Building a landing page mockup: a step-by-step guide

Creating a website may not have generated enough or the right kind of action you were hoping to see from your web presence. If that’s the case, you’ve probably decided to leverage the ability to generate traffic and capture lead information with a well-designed landing page. Before building a landing page, it’s important to visualize how it would look and function. That starts with a landing page mockup.

Here’s how you can get started!

What is a landing page? A stand-alone page with one goal

Differentiating between a website and a landing page can feel like splitting hairs, but there are important differences you should keep in mind as you create content. Creating a landing page involves a more targeted approach compared to a regular website.

A landing page is a stand-alone destination for your web visitors to stumble upon while they look for specific information, and it’s meant for them to complete certain actions. Most of your landing pages are hosted on your main website, but they can also be a destination of their own.

In general landing pages are very specific and have a focused goal with narrower coverage, typically because visits to landing pages are motivated by a call to action (CTA).

Why landing pages matter: they move buyers through 4 funnel stages

Landing pages are important because they are the primary spot for you to start narrowing your sales funnel and driving action-based behavior with your target audience.

A sales funnel is primarily made up of four key stages: awareness, interest, decision, and action. Each section of the funnel is a reflection of the different mindsets or considerations your target audience is engaging with at any given point in time. A landing page can help you move your clients farther down the funnel with less hesitation, especially if the landing page is especially compelling and engaging.

Not only does a well-crafted landing page allow your target audience to drive their actions more decisively, but they also give your sales and engagement team the opportunity to make the most of your online presence.

Lead capture: move visitors from awareness to interest

Lead generation and lead capture are the primary reasons all teams should dedicate time to creating polished landing pages. This moves clients from stages of awareness into interest, and can even help convert interest into action. Landing pages are also the perfect opportunity to leverage lead capture tools, like pop-up forms, to collect contact information.

Page-level analytics: when, how, and how long visitors engage

While your website will also return analytics, landing pages are the perfect opportunity for your team to dive deep and invest in micro-level analytics. Because landing pages are more focused in their depth and breadth, you can gain a little more insight into who is using specific information to make specific decisions. The right tools will even let you know when, how, and for how long they engage with that content before taking action.

A/B testing: find which landing page elements convert best

A/B testing allows content teams to determine which elements of a campaign are most effective. Landing pages are the perfect way for you to experiment and determine which elements of your landing pages are most effective. Landing pages are incredibly useful tools that make your online presence and content more robust. Designing them properly can make all the difference in your engagement levels!

How to build a good landing page: 4 elements to get right

If you’ve designed a webpage before, you’ll easily be able to design and build a landing page. Even if you haven’t—whether it’s because you aren’t a coder, or if you just prefer to steer clear of anything “techy”—the right tools make the process so much easier than you may expect!

Creating a landing page, though, isn’t always going to be enough to drive action. You reap what you sow, and this is especially true for your web content.

A good landing page should be the perfect mix of information and engaging design. Here are some fundamentals worth paying attention to:

Headlines and subheadings: short, descriptive, attention-grabbing

Your headline will likely be one of the first things your site viewers see when they come across your landing page. It should be something descriptive, short, and attention-grabbing.

Copywriting: information-rich but skimmable, in your brand voice

Copy is a great opportunity for you to drive SEO and deliver pertinent information to site visitors. Be sure that the copy on your landing pages is a reflection of your brand in tone and voice. Strive for written content that is information-rich, but not overwhelming. Simplicity is key, especially in the age of skimming.

Images, graphics, and video that convey meaning without more copy

Images and graphics are an easy way for you to elevate content and make your landing page more engaging. Not only this, but it can help you convey meaning and feeling in your content without adding copy.

CTA buttons that name the outcome: demo, newsletter, or quote

Perhaps the most important element of a landing page is effective CTA buttons. Your CTA button should be aligned with a specific action and should be descriptive about exactly what outcome users can expect. Popular CTAs include buttons for free demos, signing up for newsletters, or receiving free quotes and estimates.

