How to Creatively Build Out Your Landing Pages with Unique Content

By Tinuiti Team

Mar 09 2017

Creating landing pages that convert is an important part of marketing your online products. Since the SEO scene is constantly changing, it can be a challenge to know how to create landing pages that look great, convert and rank.

In the midst of all of the advice, webinars, and books, there is one area of expertise that will always bring value to your landing pages: content.

*This is a guest post by Jared Carrizales, Founder at Heroic Search

Why Do We Say “Content is King?”

If you’ve been online at all, you’ve read that “Content is King.” There are articles and blog posts all over the internet, some explaining why content is king and some denying that claim.

The cliche denotes the weight that content has on your website and landing pages. If you have a beautiful website but no content, or content that is stuffed with keywords and looks like it was written by an amateur, your landing pages won’t rank, and people won’t visit your website.

When working online, content truly is #1 most of the time. As you begin to creatively build out your landing pages, keep in mind that unique content is vital to the success (or failure) of your landing pages.

Understanding Unique Content

In order to create a compelling landing page, it needs to be unique. Unique content is only on your landing pages and provides value for your readers. The fact that you have compelling, original content on your pages distinguishes you from the competition and makes you an authority in your niche.

Your readers deserve ease and creativity. The purpose of a landing page is to facilitate conversions, but you need to take a moment and consider your potential customer. He or she is looking for a specific product, and needs to find it easily and as quickly as possible.

When they can’t find what they’re looking for, your online store traffic leaves your website.

Potential customers come to your landing page in hopes of finding something valuable, and it’s your job to deliver. In case you’re wondering, unique content is crucial, and Google loves it.

Rather than merely greeting visitors with an image gallery, JC Penny’s product pages include multimedia items like explainer videos to help them make their point. Including details like this illustrates why this company is a leader in the eCommerce industry.

Google Loves Pages that Stand Out

One objective when creating a landing page is to rank that page for a particular keyword. If you want Google to love you, you need to be fresh, unique, expert, and engaging. When you produce copy and visual content that meets these requirements, Google rewards you by placing you higher in the ranks. Google is on a mission to eradicate online information that is fake and fluffy from their search results.

Google places more value on readers’ experiences online than it does on ranking. In other words, you can use every great SEO tactic, but if you don’t have outstanding content, Google will likely punish you with low-ranking search positions; you’ll be lucky if people ever get to see your products.

How to Build Out Your Landing Pages

It can be tough to create landing pages that have expert content and keep SEO in mind. Balance is the key, so a mix of the two is really what’s needed. Readers need to find value on the page, but you can add some keywords to get ranked. Over-optimizing a page will only result in being punished by Google. Here are some simple ways to improve or create good landing page content.

1. Provide Content that is Useful and Informative

A landing page should answer basic questions such as how the product is going to solve a common problem. What is the real life value of the product? How much does it cost? How long will it take (for delivery, results, etc.)? It’s helpful to put yourself in the place of your potential customer to see what might be appealing to him or her.

Look What Ikea Did in Sweden:

A leader in home goods, Ikea Sweden used common Google searches to rename their products. The campaign was so impressive that it was even praised by Google on Twitter.

IKEA RETAIL THERAPY from Ourwork on Vimeo.

Though SEO is as boring as it gets, this campaign was fun for the company and their customers, who found products after searching queries such as, “My partner snores.” This was an exceptionally brilliant, creative way to build out the content on the Ikea website.

Natural keywords should be used in your landing pages because readers are looking for content that provides them with information. Only after finding useful, creative content will they consider buying your products. By creatively adding natural keywords into expert content, it’s a win-win for both you and your readers.

Basic Elements That Make Great Landing Page Content

Complementary to being witty and original, you should use various elements to add spice to your landing pages. Stock images and plain text are no longer going to cut it. Here are some ideas for making your pages more lively.

Include explainer videos.
Showcase unique product images.
Highlight informative statistics.
Build aesthetically appealing features lists.

Amazon uses unique product images on their Interesting Finds page to nurture leads.

2. Use a Content Management System That Makes Your Job Easy

Easy-to-use content management systems (CMSs) include a plethora of plugins and addons that make landing page design simplistic. If you’re using WordPress or Joomla to build your website, or Shopify to assemble your online store, here are some tools that will help you – just make sure you don’t overload your site with too many plugins, which can decrease your page load speed.

Landing Page Plugins for WordPress

WordPress is commonly called the “industry standard” for CMS. If you manage one of the 74,652,825 WordPress sites out there, these plugins could make your landing pages easier to build.

WordPress Landing Pages is a plugin that works as a standalone tool and can be integrated with other lead generation tools. Monitor and improve conversion
Page Builder allows you to create responsive landing pages with ease. Spend just a few minutes designing awesome pages for your lead funnel.

Landing Page Plugins for Joomla

Joomla is argued by some to be the best CMS on the market (it’s still debated). If you’re a patron these plugins will help you.

Geek Landing Page helps you quickly and easily create effective landing pages. This tool is a flexible, fast, and friendly option.
SP Page Builder is a feature-rich, drag and drop interface for building pages inside Joomla. Use it to create pages with tons of incredible features.

Landing Page Add-ons for Shopify

Shopify is the most popular eCommerce platform on the market, with over 350,000 active users. If you’re one of them, use these tools to help you make beautiful landing pages inside your store.

LeadSlide Marketing Page Builder is $29/ month with a 30 day free trial. Use the plugin to generate fully-editable product landing pages inside your Shopify store.
Page Studio is $14.94/ month with a 30 day free trial. Use the brilliant drag and drop interface to seamlessly manage responsive Shopify pages and SEO.

3. Create Actionable Content

Sometimes, in our desire to provide information, we fail to offer basics about the offer. It’s important to include power words that let your readers know what to do next. When reading about a great deal on a landing page, the call to action (CTA) message should be clear and the button to sign up should be very distinct.

There should be no doubt as to what the next step is – “click here,” “signup here,” “click here for our free offer.” Don’t leave your potential customer guessing as to what to do next; make it easy to understand and follow.

Calls to action on TheRealReal’s product pages stand out from the rest of the page copy.

4. Only White Hat SEO is Acceptable

Google has become smarter through the years, and their algorithms can spot spammy content quickly. In fact, most users of the Internet have grown wiser as well, and they can tell when something isn’t right. Here are some examples of Black Hat SEO that you should avoid:

Content that is loaded with keywords and is poorly written.
Content that has been spun so it’s not copied, but it has bad grammar, sentences don’t make sense, and punctuation is off.
Content that is copied from another page.

Your landing page should be so unique and different that no one could ever accuse you of copying their content. You have a message that differs from your competitors, and there is no reason to take their ideas. Take the time to build out your landing pages with content that only you can write.

Conclusion

Creating landing pages with unique content is not a magic formula. Thinking seriously about your audience and how you can serve them will help you come up with a strategy that will be enticing.

As Google begins to rank your page, take note of what you did right, but don’t be afraid to make tweaks. As the authority in your niche, you will quickly learn how to beat your competition with landing pages that have unique content and high conversions.