Depicting the anatomy of a landing page
In this blog post you'll learn about the anatomy of landing pages, and discover the essential elements your landing pages should include.
Landing page anatomy:
High-converting landing pages are built according to similar principles and using similar "building blocks" as the engaging websites, blogs, and mobile apps.
And while design crews are working hard to make landing pages look unique, the majority of landing pages have a similar anatomy in their core. In this article and video, we're taking a closer look at the anatomy of a typical landing page — what it consists of and how the elements are organized.
Essential elements of landing page anatomy
Let’s take a closer look at the landing page template provided below. Start your visual journey from the position of the “Company Logo” to the “Main Headline”, “Supporting Statement”, “Call-to-Action Button” … Take a moment and review how these essential landing page building blocks have have been put together.
This simplified format allows you to comprehend the landing page anatomy and identify the patterns of elements. Feel free to utilize this high-conversion landing page template for your own needs. It’s very easy to replicate using a landing page builder tool.
1. Landing page header with your brand logo
The first element of lading page anatomy that your landing pages should include is a header with the logo of your brand. This is it. Unlike your website header that typically contains a website menu, a phone number, links to "Support" or "Blog" pages, your landing page header should be simple and clean.
Hence, don't put any links or menu items in there header — a logo is enough. Speaking about the logo, don't link your logo to your website. Remember, your landing page needs to be self-sufficient and convert visitors into leads right here and right now.
2. Main headline (a.k.a. unique selling proposition)
The main headline is the best location for your unique selling proposition, which needs to set your product or service apart from the competition in the eyes of landing page visitors arriving from a variety of landing page traffic sources. Your main headline needs to be concise, yet it must convey the value to the end user very clearly. The main headline is usually marker with H1 tag and placed at the top of a page.
PRO TIP: Consider starting your main headline (a.k.a. Unique Selling Proposition) with a verb, rather than a noun and use words such as “Get”, “Gain” “Achieve”, etc.
3. Supporting statement
According to the landing page best practices, the supporting statement needs to be close to the main headline. Its goal is to solidify the main headline by providing more details on the topic or explaining the offer. Here’s an awesome example of a supporting statement from Slack, that I stumbled upon a few years ago: “Slack is designed for teams that are sending robots to Mars".
PRO TIP: To make your landing page copy optimized for search engines (if you decide to enable indexing”), consider using the H1 tag for the main headline and H2 tag for the supporting statement.
4. Call-to-action
While call-to-actions seem to be very straightforward element of any landing page, there’s a little more to it. The best landing page templates and high-converting landing pages have call-to-actions that support your story outlined in your main headline and supporting statement. On high-converting landing pages the call-to-action message is a crucial element of the overall story often considered its apogee.
5. Benefits + illustrations/screenshots
It’s always a good idea to provide a few more examples of how your product or service will actually impact either business or personal life of a landing page visitor. If you are in the technology space, consider accompanying benefits with the most visually appealing screenshots of your product. That way your building credibility and trust with the tech-savvy audience that would like to see a little bit more than just bold claims.
6. Social proof
Have you ever been to a restaurant when you were the only person having lunch or dinner? How did it feel? Truth is – nobody wants to be among the first clients of any vendor. Everyone prefers investing in a product or service with many customers who are willing to share their success stories.
PRO TIP: If you’ve gotten a testimonial from a customer, consider using their photo and links to their social profiles. But don’t forget to ask the customer about that first, otherwise you could put yourself in a bad situation.
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7. Closing statement + illustration/screenshot
Research shows that landing page visitors usually scan through the content quickly and make a decision to complete the registration form without reading through all of the content of a landing page and rarely scroll to the bottom.
For those visitors who would like to do a little bit more research and read your content more thoroughly, the closing statement can be a powerful conversion factor. It reinforces and reiterates your unique selling proposition and gives your visitor one last reason to convert. It’s truly the definitive chord of your symphony, so you’d better make it loud.
PRO TIP: In your closing statement, try to focus on the one thing that is absolutely unique about your business. Ask yourself – if there was one single reason for your visitors to convert, what would it be? The answer to this question is the idea candidate for the closing statement.
8. Footer
Much like landing page header, your landing page footer needs to have just the essential information about your business. The only things that really need to be there are the address of your HQ office, the copyright message, the "Privacy Policy" (if applicable) and "Terms of Use" policy (if applicable).
Compared to a typical website footer, where SEO specialists usually place many links, a standard landing page footer is very clean and takes up very little vertical space.
