How to Create a Landing Page in 11 Easy Steps in 2023

Are you wondering how to create a landing page? 

It may be easier than you think.

For any business, entrepreneur, or freelancer, the first step to standing out online is to have a great website. 

However, if you want to generate referrals, leads, and sales opportunities, you need something extra: a powerful landing page.

Landing pages are the specialized tools that marketers and business leaders can use to drive visitors toward a conversion by sharing specific information in a structured way. 

Landing pages can convince people to make purchases from online stores, sign up for an email newsletter so you can nurture your long-term leads, or simply reach out to you via a contact page.

According to some studies, businesses can increase their leads by 55% simply by doubling their number of landing pages. 

Of course, before you can start reaping the benefits of an effective landing page, you need to learn how to design one.

Fortunately, we are here to help.

What is a Landing Page? An Introduction

The first step to creating effective landing pages is to understand their purpose.

Landing pages are a distinct part of your online presence that is used to drive a specific action. 

Unlike a full website, a landing page typically has no navigation or multiple pages to explore. 

The entire purpose of the page is to “convert” your customer.

In terms of content, a landing page has a simple sage message to convey, and the page layout supports this goal and nothing else. 

The ultimate goal of a landing page is to drive a customer to action through the careful use of visuals, text, and CTA buttons.

Building a landing page is a bit different than building a website, but it can actually be a lot easier for some since there are fewer elements to design. 

Here are the 11 steps you’ll need to follow to create a stunning landing page.

Step 1 – Choose a Landing Page Builder

Unless you want to code your own landing page from scratch (like a professional developer), you’ll need a builder to help you bring your landing page to life. 

A landing page builder is essentially a selection of software tools created to help you design your page quickly and conveniently. 

These builders can come with various tools, including:

• Drag and Drop Builder: A drag-and-drop builder allows you to drag modules like text, photos, and buttons onto different segments of the landing page. The builder translates your actions into code for your landing page.
• Forms: Forms are one way you can get people to convert on your landing pages by asking them to provide you with information like an email address.
• Templates: Landing page builders often come with templates to help you design pages for specific purposes. For example, you might have a template to capture leads for your email campaign and another page designed to drive signups for a webinar.

Landing page builders also allow you to design buttons for your call-to-action requests, sell products and services directly (in some cases), and track conversions through analytics and reporting.

The exact number of features you’ll get from your landing page builder depends on the service you choose. 

Let’s compare two options:

Leadpages is a perfect landing page builder for people who want to create high-quality pages on a budget. 

This cost-effective tool comes with all the features you need to create amazing landing pages, like a free custom domain (your website URL), free hosting for your landing page, mobile-responsive site templates, integrations with leading tools, and unlimited pop-ups and alert bars.

Alternatively, Unbounce is a landing page builder built for businesses that might need a broader selection of features. 

This comprehensive landing page builder lets you build entire landing pages with intelligent, AI-enhanced authoring tools, with insights into customer segmentation, analytics, and more.

Notably, some website builders also come with their own landing page features, though they may not be as comprehensive as a full landing page builder tool.

Step 2: Learn When to Use a Landing Page

Once you have your Landing Page Builder, you’ll need to decide when you need to design a landing page and when you should consider using a standard website page instead. 

For example, while you want people to convert when they visit your product pages, you don’t need to create individual landing pages for each product you sell.

Your product pages should still give customers the option to go back and browse alternative products or add more items to their basket if they wish. 

A landing page focuses on convincing your audience to do one thing and nothing more.

You will use a website when…

You are developing a page as part of your overall online customer experience. 

You may want customers to take action on the pages of your website, but you also want to give them options, such as the ability to check out your “About Us” page and learn more about your products before contacting you.

You’ll use a landing page when…

You need a single page to encourage a specific action. 

Landing pages are not there to increase brand awareness or build customer relationships, they are designed to achieve a single goal, whether that is getting more leads and signups for your email campaign or generating direct sales.

Landing pages remove the distractions of other web pages, such as navigation and links to other content, but they also provide fewer options for your customers.

Step 3: Set a Goal for Your Campaign

As mentioned above, the goal of a landing page is to drive a customer toward a specific action and generate a unique result. 

Therefore, to create an effective landing page, you need to decide what specific action you want to encourage.

Some of the most common goals for a landing page include:

• Driving sales: For websites and e-commerce businesses, a landing page can help you transform the people who find your ads into instant customers. With the right landing page builder, you’ll even be able to accept payments and walk customers through the checkout process right there on your landing page.
• Get more conversions: Sales are not the only form of conversion. A conversion is any action your customer takes that you want them to take. For example, if your customer lands on your landing page and registers for your webinar, downloads a free asset, or shares a review, they are “converting” as a result of your page.
• Create new leads: Landing pages are a great way to create more leads. You can drive growth by encouraging people to sign up for your email campaign or by asking people to join your social media community. Once you have a connection with your audience, it’s much easier to convert them into long-term customers.

