Blogger Landing Page Builder: A Walkthrough

Starting a blog sounds easy but if you want to grow as a blogger, creating landing pages can help a LOT! This walkthrough will cover everything that you need to know including the best builders you can choose from and the elements you need to put on your landing page to get more leads!

Table of Contents

• What Are Landing Pages?
• Is a Landing Page the Same as a Website?
  • Purpose of Landing Pages
  • Types of Landing Pages
• How to Build Landing Pages for Bloggers?
  • Elements of a Good Landing Page
• Blog-Dedicated Landing Page Samples
• What Is a Landing Page Builder?
  • Are Landing Page Builders Software Free?
  • Qualities of a Great Landing Page Builder
• Top 5 Landing Page Builders
• To Sum Up...

What Are Landing Pages?

Though Google and other search providers define a landing page as the first page viewed in a session, the digital marketing definition of a landing page is much more specific. In digital marketing, a landing page is the web page visitors land on immediately after clicking links in email marketing campaigns, search engine results, or social media advertisements.

Landing pages should contain compelling information and a clear call-to-action, or CTA, with explicit next steps. This helps visitors quickly assess whether what you are offering meets their needs. 

Is a Landing Page the Same as a Website?

Do you need a landing page or a website? Not sure about the difference between the 2?

Landing pages and websites serve different purposes. A website is your brand’s online first impression. Yet, a landing page is more like a handshake, forming a small part of that impression. In some situations, one is more effective than the other.

Since your website is larger, has more functionality, and generally requires more investment, it’s ideal for attracting more customers and for portraying more complex ideas. A website is best for established businesses or organizations and can help to answer any customers’ questions or concerns and provide utility.

A landing page is simple, easy to read, and its purpose should be clear. The landing page is usually aimed at a particular target audience, instead of consumers in general, and it’s centered around a single concept. The concept is usually promotional and aimed at engaging a potential lead. It’s usually, but not always, attached to a website.

Purpose of Landing Pages

If you aren’t using landing pages in your campaigns, you’re missing out on significant opportunities. These include, but aren’t limited to:

• Meeting user expectations -  Every digital campaign needs a landing page to convert visitors into customers. If visitors click on your advertisements and are directed to pages unrelated to the promotion, they might be confused and less inclined to purchase or convert. Each landing page needs to match the associated campaign messaging in order to meet user expectations.
• Promoting action - Landing pages allow you to emphasize a single action you want visitors to take. Whether you want prospects to download a gated asset, sign up for a newsletter, or purchase items on sale, focusing on one goal per page encourages your visitors to make a decision. This can help land you in the top 10% of landing pages, which convert with an 11.45% rate or higher.
• Boosting site performance - Search engines like Google and Bing can also discern how well your site anticipates visitors’ needs. Vague messaging on your landing pages will drastically change your ad rank, cost-per-click, and position in the ad auction. Your landing pages can help algorithms recognize your landing page’s value and boost your SEO with relevant keywords in headers, URLs, alt text, and content.
• Lead generation - Landing pages are handy for collecting valuable contact information. You can require visitors to enter their names, work emails, and job titles on contact forms in exchange for gated assets like webinars or ebooks.  This allows companies with longer sales cycles to send email campaigns later on.

Types of Landing Pages

Overwhelmed by the thought of creating a landing page for each campaign? Fortunately, there are a few go-to types of landing pages that can be customized for your campaign.

• Hub-style landing pages cater to visitors looking for educational material. This type of page organizes your videos, ebooks, and infographics in a digestible way. These pages help to establish your business as an industry expert or thought leader. Hub-style pages are best for engaging top-of-funnel prospects. You can educate prospects on your brand value, gather contact information, and later, review data from the page to understand what your prospects are interested in.
• Single-offer landing pages are the opposite of hub-style pages in that they only have one asset. While these pages rarely generate as much traffic as hub-style pages, they typically result in more conversions due to their specificity. Single-offer landing pages are most effective later in the customer journey when a consumer is aware of or experiencing an issue that the content directly addresses. Even if these leads do not convert right away, you have contact information and can send them more content related to their pain points.
• Clickthrough landing pages are a more immediate form of a lead-gen landing page often used by eCommerce and SaaS businesses. These pages are a little riskier than hub-style or single-asset pages since they lead prospects straight to a subscription or direct sale. On this landing page type, customers can simply click a CTA button like “Buy Now” to move forward with a transaction.

How to Build Landing Pages for Bloggers?

There are a few best practices every site should follow when creating landing pages. For example, consider using Google in researching your competitors. What headlines do they use and what is their writing style? What images do they use? Make a list of how other people tackle the best practices below and adjust your own landing pages to prompt more conversions.

• Attractive headlines - Headlines are perhaps the most important piece of your landing page. In fact, 90% of visitors who read your headline will also read your CTA. Without a captivating headline, visitors will simply click away and never see more of your landing page.

