Landing Page Design and Development Services In recent years, landing pages have had an important place in any marketing strategy. They are indeed an essential tool for any inbound strategy and the foundation of any acquisition campaign. Landing pages allow you to maximize your traffic conversion rate and therefore generate leads, but also to transform these leads into hot prospects, or even customers.
Definition: what is a landing page?
If you are not yet familiar with the concept of landing page (or “landing page” or “destination page” in French) here is a definition that could help you understand the purpose of these pages.
A landing page is a page that presents visitors with a targeted offer (downloading content or registering for events, for example) and which aims to encourage the conversion of said visitors. It is different from the other pages of your website because it focuses on a single objective. It is therefore not the place where you will present all your offers or talk about your company.
We arrive on a landing page after clicking on a button, a Call-To-Action, or even a link on social networks, in an email, on search engines, etc.
The objective of landing pages is to capture the attention of the visitor who lands there and convince him to leave his contact information (name, company, email, etc.) by filling out a form in exchange for content added value for him. Users are more and more reluctant to leave their data, so we must offer a fair exchange of information (premium content against personal details).
To get the form submission action, the landing page should have a clear, concise message and be visually appealing.
A. How to structure your landing page?
Whatever tool you use to create your pages, there are certain rules and tips to apply in creating a successful landing page.
1. What content should you offer on your landing page?
The purpose of your page is to generate conversion and therefore to convince the visitor of the added value of your offer in exchange for which he will provide you with a certain amount of information: name, email address, company, project, or any other relevant detail for your activity.
In exchange for this data, you must offer something interesting and relevant to your target. There is a lot of content you can offer:
- a guide
- a case study
- an e-book / white paper
- a webinar
- a demo of your service
- access to an exclusive event
- a consultation
And the list can go on. But focus on one offer per page. Landing pages with multiple offers have been shown to have 266% fewer conversions than pages with just one.
2. Define your landing page goals
The title of your landing page as well as your content must be very clear and focus on the added value that your offer brings to your target. To better illustrate your content, do not hesitate to use images or short videos.
3. Write good titles and texts for your pages
The text of your Landing Page Design and Development Services is crucial because it will encourage your visitors to stay on your page and convince them of the value of your content so that they want to fill out your form. We advise you to be concise and clear and to use language similar to that used by your buyer personas. Be educational in your approach and clearly explain to the person what they will find in the resource you are offering them and what will happen once they have completed the form.
4. Use a visible, clear, and concise form
Adapt your form to the type of content you offer on the landing page. As we mentioned above, only the essential fields should be kept. For example, you might ask for more information on a contact or demo request than on a short infographic or checklist.
5. Add images and videos to your landing pages
To better illustrate your content, we advise you to also test images and videos.
For images, it is advisable to use colorful visuals that capture attention, if possible showing people. They must also contain little text, to be optimized on mobile. It is important to note that 80% of mobile users focus on the “hero” image of mobile landings.
Regarding videos, a short, well-made, relevant video with subtitles can have a big impact on the conversion rate of your LP, (up to 86% ).
Several studies also show that:
- the use of videos improves SEO on Google results by 53%;
- people spend 88% more time on pages with video;
- 90% of customers say product videos help them make purchasing decisions.
You can also use different types of videos :
- Explanatory,
- Promotional,
- Demo,
- Testimonials.
6. What format for your landing pages?
It all depends on your offer. You can create a short or long landing page.
For a contact or checklist upload, you can choose to create a landing page with a short description, an image, and a form above the fold line. (Example picture)
For a very long time, the absolute best practice was to place the Call To Action at the top of the page, to avoid scrolling for your visitors. Many case studies, however, have revealed that longer landing pages perform better and that the fold line rule does not always apply.
It’s best to place your CTAs further down the page after your visitor has had enough exposure to your offer. For a more complex offer or one that requires more explanation, we can therefore consider longer and more reassuring pages. We also advise you to add testimonials and customer reviews on your pages, to inspire trust.
7. Make sure to orient the page towards a single action
The purpose of a Landing Page Design and Development Services is to encourage your visitors to complete the form with their information and click on the “Send” button. This is why all the focus must be placed on the subscription CTA and you must avoid at all costs adding distractions to your audience. It is therefore strongly advised not to add a navigation bar or other links on your page. A study by Marketing Sherpa shows that only 16% of landing pages that exist on the web do not have a navigation bar, which is surprising considering the difference in results that this “detail” brings to your conversion rate.
Steps to create your landing page in HubSpot
1. Create the landing page from the menu
After defining the objectives of your landing page and preparing the content and images, you are now ready to start creating your page on the HubSpot Marketing Platform.
First, go to the navigation menu in your HubSpot account, click on Marketing and choose Landing pages.
Here you will find a list of existing Landing Page Design and Development Services. If you want to reuse the landing page of a previous campaign for a new campaign, as in the case of a webinar for example, simply clone the page and replace the texts and images. It is important to remember that you don’t always have to create everything from scratch if a page on the subject already exists. If you want to proceed with the creation of a new page, just click on the “Create” button, orange at the top right, and choose “Destination page”.
