Landing pages are the first step for converting leads that arrive at your site and injecting them into your marketing program. There are various tools in your marketing toolbox, whether email campaigns, pay-per-click (PPC) or organic search results through search engines.

The following seven tips focus on getting prospects to take action in one of three ways:

1. Submitting a form

2. Registering for a trial of your product or service

3. Purchasing your product or service

If any part of your landing page does not promote one of these actions, it’s likely an element you don’t need.

Tip #1: Stay focused

The most effective landing pages focus on a single message and CTA (call-to-action). Tossing more than one offer up on your page just to see what sticks, will most likely lead to confusion for your visitor. At which point they will probably abandon your page all together. So drive one central message per landing page and remember you can create unlimited landing pages to test messaging and offers.

Tip #2: Keep content and graphics consistent with your other marketing creative

Whether your landing page visitors arrived by clicking a link in your email, following a link from a press release, or being directed by social media, you have somehow built up their expectations. So make sure the key landing page content (e.g., headline, offer, call to action) satisfies visitor expectations and matches the original content that you delivered. In other words, make your prospects transition from your marketing creative to your landing page as visually seamless as possible - there should be no mistake on arrival that they're in the right place.

Tip #3: Personalize Your Offers

Your message and offers will likely vary by market segments, demographcs, etc. While it requires you to make a extra landing pages, it’s best practice to display landing pages that correspond directly to each specific segment’s needs. If you try to convert all segments with a single landing page, you risk alienating one or more of them. Again, you are not limited to any number of landing pages with LeadFWD, so don't limit yourself either.

Tip #4: Keep it simple, it's not supposed to be a replica of your web site

Indecision leads to no decision. To avoid prospect indecision, simplify your offer in two ways:

1. Limit choices: Too many choices lead to indecision. For example, don’t offer the choice of a 1-month subscription for price “X” or a 3-month subscription for price “Y.” Just make one offer.

2. Remove distraction: Keep your prospects focused on the value of the offer and the steps needed to take advantage of the offer. To do this, get rid of any page content or links to other content that could possibly distract a visitor from the main task at hand. If your site includes a range of links and other “must-have” content, consider minimizing their usual size and moving them away from prominent portions of the landing page.

Tip #5: Spell Out a Clear Call to Action

The entire purpose of your landing page is to spur action by prospects. Position your call to action prominently on the page with your offer. If your page is long enough to require scrolling, consider placing the offer and call to action at both the top and bottom of the page so that they are always in view. And of course, set them aside from all other page text and elements so that prospects notice them first and continuously have them in their sight.

Tip #6: Keep Everything Simple

Be mindful that you do not need anything over the top here. Marketers love to market! It’s in our blood. But when it comes to converting prospects, we need to tone down the marketing on the landing page, particularly in three areas:

1. Forms: Sure we want to capture as much lead data as possible, but a long form scares away prospects. Keep the form at five fields or less.

2. Images: Keep them as small as possible, unless they are images of the item being offered. A large image can draw prospects’ eyes away from the offer and call to action.

3. Text: Too much text and promotional verbiage, aside from boring your prospects, will also distract them from the task at hand.

Tip #7: Test, Test and Test

Does a yellow button convert more visitors that an orange button? Does a black and white image convert better than color? It depends, and it can change. Always choose one thing to test on your landing page, especially if you will be getting enough activity to provide reliable test results. One killer test may identify a way to raise your overall lead conversions by a significant amount – but not testing will keep your conversion rates confined to their current levels.