Thursday, July 5, 2018

Elements of a Landing Page - Web Development Basics

Must-have, all-time-favorite tool of event managers, event planners, startup companies, entrepreneurs, kickstarter products : landing pages. Basic elements, best practices.

Hero Image

An eye-catching, relevant image, that is not a stock image, and is the most representative of this event or product.

Some products are harder to adopt, some novel ideas are harder to comprehend, so replacing the hero image with an product video work much better.

Topic

Landing Pages have a focus and a purpose. For example, a landing page for a specific product, or a product category. Landing Pages are not wikipedia pages - encompassing, they are specialized. 

Theme, Theme Color, Style Book

Work with your design time or use an existing framework such as Material Designs by Google or style book.

Use a pre-build template such as WordPress theme template.

Bootstrap is a popular theme and front-end framework that most developers know how to use. 

Dynamic Web Pages with JavaScript

Sprinkle clickable, hover action, focus action as needed, only if they contribute to better UX.

Hosted Backend

It takes the security and database setup out of your dev routing. You can use splashthat event pages or Shopify e-Commerce backend. To have a custom backend you can use WordPress hosting. 

Call-to-Action

Every landing page should have an obvious call to action. That's the whole point of a landing page. 

Generate your own QR code and Barcode

It's easy to generate your own QR code and Barcode manage your inventory. These nifty codes are like hyperlinks to your product. They can link to detailed product information, pricing and more. QR codes and Barcodes make inventories easier to manage and also sell. 

Exit Actions : Popup Offers

Landing pages naturally have high bounce rates. Offering a popup offer aka exit offer such as 20% off, first-timer discount may effectively stop exits.

Measuring Success and Tracking with Google Analytics

Google Analytics can track which landing page has made the ultimate referral. Use utm tag for granular tracking. 

Landing Page Goals

Conversion? Information? Testimonials? Think hard about the purpose of the landing page. 

Build an instant landing page in minutes

Splashthat.com allows you to build instant landing pages in minutes. No coding or designer required. Shopify Page feature is also a great option. WordPress hosting has a bit of overhead, since all WordPress comes with admin panel and a plethora of basic features. Developers can use Heroku for a custom landing page. Keep in mind, without paying for premium dynos, Heroku will be slow. I haven't used Wix personally but it looks pretty good.

SquareSpace can be linked with Google Domain and basic pricing is reasonable.


Nice-to-Have Landing Page Features

  • Testimonials and Social Assets: influencer endorsement, press logo stripe featured articles. 
  • Customer Testimonials
  • Social Testimonials
  • Press Features such as NewYorkTimes, TechCrunch
  • Additional reading on the Shopify blog https://www.shopify.com/partners/blog/landing-page-optimization

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