You've heard it before: you only get one chance to make a good first impression. The same goes for your website. Your landing page is the first thing a potential customer sees, and it must make a good impression.
A good Shopify landing page is one of your most important tools for creating an effective marketing campaign. You want to ensure that visitors are impressed and ready to take action when they land on your page. More action-taking means higher conversion rates and less spending on acquiring customers.
In this post, we'll dive deeply into Shopify landing pages. We'll understand what they are and learn what features and functionality a high-converting one should contain. Then we'll consider the seven different types of landing pages, look at some examples, and learn how to build one with Shopify. Could you use these tips to beat the average landing page conversion rate of 9.7%?
What Exactly is a Landing Page and Why Do You Need One?
A landing page is a webpage on your website specifically designed to generate leads or customers. It is the entry point for a visitor who has clicked on one of your ads, links, or social media posts. The landing page should clearly explain the product you are offering and provide the user with an easy way to take action. Let's look at landing pages in the context of other web page types.
Landing Pages vs Homepages
The home page is generally the first page visitors see when they visit your website directly. It contains an overview of your business, brand, and products. In one concise sentence, it should explain who you are and what you do. Homepages typically have a few sections, including product pages, blog posts, help documents, contact information, and more.
The majority of websites need to get this right. Blogging Wizard found that over three-quarters of top landing pages were home pages. You should use these different pages as different marketing tools, catering to the various stages of your marketing funnel.
Landing Pages vs Product Pages
A product page differs from a landing page. Product pages are the parts of an ecommerce website that describe and promote the individual products for sale. They provide information like features, benefits, specifications, pricing, etc. They are typically linked to from product collection pages.
Product pages focus on selling the product while landing pages focus on converting visitors into customers.
The Benefits of Landing Pages
There are various reasons to use landing pages on your Shopify store rather than simply relying on the home and product pages. Some of these benefits include the following.
- Ecommerce landing pages see higher conversion rates than home pages by focusing on a single product.
- Improved user experience by providing helpful information about the product and making it easy for visitors to take action.
- Reduced paradox of choice, which is when too many options can lead to decision paralysis. Landing pages prevent this by providing fewer choices.
How to Make Sure Your Shopify Landing Page Converts
So the sole purpose of a landing page is to convert visitors into customers. But how do you make sure your landing page is doing its job? Let’s look at some practices to ensure your Shopify landing page is well-designed and optimized for conversions. These include using eye-catching headings, a customized call to action, optimizing pages for mobile, and designing with your target audience in mind, among others. Of course, landing pages should also adhere to standard SEO guidelines.
Attention-Grabbing Heading
People don't buy features; they buy benefits. They want to know if the product you're selling can solve their problem or satisfy their want. Let's imagine your ecommerce store sells massage guns. You could build your headline using three core components:
- The primary benefit. e.g., "Relieve sore muscles".
- How is this benefit achieved? e.g., "using deep massage".
- The what (if necessary). e.g., "from a handheld device".
The subheading should mention the product and reinforce the benefit. e.g., "The Miracle Pro massage gun delivers a deep tissue massage that helps relieve muscle pain in seconds. Pocket-sized for easy transport and a battery life of over 2 hours."
Clean and Clear Design
Your landing page design should be clear and clean, focusing attention on the product you are selling. The page should have a good balance of visuals, text, and white space. Three best practices for selecting imagery include the following.
- Choose visuals that draw attention. Use product photos, customer testimonial photos, or lifestyle images.
- Use visuals to show how the product works, like diagrams or animations showing how the product functions.
- Ensure your visuals align with your brand guidelines.
Customized Call to Action
The call to action (CTA) is critical to your Shopify landing page. The CTA should be a clear and concise button, so visitors know what to do. Your call to action button should:
- Include a strong verb. e.g., “Buy now”, “Shop now”, and “Learn more”. If possible, use a term related to the product. e.g., "Relieve Muscle Pain Now".
- The CTA should also clarify to the visitor what will happen after they click the button. Help them with terms like "Proceed to checkout", "Register now", etc.
- Finally, keep your CTA above the fold – the page section visible without having to scroll.
Visible Social Proof
You might consider including these four types of social proof on your landing page, among others.
- Customer testimonials provide an unbiased third-party endorsement of your product. You can display customer reviews and feedback through written testimonials, video reviews, or even photos and screenshots they have provided.
- Listing prominent brands or influencers that use and endorse your product helps show credibility and build trust.
