As a WordPress developer, having a constant flow of projects is important to keep up with latest trends. I’ve had a slow client week, so I decided to get on Taproot Plus to see if any Nonprofits needed help. I saw that the organization SpecialNeedsInMyCity was looking for to create a landing page, and that brings us to the purpose of this post. While you can see from my portfolio that I have highly specialized in private practice therapist websites, the landing page is in high demand. For that reason, I thought it prudent to branch out a bit and create a landing page example of my own in the hopes that SNIMC could use it.
Take a journey with me through my first landing page example below!
What is a Landing Page? How is it different than a Static Site?
First of all, what the heck is a landing page and what is the big deal with them? A landing page is just that: a page that a user lands on, usually after a marketing campaign. This page (not a whole website) is characterized by being very focused on one action we want the user to do.
This is different than a static site which usually has many different purposes. Check out this comparison of the purposes fulfilled by the SpecialNeedsInMyCity website versus my re-design of their landing page:
Purpose of the Website:
- Get users to donate
- Get users to sign up for newsletter
- Get users to volunteer
- Inform user of what the organization does
- House calendar of events
- Show user useful links
- Provide contact info
Purpose of the Landing Page:
- Get users to donate
As you can see, websites are fantastic at doing many things; however, if our main goal is to get users to donate money to the organization, the last thing we want to do is take the user’s focus away from the donation page!
Users are busy and they have a lot of things competing for their attention. If we have a goal of getting users to donate to our organization, we want to bring them to a place where their only focus is to donate to our organization.
Need help with a Landing Page? Want to build a a website that converts more clients? We’d love to work with you!
Why Use a Landing Page
It is a well-known fact in Marketing that when people don’t do an action immediately, they are much less likely to do it later.
If users visit our page and don’t donate within that session, it is a pretty low chance that they will organically choose to return and donate in the future.
Because of this, a Landing Page is stripped down to only a call-to-action and supporting copy. Notice that even the navigation has been stripped away! The last thing we want is for the user to leave our donation page without donating.
What are the 5 main components of a Great Landing Page
Some of the core elements included in most effective landing pages are:
- A Unique Selling Proposition
- A Hero image or video
- Benefits to the User
- Social Proof
- The Call to Action
The USP
The USP should answer two questions: Why should the user buy from you? Why should the user buy from you as opposed to your competitors (what makes you unique)?
The copy for the USP in this example was pulled directly from the SNIMC website. The main and first thing users see is what the nonprofit is “selling” which is unique. Usually with companies that are not nonprofits, you would want language that distinguishes you from competitors (“best customer service”, “only underground basket weaver that is left-handed”), but as we are talking about a charity here, the USP is pretty closely related to the mission statement.
Hero Image
The Hero should elicit some emotion in the user that helps them choose your company and it should ideally show your product or service in use.
The hero image I chose here (shown without the overlay) came from Nathan Anderson on Unsplash. A special needs person having fun with another adult perfectly encapsulates the goal that SNIMC accomplishes.
Need help with a Landing Page? Want to build a a website that converts more clients? We’d love to work with you!
Benefits
Features are positive parts of your product or service. Benefits are how that feature helps you, the user. Unbounce gave the best example of this I’ve seen so far:
“that lemonade you’re peddling may be ice cold, but it’s the fact that it keeps you cool on a hot day that’s a benefit.”
-Unknown Unbounce Author
For my landing page example, I once again chose to pull copy directly from the source at the SNIMC website. The mentioned benefits here are staying informed, supported and connected.
Social Proof
The Social Proof is an important tool in getting users to choose your company. It cannot be overstated how well having social proof adds authority to your website.
As humans we deal with uncertainty by looking to others around us. By seeing real people’s comments (people are amazingly good at spotting fake or canned reviews) we are put at ease that the company is trustworthy.
In this landing page example, I pulled these reviews straight from the source once again.
Call To Action
The Call to Action is the final goal of the landing page. Even though I created this landing page example as a teaching tool and design/development practice for myself, the purpose of this landing page is to get donations to SNIMC so that they can do good in their community.
As a rule of thumb, if you want someone to do something, you want to make it as easy and simple as possible for people to do what you would like them to do. If users are on the fence about donating and they have a hard time finding out how to donate, they will probably give up on it.
It is imperative to have clear, eye-catching directions for the user to find. I created the form in the hero section using GiveWP which allows users to donate money to nonprofits through several channels without even having to leave the page! Throughout the landing page, you also see supporting CTA buttons. These take the user back to the form so that they don’t have to search the page for the form again. This is especially helpful for mobile users (who now represent the majority of users).
You don’t want the user to have to scroll through the page looking for the where you want them to go, make it easy on them!
Need help with a Landing Page? Want to build a a website that converts more clients? We’d love to work with you!
Last thoughts on the Matter
We are always playing the numbers game: our websites can be accessed by literally billions of people. Even if our website generates traffic of “only” a couple of thousand people, a 5% or 10% increase in conversion can be a massive help to our goal.
In this landing page example, we keep the user’s attention focused on donating to the organization. We also try to make it as easy as possible for users to go through that main donation form at the top of the page.
If you would like to learn more about landing pages, or would like to have the perfect landing page created for your organization, look no further than weboptimalsolutions!