What makes a good landing page
An interview with Brie Ginman
Before we get into this week’s issue, a reminder that I’m still looking for submissions for a future issue! Just answer this one question: Who’s your target audience and what’s your best performing lead gen channel?
I feel like there’s a never ending debate over what a “good” landing page is. What’s on it, how many A/B tests you’re running and so on. I find the obsession bizarre unless you’re employed full time to just build landing pages?
I know people are passionate about it so I won’t yuck your yum, and instead dedicate an issue of Mehdeeka to try and help you out if this keeps you awake at night!
Today’s interview is with Brie Ginman, a producer at B2B SaaS digital agency YNC. She’s also working on a podcast that deep dives into mental wellness aimed at people in the marketing industry - something to keep an eye out for!
Kayla: Let's say you're building a brand new landing page from scratch, what are absolute must haves, and do you have any tips for self-editing to stop yourself from including too much/going overboard?
Brie: Okay, I am a simple human - I do not need much. I don't think many landing pages need much unless they are really trying to push an education piece. List: Header, sub-copy, nice lil supporting image, line of logos that support my business, and then finish it off with a two-column module with copy and a form.
K: What are some common traps people fall into when building landing pages? What should be avoided?
B: Content. I find that people want to put in as much information as possible. And the information isn't always helpful.
You need to ask yourself, why did the visitor come here? What do you need them to do on this page? How will my copy help them complete that action? Usually, a block of words is not the answer.
K: In a perfect world, how many landing pages would you have? Should it be one landing page per campaign, one per product, one per channel, what kind of split do you think is ideal?
B: Hmmm, hate to be this person, but it depends. I think one landing per campaign is ideal, especially for any campaigns using paid media. The landing page should always have a specific goal for the user, so you should never be creating a landing page for landing page sake.
K: Do you think there are any major differences between B2B and B2C landing pages?
B: As someone who mostly works with B2B, this is an interesting question. At the end of the day, you are still selling to people, and you are talking to people. The main variable here is the copy. You should be changing your copy based on your persona and their jobs-to-be-done.
K: Finally, how do you go about staying creatively inspired and learning new things?
B: I have signed up for at least 50 newsletter subscriptions across all different disciplines (I even have subscriptions to a history newsletter, just to keep it interesting). Also just speaking to my co-workers, I always find something new to look into that may not be in my discipline.
Side notes
From my experience, people are really quick to buy into throwing up a landing page and patting themselves on the back. Like Brie mentioned, you really need each landing page to have a purpose, whether that’s booking a demo, downloading an ebook, or registering for an event. Each of these has different types and amounts of information needed, and variables to be played with.
Copy is definitely one of the more important variables, and if you’re making landing pages without being confident in your copywriting, I really recommend finding someone who knows words or investing in upskilling yourself.
As a side side note, I have 2 degrees in linguistics and I would 100% say the majority of my copy skills come from that. If you’re interested in learning more about how language impacts us (and secret tips to make your copy better) I recommend reading Dan Jurafsky’s The Language of Food. It has a lot of cool history and etymology in it but also goes into how copy on a menu alone can make a dish more or less expensive. There’s good lessons it it!
Other variables I would encourage you to try is different value propositions for different audiences, and aligning your landing page to your campaign messaging. If you have specific messaging, don’t send them to a generic landing page - it should match.
4 links to help you build the best landing pages
This report covers different industries, and SaaS is one of them! This is gated so you’ll need to fill out a form.
This is similar to LinkTree or other link in bio style landing pages, but I love that their first CTA button is “A few curated pages” AKA see some examples of how it’s used. Real life use cases are a super easy way for a customer to see how they would use the product. It helps that this is a very visual friendly product!
I know we’re all short on time, but 2021 is not the year where having an unaccessible website is ok. This site will give you an accessibility rating with a % score.
The SA government have put together a comprehensive guide to web accessibility, which you can double check via this link.