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The Ultimate Landing Page Checklist You Need in 2023
Updated:
15
minutes read
There’s no need to emphasize how an alluring landing page can be your powerful weapon for lead capture and repeat purchase opportunities. In fact, the average conversion rate of a landing page is 26%, as of 2022.
The question is how can you design your own landing page that converts? In this article, we composed the most updated landing page checklist to get you off to a good start. Let’s check it out!
The Basics: What Makes A Good Landing Page?
Stunning, high-converting landing pages share a few things in common:
- Brand identity: There’s no better place to market your brand, especially when customers might never hear about you previously. Keep your brand identity consistent throughout all your marketing channels (social media, email marketing, blog, etcetera), including the landing page with page structure, content, logo, and colors.
- Copywriting: Your copywriting should pertain to your target audience’s needs and challenges. Resonate with your buyers using a proper yet unique tone and voice. Keep your content helpful, easy to digest, and straight to the point. Pay attention to SEO as well.
- Page design and user experience: Everything you do in your store contributes to these two factors. All visual layouts, benefit-driven content, and high-quality images can make your entrance to conversion. Our tip is to view your landing page from your customer's point of view to see how they would interact with your store.
Learn more: A-Z Guide to Creating A Striking Shopify Landing Page
Landing Page Checklist: How to Build A Better One?
1. Do You Have A Clear Value Proposition?
The value proposition is a clear message expressing the primary value you can provide to your customers. In simpler terms, a clear value proposition sums up how your product and services can help target customers address their pain points, thus setting your brand up from competitors.
If you have yet stated your value proposition on your landing page, now it’s time. The ideal approach is to state clear-cut solutions to convince the audience to choose your brand. If your value proposition seems “too much”—too vague, too lengthy, too hypothesis, or using too advanced language, they might lose interest and leave.
The Factor Formula states its value proposition clearly in bold text on the landing page designed with GemPages
As a skincare and haircare brand, The Factor Formula knows too well the pain point their target audience is suffering: acne caused by Biotin. They emphasize the value proposition “Say Goodbye to Biotin Breakouts” clearly and boldly on the landing page to keep customers interested.
Ideally, your value proposition could be presented as a single statement, and it should be the focus of interest on your landing page. Once your value proposition is determined, carefully sprinkle it throughout the landing page to emphasize the brand message.
2. Do You Have A Well-branded Landing Page?
Many visitors land at your landing page without knowing about your brand beforehand, so a well-branded site is what you need to tell them who you are.
Your landing page is supposed to deliver a clear message of who you are, what you stand for, what your mission is, and who you serve.
How can you do that? Previously, we’ve mentioned how important it is to present a clear value proposition on your landing page, which stands for your brand value and brand identity. This plays a huge role in improving your brand perception.
Put some effort into optimizing the copywriting and page design also. For instance, implement branded colors, memorable visuals, and unique writing styles to make a lasting impression on customers' minds.
Maybe it’s the first time visitors land at your store, but a well-branded landing page helps them recognize who you are the next time they interact with you. Put your brand in the best light, so you’re ready to convert visitors any chance you have.
Swedishness uses video background to introduce their brand, using GemPages
Swedishness, a Scandinavian food brand, brings its brand closer to visitors by showing a nine-minute video telling a story of how they evolved and developed. Also, viewers can learn clearly about its mission and value thanks to the video. Such a long and professional video is not mandatory to convey your brand story, but you got the point.
3. Does Your Copywriting Have A Clear Structure and Hierarchy?
The way you structure your Shopify landing page has a significant impact on how audiences digest your content.
Manipulate structural elements like headings and subheadings in a clear hierarchy for visitors to better scan through your content and quickly get key messages.
Here’re tips to put the most important information at the forefront of your customer’s view:
- Use bullet points and short paragraphs to increase readability. Paragraphs containing more than five lines long could be tiring for readers to scan.
- Use white or negative space for easy message comprehension. Pay attention to both spacing between letters and spacing between lines of text.
- Divide sections based on colors.
- Make use of various font sizes for headings, subheadings, and body text. For instance, headings should be twice as large as the subheading font to make a huge impact. No matter which font size you choose, multiple-line body text should be limited to 45-70 characters per line.
- Create a strong impression above the fold. That means your visitors don’t have to scroll down to look for the most important information.
4. Does Your Copywriting Sound Human and Inspirational?
It’s never easy to convert visitors. One powerful technique to break the wall is to speak in a human and inspirational way. Invest the time and energy in optimizing content to make your customers feel like they’re having a conversation with a human, not a copywriter trying to sell products.
When drafting your copywriting to fulfill the landing page purpose, it might be easy to fall into boring copy and uninspired paragraphs. To avoid that, here’re some tactics you can follow to make customers feel like you are speaking with them indirectly through your landing page:
- Avoid technical jargon. Customers don’t read what they don’t understand.
- Try user-focused language. For instance, use “you” and “your” instead of mentioning “we” and “us” too often. This is all about “them”.
- Speak in a suitable tone and voice that resonate with your target audience. Write the way you speak.