Having a specific goal for your campaign will show you what you need to measure to determine if your efforts have been successful. 

A good objective can also direct you to the right template for your landing page needs. 

Most page builders will have different templates for different landing page goals.

Step 4: Design Your Landing Page

One of the most exciting parts of creating a landing page is designing the final page layout. 

Fortunately, since you’ve already chosen a landing page builder to help you at this point, you won’t need any coding or programming knowledge.

Instead, you can simply load up their landing page builder tool and choose one of the existing templates they have to offer. 

As mentioned above, most landing page builders will categorize templates by goal or audience, so you can browse around and find the one that works best for you.

Remember, you will also have the freedom to edit your template, so don’t forget:

• Use branded images: You still want people to associate this landing page with your brand, so it’s important to use key images like specific brand colors and logos. Your landing page builder should allow you to upload any image file you need.
• Take advantage of visual hierarchy: Design your landing page layout to put what you want your customers to see first at the top of the page. You can then use good design elements such as size and structure to draw your customer’s attention to the page.
• Make it responsive: Make sure your landing page design works seamlessly across all devices so you can continue to get conversions and leads wherever you find prospects. Most creators will allow you to test how dynamic your content is.
• Use contrast for buttons: Make sure to use contrast to separate your buttons and CTA forms from everything else on the page. This will help ensure landing page visitors know what to do.

Don’t forget the basics of good graphic design while editing. 

All other elements on your page should tell users the form or action you want them to take. 

Avoid using too much copy, as this can overwhelm your reader, and make sure there is plenty of white space.

Step 5 – Write Your Copy

Now is the time to write the copy that will convert your visitor.

If you prefer, you can start with your copy before your layout, as this will help you determine how much space you need on the entire landing page for your bullets and paragraphs. 

The right copy is often the most important tool you’ll have on your landing pages. 

You need to convince your client that what you are asking them to do is worth it.

The best way to create amazing copy is to practice and learn from your clients as you go, using analytics to see what types of campaigns they respond to best. 

When you’re first starting out, follow these key rules:

• Use a High-Impact Headline: Usually, you’ll only have a couple of seconds to grab your customers’ attention from the moment they land on your page. Make sure your offer immediately jumps off the page by highlighting your title as much as possible. This headline, combined with the right image, can help convert your customers.
• Focus on the benefits: Don’t just list a bunch of features on your landing page and hope your customers find out why they’re useful. Instead, explain to your audience how what you offer will solve their problems and benefit them. Try to view the page from the perspective of your ideal customer.
• Keep it simple: Landing pages generally convert better when they are easy to read. Too much content can overwhelm your viewer, so it’s best to keep things simple. Bullet points can be a great way to keep your copy compact.

Remember, when you’re done writing, take some time to go over your copy a second time and correct any mistakes. 

Grammatical and spelling errors can make your customers less likely to trust your business.

Step 6: Craft Your CTA

Your CTA is one of the most important parts of your landing page because it’s the final push your customer needs to take the crucial action you want them to take. 

A “Call to Action” tells your visitor what you want them to do after they have landed on your page and read your content.

CTAs can take the form of a button click, which takes your customer to another page or opens a popup window. 

They can also come in the form of short forms or fields where your customers can enter their information.

To get the most out of your CTA:

• Be specific: CTA buttons like “Get Started” may work for some, but they can be quite vague at a time when you want to be as convincing as possible. Visitors won’t know what to expect from buttons without a lot of information. Try to be a bit more descriptive, with CTAs like “Claim your free trial” or “See pricing.”
• Keep it simple: While descriptive CTAs are important, it’s important not to make the statement or form too long. A complex CTA can send your customer in the opposite direction. If you are going to include a form for your customers to fill out, think about how you can make it as short and simple as possible. The best conversion forms only ask for a piece of information, like an email address or phone number.
• Stay focused: The entire purpose of a landing page is to achieve a specific goal. Landing pages should remove all other distractions, including links to other pages and options. Your visitors on a landing page should only have one way to go, so focus on just one CTA. Avoid any CTAs with links to other pages or purchase options.

Step 7 – Choose Your Images

At this point, your landing page is really starting to come together. 

You have a structure or template in place, and the copy needed to convert your audience. 

Now is the time to choose your images. 

Businesses that create custom visual content have around 7x higher conversion rates, but if you don’t have your own in-house designer, any visual element can make a positive difference on your landing page. 

Images help guide customers through a page and make the design more attractive.

When choosing your images, you will need to:

• Highlight real people: While images of a product are great, people are much more likely to respond to images of other human beings. Photos of real people enjoying your product or service will help visitors connect with your offering and visualize themselves using whatever you have to offer.
• Choose a hero image: Many of the best landing pages use a huge image at the top of the page to show visitors what their offer is all about. The hero image can be a great way to introduce your customer to a page, along with your title.
• Visualize the benefits: Try to convey the unique benefits you are sharing with your copy through your images. For example, if you sell shoes that are great for climbing, show someone climbing a mountain in them. This helps give customers an idea of ​​the benefits of your products when they don’t read the entire copy.

