Contrary to popular belief, your homepage probably isn't what makes you money—and it's probably not the best place to send your ad visitors. “People who just clicked an ad have a very specific intent, so you can’t overwhelm them with information,” says Esin Habif, Wix’s outbound marketing lead. “Give them a very focused, clean, no-fluff page. Just one big, bold header, a CTA and three value propositions. That’s what really works.”
She’s describing a landing page, a webpage that a business creates with a single objective in mind, such as generating leads, driving sales or encouraging signups. As lead of landing page development, she knows how invaluable this asset is to a brand’s marketing strategy.
To ensure you unlock the full potential of this invaluable asset, we've collaborated with Habif to curate a list of landing page best practices. With these insights, you'll be equipped to use our landing page builder to its fullest potential.
Ready to create a landing page? Get started with Wix today.
15 landing page best practices
01. Use a landing page template
Developing an effective landing page strategy takes time, so the most efficient option for getting started is to use a template. Our designers crafted these landing page templates with conversion in mind. The best part is that these templates are fully customizable, empowering you to adjust the images, copy and design to perfectly align with your brand identity.
Consider this template. It has everything you need to create a successful lead generation landing page, including a fold for testimonials and an online form that prioritizes the essentials. The graphics are also helpful; a parallax scroll effect on one visual makes the experience more interactive and the design at the bottom subtly points toward the form in order to direct the viewer’s eye.
Related reading: Best landing page builders to try today
02. Get to know your audience
To craft a compelling landing page, it's essential to step into the shoes of your target audience and understand their fears, desires and goals intimately. Without this deep understanding, converting them becomes a challenging task. “A lot of market research goes into a great landing page,” says Habif. “If you don’t know exactly what this person is thinking, you can’t convince them.”
By immersing yourself in the mindset of your audience, you can tailor your landing page content, messaging and design to address their specific needs and aspirations. This empathetic approach allows you to create a more personalized and impactful experience for your visitors, ultimately leading to higher conversions. Remember, the foundation of a great landing page lies in the ability to connect with your audience on a deep level and provide them with the solutions they seek.
03. Define the goal of your landing page
In order to make sure your landing page is focused enough to urge visitors to respond to the CTA, you need to start by honing in on the specific goal you want to achieve. Are you looking to increase purchases on a product? Promote an ebook? Generate signups for an event?
This critical step provides you with a strong understanding of the type of landing page you need to build. By knowing your goal upfront, you can tailor every aspect of the page to support and reinforce that singular objective. From the headline to the visuals, each element should align cohesively with your central goal, guiding visitors towards taking the desired action.
04. Craft a compelling CTA
Once you've determined the goal of your landing page, you’ll need to come up with a call to action (CTA)—a one- to three-word piece of microcopy—that aligns with it. Don’t overcomplicate this decision. If your objective is to drive purchases, “Buy Now” will work well. For example, if you’re looking to encourage visitors to download your eb, a straightforward CTA such as "Download My Ebook" may work best. Keep in mind that CTAs should be concise, to-the-point and actionable. Avoid using fancy adjectives and unnecessary fluff.
CTA placement and design are some of the most important decisions you’ll make. Your CTA needs to stand out and be visible no matter where visitors are on the page. “If I can’t convert wherever I’m convinced, then it’s such a loss,” says Habif. You can either make the CTA button a sticky element in the right-hand corner or replicate it on every fold as Habif’s team did with this landing page.
You’ll notice that each CTA button on the landing page contrasts dramatically against its background color. This technique ensures the eye is immediately drawn to the CTA button, making it the primary focal point for the visitor. It also leverages the Von Restorff effect, which says that distinctive items are more likely to be remembered.
05. Use design to direct the eye
A hallmark of an exceptional landing page is its ability to naturally guide the visitor's attention exactly where you want it. Achieving this requires thoughtful landing page design with strategic visual indicators that encourage a smooth downward flow. These indicators can take the form of direct pointers (e.g., arrows), subtle cues or animations that entice people to keep scrolling.
