Landing pages

I build landing pages…opt in pages, sales pages, webinar registration pages…you name it, that’s a major part of my business! I create them for myself and mostly for my clients. Anyone who has thought about building a landing page of any kind has likely heard of LeadPages. If you have used it and wanted some creative license with your new page, you likely found yourself quite frustrated with the cookie-cutter limitations that it had.

Well, now the game has changed! I just had the opportunity to try out their new drag & drop builder for the first time. Its got a couple of limitations I have noticed, but overall its a HUGE improvement! I can now happily recommend LeadPages to my clients who have heard they should use it.

What I didn’t like:

Integration with WebinarJam did not seem to carry through to the drag & drop. (The integrations on drag & drop are very limited compared to the regular templates.) This specific page I was working on required that integration, so I had to turn around and return to the basic template (and the frustrations that go with it…boo!). I think if you have the LeadLinks upgrade that might be a work-around. This client did not.
There are a limited number of templates to begin your build with. While not essential, its nice to have their proven templates as a guide. I didn’t have trouble finding an opt in page, but there are no thank you pages with the drag & drop option.
Everything seems to have really slowed down. Maybe it was just me, or maybe it was just today, however it seemed to be a server load issue…but I had to refresh loading pages a few times because they just kept loading and loading and loading. I’m sure this is temporary!

So far that’s my only complaint. And I expect that integration issues is something that will be resolved before too long. Plus, I’m sure the d&d templates are being added to frequently.

For a straight forward opt in page going to one of the more common integrations, such as Aweber or Go To Webinar, or with a simple link, the new LeadPages Drag & Drop page builder is quite nearly perfection met.

Have you used LeadPages Drag & Drop feature? What did you think abou tit?

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* Some of the links in this article are affiliate links. *

Landing pages, sales pages, opt in pages…whatever you want to call them and whatever their purpose, they are a vital part of any online business these days. And often you are connecting them to an ad, hoping to boost the conversion of whatever product or event you are selling or giving away.

And this is sometimes where the trouble begins.

Sitting down to check how well your ads are doing and finding that not only has your ad not been approved, but that you have been axed as an account, can certainly make you feel a little like this:

So avoid it. Follow the rules from the start.

As someone who has gotten my entire ad account banned from Facebook (and reinstated, thank goodness!), I at first found the requirements rather vague and rather ridiculous.

But they are there for a reason, and its a very good reason! They simply are trying to protect the consumer.

Should they be a little more forgiving the folks who are new to the ad business? Of course they should! I have no idea why they aren’t. Seems like shooting yourself in the foot to ban someone who is trying to give you money. But, for whatever reason, it is what it is.

The good folks at Digital Marketer just put out an article that lays out everything your landing pages need to be compliant with Google Ads. Now, maybe you aren’t running a Google Ad…this still applies. Their logic is that Google Ads is the strictist ad system out there and if you comply with Google, you will comply with the others by default. Plus the others, like Facebook, might update their requirements to closer fit Google’s any day now. Better to not be caught off guard!

Stop tailoring different landing pages to different ad networks based on compliance. Pick the strictest one and develop all your pages with that as the baseline.
Not only will this save you time and help you better organize your landing pages, it protects you when less strict networks, e.g., Facebook, decide to change their terms!
Google is hands down the stricter of the ad networks… source: Digital Marketer

A couple of the more surprising compliance items include:

Put your logo in the header and make it clickable. WHAT??? That goes against everything we have been taught! They’ve got some good reasoning though. And Google wants it.
Footer navigation that includes About Us, Privacy, Terms and Contact Us. The logic here being that not only should you make your privacy and terms easily readable, but you should also be able to prove you are a real site.
Detailed opt in expectations. No, “we promise not to send you spam” does not cut it. According to the guidelines, you need to actually make it clear that you are going to be not only sending them what they opted in for, but that you are going to be sending your newsletter and other offers to them as well. To me, this seems like a no-brainer that OF COURSE you will be doing that. Unfortunately there are lots of folks who just don’t get it.
And that includes having a link to your privacy policy under each opt in button, not just at the bottom of your page.

Check out the original article, The 9-Point Google Compliant Landing Page Checklist, here. It is well worth reading several times and digesting every tidbit. These are 9 points you do not want to miss if you are going to be promoting your landing page with ads, plus detailed examples of “done well” and “not so well” with pictures like this one:

And they even share what they have done wrong on THEIR OWN landing pages!

Plus they are giving you a handy printable checklist to keep for future reference.

Click here to read it all. Seriously…devour this information. You will thank me for sharing I’m sure! 🙂