One common practice is to include detailed FAQ sections answering the most popular questions or concerns your customers may have.
Topaz includes a detailed FAQ page on their store, designed by GemPages
Let’s go one step further in your copywriting. Put yourself in the customer’s shoes to craft the copy they will actually read. They only care about what solution you can provide - to make their life more carefree and enjoyable.
Therefore, your copywriting should reflect how your brand and your product can be a great companion along their way. Deliver content that acts as a shortcut to motivation and aspiration.
Using GemPages to design its landing page, Bad Bad evokes an inspirational style for its upcoming jewelry collection
Not simply a jewelry brand, Bad Bad claims itself as the best affirmation and mindset jewelry. Their designs aim at inspiring and empowering women to pursue their dream and identity, which they promoted so well through inspirational pieces of content, campaign, and collection.
5. Do You Have Stunning Visuals?
As you’re selling online, your customers can’t see, touch, try, or taste your products before making a purchase. So the only way you can tempt them to pluck off your shelves naturally is to take advantage of stunning images on the landing page.
As humans process visuals faster than they do with text, the images they see when they first land on your site matter. Captivate visitors with eye-catching visuals that align with your brand image, engage customers, and make your brand stand out.
Each industry will fall for a different visual direction. Still, there are a few rules of thumb you can take into account for choosing your landing page visuals:
- Keep your visuals consistent with your brand’s overall design. That could be done with certain elements, graphics or color presets.
- Introduce motion such as videos and GIFs to help customers picture your products and ideas better.
- Choose images that reinforce your site message but also resonate with your target customers. It’s no point in investing in high-quality images that don’t make any sense to your audience.
- Avoid visual clutter by eliminating redundant elements and embracing white space.
- Use stock photos from Unsplash and Freepik.
Saturnbird, a GemPages client, presents eye-pleasing visuals on their landing page
If you’re building your landing pages on the Shopify platform, it’s a good idea to lean on a page builder like GemPages to elevate your landing page design. A page builder is an extension you install on the top of your theme to further customize your store pages to your exact liking.
With its user-friendly drag-and-drop interface, you can easily create custom landing page designs without the need for any technical knowledge or coding skills. Additionally, GemPages provides a wide range of pre-made templates, elements, and features, making it easier to create professional-looking landing pages that are optimized for conversion.
Recently, GemPages released two new features specialized for designing landing pages–GemMeter and Instant Landing Pages.
- GemMeter is an automated built-in tool capable of detecting design mistakes, evaluating page performance, and providing correction suggestions for your Shopify landing page in an instant.
- Instant Landing Pages feature lets you build fast-loading, mobile-optimized landing pages to boost your campaigns and increase conversion.
By streamlining the design process and providing a range of customization options, GemPages can help you create landing pages that stand out and deliver results, helping you to drive more traffic, increase conversions, and ultimately grow your business.
Not ready to commit but still want to kick the tires?
No problem! Get started with GemPages' free plan. Explore wonderful features that can do wonders for your store.
6. Do You Have Strong, Compelling CTAs?
How to design strong and compelling CTA buttons? We have some easy-to-follow tips for you:
- Use strong action verbs, such as Click here, Download, Learn more, etcetera, so customers know what to expect when they click your CTAs
- Design clickable and clear CTAs. Make it large enough to stand out on the page.
- Provide extra white space around CTAs
- Use vibrant and contrasting colors
- All CTAs on your landing page should point to the same place.
Yoga Strong styles their CTA buttons using GemPages page builder
Yoga Strong uses high contrast black and white color to highlight the CTA button. The language is simple yet still alluring.
7. Do You Include Customer Testimonials?
Customer testimonials are a powerful source to build brand credibility and persuade the target audience.
Social proof shows that there’re real customers out there who have tried your product, and they love it! You don’t need to brush it up, as customer testimonials speak for you and for your brand.
In essence, people need validation to guarantee they purchase the right solution. Your job is to handpick testimonials that resonate with them. You can display quotes speaking about your products, or how helpful your service has been in helping customers deal with their pain points.
No matter which direction you follow, make sure to display customer reviews in a trustworthy manner.
Cape Saltie displays a series of customer testimonials with GemPages support
Besides customer testimonials, Cape Saltie also displays the product information and product image. Thus, they’re more likely to have a lasting impression of the product compared to reading reviews only.
8. Do You Optimize Your Landing Pages for Mobile Devices?
As of November 2022, approximately 60% of your website traffic comes from mobile devices. Optimizing your landing page for mobile users is no longer a choice, it’s a must. It’s your job to make all Shopify landing pages work well across devices.
We’ve listed down some essential aspects you should consider when designing your landing pages for mobile devices:
- Make it responsive: Customer experience should be seamless across all devices, be it smartphones, tablets, or desktops.
- Content hierarchy: Since the screen size on mobile is much more limited compared to laptops, it’s of great importance how you present your visual hierarchy. If you can list down quite a few pieces of content and design above the fold on the desktop version, there’s not much room to work with for mobile screens. Prioritize the most essential information that you want customers to focus on, such as limited-time offers and your brand value at the top of the page.
