It could be argued that your landing page is the most important page of your website and part of your inbound marketing campaign. It is the place that will either draw in or turn off a potential customer—where you either grab or lose a lead. We recently discussed how landing page forms are one of the most critical pieces of inbound marketing. But, before you even create the fields for that form, you need to build a landing page that entices readers to fill out that form and go forth. 
Get Info, Give Info
Landing pages can be tricky since, although you need a form to capture data, some people are easily turned off by the prospect of filling out their info, even if it is a short form. Your pages must be unique and effectively draw prospects in. Readers need to be able to immediately recognize value and know what they are getting in return for sharing their information.
In this example from Unbounce, they not only tell you exactly what you are getting (information that you need!), but they even visually remind you with arrows in a clever, fluid design. Since they are landing page experts it makes sense that they are leading by excellent example.
Questions and Answers
As mentioned above, letting leads know what they are getting is one of the primary criteria of a successful landing page. Others include: why they need that information, what they need it know, and how do they get it.
And, landing pages should be as distinctive as the offer to your readers. “A good landing page will target a particular audience, such as traffic from an email campaign promoting a particular ebook, or visitors who click on a pay-per-click ad promoting your webinar. So it’s important to build a unique landing page for each of the offers you create”(HubSpot).
To develop unique landing pages, you can select from templates and tailor the content to your specific needs. There are many sources for templates, including HubSpot, Unbounce, InstaPage, Wix and many others. Regardless of which one you go with, the building blocks are fairly universal.
Template Tasks
Once you select a template, you must fill in the specifics, including:
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Page title, page name, and page URL
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Page form information- including what data you are collecting
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Thank you email info: if you are sending; when to send out
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Campaign information and meta description, including key words and CTA
The rest of the page details will consist of information on the offer or giveaway and visuals. Technical specs will vary slightly based on your provider. It is important that the page be visually compelling, but not cluttered. Think simple and clean with complimentary colors to highlight critical fields.
Both WebDAM and Wistia keep things clean and simple, using color to visually highlight the CTA.
If you are not a fan of the less-is-more style, create more robust landing pages with user testimonials, compelling visual imagery, interactive and personalized content, and two-part forms. The latter captures the email address upfront, and then, upon submission, reveals the rest of the form to be filled out; a good approach to not turn prospects off right away with an intimidating long form.
If simplicity is your goal, you can use your home page as your landing page rather than creating separate, offer-based landing pages. Depending on your specific business, this pared down approach can be very successful, but it can also be a difficult balance to maintain.
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