3. Name the page
Your page name is what you and your collaborators will see internally on HubSpot. So be sure to give a clear name and set an internal rule for the naming of your pages, to avoid confusion. We also advise you to specify whether it is a landing page or a thank you page since both are created the same way. We use the initials LP for Landing Page Design and Development Services.
For example, if I want to create a webinar on the subject of training on HubSpot, I will name my registration landing page “2021 – FR – LP – WEBINAR Formation HubSpot – AR”.
If I manage multiple business units with the same HubSpot account, I’ll specify that as well, along with the type of campaign (acquisition, retention, etc.). A clear nomenclature will make it easier for the entire team working with HubSpot to find their way around, especially when you start having dozens or even hundreds of landing pages. A methodical organization of files will also be very useful.
3. Choose your page template
You will need to choose a template for your page at this step. The essential new thing since the first edition of this article is the arrival of themes on HubSpot, which have made the page-building tools much simpler and more flexible.
Now it is possible to create landing pages with the drag and drop tool, allowing users to be more creative and test several designs for their campaigns. Previously, we could only use ready-made templates and customize the colors, texts, and images, but not the structure.
Today, you have several options, depending on the type of your HubSpot subscription:
- Starter accounts or accounts using HubSpot’s free tools will have access to Starter landing page templates, which provide access to drag-and-drop builder tools;
- other accounts will have access to theme templates, with of course drag and drop tools, the ability to add special modules (related to the chosen theme), and access to theme settings. You can also: use a free or paid template or theme available on the HubSpot Marketplace; you can work with developers who can create custom themes and page templates if you have specific needs and want to use a very personalized template. Make sure you have the necessary resources in-house (a developer who has worked with HubSpot’s code before) or hire an agency that specializes in the platform.
4. Create Landing Page Content
Write your texts and insert your images, videos, or gifs. Videos or gifs can work as a teaser of your offer.
A few tips :
- use bullet points;
- add images or videos to increase your chances of conversion. Don’t forget to add an alt-text for your images, using the keywords of your offer. This text will be displayed if the image cannot be loaded and may have a positive impact on the page’s SEO;
- add customer logos, prizes won or other elements that inspire confidence;
- if possible, include customer testimonials, quotes, or extracts of downloadable content;
- if possible, add contact information such as event address or author/speaker descriptions.
5. Add a conversion form
With your content in place, it’s time to take care of the most important part of your page: the form. If you already have forms adapted to your offer, simply click on the dedicated part of your page and choose the form from the drop-down list.
You can also create a new form. You will need to think of a suitable title as well as an explanation of what the visitor will receive when filling it in: “Register to participate in our webinar”, “Download our white paper”, “Attend our event”, etc.
The form should request the information you will need to process the contract. However, pay attention to the number of fields you add. This should reflect the value of the offer you are making. Most of the landing pages considered for the PageWiz study have around 11 fields, but studies show that shortening the forms to 4 fields would increase the possibility of conversion by 120%.
Configure the additional elements of your Landing page:
If you want to redirect your visitor to a “thank you page”, you will have to create it and then select it from the drop-down list in your form settings.
The thank-you page is created from the landing pages interface on HubSpot, it must have the following characteristics:
- display your thank you message;
- not contain a form;
- show your website’s navigation bar;
- offer CTAs for other content that might interest your prospect;
- use the same graphic style as the main landing page.
- not be indexed by search engines because it must be accessible only following the submission of a form. To avoid the indexing of the page, you will have to add the code <meta name=”robots” content=”no index, no follow”> in the header of the page. This setting must be made in the advanced settings of your thank you page.
Tip: In the case of a webinar replay, you can display your replay video directly on the thank you page, in addition to sending it by email to subscribers. Good to know: you can also redirect your visitors to a URL external to HubSpot.
Finally, thank you pages allow you to create conversion events in Google Analytics, Linkedin Ads, and Facebook Ads.
b. Your contact sees a thank you message directly on the landing page
If you choose this option, a thank you message will be displayed directly on your landing page, instead of the form which disappears once it has been completed. The visitor will therefore stay on the same page.
In general, we always prefer to have a thank you page so that we can suggest additional content related to the uploaded content or the subscribed event to our contacts and increase the possibilities for interaction.
vs. Other actions are possible after completing the form
The possibilities offered by forms do not stop there. You can indeed configure the following additional actions, which will be triggered when filling in the form:
- Adding contacts to a workflow
If you want to start a lead nurturing journey for your campaign, for example, you can trigger the addition of the contact to a workflow when submitting the form. You can choose an existing workflow from the drop-down menu.
- Sending a follow-up email
In addition to the thank you page, would you like your contact to receive an email with the download link for an offer or with confirmation of registration for an event? You can set up a “follow-up” email directly from your form.
We advise you to always send a follow-up email to the submission of a form. This is because emailing the downloaded resource or webinar login code will prevent people from accessing your content with fake email addresses.
Warning: only emails created from a form can be selected for your follow-up emails.
- Sending an email notification to specific contacts
Should your company’s sales manager be informed of all contact requests made on your landing pages? Does the marketing manager want to receive all event registrations in real-time? You can configure an automatic sending of emails to certain email addresses each time a form is completed.
