39: Powerful Landing Pages: 3 Strategies to Skyrocket Conversions on Squarespace
EPISODE SUMMARY
Ready to supercharge your website's conversion rate? Landing pages are your secret weapon! These targeted billboards capture visitor attention and drive them towards a specific action – think freebie sign-ups or product purchases. This episode of Think Inside the Square unveils 3 key strategies that skyrocketed my landing page conversion rate from 3% to over 23% (yes, you read that right!). Here is an episode summary:
Strategy 1: Craft a Compelling Conversation
Imagine having a coffee shop chat with a potential customer who desperately needs a new yoga mat. You wouldn't just yell "Buy This!" the moment they walk in, right?
The same goes for landing page copy. Think less "features list" and more "engaging story." Focus on the amazing benefits your offer provides, not just its technical specs.
Strategy 2.: Call to Action: Louder & More Frequent
A strong call to action (CTA) tells visitors exactly what you want them to do – "Download," "Subscribe," "Buy Now." Don't be shy! Repeat your CTA in multiple locations, including above the fold (no scrolling required!).
Strategy 3. Visual Appeal is Key
Text-heavy landing pages = snoozeville. Break things up with captivating visuals! High-quality images, infographics, and even videos can showcase your product and grab attention.
Bonus Tip: Mobile responsiveness is crucial! Squarespace makes it easy to ensure your landing page looks fantastic on any device.
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Un the exciting world of online business, capturing attention and turning visitors into customers is key, and that is where landing pages come in. They're like targeted billboards on your website, designed to grab attention and get people to take one specific action. In this episode of Think Inside the Square, I'm sharing three key strategies that helped me increase my landing page conversions by over 600% this year. Yeah, 600, my friend. You don't want to miss this one. Welcome to Think Inside the Square, a podcast full of tips and tricks to help you create a Squarespace website that you're proud of. I'm your host, Becca Paine, Squarespace expert and creator of Inside the Square.co
In this episode, we're talking about landing pages, a page dedicated to one specific offer. It can be a freebie or a paid product, but this page is entirely focused on people taking action to get the thing. I've got three strategies to share with you. Three things I did differently this year with my own landing pages that help me increase my conversion rate, the total number of visitors who took the action I wanted them to take. For a transcript of this episode, along with the links to any resources mentioned visit insidethesquare.co/Podcast. The term Squarespace is a trademark of Squarespace Inc. This content is not affiliated with Squarespace Inc.. Landing Pages. Why are they so fantastic? For two big reasons.
Rebecca Harpain: Lead generation and sales pages. Imagine you're running an ad campaign or posting on Instagram about a free e-book that teaches people how to properly clean their yoga mat. What don't you want to send people who click on that ad to a page dedicated to getting that e-book with a clear sign up form? That's a landing page. It allows you to craft that focused experience, capturing those leads and building your email list. Now, let's say that a few months after sharing that e-book, you have a new revolutionary yoga mat that you're ready to sell. For that, you want to create a different style of landing page one that's packed with testimonials, high quality photos, and a very prominent buy now button. Both of those landing page examples can use these three key strategies to increase those conversions. A conversion in this case is someone taking the action you want them to take. Signing up for the e-book, buying the product, whatever the action is, completing that action is the conversion. The percentage of people who visit that page and complete that action. That is your conversion rate.
