Breaking Down the Best Landing Pages
by John Saunders •
On the Power Digital blog, we talk a lot about landing pages: their design and layout, using them to convert customers, and developing strategies with them to improve your results. But we don’t always provide a list of examples. Well, we are now! We have compiled a list of some of our favorites from across the web and considered the strategy, design, and logic of each page. Any combination of these page strategies and presentations would give you a leg up on your competition.
What Makes A Great Landing Page?
Before we dive into the best of the best landing pages on the web, let’s review what makes a great landing page. The purpose of a landing page is to tailor your pitch to a specific audience. You will often run advertisements that direct to a specific landing page as part of a campaign, which targets a certain demographic of people that would find your product or service useful. Hopefully this targeted approach results in more conversions.
Related: Landing Page Design: An Art
So, while determining which landing pages were best we looked at four elements:
- Design When it comes to landing pages, a clean and simple design is best. If your page is too cluttered, your audience may become overwhelmed and abandon before converting. To achieve this your design should feature only relevant information and utilize high quality images or videos which showcase your product or service.
- Call to Action (CTA) A vital part of a landing page is the call to action, or CTA. The CTA tells visitors what they need to do in order to move forward. This could be submitting an informational form, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a report. Whatever the action, make sure it is front and center on your landing page so it is clear to your visitors what is required.
- Relevance or Purpose Featuring the most relevant information at the top of the landing page is incredibly important to its success. Too much information will also make it difficult for visitors to quickly decipher what it is you do and why it is relevant to them. Making that determination fast and easy is crucial to generating conversions.
- Enticing Finally, a good landing page will entice your visitors and compel them to take action. There are many different ways this can be done including alluring imagery, providing extra information, and including an offer to sweeten the deal.
Now, let’s get to the list.
Muzzle, a Mac app that silences unwanted notifications on your computer, has a great landing page for a number of reasons. First, the design is simple and eliminates distractions from the purpose of the page. Second, it shows relevance immediately as it confronts you with the problem the application solves: unwanted notifications. As long as you stay on the page you will witness a steady stream of embarrassing notifications pop up on the right of the screen. Finally, the “Download” CTA is displayed prominently in the center of the page making it easy for users to access.
Next up is Airbnb, the hugely popular vacation rental platform. Once again, there are a number of things right with this landing page which is aimed at new hosts. Not only, does it lure visitors with high quality imagery and a simple headline, “Earn money with your extra space,” but it gives potential hosts the ability to see how much they might actually earn if they chose to move forward. By answering three simple questions about the available space, Airbnb is able to entice new hosts with real numbers. Plus, scrolling down the page leads visitors to a section of how hosting works and frequently asked questions, allowing readers to quickly find desired information and make an informed decision.
What is most alluring about this landing page for Wistia, a video hosting platform, is the design. As soon as you arrive on the page, you know exactly what is required of you. They want you to complete the form and create a free account. The form is short, asking only for the relevant information to create the account and the CTA is distinctive from the rest of the page. As you continue scrolling down the page, the background changes to white and the information provided is answers to frequently asked questions. Like Airbnb, Wistia clearly separates this optional information from the action required of the visitor.
Trulia, a real estate listing platform, takes an interesting approach with their home worth landing page as it does not contain any additional information than what is displayed above. However, they still hit all the crucial elements of a successful landing page. First, the relevant information is prominently display and visitors immediately know what the page is for: evaluating their home’s worth. The CTA is noticeable and clearly states the action that is being taken. And the design is clean with high quality imagery that is slightly blurred so as to highlight the form. A unique approach, but it works!
Upwork, a global freelancing platform, gets straight to the point on their landing page and quickly tells visitors why they should care about the platform by featuring the headline, “Get more done with freelancers.” Simple and to the point. The CTA is pronounced on the page, asking visitors what type of work they need done. Plus, the imagery, which is also an optional video, is high quality. The page also provides an option for freelancers to sign up which is not highlighted, but still noticeable in the upper right corner of the screen.
For their landing page, wedding planning site The Knot immediately grabs attention by featuring high quality silent video which displays happy couples on their wedding day. The purpose of the site is clearly defined in the headline and visitors are given two options to quickly take action as either a wedding planner or wedding guest. Visitors are left with no doubts about what to do on the site.
Last, but definitely not least, is our own landing page for a free webinar. We like to practice what we preach and thought carefully about every element on the page. First, the largest text on the page is the CTA: “Save Your Seat!” This grabs the attention of the visitor right away, followed closely by the phrase “FREE WEBINAR” which lets visitors know what exactly is going on. We provide other details in case visitors want more information, but the design features certain elements in a way that you can quickly decipher what the page is for and how it is relevant to you, allowing you to take action fast.
Related: Is Your Landing Page Having an Existential Crisis?
While this is a pretty incredible list of amazing landing pages, it is by no means all inclusive because there is no way it could be. There are awesome landing pages all over the internet, but we scoured the farthest recesses of the web and found these to be some of the best because they use all of the most important elements of a successful landing page. Study these and other pages to come up with a design and strategy to engage and inform your customers. You’ll have more conversions than you know what to do with in no time at all!