5 Tips To Build A High Converting Landing Page For Your Ads

5 Tips To Build A High Converting Landing Page For Your Ads

You may have the best product or service in the world, but if your landing page doesn’t convert well, you’re not going to make any money.

In fact, you could even lose money. 

So how do you create a high-converting landing page?

That’s what we’ll help you with in this guide — 5 tips to build a high-converting landing page when you’re driving traffic through ads (i.e. cold traffic).

But first, a few important tips about measuring conversion rate…

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Important Tips For Measuring Conversion Rate (Accurately)

Conversion rate (along with other marketing metrics like ROI, CPA, and LTV) has become very popular over the last decade.

And with that popularity has come a bit of misunderstanding.

Here are some important things to keep in mind about the almighty “conversion rate” when you’re working on optimizations…

How are you measuring conversions? — What exactly is a “conversion” and what are you trying to measure? Make sure you’re measuring what you mean to measure. For example, I once had a client who tracked the clicks on a certain button as “conversions” but they were counting clicks on the button when opt-in information hadn’t been entered (i.e. accidental clicks). This was skewing their conversion rate to look better than it actually was. 

Is your sample size significant? — This is something that not enough marketers talk openly about. We all test things like button color, headlines, and font size, and then we give credence to whatever A/B test results we see… but results are only valuable if there’s a significant sample size. If you only, for instance, are making decisions based off of 100 visits to your landing pages, then you’re not giving your test results the traffic they need to become statistically significant. Try to get at least a thousand or more visits before making any decisions.

How are you testing new iterations? — Finally, a common mistake people make when A/B testing is changing everything in each new version. They don’t just change the headline, they change all of the copy, the images, and maybe even the traffic source. That’s a problem because, even if you have a clear winner, you won’t be able to determine (beyond just guessing) why one landing page outperformed the other. When you’re testing to improve conversion rate, only change one thing at a time, wait for statistically significant results, make adjustments, and then test something else. 

Now that we’ve gone over some quick tips on measuring conversions, let’s move on to the 5 tips for creating high-converting landing pages with ads. 

1. Map Out Your Sales Funnel

Before you even begin to write any copy or design a landing page, it’s a good idea to take a step back. 

Grab a pen. 

Grab some paper. 

And start thinking about the experience you intend to create for people. Where are they coming from? What type of ad is going to drive them to click? What is the high-level angle of that ad? How will the landing page carry them forward to conversion (or to another stage of your funnel)?

If you’re unsure where to start, look at what your most successful competitors are doing (we call this funnel hacking). 

Check out their Facebook ads by going to the “Transparency” section of their Facebook page, click-through to their landing page, and maybe even buy or opt-in to see their entire funnel. 

This will give you a ton of ideas for creating your own successful funnel. 

Here’s an example of what it looks like when we map out sales funnels… 

Map Out Your Sales Funnel

Once you’ve mapped out the experience you intend to create, put yourself in the shoes of your target market.

What might stop you in your tracks? 

What objections do you have? 

What would stop you from converting? 

These are all things you need to think about when you’re crafting your sales copy, offer, and landing page. So answering these questions will be very useful a few steps from now. 

Last but not least, make sure everything is easy.  

Your ad and landing page should work together as one seamless experience — relevant and consistent across the board. 

This is the only high-level step in this article. The rest will get into the nitty-gritty of actually crafting a high-converting landing page.

2. Use a Long-Form Sales Page

You’ve probably seen what I’m talking about. 

The sales pages that are so long you can easily get lost in them.

And if you’re anything like I was, you might get intimidated by the length of those pages…

Why are they so long? 

Do they NEED to be that long? 

Is it possible to just create short sales pages that convert well? 

I, too, used to avoid creating long sales pages. I found the thought of writing all that copy daunting — what would I even talk about for that long? 

But once I bit the bullet and found a process I could follow (the one I’m going to show you in this article), the landing pages I use for cold traffic started converting at a much higher rate. 

(For warm traffic, I typically still use shorter landing pages)

I want to show you an actual example of this so you can see what I mean. 

When I started trying to sell one of my info-products — called The Perfect Pitch — to cold traffic, I created a short sales page… because, again, I was intimidated by long sales pages. 

Here’s what that looked like…

Use a Long-Form Sales Page

Sexy, right? 

The page was very simple (see it here). It had a quick explanation of what the product is and then a ton of testimonials, with a countdown timer to create urgency.

And want to know how well it converted? 

Terribly. 

I got like 1,000 visits to the page and maybe one sale. 

So I rethought the whole thing, embraced Russell Brunson’s hook, story, offer format for writing long-form sales pages, and created a long (but not nearly as sexy) landing page. 

I also changed some of the messaging and angle… 

Russell Brunson’s hook, story, offer format for writing long-form sales pages, and created a long (but not nearly as sexy) landing page.

The page is super long (you can see the full thing here) and I only even introduce the actual product like half way down the page. 

And guess what? 

This converted about 1000 times better.

Even though the page is far less “pretty”, it did a few really important things…

It Built Trust — It takes time to build trust. And the length of this page gave me the “time” I needed to tell my story, relate to my target market, and explain how I came across my unique solution. That’s a super important part of any landing page that’s catering to cold traffic. 