Rebecca Harpain: the first strategy I want to share is that you should try to have a conversation with your coffee. Imagine that you're standing in line at a coffee shop and someone right in front of you is holding this old ratty yoga mat, and it kind of smells and has holes in it. They're struggling to hold it together. It's just fallen apart. And you have a brand new yoga mat to sell them. But you wouldn't just yell, buy this the second they made eye contact with you. Okay, maybe you would, but I don't think you would sell a lot of yoga mats that way. The magic we want to capture with our landing page copy is to see this is your chance to have a one on one chat with someone and convince them that your offer is exactly what they need at that moment. So how do we write a copy that turns website visitors into raving fans or paying customers? You've got to talk their talk, tell a captivating story and focus on the amazing benefits your product has, not just the fancy features. For this yoga mat. A feature might be that it's lightweight and it's made of anti-microbial material. The benefit you could highlight in your copy could be a sentence like this an easy to carry yoga mat that will never smell like your feet. Focusing on how your product makes their life fantastic is a little bit more enticing than just the technical specs. Now for some long form landing pages, absolutely. Throw those technical specs in there. But we're talking about this conversation. You want to start off easy by really captivating them with the story and focusing on the amazing benefits of your offer.
Rebecca Harpain: I've got a lot more to say about writing compelling copy, and I have some older episodes of this podcast that you can dig into if you want to learn a little bit more. I will link to them in the show notes for this episode of insidethesquare.co/podcast, but I don't want to spend all day on this specific strategy because I've got two more to share. The second strategy is what I think was the big game changer for me in increasing my own conversion rate, and it was including a strong call to action more than once. A strong call to action is telling visitors exactly what you want them to do. Download Subscribe by you make this call to action button clear, concise and visually appealing. Try using strong verbs and time sensitive content like download now or get started today that can make a really big difference. Now, I used to use a call to action in a single place on my landing page at the bottom. I figure I have this conversation. I tell them all the amazing things. Of course they're going to want to sign up. But what I've started doing now is listing a call to action at the bottom of the page and at the very top. Now, for some of my high ticket products, my longer landing pages all listed a few more times sprinkled throughout the page itself. But for all my offers, Free and paid. I list my strong call to action at the very top of the page and at the very bottom. I have an entire section dedicated to this and this is the same on all of my landing pages, the CTA section. It starts with a clear headline. It could be the name of the product or a simple description. Then I add a supportive sentence that talks about the benefit of the offer or what it is. Followed by the first bold call to action. All of this is above the fold. That's tech speak for you. Don't have to scroll anywhere to see this. Here are three examples of this call to action section for my own landing page layouts. Two are freebies and one is a paid product. My first freebie is my Squarespace roadmap. The headline is Squarespace Roadmap. It's literally the name of the thing. The description is your free guide to the five essential steps for setting up your first Squarespace website. The Call to Action. Get the guide. It's a freebie. So it's quick. It's to the point what it is, how to get it. Another freebie I have is a list of the five codes I use on every Squarespace site I create. That landing page has a CTA section of the very top, and the copy there is as follows. The headline reads five CCS codes I use on every Squarespace website. The description of that says Get your free guide with the copy and paste code collection that every Squarespace you should know. And the call to action button says, Get the codes again. It's quick. It's to the point what it is how to get it. The third landing page example I have for you is one of my paid products, my mini course that can help you get started with Squarespace. Shameless self-promotion here. It's a collection of nine video lessons that guide you through all the important steps that you need to take to create your first Squarespace site. And it's only $27. You can see the landing page and enroll in the course at insidethesquare.co/start Here's the copy you're going to see on that landing page and you get there again. This is the above the fold call to action section. The very first one, it says
Squarespace made simple: This beginner-friendly course will help you confidently create your first Squarespace website!