6. Configure the landing page
By accessing the Settings tab of your landing page, you will find a whole series of elements, which you can customize according to your offer:
- Internal page name: refers to point 3 of our steps and can be changed here;
- Page Title: This is the text your contacts will see in the title of their browser tab. It must be concise and include the keywords of your offer. It is advised not to exceed 70 characters, as indicated by HubSpot as well;
- Page URL: Choose your page’s primary domain from those you’ve set up in your HubSpot account. Then insert the keywords of your page, avoiding “stop” words (the, of, the), accents, and special characters. HubSpot will suggest your page title by default.
- Meta-description: it allows you to describe the page’s content in less than 155 characters. Although not an SEO criteria for Google, a good meta description will increase the click-through rate to your LPs from the search engine results page. So think about offering a compelling reason to visit your page, by adding a clear call to action, a point of frustration, or a specific benefit for your audience;
- Campaign: If your LP is part of a campaign, you will be able to select it from this drop-down menu or create a new one;
- Featured Image: You can upload a featured image that will appear when your page is shared on social media by clicking ON.
Advanced HubSpot landing page options:
- Cancel the page on a specific date: When you create a time-limited offer and want to make sure no one can access it after a certain date, add an expiration date for your page. You can also choose a URL to redirect your visitors to after this date;
- Control access to the page: if your page is part of an exclusive campaign dedicated to a limited number of people, or if you want to test the published page without opening it to everyone, you can set a password;
- Adding code in your header or footer: useful when you want to track your pages with other commonly used tools. This is also where you can insert the code not to index your thank you pages;
- Change template: by clicking on “Use a different template” you can change the template of your page. Warning: a change of structure will cause you to lose all or part of the content that you have already inserted.
7. Preview your page
Before publishing, make sure your page is responsive by clicking the Preview button and selecting the different types of devices on the right (desktop, tablet, or mobile).
You can also open the preview in a new window and copy the preview link to share with your collaborators.
You can find optimization ideas by clicking on the Optimize tab. Here, HubSpot gives you suggestions for things to change to best optimize your page from an SEO point of view as well, such as adding text to images, adding a meta description, etc.
8. Test and re-test your pages
It’s time to test your landing page!
- Check that your page is displayed correctly on the most used browsers (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) and the different versions of mobile operating systems (Android and iOS). If your target mainly uses IE, it will be necessary to provide special optimization for this browser.
- Make sure your thank you pages and follow-up emails link to your landing page. Fill out the form on your page to see if you receive the follow-up email, that you are redirected to the right thank you page, that the right people are notified by email of the submission, etc.
- Test the links in your email and thank you page.
Set up A/B testing
If you have a Marketing Hub or CMS Hub Pro or Enterprise subscription on HubSpot, you can also set up A/B tests on your pages.
A/B testing allows you to test two versions of the same page, without changing the URL, to determine which performs better (time spent on it, conversions, etc.). Once an A/B test is launched, 50% of your visitors will see version A of the page and 50% will see version B.
Points of attention: for your tests to be conclusive, it is important to have enough traffic on the page, time, and internal resources to manage the tests (which can be very time-consuming), but also to formulate a hypothesis before starting the process. We recommend this tutorial for setting up your tests.
9. Publish and update the page
You created, optimized, and tested everything. it’s time to press the “Publish” button! You can choose to publish a page immediately or you can schedule it to be published for later.
Once the page is published, you will still be able to modify elements, so don’t worry if you find that there is a mistake in your text. To do this, go to the list of your pages and click on Edit when you are on your page.
Warning 1: changes are saved automatically, but you must click on the “Update” button for these changes to be displayed on the published page.
Warning 2: Unless essential, avoid changing your page URL once you have published it, as this will change your landing page URL live and add a redirect to the old URL.
10. Analyze and optimize your landing pages
Give yourself a few days before you start analyzing your Landing Page Design and Development Services results. When you start generating visits, you will see them in the “performance” part of the page you published.
You will be able to filter the results by date ranges and frequency and observe the main indicators of the page:
- number of views;
- number of times the form has been completed on the page;
- the number of new contacts generated through this page and the number of new customers;
- bounce rate: the number of visitors who left immediately after arriving on the page, without going to visit another page on your site;
- the time spent on your page on average;
- exits per page, i.e. the percentage of people who have ended their session on the site after having consulted this page;
You will also be able to discover the sources of traffic on the page (natural search, paid social campaign, direct traffic, etc.) and the number of views, submissions, contacts generated for each source.
The “Test Result” tab will only contain information if you are doing A/B testing. It will show you the performance of different versions of your Landing Page Design and Development Services, so you can make a choice.
It is important to know this before you start! And once you choose the winning version of your page, you will no longer have detailed analytics on the losing version of the page.
Conclusion
You have all the elements to create and publish a successful Landing Page Design and Development Services on HubSpot.
If you have any questions, our team is at your disposal to help you create your landing pages and your marketing campaigns!
Stay tuned for all of our guides to using HubSpot’s tools!
