Let me preface this post by saying that while there are general “best practices” for lead generation landing pages, you never know what might work the best for your particular niche and traffic source. So testing of every option is always the key to making the best landing page.
I thought I would look at 3 lead generation landing pages in one of the most competitive industries around – mortgage leads. I Googled “home loans” and took the top three results. By the way, if you want to see mainly good landing page techniques, check out super competitive keywords as those have usually been optimized to the highest degree.
Landing Page #1
This page from Lending Tree uses the approach of putting the whole mortgage lead application on the landing page. The visitor doesn’t have to go through multiple “next page” steps, but with 17 fields on the page its a daunting task to fill out. On the plus side, you have the smiling happy family and dog, the next steps preview, and the trust symbols above the fold. Overall, I would think this page would have a very low conversion page.
Landing Page #2
This landing page uses the simple 3 field gateway form. This gets users “hooked” into filling out the longer form on the next page. Once they start the process, its human nature to keep going until you are done. In theory, this should lead to higher conversions that putting the whole form on the first page. On the negative side, this page is all business. No smiling people or nature scenes. Just hard numbers with tables of mortgage rates. While this might give the visitor the information they are looking for, it might be too much data all at once for the visitor to absorb. Overall, I would think this page would have a medium conversion rate.
Landing Page #3
The last landing page uses the minimalist approach. Only a 3 field form to hook the web visitor. There’s a simple line drawing of a house and trust symbols above the fold. On the negative side there are 20 links on the bottom of the page for the user to click without starting the form. This landing page is from lowermybills.com so its understandable they want to get users to other sites in their network. Although I am not crazy about any of these, if I had to pick one of these 3 landing pages to test first, it would be this page.
Hopefully these landing page reviews give you some ideas of how to critically look at your own pages. As always, test test test.
These are very helpful. Please keep them coming!
landing pages for me have become a dime a dozen. not that they aren’t need etc.. but really it all comes down to the details, and the fields and the security a page brings.
I think it’s like you said “test test test”, my technique has always been to start off with a landing page that has proven success, and then to tweak and test for the given niche, because every niche requires a little bit something different.
I too think the 3rd example is the best of the 3. As for the 20 links at the bottom, that is clearly for seo. So they have made a point of putting the below the fold, even at the expense of putting a big chunk of white space in the middle.
That is good advice to look at landing pages of very competitive niches. It also helps to check out the landing pages of the top ranked sites in your niche. It is those ones that you need to one-up.
Putting links in a landing page is not going to help for SEO. Might help some if you are directing your search traffic to a static URL and not one that has some sort of tracking ID attached to it.
Actually I like to look at other industries that are big on LPO like car insurance, home insurance, and other to get ideas as they buy in to LPO and are creative.
Frank Pipolo
That is good advice to look at landing pages of very competitive niches. It also helps to check out the landing pages of the top ranked sites in your niche. It is those ones that you need to one-up…