For educational content, use a “how-to” headline to signal to the reader that they will learn something by engaging with your content. For sales-related campaigns, use the word “you” to speak directly to the reader, and stress what they will gain from your products or services page. Experiment with a few headlines with an A/B test to see what really appeals to your web visitors.

• Concise copy - It’s probably pretty rare that someone wants to spend time reading a long, boring landing page, and even rarer that anyone has the time. Your landing page content needs to be short and sweet. The moment visitors hit a landing page, you have approximately 8 seconds to convince them to do something before they click away.

Make sure readers can get the gist of what you are offering from a quick skim, with simple words and phrases and breaking up chunks of text into bulleted or numbered lists. Again, A/B tests are a fantastic way to find out what works and what doesn’t.

• Eye-catching images - The best ads sell a feeling. Images are a wonderful way to evoke an emotional response. In fact, the human visual system collects up to 80% of all the sensory data received from the environment. Use this natural tendency to your advantage. Rather than picking a dull stock photo or an unexciting image of your product, think about what your readers want to feel. Select an image that conveys that your product or service can recreate that feeling.
• Pleasing, legible design - Sloppy, over-crowded landing pages are just inviting your prospects to click away. Disorganized landing pages communicate chaos to your reader. Choose clean, simple designs to keep the reader concentrated on your copy and CTA. Also, make sure that your landing page complements your ad. If the design and messages are drastically different, the reader will be confused and it can lead to doubt about your brand’s quality and value. 
• Testing - Customer preferences are ever-changing, which means your landing pages must evolve too. A/B testing allows you to measure the performance of two landing pages with slight differences (such as headlines or CTAs). The winner of an A/B test can become your new default page. After a few weeks, test this default against another variation, and continue doing this to improve your conversion rates over time. 

Another way to go about testing is by adjusting several factors on the same landing page. This style of testing is referred to as “multivariate testing.” In contrast to the A/B test which is very specific, multivariate testing gives marketers a broader idea of what is working. This might help if you are trying two drastically different landing pages to see which version to continue using as a template.

There might be a few little differences when it comes to using landing pages for blogs but if you build landing pages to grow your list of potential readers, these elements will come in handy. 

Elements of a Good Landing Page

Landing pages will differ based on their corresponding campaign, but each must contain key elements to increase conversions and capture lead information.  

• Above the fold content. This is your first chance to hook your audience. Personalize your message to stand out from the crowd. Address your target customer by name, add relatable videos or images, and play up concerns that prospects might have based on their role or industry. Although people scroll vertically more than they used to, eye-tracking data shows that they will still look more above the page fold than below it. You need to grab the visitor’s attention and communicate your message with a clear headline, supporting headline, and hero image.
• CTA. Although this will technically be found above the fold, the CTA deserves some individual attention. Your CTA should align with an action you want visitors to take. As much as possible, the CTA should remain consistent throughout the page.
• Benefits. Demonstrate your unique value to your visitors right away with a clear, compelling, targeted copy. Some landing pages do this by adding an ROI calculator. This allows prospects to immediately predict how they could use a product to save time or money. Another way to demonstrate benefits is to include a bulleted list of what someone will learn if they download a piece of your content.
• Social proof. Incorporating social proof in the landing page can improve users’ confidence in your offerings. Try inserting a banner of your biggest customer logos to validate your company. Testimonials can also help potential customers answer “what’s in it for me?” Include links to press articles or emphasize how many happy customers your company has recently acquired. Do some A/B testing to identify what social proof generates the most respect and interest from your reader.
• Closing. Reiterate your message and give your visitors another clear pathway forward. Obviously, you want visitors to follow through on your call to action. However, they may not be quite ready to complete that action. Give them an out by suggesting something else that could help them make a decision, like requesting a demo, joining an email list, or downloading a report.

Blog-Dedicated Landing Page Samples

Most landing pages are created with the use of templates. A little edit or tweaking here and there and you'll be able to create your first landing page. 

Here are a few samples of landing pages used by bloggers with a few notes as to how the landing page is a good one.

• Minimalistic – The minimal landing page design and use of white space draw the reader to the most important information.
• Image – The image on the page shows users exactly what the ebook will look like when downloaded to their device.
• Persuasive Copy – The copy is easy-to-read and clearly demonstrates the benefits of reading the guide.
• CTA Button – Multiple CTA buttons clearly instruct users what to do next—“Click here to buy the ebook.”

• Interactive Content – The interactive quiz format of the landing page is fun for users. 
• Images – Foodie Crush adds colorful, delicious-looking recipe photos to make the landing page more engaging. 
• Optin Form – Users want to see their results, so they’ll be more likely to subscribe when the optin form is presented at the end of the quiz.
• CTA Copy– Instead of using standard CTA copy like “Submit,” the CTA button says “See My Results,” which is more compelling. 

