Landing Pages: What, Why and How?

Fred Owusu 3633 Views, , ,
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Admit it! You’ve probably invested already a lot of money and effort in creating your website. It’s got everything in it: quality, content-rich pages, an eye-catching home page, “call-to-action” buttons, the whole shebang. Yet, your conversion rates are far from ideal.

Unfortunately, not all websites can sell a product or service effectively. If that’s your case, your potential visitors probably don’t fit into the “single-buyer” profile. In other words, your potential customers are looking for more than just the products or services that you are offering.

Even if you are targeting a specific niche, your content might not satisfy their need for information.  While your home page promotes your company, that doesn’t necessarily mean you can meet the standards of your buyer profiles and turn them into buyers immediately.

This is where making use of landing pages come into play.

Landing pages (sometimes known as “squeeze pages”) have been designed to address the need of website owners, online businesses owners, marketers and bloggers, to address specific demands as well as to grab the attention of audiences enough to keep them on the site. Think of them as pages that are focused and customized, with the specific objective of getting your visitor to take a desired action. They are also as an extension of your upstream advertising (paid search and banners), that has the ability to increase your conversions rates compared to the effectiveness of a campaign that doesn’t use them.

As the company determines its buyer profiles, a landing page can help address these issues regarding the company services without subscription or payment required.

Three Reasons Why You Should Use a Landing Page

  1. Landing pages are highly relevant for pay-per-click ads, although there are other ways to drive traffic to them. These pages have the ability to simply increase your conversion rates.
  2. It allows you to add unlimited offers and contact forms based on a particular query or user intention.
  3. Landing pages can be much more detailed than other web customization tools.

Benefits of Good Landing Pages

These pages often contain links to websites, optin forms, call to action, etc. When a visitor clicks a link to check out a product, he/she will be redirected to the desired page you want them to go.  A landing page is similar to a product’s main page. Most online marketers, in fact, use their home pages as their squeeze page.

  • Conversion-friendly – Affiliate site owners increase their earning potential through conversions. This is when a customer visits the website and purchases the product immediately or takes a specific action you desire, like opting for your list. This is only one of the few reasons why making use of landing pages is very important.
  • Profit-friendly – Creating landing pages allows marketers to place themselves in the shoes of their customers. A lot of successful online businesses started small from building a squeeze page as their home page. But according to some business experts, this strategy is not effective. For affiliate marketers, a landing page can only be profit-friendly if it’s separated from the home page. What do you think?
  • Creating Landing Pages can be Costly – These pages can be costly to create, specially if you don’t have the tools to do it.  This reason is why having the adequate tool t help you create landing pages is crucial.

The next obvious question, would be, what tool should I use to create landing pages? Well, for WordPress business users, fortunately, there are plugins specifically designed to help you get there. One of the most popular ones is OptimizePress. There are other options out there, such as pre-designed templates (good but lacks flexibility), and more recently, a new rising star, Instabuilder. The latter is what I will be focusing on at this time.

What is InstaBuilder?

Instabuilder WordPress Plugin

Not so long ago, a WordPress plug-in was created for bloggers to set up marketing pages in a simple and very short period of time! Although relatively new, InstaBuilder has been compared to OptimizePress which earned mix reviews because of its ease of use and pricing.

In this aspect, InstaBuilder (aff) is more than just a plug-in. As the name suggests, it also allows WordPress users to create and use landing pages on any site that is powered by WordPress.

Some Features:

  • Mobile and SEO-friendly templates
  • Customizable scripts
  • Viral downloading capability or the ability of visitors to access specific shared content
  • Social sharing options
  • Comment options that allow site owners/bloggers to moderate comments from visitors
  • Re-direct features and many more.
  • Ability to use it on pages, posts and widgets, including shortcodes
  • Integrate optin forms
  • Include videos
  • and a lot more…

Creating a landing page with Instabuilder is quite simple. With just a few steps, you can have a landing page up and running in literally under 5 minutes, after installation and activation. Check this simple landing page about Photography Tricks, that was created with this plugin in a short period of time. You can also see DiTesco’s toolbox, created recently form the same plugin.

Here’s a quick presentation of what Instabuilder is all about:

As you can see, it is a handy marketing tool to have in your arsenal. Sadly, this plugin is not free, but the investment is worth it, as new features are being released by the developers regularly. In addition, they have an excellent training videos, where you can learn how to create compelling landing pages in no time. Lastly, you can also be an affiliate of the product, where you can earn money and recover your investment. Now that’s cool!

[note]UPDATE: Version 1.12 has just been released in a direct response from users requests…[/note]

Change Log/New features for v.1.12 include:

  • New blog widget: Sidebar Optin with Facebook Connect
  • New blog widget: Countdown Timer
  • New blog widget: Viral Download Lock on Sidebar
  • New blog widget: Tabbed Content
  • New blog widget: Embed Video from Video Sharing Site
  • New blog widget: Display Video With Flowplayer of JW Player
  • New blog widget: Pop Up Content on Sidebar
  • New blog widget: Pop Up Image on Sidebar
  • New blog widget: Social Share
  • Add ability to auto-check for new InstaBuilder version
  • Add ability to auto-update InstaBuilder from your WordPress Dashboard
  • Add ability to display video on Mini Squeeze Page
  • Add Timezone attribute setting to Countdown timer shortcode

As I mentioned before, there are obviously a lot more options to create a landing page. The first thing you should determine is whether or not you feel that having one is something that will benefit you. IMO, it will, provided you know how to create one properly. Make them simple, send the message and guide them to the “action” you want. Good luck and to your success!