- Show your customer count as a badge or notification. It indicates popularity and generates an element of FOMO (fear of missing out) in the visitor.
- Displaying star ratings can help potential customers determine the quality of your product at a glance.
Optimized for Mobile Phones
Websites not optimized for mobile deliver a poor user experience. The contents may not be properly adjusted for smaller screens. The layout may be cluttered. Text that is too small will require the user to zoom in. Media not optimized for mobile will look distorted or pixelated.
If that's not convincing enough, consider that mobile traffic now makes up more than half of global website traffic. Here are a few tips for ensuring mobile optimization of your landing page.
- Avoid any clutter or elements that could confuse visitors.
- All text should be readable without zooming.
- CTAs should be large enough to tap with a finger.
- The page should load quickly.
- Optimize images and videos for mobile phones.
Geared to Your Target Customer
Who are you targeting? Knowing this information will help you tailor the content on your page specifically for them. Outline the demographics and interests of your target customer, such as age, gender, occupation, location, etc. This information will help you craft content that speaks directly to them.
Typical buyers of your product will use similar words and phrases when describing the problem the product helps solve. Search your social media comments and customer interactions to find these terms and use them in the copy on your landing page. You’ll be speaking to your customers in terms that they use!
Types of Landing Pages
The goal of your campaign should inform the kind of landing page you create. The design, functionality, and layout of the landing page should all be centred around the goal: what action would you like the visitor to take from the page? Let's consider seven landing page types, their corresponding goals, and their positions in the sales funnel.
[Check out Hubspot's deep dive into the types of landing pages]
Squeeze Landing Page
A squeeze landing page typically contains an opt-in form that requires a visitor to provide their email address to access an offer or additional information. The goal is to capture the email address of visitors. It is typically used at the top of the marketing funnel to introduce visitors to a product.
Squeeze landing pages should include a headline that briefly describes the product and the benefits they can expect to receive. The page should also contain persuasive content such as customer testimonials, a call-to-action (CTA) button, and a form that allows visitors to fill out their personal information.
Splash Landing Page
A splash landing page is a type of landing page used at the top of the marketing funnel. Splash pages are commonly used as gateway pages for customers. They are visually engaging (eye-catching design, large images, and bold fonts) and feature minimal content.
A splash page's goal is to direct visitors to the appropriate page within your website. It should contain a headline, short description, and CTA button that leads customers further into the marketing funnel.
Click-Through Landing Page
A click-through landing page is used at the bottom of the funnel to offer value to the visitor through a free trial or discount offer. It's not a full-blown sales page but is designed to get the customer to take an action.
Click-through landing pages should contain persuasive content, such as case studies, reviews, or testimonials highlighting the product's value. It should also include a CTA button. Because this is lower down the funnel, your lead is considered 'warm' and will be more likely to click through to a purchasing or sign-up step.
Lead-Generation Landing Page
The goal of lead-generation pages is to capture leads using a form. This page should include a headline, a brief product description, and the opt-in form. It’s similar to the squeeze landing page, but you’ll gather richer information.
How much you ask for depends on the stage in the sales funnel. At the top of the funnel, you probably shouldn't use an 8-line form – perhaps just name and contact info, and provide a downloadable case study. Nearer the bottom of the funnel, you can ask for more detail.
Sales Landing Page
A sales landing page drives conversions by providing visitors with compelling offers. The goal of a sales page is to convert visitors into buyers using persuasive content. This might include customer stories and reviews. Consider all the questions a customer might have at purchase time and try to answer them on this page – maybe even in the form of FAQs. As this is an action-taking page, it typically sits near the bottom of the sales funnel.
A neat trick for sales pages is to use A/B testing to determine what content leads to more conversions. A/B testing is the process of splitting your audience into two (or more) groups, showing each group slight variations of a page, and determining a winning group based on some performance metric – like conversions.
Thank You Landing Page
A Thank You landing page is the final step in your visitors' journey and sits at the bottom of the funnel. After converting, customers are taken to a Thank You page confirming their action. They're in the right headspace to continue engaging!
Capitalize by making your Thank You page high-converting to bring the customer in further. Include a download link to a tutorial or a more detailed case study. Encourage them to provide more details about themself in return for a discount or limited-time offer. Perhaps try to have them sign up for a free plan.
Coming Soon Landing Page
A Coming Soon page informs visitors that a product is on its way and encourages them to sign up for email updates. This type of landing page helps you build anticipation.