In this landing page, Wix's designers use an illustration to lead the visitor's gaze. The illustration of a waterfall—which flows from the mountain in the first fold, through successive visuals and into a pool at the bottom—creates an engaging visual journey. This clever graphic not only entices visitors to scroll but also highlights the prominent CTA. In the hero fold, asteroids and the mountaintop subtly point to the big, blue "Start Now" button, which reappears at the center of the waterfall further down the page.
As Habif states, when evaluating a landing page, it's crucial to consider, "Where do you want my eyes to go first, second and third?" When the visual elements effortlessly lead attention to the CTA, she adds, it's a clear indication of a successful design.
06. Put the essentials above the fold
The hero fold—the part of your web page that’s visible on the screen before a user starts scrolling—is undeniably the most critical real estate on a landing page. “The first fold is where you actually convert people,” says Habif. In fact, she says most landing page visitors never scroll past the hero fold. With that in mind, it’s essential that your first fold is clear and compelling enough to either convert or urge visitors down the page.
07. Eliminate distractions
Because your landing page needs to focus on a single goal, avoid including any elements that might lead visitors astray. Remove any elements—including links and graphics—that don’t serve that goal. Note: In order to not distract users with too many links, you can use a link in bio tool like Hopp by Wix to create a designated URL linking to all of your online assets from one place.
“We’re curious as humans, so we’re going to get lost if you give us options,” says Habif. For this reason, her team doesn’t include navigation bars, hyperlinks or anything else that could distract from the page’s CTA.
Take this landing page as an example. It features fewer than 150 words, has a clean, undistracting background and doesn’t feature any exit points besides the CTA buttons and the home button. "There isn’t any fluff and it’s not trying to meet a secondary goal,” says Habif. “It’s focused on the main, high-level points.” By adopting this streamlined strategy, your landing page can maximize its potential for driving conversions and achieving your primary objective.
08. Keep your content lean
While some landing pages are intended to be long-form and do require more extensive copy, you’ll most often benefit from keeping it short and skimmable. Feature standalone phrases or sentences rather than long chunks of text.
Habif recommends performing two-second and five-second tests to make sure that even people who glance at your landing page can still get a clear sense of your message. First, look at the page for two seconds, then close it. Think about what you remember and whether the main text or image effectively caught your attention. Next, give it a five-second look, asking yourself whether you could get a sense of the page’s organization and message.
You could also perform these tests on someone uninvolved with the project. “Sometimes, you work on a page and you’re so focused on the details that you can’t zoom out,” explains Habif. “Show someone a fold for two seconds, then close it and ask them what they remember and what they felt.”
09. Focus on your value proposition
You know that the number one thing you need to achieve when creating a landing page is to get people to take action. But if you’re not adequately conveying what they’ll gain in return, they’re not going to take that action.
According to Habif, it’s paramount that your landing page clearly communicates what you’re talking about and why visitors should care. "These two basic questions—’what?’ and ‘so what?’—are critical to answer," she explains. "I’ve seen a lot of brands miss that because they just want to create a ‘wow’ experience."
Rather than touting the qualities of your product or service, highlight the ways that visitors will benefit by responding to the CTA. Think less along the lines of “This product is great because…” and more along the lines of “You’ll benefit from this product because….”
When looking at Wix’s logo maker landing page, you’ll notice that it refrains from bragging about product quality. Instead, it focuses on the end result and the experience visitors can expect. For instance, the primary header says, “Create a logo that reflects your vision with Wix Logo Maker.” In other words, this product will help you effectively represent your brand.
If you’re unsure of how to start, list your offering's main qualities and advantages, then detail how each will serve your customers. By focusing on your customers’ experiences and pain points, you’ll be better equipped to design a landing page that truly resonates and maximizes engagement.
10. Leverage social proof
Social proof is the psychological phenomenon in which people copy the behavior of others. As a marketing or sales professional, you can take advantage of this human habit as you design your landing pages.
By showcasing testimonials from satisfied customers on your landing page, you provide evidence that others have already enjoyed your product or service. Including names, job titles or headshots of the customers adds authenticity and credibility to their reviews. You can either share quotes from their glowing reviews or, if it fits your branding, include a photo or video that shows happy customers using your product.