Step 8: Connect Your Landing Page

While you don’t necessarily need a website for a landing page, you do need to connect your landing page to a hosting provider, your email system (if you’re collecting email addresses), and other tools like a checkout page.

If you want to manage transactions.

Your landing page builder should help you with this by allowing you to:

• Choose a URL: You’ll need to connect your landing page to your main domain and create a custom URL. This will be the address people visit when they click the ad on your page.
• Adding custom scripts: Adding tracking for analytics tools like Google Analytics is important because it helps you see who’s visiting your landing page, what actions they’re taking, and more. The information you collect will guide future page layouts.
• Integrate crucial tools: You’ll need to connect your landing page with the other tools you’ll be using to nurture and convert leads. For example, you may need your system to automatically pass leads to your CRM and email marketing tools.

Step 9: Preview, Edit and Publish

Once you have everything hooked up, make sure your landing page works exactly how it’s supposed to. 

Although it’s tempting to hit the “publish” button right away, taking a few extra precautions can save you a lot of time and money in the long run.

Here are some of the things you might want to discuss with your colleagues before taking the plunge with your new page:

• The copy: Do a quick proofread to make sure there are no grammatical issues, misspellings, or other issues with your copy. Any mistake you make could damage your credibility.
• SEO: You can decide whether or not you want your page to be visible to search engines before publishing it. Some landing pages do not need to be optimized for search engines.
• The functionality: Make sure your user can do what they’re supposed to do on your page. This could mean ensuring that forms work and save information as they are supposed to. You can also test your payment tools if necessary.

It can be helpful to ask someone else to review your landing page for you if you’re not sure everything is working correctly.

Step 10: Start Driving Traffic

With your landing page out of the box, published, and hosted on the web, the next step is simply getting people to visit it. 

There are several ways you can encourage people to land on your landing page, including:

• Email Spam: Turn your email subscribers into repeat customers by sending promotions with links to your landing page. You can even create different variants of your landing pages for different segments of your target audience.
• Social media: Social media ads are a great way to drive traffic to your new landing pages. Most tools, like Instagram and Facebook, will allow you to take advantage of powerful targeting features to specifically target the audience that best suits your needs.
• Pay-Per-Click Ads: PPC ads offered by search engines like Google are great for getting you to the top of search results for specific search terms and keywords.

You’ll have a much easier time driving traffic to your landing pages if you take the extra time to understand your audience and build user personas before you start advertising. 

A good understanding of your target audience helps you determine where you are likely to get the most attention.

Step 11: Test and Optimize

Finally, it’s time to make sure you’re really getting the most out of your landing page. 

Duplicate the page you created with the tools you built into your landing page builder, and create different variants to test things like body copy, headlines, colors, and CTA content.

Testing different elements like images and offers can give you valuable insight into what kind of factors really influence your audience to make purchase or conversion decisions.

Some landing page tools will even allow you to create dynamic pages that change based on the interests or behaviors of the person visiting your content.

Start Building!

There you have it, everything you need to know about creating your own landing page from start to finish. 

Keep in mind that landing pages are much easier to create today, thanks to the wide variety of tools available to us in the digital world. 

However, it still takes a while to figure out what kind of landing pages will drive the most conversions.

Take your time and experiment as much as you can, gathering insights from your analytics over time. 

The more you practice, the better your landing pages will be.

Thanks for Reading.

How to Create a Landing Page: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Q:  Do I need a domain for a landing page?

No, you don’t need a domain for a landing page. You can use a landing page without a domain, but there are some benefits to using a landing page with a domain. For example, having a landing page with a domain can help you rank higher in search engines and can also make your landing page look more professional.

Q: Can a landing page replace a website?

Landing pages are designed to drive conversions, so they generally serve a different purpose than websites. However, in some cases, a landing page can replace a website. For example, if you’re an online retailer running a promotion for a new product, you can create a landing page for that product instead of using your website.

Q:  Do landing pages rank on Google?

Landing pages can appear in Google search results if they are properly optimized. To optimize a landing page for Google, you need to make sure the landing page is relevant to the keywords you’re targeting, and you also need to make sure the landing page links to other websites.

Q: How do I drive traffic to my landing page?

There are a few different ways to drive traffic to your landing page. You can use paid advertising, social media, or email marketing. You can also try to optimize your landing page for search engines.

Q: What is the best landing page builder?

There are many different landing page builders out there, and it really depends on your needs. If you don’t have any technical skills, you may want to look for a landing page builder that is easy to use and requires no coding. Some popular landing page builders include  LeadPages,  Unbounce, and  Instapage.