The page is super long (you can see the full thing here) and I only even introduce the actual product like half way down the page.

It Sparked Desire For a Solution — Sadly, people don’t arrive on your landing page crossing their fingers for the exact solution you’re going to deliver. After reading your headline, they probably only have a whisper of an idea of what your product is actually about. A long-form landing page gives you the time you need to spark the reader’s desire for a solution. You can remind them of a problem they’re facing and explain that they don’t have to face it anymore. 

It Sparked Desire For a Solution

It Created Fear Around NOT Taking Action — Someone once told me that people don’t buy because they want the result your product offers them (a common misconception), they buy because they’re afraid of the repercussions of NOT taking action. That’s an important tweak I made and, near the end of my landing page, I candidly explain what will happen if they pass up this opportunity. 

It Created Fear Around NOT Taking Action

However, those are only things a long landing page can do. 

Why? 

Because it takes time to build trust, spark desire for a solution, and create a sense of urgency.

In fact, you need all the time you can get. 

So let’s talk about the three critical components of a high-converting landing page: hook, story, and offer. 

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3. Start With Hook

Think about the entire sales funnel. 

It all starts with a hook. 

Your target market is scrolling through Facebook or searching on Google and *bam* they see your advertisement. 

Why do they click on it? 

Your answer to that question is your hook — it’s the thing that stops people in their tracks, gets them to click, and pulls them into the beginning of your copy. 

For my freelance writer’s kit, this was my hook… 

Start With Hook

For Traffic Secrets, our hook is this…

For Traffic Secrets, our hook is this…Claim a free copy of underground traffic playbook.

For our homepage, our hook is this…

For our homepage, our hook is this…Meet ClickFunnles

What is your hook? 

To help you answer that question, here are a few more questions…

  • What is your target market’s ultimate fear? 
  • What about your product is super unique? 
  • What is your product NOT about? 

The goal is to create curiosity, to trigger some dormant fear, or to make a promise so crazy that people just have to learn more to see if it’s true.

4. Tell a Story

Once you have your hook, it’s time to tell a story. 

Why?

Because they are enticing. And because they are (by far) the best way to illustrate the real value of your product.

The story can be about you or about a past customer who’s used your product or it can even be fictional. Here are all of the critical components to telling a great story (with an example from Bryan Ward). Follow these steps and you’ll pull people down the page toward your introduction to your product… 

Introduce The Problem — What was the problem your protagonist was facing. Introduce this right at the start of your story. Be candid about the problem they were facing and what they struggling with. Explain their fears and anxieties. Relate those feelings to the same feelings your target market has. The more you do that, the better. 

Tell a Story

Things Don’t Go As Planned — Your hero hoped for things to go well… but they didn’t. Something happened and things started to go downhill. Explain in detail the problems your hero faced and what that was like. 

Things Don’t Go As Planned

Things Get WORSE — But it didnt’ stop there. Things got even worse. This is where you can talk about the problems your target market is facing beneath the surface and bring them into the light. 

Things Get WORSE — But it didnt’ stop there. Things got even worse. This is where you can talk about the problems your target market is facing beneath the surface and bring them into the light.

The Valley Provides Clarity — But as all good stories go, the hero’s lowest point provides a sort of clarity they never had before. They finally are able to see their problems for what they are and create or implement a solution. This is where the transition starts to happen. 

The Valley Provides Clarity — But as all good stories go, the hero’s lowest point provides a sort of clarity they never had before.

The Solution is Discovered — Because of the low point your hero reached, they are able to discover and implement a unique solution that changes their life. This is where you start introducing the solution your hero stumbled across and how they stumbled across it. 

The Solution is Discovered — Because of the low point your hero reached, they are able to discover and implement a unique solution that changes their life.

The Solution is Shared — What good is an amazing and profound solution if it’s not shared with the world? Now you explain why you’re sharing your powerful system with the reader. 

The Solution is Shared — What good is an amazing and profound solution if it’s not shared with the world? Now you explain why you’re sharing your powerful system with the reader.

That’s it!

Hopefully, that gives you a better idea of how you can use compelling and powerful stories to lead naturally into the product or service you’re trying to offer. 

If you can master this… then you’re going to have mastered the biggest secret behind making sales online.

5. Create an Amazing Offer

Okay, so you’ve told a story that has briefly introduced your product…

But there’s still a little more work to be done. 

You need to make your offer irresistible

How?

By adding free bonuses to your offer (there’s a reason that great salesman always says “but wait, there’s more”). The idea is to overwhelm people with so much value that they can’t say “no.”

On our Traffic Secrets page, for instance, we offer a whopping 5 bonuses to make people salivate with anticipation…

Create an Amazing Offer

So what bonuses can you offer (beyond just your main product) to make people feel like they just have to take advantage of this offer? 

The more value you provide people, the higher your conversion rate is going to be.

Final Thoughts

Creating a high-converting landing page is an essential part of any advertising campaign.

It’s also something that takes time, trial and error, and lots of testing. 

But, when done correctly, it can be incredibly powerful — taking your advertising efforts to the next level. 

Follow the five tips above to ensure you create the highest-converting landing page possible!

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