Provide a subtle reference to what's coming, use a countdown timer for the launch date, and include a call to action to capture their email address. Coming Soon pages can be used near the top of the funnel for new customers, or near the bottom of the funnel when linking through from a Thank You page or a website menu item. Check out our detailed guide to Shopify Coming Soon pages here.
Examples of Great Landing Pages
Don’t reinvent the wheel when you create landing pages. Rather, draw inspiration from the best, and add your twist. Here, we'll look at three examples of the best Shopify landing pages.
Sales Landing Page Example: Kettle & Fire
We love this example of a sales landing page by Kettle & Fire. Remember the goal: convert visitors into buyers. This page has all the ingredients to make hitting that goal highly likely, including:
- Loads of information about the product, in a bulleted list, and using checkmarks as the bullet points (a nice psychological trick).
- Social proof in the form of a visible star rating and a review count (e.g. “196 Reviews”).
- Product variations to tailor the purchase to the individual and pricing for each.
- A clear, friendly call-to-action button saying “Add to Cart”.
Coming Soon Landing Page Example: SeedProd
Recall that the goal of a coming soon page is to encourage a sign-up for email marketing updates. SeedProd nailed it here by including the following elements.
- A mysterious headline and subheading (“Get Ready…” and “Something really cool is coming!”).
- A countdown timer for launch day helps to create anticipation.
- A clear, relevant call-to-action button saying “Notify Me” – exactly what the visitor wants to happen.
- Links to SeedProd’s social media pages, which may contain additional information and help to increase their social following.
Lead-Generation Landing Page Example: Airbnb
Airbnb intends to have people sign up to rent out their properties, so they designed the entire page to encourage the visitor to do just that. Here’s how they improve the likelihood of generating a lead on this page:
- Remember our header framework of benefit + how? Here, the benefit is “earn money”, and the how is “as an Airbnb host”. Great job, Airbnb.
- The price or revenue that’s likely to be made, here $1,306, is shown twice on the page, one directly above the call-to-action button.
- The sign-up form is super simple.
How to Build a Landing Page in Shopify
There are a few ways to create Shopify landing pages. We’ll discuss three: using the theme editor, the Shopify Page Builder, and Shopify Liquid.
Shopify Theme Editor
The theme editor method you're probably familiar with already. It's a drag-and-drop editor and the most simple method, but it requires you to be creative and develop the landing page design on your own. All Shopify plans have access to this method. To find it from your Shopify admin:
- From the Shopify admin, go to Online Store > Themes.
- Find the theme you want to edit, and then click Customize.
The Shopify theme editor interface.
Shopify Page Builder App
Another method that will appeal to 75% of people, 75% of the time, is to use a landing page builder app from the Shopify app store. Page builder apps provide you with various customization options that allow you to create unique and attractive landing pages. These apps boast templates, layouts, fonts, colors, images, and more. Some also offer integrations with other tools in your digital marketing stack, like Mailchimp and Klaviyo.
Two such apps are Shogun and PageFly – low-code, intuitive Shopify landing page builders for your ecommerce website. To install Shogun and get started:
- Visit the Shogun page in the Shopify app store.
- Click "Add app".
- To launch the app from Shopify admin, click Apps > Shogun Page Builder.
Check out this video on Getting Started with Shogun Page Builder for more info. Other useful landing page builders to check out include Unbounce, Gempages, and Leadpages.
Shopify Liquid
The third method for creating Shopify landing pages involves writing code. This may be your best option if you're comfortable coding, primarily in HTML. It allows you to create complex, dynamic pages that can do things like show different content based on visitor activity or location.
To get started, you'll need to become familiar with Shopify Liquid, a powerful open-source template language for Shopify. Liquid tags allow you to insert dynamic content into your Shopify landing pages. To learn more about Liquid, visit the Shopify Help Center page on How to Use Liquid to Create Custom Landing Page Templates.
Make Your Landing Page Better With Conversion Bear
Clearly, your landing pages are a crucial element. We've learned what a landing page is, considered some best practices for what to include, and discussed seven different types of landing pages. We also broke down some of our favorite examples of landing page implementations. We discussed three ways to build landing pages in your online store.
You can use a tool like Conversion Bear to increase the chances of generating leads or hitting your landing page goals. It helps you quickly and easily optimize your landing pages for conversions. With features like A/B testing, analytics tracking, and lead generation forms, Conversion Bear simplifies improving your Shopify landing page.
Learn more or get started with Conversion Bear.