Why do you need a landing page mockup?

Creating a landing page mockup is an easy way for you to see what a landing page will look like before spending your time diving deep into design choices and putting pieces together.

It allows you to determine the general layout of your landing page so that you can easily move fine details around to meet your objectives. This is the right time to put together written copy, collect media, and finalize any branding material. It allows you to move through each piece of your landing page in detail to find mistakes and irradicate elements that worked conceptually but not on paper.

This also allows you to toy around with and navigate your landing page so that you can identify any barriers to accessibility and fully experience the landing page in the same way that your users might.

How to design a landing page mockup in 5 steps

Set the goal and KPIs first, like 500 newsletter sign-ups

Before you build your landing page mockup, think about the outcomes you want to see from your landing page. This will help you direct design and content decisions so that your landing page will be as focused as possible.

Consider the actions you want your audience to take, the information you’d like for them to know, or what you want your audience to feel or believe after leaving your landing page.

This is a great time for you to think about and set engagement KPIs so that you can assess the efficacy of your landing page. It’s essential to have a clear strategy when you build a landing page, ensuring that it aligns with your goals. Here are some examples to consider:

• Shooting for a conversion rate of 10% on your service description page that offers visitors a free estimate.
• Targeting 500 email sign-ups for your monthly newsletter.
• Increasing the amount of time spent looking through your product inventory.

Mockup tools for designing landing pages: start from a template

Designing landing page mockups can be difficult, especially if you are starting from the ground up. Luckily, some landing page mockup tools make this much easier with a library of templates to choose from.

Starting with a template offers you a framework so that you can focus on additional elements that target engagement. Don’t be mistaken, a template or even a landing page mockup tool is not a recipe for a cookie-cutter landing page!

Depending on the service you use, you will be able to fully customize your template to include your branding and color schemes. This makes it infinitely easier to design something elegant and purpose-driven.

Add on-brand content: quality over quantity

With a framework set and a goal in mind, you can now begin to tailor your content for building a landing page. Your content is the meat of your landing page and should be carefully picked to create the right content experience for your site visitors.

Make sure that you select quality content over quantity, as the goal is to drive action without overwhelming users. You can also do this by ensuring that your content is on-brand in terms of tone, voice, editing, and color scheme!

The right content will create a coherent experience that your audience can effortlessly move through.

Write an accurate SEO title and meta description to earn the click

Meta descriptions and SEO titles affect the way your content appears on search engine results pages. They can increase your click-through rate and make your landing pages far more effective lead-capture tools.

Your meta description will fall somewhere between 155-160 characters and should serve as a concise, effective, and enticing description of the content.

However, it is important that the meta descriptions and SEO titles you choose are accurate to the content they describe and are not merely meant to generate clicks. Simply opting for descriptions that prioritize attention will earn you a high bounce rate without growing engagement.

Test your landing page mockup: links, media, CTAs, CRM, and accessibility

Before you build out and put together your landing page, ensure that everything on it is working properly and accurately. Here is a quick checklist to run through as you verify content:

• Click through each link that is shared on the landing pages to ensure that none are dead links.
• Attempt to play or enlarge all media to see that it properly displays.
• Click all CTA buttons to confirm that they’re working and lead to the right subpages.
• Make sure that your landing page is linked to your CRMs and other analytics tools (if it doesn’t already have one that is built-in).
• Test the navigability of the site by trying to work through it, and check that it has accessibility options that are ADA compliant.

From mockup to a live microsite you can share and track

While landing pages work to narrow your sales funnel through hyper-direct content strategies for specific user experiences, a microsite allows you to create an immersive content experience that is tailored for action and information sharing.

Zoomforth is a complete tool that allows you to comprehensively create, share, and track any microsites you choose to create. Want to learn more? Try a free microsite today, or check out our blog for some inspiration!

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash