How to Create a High-Converting B2B Landing Page

Of all the marketing tactics B2B marketing leaders have at their disposal, landing pages might be the least understood.

After you spend a few minutes reading this article, however, you’ll have a clear viewpoint of the power of landing pages and why you need to include them in your portfolio of modern digital marketing practices. Additionally, you’ll become a master at landing page optimization. You’ll get answers to the following questions and more.

What’s a Landing Page?

A B2B landing page is a website page designed to convert visitors into leads by capturing a prospect’s name, company and email address through a simple form. Most people are familiar with consumer-focused landing pages, which typically persuade you to buy a product or service. But because B2B products are costly and require input from several decision-makers, companies don’t use landing pages to close a $100,000 sale. We all wish it were that easy, however!

Most B2B landing pages are standalone webpages that aren’t part of your company’s primary website navigation. Your visitors and prospects typically find and “land” on them by searching for specific keyword phrases that appear on a search engine result page, or SERP. The conversion could be a subscription to your monthly email newsletter, educational blog, or webinar invitation. 

Neil Patel emphasizes landing pages only have one purpose—a call to action—as opposed to a webpage, which has multiple functions.

Why Should I Be Using Landing Pages?

According to Search Engine Journal, landing pages are campaign focused, and live separately from your primary website. On behalf of our clients, we sometimes deploy scores of landing pages—each optimized for a single keyword phrase. Because they’re highly customizable, the landing page is the one tool in your marketing toolbox that can directly address a prospect’s problem or answer a question with a specific call to action.

Additionally, B2B marketers use landing pages to increase conversion rates from prospects engaging all of your company’s digital marketing tactics, which includes your website, white papers, e-books and other offers. Landing pages often have higher conversion rates than other tactics because their only purpose is to capture a lead through a compelling offer and clear CTA. The best landing pages can deliver conversion rates of more than 5%. And because each is inexpensive to deploy, landing pages have nearly limitless capacity to generate leads.

Over time, landing pages can also provide you with valuable insights into how your prospects respond to different offers and the landing page design. Adobe refers to this information as “lead intelligence,” noting, “While a person’s first visit may require only a name and an email address, subsequent visits can give you deeper insight into the buyers interested in what you have to offer.”

Besides, the more landing pages you index under your brand, the more chances you have of having that content appear in search engine results, which boosts SEO performance and increases leads.

Beyond “why you should use landing pages,” a handful of the questions we most often hear from our B2B clients include: “How long should the landing page be; Should the form be above the fold; Should I hide the main navigation in a landing page; and, Should I use a landing page or my homepage for PPC?”

How Long Should the Landing Page Be?

Your landing page should be as long as it takes to present your offer. If the offer is a free application download, a simple landing page with a paragraph and form is needed. But if you ask for an hour of the prospect’s time for a webinar, extend the page to include what they’ll learn, who’s speaking and their credentials.

Should the Form be Above the Fold on a Landing Page?

This is a much-debated issue. Don’t position it too low on the page, and it generally shouldn’t be lower than below a hero banner. But given the nature of what you’re asking someone to do, would a reasonable person buy-in (fill out the form) based on reading only the hero content? If yes, you have a simple landing page, and put that form in the upper right. If a reasonable person would want to know more before signing up, give them the opportunity to do that. Put the form right below the hero banner, and at the bottom of the page, include a call to action that scrolls them back up to the form.

Should I Hide the Main Navigation on a Landing Page?

The question of whether to hide the navigation on a landing page is also a highly-debated topic. Purists say always hide the navigation on a landing page. After all, you don’t want to give people any option but to fill out the form. This works if the landing page is for a specific offer that the person can know if they want it based purely on the landing page’s content.

For instance, if you’re running a PPC ad for a whitepaper, your ad teases the whitepaper offer and generates interest. The landing page provides more information on how great the whitepaper is and convinces you to download it. Note, the form is simple and you aren’t taking a big risk by entering your email to download it. Voila; landing page success and the landing page’s owner now has another email in their marketing list or more information about an existing lead via progressive profiling.

Conversely, if your landing page is designed to contact sales — and you’re selling complex B2B products or services with a complicated buying cycle — chances are most people who immediately complete the form aren’t high-quality leads. Your best clients are people who have already experienced your site content, which builds brand familiarity and convinces them you can solve their problems.

With clear calls to action, you can use this landing page as an alternate homepage or to introduce products or services. We also encourage clients to use this type of landing page in industry-focused PPC campaigns. When you do, focus content on industry-relevant features and benefits, which improves campaign success. Highlight case studies and testimonials that relate to that industry and encourage visitors to contact sales if they’re ready, but if they’re new, also to browse the site, learn more, and engage with your content. Thus, for this page don’t hide the main navigation and footer links.

Should I Use a Landing Page or My Homepage for PPC?

In a pinch, use your homepage, as long as the content of the PPC ad is fairly general. Ideally, however, in order to get the best click-through rates, conversion rates, and the best performance in Google for your ad spend, the keywords, ad copy, landing page copy, and any offer on the landing page should be as specific as possible.

What are the Key Elements of High-Converting Landing Pages

As you would expect, there are many best practices that distinguish high-converting landing pages. Over the years, we’ve applied these best practices to campaigns to help our B2B clients in numerous industries grow their businesses. This experience has helped us understand what works and what doesn’t create a high-converting landing page. Here’s what you should consider when building your landing pages:

1. Title or Main Headline

The landing page title or main headline has to be well-crafted because you only have a few seconds to grab your reader’s attention. It’s one of the first things they see, so keep it simple and clear. We like headlines that clearly communicate the benefit of your offer. “Increase Your Profits by 30%,” not “Learn How to Grow Your Business.”

2. Subhead

Use subheads to provide context and details surrounding the offer. Sometimes this subhead could also be your product’s value proposition. “Our cloud-based automation platform helps manufacturers improve productivity and cut costs, which results in higher profits.” 

3. Hero Image or Video

The hero image or video should complement the landing page’s title. Don’t scrimp with a low-quality image here. The best hero images use nearly the entire computer screen and often depict people that your prospect can easily relate to like customers using your product or service. These environmental portraits build affinity, trust and credibility with your prospects.

More B2B companies are using videos on landing pages to help content stand apart from competitors. According to a 2019 Statista study, 57% of B2B companies are employing video to market goods and services. By some measures, one-third of online responses originate from users watching video content. Additionally, Neil Patel says video extends the time viewers stay on your landing page, compared to static content.

4. Persuasive, Compelling Copy

B2B business prospects don’t have a lot of time to figure out vague or obtuse messages. Make your words clear and simple; get to the point. Be sure to include your offering’s most important benefits and features.

5. Testimonials, Case Studies

Sometimes referred to as social proof, testimonials in the form of customer quotes and case study excerpts have a powerful influence on landing page readers. If possible, use photos of customers along with citations to increase credibility.

6. Lead Capture Form

Keep your forms as simple and clear as possible. Don’t ask for more information than you need. Standard fields include name, company, telephone number and email address. Research has shown that the number of form fields a prospect must complete is related to the total number of submissions received. For simple offers like a newsletter subscription, some companies only require an email address. 

7. CTA Button

Use color and size to draw attention to the landing page’s call-to-action button. Note that designers always experiment with colors or design nuances to see how they affect responses. You can also get creative and descriptive with the copy within the button, but always use verbs to suggest action. Stay away from generic terms like Submit or Click and use phrases like Sign Me Up! or Read the White Paper Now.

Privacy Policy

These days, we are all concerned about what companies do with our data. A line or two addressing your company’s privacy policy can assure skittish B2B prospects you’re not going to do anything unethical with their data. Without a well-articulated privacy policy, you could lower your percentage of form completions.

What Software Should I Use to Build Landing Pages?

Thankfully, there are numerous software options you can employ to build landing pages. If you can, use the same CMS your website is built on. It will save you an additional software license fee. It also keeps staff from learning another platform. Especially with WordPress’s new Gutenberg editor, the building blocks for a good landing page can be built into most websites.

HubSpot offers another great option if you’re using other tools within their suite, such as HubSpot CTAs. If you don’t work with a developer, or lack the modules you need to create a landing page template in WordPress, HubSpot lets you use pre-existing templates.

Finally, if you want to create a PPC campaign, and your landing page offers are concise and simple, consider using landing page specific software packages like Leadpages or Unbounce.

How Can I Measure Landing Page Effectiveness?

Now that your landing pages are live and producing a stream of leads, how do you measure their performance and effectiveness? Thanks to analytics software, you can keep tabs on four metrics that are leading indicators of success and help you with your landing page optimization.

• Total leads: One could argue this is the only metric you genuinely care about. How many leads are entering your pipeline on a daily or weekly basis? What’s their quality level? How many leads are converting into sales or customers?
• Page views: This is an indicator of how many people are finding your landing pages. What’s the ratio between page visits and conversions? What search terms did they use to find your page?
• View to submission rate: This metric tells us of the people who visited your page, what percentage completed the form? Can you determine which personas were most likely to complete a form and send it back to you? This information will help you shape future strategy and decide which channels — email, social media or search — netted the most submissions. 
• Conversion rate: Marketing leaders can analyze conversion rates to determine which are new visitors and who are returning. This information can also help you discern what stage — awareness, consideration, decision — a B2B buyer may be in. This intelligence informs your future marketing strategies.

Grow Your B2B Company With High-Converting Landing Pages

The lead generation landing page is one of the most powerful, yet affordable tools in your digital marketing toolbox. Because they’re infinitely customizable you can use them to support your marketing activities in any industry. An optimized landing page will motivate customers to subscribe to your newsletter, download a whitepaper, sign up for a webinar and contact sales.