- Analyze thumb zone: In mobile web design, the thumb zone is “the most comfortable area for touch with one-handed use.” That means all the essential elements on your site, including links, buttons, and CTAs, should be able to access using thumbs only. This ensures visitors will click on these elements when they browse your Shopify store on mobiles.
- Make it concise and easily readable: Use simple font types & shapes and bold colors to make skimming easier on smart devices. Details that look great on the desktop version might not be ideal to present in a limited space available on mobiles, so try to keep it simple.
9. Do You Optimize Your Landing Pages for Search Engines?
Investing time in optimizing your site for search will enhance your page visibility enormously, thus driving more traffics and giving you more chances of converting prospects into customers. We have some SEO best practices for organic traffic and lead generation:
- Optimize landing page content: Your site needs relevant content and keywords to be discoverable by search engines. Make sure your copywriting is relevant to what customers are searching for.
- Analyze site keywords: Do keyword research and implement the most relevant ones to your landing page, including page title, meta description, and URL. Some free useful tools for keyword analysis are Keyword Planner and Ubersuggest.
- Utilize SEO apps: Shopify has several built-in SEO features you can utilize, but you can always rely on useful SEO apps such as Google Search Console, Screaming Frog, or SEO Site Checkup if you want further SEO support.
- Decrease page load time: Various factors can contribute to your eCommerce site speed, such as image size or broken links. Refer to our Shopify Speed Optimization for a complete guide.
10. Do You Run A/B Test on Your Landing Pages?
Now that you have ticked all the boxes on the landing page checklist, it's essential to test different versions of your pages before launching to optimize their performance.
A/B testing (or split testing) allows you to compare two or more versions of a landing page to measure and determine which performs better in terms of conversion rate, bounce rate, and other key metrics.
By running A/B testing, you can gain valuable insights into what elements of your page are driving conversions and make data-driven improvements to your page.
While you can do this manually by running each version of your Shopify landing page for a certain amount of time, this is far more inefficient compared to using an A/B testing app. GemPages page builder features a powerful A/B testing tool that is available on all paid plans (starting from $29/month).
No need to rely on another app for the A/B testing feature, now you create and customize multiple variants of your landing page and compare their performance right insideGemPages. GemPages simplifies the A/B testing process, so you can focus on what's important: optimizing your Shopify landing page to ensure it’s converting at the highest possible rate.
Best Landing Page Examples from GemPages’ Customers
We've compiled the best landing page examples from GemPages' customers and analyzed what makes each one successful to get you inspired. We hope that you can apply these insights to your own Shopify landing page design.
Note: All examples showcase screenshots taken directly from the brand featured at the time of publishing.
1. Gabie
Why Gabie's landing page works:
- Clean design: The minimalist design with ample whitespace creates a clear focus for visitors. Their landing page features stunning images, concise descriptions, and appropriate CTA buttons.
- Contrasting colors: Bold, contrasting colors effectively draws the visitors' attention.
2. PeaceNest
Why PeaceNest's landing page works:
- Compelling copywriting: Their copy is simple yet captivating. It effectively communicates the features and benefits of the products offered. PeaceNest also invests time in building educational content as well.
- Clear CTAs: Their landing pages feature prominent call-to-action buttons that stand out in yellow color.
3. Bangnbody
Why Bangnbody's landing page works:
- Appealing visuals: The landing page showcases high-quality and attractive images of models using products on their raw skins, leaving a friendly and engaging impression on customers.
- Trust signals: By displaying customer testimonials, awards, and partnerships, they build credibility and trust with potential customers.
It's Time to Elevate Your Landing Page Design
Your landing page determines visitors’ first impression when they come to your eCommerce store. Optimizing your landing page can help you impress your target audience, generate more leads, boost conversion, and build your brand reputation.
The landing page checklist covers all the basics you need to set your first Shopify landing page up for success. We hope that you can put these tactics into practice and see how your store will grow.
If you have yet to utilize a page builder to design your Shopify landing page, don’t hesitate to try GemPages. We promise not to let you down.
Not ready to commit but still want to kick the tires?
No problem! Get started with GemPages' free plan. Explore wonderful features that can do wonders for your store.
FAQs about Landing Page Checklist
What is the difference between a landing page and a homepage?
While a landing page is more focused on generating leads for a marketing campaign, a homepage's purpose is to provide general information and guide visitors to other pages on the site.
What information should be on a landing page?
What information is needed on a landing page will base on its purpose. Landing pages could be used as lead-capture pages, click-through pages, sales pages, splash pages, or viral pages.
What are the key components of a landing page?
Essentially, a landing page should contain:
1. Clear value proposition
2. Inspirational and clear copywriting
3. Appealing visuals
4. Customer testimonials
5. Strong Call-To-Action (CTA).
1. Clear value proposition
2. Inspirational and clear copywriting
3. Appealing visuals
4. Customer testimonials
5. Strong Call-To-Action (CTA).
What is a good image size for a landing page?
Recommended background image size for a Shopify landing page is 2500 pixels x 1406 pixels, with an aspect ratio of 16:9.