Similarly, if your clients consist of well-known companies or brands, include their logos on your landing page to bolster your authority. When people see reputable brands using your product, it strengthens their confidence in your offering—a psychological principle known as the principle of authority.
Whichever route you choose, make sure to get permission from the customer before including their information on your marketing assets to maintain trust and to respect their privacy.
11. Optimize for SEO
Whether you're running paid ads on Google or focusing on organic SEO, targeting relevant keywords within your landing pages is essential, just as you do with your website copy and blog content. Incorporating these keywords increases the likelihood that your landing page will appear when someone searches for your targeted phrase.
Keyword research tools like Ahrefs or Semrush can help you identify these crucial phrases. These tools not only provide insights into the organic search traffic for specific terms each month, but also display the average cost per click that advertisers pay for these keywords in search ads.
By taking advantage of keyword research tools and optimizing your landing page for search engines, you can enhance its visibility, attract more qualified traffic and improve the overall success of your marketing efforts.
Note: Wix has a Semrush integration that can help you identify keywords and optimize your site accordingly.
12. Maintain a conversational tone
Although it’s important to optimize your site for search engines, it’s important that you don’t do so at the expense of your tone. “Especially as we’re entering the AI age, people are looking for that human touch,” says Habif. “If you don’t create emotions, you don’t sell.”
In her experience, a conversational tone is quite helpful for connecting with visitors. But optimizing for SEO while maintaining that conversational tone requires a lot of creative solutions. For example, you might use FAQ sections to hide the less conversational content that the page needs in order to qualify for relevant SERPs.
13. Make it mobile-friendly
These days, around 57% of internet traffic comes from mobile devices. That means you need to create a landing page that looks just as good on a mobile device as it does on a desktop. To ensure that your landing page is successful on mobile, follow these best practices:
Start with mobile design: Prioritizing mobile design over desktop is the best way of ensuring that your site is easy to use across all devices. Taking a mobile-first approach could also lead to better search rankings since Google uses mobile-first indexing, meaning that its algorithm prioritizes pages that are optimized for such devices.
Ensure that it’s touch-friendly: Visitors should be able to navigate your mobile site comfortably with one hand. Make sure they don’t have to stretch their thumb to reach the CTA buttons and that anything clickable is large enough and has adequate spacing to prevent accidental clicks.
Test and adjust: Regularly test your landing pages on various mobile devices (including tablets) to ensure that it’s easy for all users to navigate the page and take action.
Wix’s Mobile Editor makes it easy to follow these best practices for landing pages. Our AI automatically optimizes the mobile layout alongside desktop changes, and all our templates come with optimized mobile layouts.
14. Focus headlines on the end result
When visitors arrive on your landing page, they’re seeking solutions and benefits that align with their goals and desires. Crafting headlines that directly address the outcomes or transformations they can expect immediately captures their attention and sparks their interest.
To effectively focus headlines on the end result, it's crucial to understand your target audience's core desires and pain points. Tailor your headlines to speak directly to what they truly seek and the ultimate benefits they wish to achieve. “They should hit you in the heart and make you think, ‘Oh my god, I want this,’” explains Habif.
She encourages landing page developers to think about what the audience would want to hear. Your headlines should answer the question, “How can your product fulfill my inner desires?” Whether it's saving time, increasing productivity or enhancing their lifestyle, make the benefits concrete and compelling.
15. A/B test everything
Even if you diligently follow every landing page best practice we've provided, your efforts may not yield the desired results if you fail to measure and adapt along the way.
Habif’s team is constantly evaluating the performance of their landing pages and looking for opportunities to improve them. To identify these opportunities, they use A/B testing. This involves creating two similar but slightly different landing pages—the A page and the B page—and testing them to see which performs better. Habif's team meticulously tests various elements, including headline wording and CTA button colors.
Before you start a test, it’s important that you decide which landing page metrics (such as conversion rate, bounce rate, click-through rate or time on page) you’ll use to measure performance. By measuring these key metrics, marketers can gain valuable insights into how effective their landing pages are and identify areas for improvement in order to maximize conversion.