• Copy – The copy throughout this landing page focuses on the benefits of the course and the results it can bring—“earn your first $1000!”
• Images – Photos of real people can bring out an emotional response in users and make them feel more connected. 
• These are just some of the many samples where you can get an idea as to how you will be planning your landing page structure. The elements, colors, CTAs and how the message is being conveyed should compliment your blog's image. 

What Is a Landing Page Builder?

A good landing page builder software will help you create effectively, easy landing pages to increase your conversions. It allows you to choose from templates that have already been tested and are effective in converting visitors to a variety of types of landing pages.

Many landing page hosting services have drag-and-drop features that help you customize your landing pages to match your site. There are CTA, image, text, and color options that are easy to manipulate.

Are Landing Page Builders Software Free?

Using free software online has become a norm and yes, landing page builders are free given that some of them offer it for a limited amount of time. Even business owners, take advantage of the forever free features that a specific software can offer. For bloggers, a free page builder is something that they need to grow. Creating a dedicated landing page to help their subscribers or readers grow will allow them to reach a wider demographic of prospective leads. 

Just like blog website builders, there are pros and cons that come with opting to use a free landing page builder but having a high-converting landing page does not mean you have to pay or avail of a monthly subscription. 

You can always switch from a different landing page software as many times as you want. You have many options. Take advantage of the tool in creating custom landing pages. 

There are even builder apps available that you can download with no annual fee or plan. For newbies who are doing blogging with the hopes of growing their careers, a free builder is a smart move. 

Qualities of a Great Landing Page Builder

In the past anyone running a web-based advertising campaign had to deal with creating the campaign’s landing pages independently, nowadays there are online systems that offer to land page generation services. Such platforms offer a choice between a variety of pre-designed templates which can be altered to suit our needs, the landing page performance can be monitored (including A/B testing), automatic

The short answer is whatever features you need. To figure out what they are, try to describe your future landing page. If getting your head around it is still hard, check out the list below for some hints:

• Free plan or trial. Testing the creator before paying for it helps reduce the odds of wasting your budget on an inconvenient tool.
• Friendly intuitive interface. Most of the page creators on the market are based on a drag-and-drop principle. However, they have tons of differences; test several options, and go for the one you like the most.
• Responsiveness to various devices. Roughly 52% of all traffic is mobile; your potential customers are likely to view your landing page on their phone screens. So, choose a page creator with a constructor for mobile versions of a page or that auto adapts page sizes for various devices.
• Design freedom and templates. Ready-to-use designs allow you to build landing pages at a fast clip. On the other hand, the lack of customization won’t always yield the result you need. Try to find the perfect balance between design freedom and pre-made templates.
• A customizable domain name. Regular links with the landing page creator’s name don’t look good. Go for builders that allow you to use custom domains.
• Analytics. Professionals who use five or more analytics tools are 39% more likely to improve their marketing performance. To keep track of your landing page results and refine them, consider creators with built-in or integrated analytics tools.
• A/B testing. Little things have the power to make or break your landing page performance. For instance, changing a CTA button’s color can increase your conversion rate by up to 21%. So, always look for a split test function in your landing page creator.
• HTML, JS or CSS editor. Sometimes, even the most robust set of design features doesn’t give you enough freedom for website customization. You can solve this problem by adding your custom code if the landing page creator has an HTML, JS or CSS editor. 
• SEO options. 70% of marketers consider SEO to be more effective than PPC ads. So, what is the point of neglecting this opportunity to attract leads and increase your ROI?

Your choice of builder plays a very important part in achieving what you want for your landing page. If you opt for a paid builder, you'll get more features but that does not mean the conversion rate will kick off. If you are able to find all these characteristics in a single builder, start planning and focusing on your goal. Utilize the tools, make sure you get to add the necessary elements. Apply everything that you have learned. 

Top 5 Landing Page Builders

Excellent landing pages which yield high conversion rates are a must for every web marketing campaign. It is, therefore, crucial to choose a landing page generating system that best suits your needs. It is important to remember that building a good landing page is only the tip of the iceberg, in order to maximize a marketing campaign’s ROI it is necessary to closely monitor its landing pages’ performance, making changes according to data gathered, testing different versions, incorporating advanced CRM optimization tools (such as pop-ups, dynamic text, customized call to action etc.). 

With a number of available builders online, we took the liberty of narrowing down the list to 5. 

1) TruVISIBILITY

Quickly build landing pages to connect with your audience, educate your visitors, collect leads, and close sales with TruVISIBILITY. If you’re lacking inspiration, they have got a library of high-converting page templates for virtually every business situation. It takes only a few minutes to get a new page up and running.

With so many customizable layouts to choose from, you never have to worry about having designing skills. Their library offers high-converting templates you can modify to fit your brand or blog website in a few clicks.