Now after that first call to action section on my landing page, the rest of the content varies. The higher the cost, the more I add to the landing page. My freebies have 3 to 5 sections, while a sales page might have more like 8 to 10. If you're using this landing page to sell a product or any kind of offer, you should absolutely have a section dedicated to testimonials if you want to increase conversions. People trust other people, including testimonials from satisfied customers on your landing page, adds a layer of credibility and social proof. Potential customers are more likely to convert if they see real people raving about your product or service. Video testimonials can be great for big investments like a signature course, but for a lot of smaller ticket items. A text based testimonial with a little image of the person will do just fine. Now, speaking of visuals, that is Strategy three that we need to spend some more time on. High quality visuals are a must have for any landing page text. Heavy landing pages are really overwhelming for a lot of visitors, but there are ways you can still convey a lot of information while breaking up the content with quality graphics Captivating images are great. So are infographics, especially for physical products or even videos demonstrating you using the product. But don't underestimate the power of a bullet point or an icon collection. Icons can break up text, add pops of colors and represent complex ideas more simplistically. Think of them like little visual sub headers, grabbing attention and making your message clear when it comes to the larger images, including screenshots of your digital offers or pictures of a physical product, your landing page visuals should have a cohesive look. When it comes to the larger images, like screenshots of your digital offer or pictures of a physical product, The visuals on your landing page should have a cohesive look. Decide on the overall esthetic. Photos can feel more natural and documentary style, while illustrations might offer a playful or creative vibe. Sticking with one style or even creating a clearly intentional blend can create a unified look. Now images are great, but when it comes to visuals, don't be afraid of empty space, white space or negative space around text in images gives your visitors room to breathe and take it all in. It prevents a cluttered feel, and it makes it easier for your website visitors to find that main call to action. That's the critical step for a conversion. Now, before we call this episode a wrap, I do want to talk about the mobile view of your landing page. These days, everyone uses their phone to browse the Internet. I pretty much only use my laptop when my phone is charging, so it's important to make sure that your landing page is mobile friendly and responsive And Squarespace makes that easy. Squarespace is a responsive website builder, which means it's going to restructure, resize and change the layout of your page content based on the screen size of whatever device is being used to look at your website. And it does this automatically for you, which is awesome. Now there's a specific type of page section, a fluid engine section that lets you rearrange the content on mobile devices however you want it to be, which is great, but sometimes and this is rare but it does happen sometimes. You want the mobile version to be totally different than the desktop version. You have a completely different layout or maybe even different text that you want to show on mobile compared to desktop and or even the tablet version of your site. If this is the case, I have a workaround for you. It's called a section swap. You can use custom CC to show a specific page section on mobile and then a different one on desktop and it is even easier than it sounds. I will link to my free step by step tutorial for you in the show notes for this episode. But before you go check that out, let's recap the important landing page strategies we covered today. Starting with the written content of the page, you need to keep it conversational and focus on the benefits of what you're offering. Why someone would want the thing. Include a few testimonials if you can, especially if it's a paid product. You should have a strong and specific call to action, and you should place that call to action in multiple spots, even for free offers. I like to have one at the top of every page, above the fold or before the scroll. So the call to action is immediately visible to anyone who checks out the page. All of this written copy should not be a wall of text. Okay. That's the third strategy. Use visuals to break up the text. Bullet points and icons can be really helpful in your design and images. Infographics, even videos are great to make sure that the imagery that you use has a cohesive look like it would all belong on the same camera roll or in the same book. I want you to head on over to the show notes for this episode where you'll find a link to a super helpful video tutorial that will walk you through creating a landing page on Squarespace, complete with its own header and footer. I'll also link to the examples I shared so you can see my own landing page layouts in action. You'll find those at insidethesquare.co/podcast/39
That's three nine because this is the 39th episode of my podcast. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Think Inside the Square. I have a lot more to teach you about how to make Squarespace uniquely yours, so be sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you happen to be listening to this episode. Thanks again for tuning in and most importantly, have fun with your Squarespace website. Bye for now.
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The Ultimate Squarespace Landing Page Tutorial: youtu.be/kWJtQB6ncdY
Section Swap for mobile specific layouts: youtu.be/AQnwhitEqnI
Episode 36: Storytelling for Squarespacers: how to weave a powerful narrative into your website copy: insidethesquare.co/podcast/36
Episode 28: 28: How to build your email list using Squarespace: insidethesquare.co/podcast/28
Episode 21: Squarespace blogging: what makes a good blog post great: insidethesquare.co/podcast/21
Episode19: Creating Copy For Yor About Page: insidethesquare.co/podcast/19