What about you? Are you using any specific marketing tool to create your landing pages? Which one? Are you satisfied?

Fred Owusu

+Fred Owusu is an Online Entrepreneur and founder of AttractionMarketingCafe.com. Its main objective is to help you achieve success in your online ventures. My philosophy is for you to pick one strategy and stick with it until you know the In’s and Out’s of that strategy. (Master it). Attract and become who you wish to become.

27 thoughts on “Landing Pages: What, Why and How?”

  • Hi Fred,

    Thanks for introducing us to Instabuilder. Looks like an amazing plugin with amazing features. Even your simple photography landing page looks professional. I feel that this one is going to take out the money from my pocket.

    • Thank you RaHul… Love the product and I am sure you will as well.. Thanks for your comment.

  • i liked the features of instabuilder… thanks for such a nice article

    • Thank you Renato…. I give all the thanks to InstaBuilder creators.. They are the ones that made it happen. Thank you for your thoughts. By the way your landing pages are not bad.. just can speak or read the language 🙂

  • I’m very impressed with Instabuilder, it’s relatively simple to use even for a klutz like me, and so useful that I know in a little while from now I’ll be wondering how we coped without it!
    Thanks a million Fred, great article too!

    • Thanks Melvin, I feel you on that part about coping without it. I have optimized press and I can not compare how much easier and cheaper InstaBuilder is. Glad it has made it easier for you 🙂

  • Great post Fred
    Creating Landing Pages can be Costly but thanks to InstaBuilder creators they are the ones that made it happen..
    Thanks for the awesome tips…

  • No problem Krunal.. Thanks for comment and I am thankful for those creators 🙂

  • This is definitely a topic that is tough for people to grasp at first but you can benefit from them tremendously. One of the many great points you made was to make sure it’s something that will benefit your site. Don’t just make a landing page to make one! Nice article Fred!

    • Thanks Steve. Definitely appreciate your comment and reading through the lines and picking that up. 🙂

  • Certainly very important for ecommerce websites and not much for bloggers, but definitely everybody prefer everything to be one click away.

  • Looks like an amazing plugin with amazing features. Creating Landing Pages can be Costly but thanks to InstaBuilder creators. Helpful post, thanks a lot for sharing.

  • Landing Pages are certainly very crucial for successful ad campaigns. It not only gives more conversions but also target specific issue with solutions. However I’ve noticed many websites using their normal webpages as their landing pages. I don’t know why do they do this?

  • I would not no why they do that either Aasma. Land pages are created only for the reasons above. I can not tell people what works for them, and if that works for them thats great but maybe they do not want to invest in what works. It takes money to make more money :). Thanks for sharing Aasma.

  • i think i should try maximize my best landing page for my benefit

  • Landing page is one of the most crucial aspect of a website which is capable of setting an impression in the eyes of the audience. Instabuilder seems to be an amazing and economical tool. I will surely give it a whirl. Thanks for introducing me to a new and enticing tool.h

    • Your welcome Aayna. Definitely is an amazing product as well as enticing.. Easy to use and easy to navigate. Can not go wrong with it.. Let me know how you like it after you try it.

  • Excellent information. Blogs have a lot of power and your suggestions are great tools for maximizing that power.

  • Hi Fred,

    Your totally right about landing pages. The conversion rate is way better than if you would just point people to a website page.
    The most important stuff on a landing page in my opinion are the headline and the call to action.

    You have to convince the viewer to take action in less then 5 seconds. I’ve been using another tool to create landing pages and squeeze pages but this plugin seems good, I think I’m gonna take it for a test drive.

    All the best to you mate, thank you for sharing this info.

  • Thanks for your comment Philip. Definitely on the same page about landing pages/squeeze pages. Let me know how you like InstaBuilder after your try. by the way thanks for stopping by on AMC(attraction marketing cafe). I appreciate that. 🙂

  • I learnt about landing pages through trial and error method. Your post is surely gonna help newbies. Good one.

  • Thanks Fatima. It surely will help the newbies. I like that you do not need a sub-page for it. All you do is create a page and walla it’s DONE!

  • Thanks for the new plugin idea Fred. I’ve been wanting to create a landing page as I’m just starting a PPC campaign for the first time. This makes it alot easier as I wasn’t quite sure where to start. Cheers!

  • Hi Fred, you hit it on the spot with your three reasons for building landing pages. These are basically the same I tell my customers or people who are new to the subject. And it’s mostly those reasons why people agree that they are in need of a (new) landing page.

    I’m no WP user myself, but I’ll recommend your suggested plugin to some of my colleagues and customers. Looks good!

    • Thanks Robert. I like that you are suggesting this plugin to your colleagues. That means a lot but as you know any great product is posted on IblogZone my friend. Thanks for stopping by.

  • Thanks for the post — I’m thinking of getting instabuilder.

    What does “viral download lock” mean?

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