Landing pages are an absolute necessity to incorporate into your website design as they can be used to convince visitors to share their contact information with you in exchange for a high value offer (e.g. ebook, live demo, webinar, etc.). More importantly, they help you guide visitors directly to the information they need and in a condensed format so that they stay focused on your goal…conversion.

We’ve talked a lot about landing pages and ways to optimize them to help increase your conversion rate; however, we haven’t yet touched on the nitty gritty details of what you need to include on your landing page for it to be most effective. Therefore, here are 4 things that you should absolutely include on your landing pages if you want to move your website visitors through your sales funnel more efficiently:

1. Purpose
Keep in mind that every page on your website should have a purpose. When you create a new landing page, the content that you include on your page should directly relate to the keyword search phrase that would be typed into a search engine to arrive at your page. For example, if your landing page is to market your new ebook about increasing conversion rates, you would want to include the keyword phrase “increasing conversion rates” on your landing page in the content, page title, headings, and page description so that you can rank for it in search results.

Knowing what the purpose of your landing page will be before you get started and the keyword phrase(s) that you want it to rank for will help you create more conversions, making it easier for you to repeat the success in the future.

2. Short and Engaging Titles
The title that you assign to your landing page is different than your page headline, USP, or what appears in the URL. Your landing page title is what Google’s algorithm sees first when fetching data for a search query. If you’re an iPhone user, think about how you would ask Siri a question if you wanted to find local restaurants or the closest gas station. With Google’s recent Hummingbird update, this is the mindset that you need to have when assigning a title and keywords to your landing page. Both should be short, engaging, and in the format that a user would type, or speak, into a search engine.

3. Brief Copy with Bullet Points
The copy on your landing page should be brief, and it should in a nutshell explain what the offer is and why you must absolutely take advantage of it. Bullet points should be used to make the page visually appealing and easy to scan, and you’ll want to be sure to highlight any amazing features, useful tricks, and how your product or service will change the lives of your customers. Basically, you want the copy to be convincing enough to inspire visitors to share their contact information with you in exchange for something you’ve convinced them they need.

4. Contact Form
It’s shocking the number of businesses that create a landing page, but neglect to include a form to collect valuable contact information from visitors. The point of having a landing page is to exchange value for value: the visitor provides you with his contact information and in turn can access the information you’ve promised will help him. If you don’t have a contact form, you leave it up to your visitors to find their way to your contact page and despite what you think, will more than likely get lost in the process and abandon your conversion funnel.

If you take into account these 4 critical elements when creating your landing pages, you will be much more effective in earning conversions from your website. Good luck!