challenge funnels can help your business make money when done the right way. You’ll need sales funnel software for this. But don’t worry because our software has a 14-day free trial and includes premade templates and a drag-and-drop editor so you can build your challenge funnel with ease.
A Video Sales Letter (VSL) is a video version of a sales letter. So what is a sales letter? Sales letters are well-written letters that speak to a prospect about a specific problem and present a solution (offer) to them. The best sales letters are written by expert copywriters who know how to use psychological levers, social proof, and other tactics to get a prospect to take action.
VSL landing pages are simply landing pages that have a VSL as its primary video at the top. You can see an example of a VSL landing page on this free book offer. This page combines both a tripwire landing page with a VSL. It also has much of the content or the VSL below it. That’s because some people like to consume content in video format and others like to consume it in written format. That’s why it’s a good reason to create a hybrid landing page that combines both.
Since VSLs follow sales letters, to learn how to craft an excellent VSL make sure you read this. It breaks down all the components that make up a good sales letter. And in case you’re wondering, you don’t need to personally appear in the VSL. You can create a faceless VSL that will be just as impactful as one where you appear in it.
Webinars are presentations made on the web. They’re the evolution of teleseminars. Many successful companies have been built on the backs of webinars. That includes ClickFunnels, which was propelled to the masses with Russell Brunson’s Funnel Hacks webinar. Webinar landing pages are usually presented as registration pages for the live or prerecorded webinar.
Webinars are used to sell mid-ticket products and services. This ranges anywhere from $997 to $5k and up. For high-ticket products and services beyond that pricing, most will use an application funnel to close the sale over the phone. Phone closing typically works better for products and services in the tens of thousands of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars range.
The reason why webinars work so well is because they break false beliefs held by prospects. Everyone has beliefs about certain products, industries, their abilities and external factors that get in the way of the sale. Webinars are designed to shatter those beliefs and make the sale. You can get the blueprint for building successful webinars here.
Bridge pages are landing pages used for affiliate offers. Bridge pages help to bridge the divide between your email list and the affiliate offer. Think about it this way. When you promote an affiliate offer and you send traffic directly to the affiliate link, will you ever be able to contact that prospect again? No. You won’t. That’s why the top affiliates use bridge pages as their landing pages for affiliate programs.
The first step in a bridge funnel is to get the prospect to opt into your list. The opt-in is important so that you can communicate with the prospect before pushing them over to the affiliate offer. The opt-in should offer some value in exchange for their contact details. This could be the promise of a video, information, or some other lead magnet in exchange for their contact details.
Some affiliates will also build offers around their affiliate links and provide bonuses in the form of courses, eBooks, coaching, and other items they give away for free when they typically charge others for them. This helps to sweeten the pot for the affiliate offer. You can learn more about how to be successful with a bridge page here.
Product launch pages are some of the most profitable landing page types out there. However, to do a product launch relies on either having an existing list or sending a lot of traffic to an opt-in page. Product launches typically piggyback off of a solid lead magnet that solves a specific problem. The launch is a follow-up to that free offer.
The Product Launch Formula is a concept originally developed by Jeff Walker. It’s also been popularized by many leading marketers. Launches occur over several days with valuable video content dripping out for the first 3 days of the launch. On the fourth day, the offer is revealed and the cart is opened. Urgency and scarcity are used by communicating that the offer will only be open for a short period.
There are many daily deal sites out there that are making a lot of money by promoting different products every day. They make deals with companies and pick a new product to push out. This is a different take on landing pages because the concept is different. However, you can quickly build a daily deal landing page using these premade templates.
To promote a daily deal page you send traffic directly to an order page that has the deal. These deals have deep discounts or special deals arranged for this promotion. Once people order they land on a confirmation page with all the details. That’s where you can deliver the deal to them depending on what it is. This can be a coupon, access to a membership site, and so on.
One of the most important landing pages you can make is called a Hero Page. This is your “link in bio” page which should be the link placed on every single one of your social media profiles. The hero page takes people to a page where they can learn more about you. This is where you can collect their contact details through an opt-in and a lead magnet.
This is ideal for every platform where you’re building content. And even good for places where you’re not building content but have a profile setup. This allows users on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and other platforms to connect with you and take the relationship further.
Landing pages are not complicated to build. But they do require the right landing page builder. This software allows you to build landing pages without any technical expertise or coding knowledge at all. Most landing page builders have premade templates with drag-and-drop editors.
Landing pages are typically found inside of a sales funnel, but are sometimes found on websites but behave differently than typical webpages. That’s because landing pages have a very specific purpose and function that directs visitors toward a predefined action.
Depending on the type of landing page, they typically consist of a few elements. The first element is the headline. You will always find a headline somewhere on a landing page. Sometimes that headline is followed by a subheadline. But not always. The purpose of a good headline on a landing page is to create enough curiosity that the prospect decides to move forward.
The overall purpose of an effective landing page is to solve some type of problem. That could be a big problem or a small problem. And not all landing pages are designed to sell. Some are designed to generate leads or nurture existing leads. Beyond the headline is an image or a video, some copy and a call to action.
The landing page itself does not cost money. The costs to build a landing page include the action landing page software. If you use landing page software that includes hosting, you won’t need to pay for hosting. However, if you build a landing page yourself, or hire a developer, you’ll need to pay for the server costs of where the landing page lives.
However, the cost of landing page software is far less than you would pay to hire a developer. Plus, you’ll get the free hosting included with our landing page builder, taking one of the extra steps out of the equation. Not having to worry about hosting and other technical details is what many of our customers love about our sales funnel software.
Yes. You absolutely do need a landing page. Even if you have a website. Websites are overwhelming and have high bounce rates. Meaning that a visitor arrives and then leaves because there are too many options and they just don’t want to think about it. Keep in mind that humans have an 8-second attention span. That’s less than a goldfish.
That’s also why sales funnels with effective landing pages result in 137% higher conversion rates on average. Landing pages have only one direct path forward. And good landing pages have a very clear call to action. That’s a necessary ingredient. So the answer is an emphatic yes. You do need a landing page even if you have a website.
We are partial to this. But in our opinion, ClickFunnels is the best landing page software. After all, it’s used by hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs on the planet. And it’s by far one of the coolest and most feature-rich landing page software platforms out there. Plus, the ClickFunnels community is full of diehard funnel hackers all chasing their dreams.
Landing pages have many other names and have been called different things over the years. However, the most common alternate name for a landing page is a “squeeze page.” Squeeze pages are designed to squeeze contact details out of a person so it makes sense. Another name used often is a “lead capture page.”
Landing pages are best for many things. But in short, a landing page is best for conversions. If you’re serious about conversions, use a landing page. After all, that’s what a landing page is designed to do. Since there are many types of landing pages, the type of conversion will vary based on the objective. Landing pages can capture leads, make sales, ascend buyers into more expensive programs, do upsells, downsells, and so on.
No. It is not hard to build a landing page. You can use existing landing page software to build out your landing page using premade templates and a drag-and-drop editor. This makes it very easy to build a landing page and even an entire sales funnel. However, understanding the concepts and principles behind what makes landing pages convert is also important. Read this book to learn more about that.
There are many reasons why a landing page doesn’t convert. Your landing page needs to be expertly crafted. That includes understanding your dream customer, their problem, creating a curiosity-driven headline, picking the right image, creating the right video, writing expert copy that agitates the pain and presents the promise of a solution, having a strong call-to-action and more.
If you’re unsure of why your landing page isn’t converting, it’s best to hire an expert to help you. You can find many experts that are certified funnel builders here.
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