Comprehensive Guide to LeadPages – Make Landing Pages that Convert

If you’ve been in marketing for some time, you know the value of landing pages.

Maybe you use a more traditional form of landing page software to capture leads and improve advertisement conversions. Or maybe you prefer personalizing your lead capture experience and use a quiz software.

Either way, they’re extremely important and today we’re going to talk about the well-known landing page builder, LeadPages. 

leadpages

Whether you know it or not, you must have been on a LeadPages landing page at some time. The reason? They’re practically everywhere. Some of the sites using LeadPages include Forbes, HuffingtonPost, Fortune and TechCrunch. In the landing page game, LeadPages is currently the number one choice of many, and we’ll share some of the reasons why today.

What is LeadPages?

Unless you’re an experienced developer/designer, creating a web page is a pretty tedious task. If you want a specific type of page, it will require some amount of coding. LeadPages comes in to fill this gap. 

landing page goaldigger by jenna kutcher

In a nutshell, LeadPages is a web service for creating landing pages and popups. It is a marketing tool that allows people with very little technical knowledge to create high converting landing pages.

The list of available options is pretty impressive, including landing page creation, building popups, mobile responsiveness, split testing, content upgrades and much more.

Case Studies

As it turns out, LeadPages has enabled great success to a number of companies out there, which can be seen from some of the case studies on their blog. 

In one of these studies, Freddy Lansky, the founder of OnlineChessLessons.Net, managed to get 6,000 new leads for his business in a single month. Instead of taking the usual route and blasting an email about a sale to an existing email list, Freddy took another approach. He created a number of landing pages with one purpose: get people to grab his 100% free product, a DVD download with chess lessons.

online chess lessons leadpages landing page

All of his traffic directed to this page. Combining a great lead magnet with a sense of urgency (coupon that expired on a certain date) and placing that on an attractive landing page, Freddy increased sales and got a total of 6,000 new subscribers through LeadPages in a single month.

In another case study, the author George Bryant managed to get a whopping 70,000 emails in his list using LeadPages. Having created a Facebook landing page, he got 9,600 leads within just 48 hours. George’s recipe to success is simple: great content, social media, LeadPages and content delivery automation. According to George himself, he saved a lot of time and increased his revenue significantly.

How to Create High Converting Landing Pages with LeadPages

If you’ve just started with LeadPages, you may be wondering about the best ways to use its full potential. Having researched the best practices so far, we’ve put together a list of LeadPages’ most useful options and some of the best ways to use them for maximum marketing success.

LeadPages

Sure, it may be a bit confusing to use your product name as the name of its major feature, but we’ll let it slide. A LeadPage is a landing page which you can create on your own, without doing any coding. LeadPages makes this super simple by offering a large variety of different templates you can choose from. Given the sheer number of different users and their backgrounds, there are some great suggestions on the company website. Once you’ve selected a template, simply insert a call to action and you’re almost done.

Why almost?

Well, LeadPages allows for integration with a range of tools to maximize your marketing efforts. Some of the email services integrated include AWeber, MailChimp and Constant Contact. CRM tools which allow integration are Infusionsoft, Salesforce and Zoho, among others. For marketing purposes, it can be connected with Marketo, Hubspot, Ontraport and others.

Once you’ve decided what you want to integrate and how, it’s all a matter of choosing your signup form or list. Customize it to your liking and this stage of the landing page journey is done. 

Once you have a complete landing page, there’s one more thing to do… Create a Thank You page. If your lead has gone through the trouble to leave their precious info, it’s only right to thank them. You can use the suggested default or create a custom page with a couple easy clicks.

Leadpages thank you page

As mentioned, LeadPages’ huge user database is one of its strongest assets. This can be seen in the large choice of landing page templates. With the most basic service, you get a great selection to choose from. What’s more, LeadPages themselves offer a list of template suggestions depending on what you need. However, if you don’t feel like customizing and you want something different – no worries.

You can buy a range of different templates on their site, searchable by filters such as industry and purpose. What’s more, you can sort by conversion rate so you know you’re getting the best bang for your buck.

If the standard landing page creator sounds like too much work, don’t worry. For the quickest landing page creation, you can use the Drag & Drop Builder. First, select a template and then choose Drag & Drop category.

drag and drop template selection

Once you have a template in mind, the options are limitless. You can rearrange page elements into columns, rows and sections. Take it one step further and insert different widgets and forms. The drag-and-drop editor offers more than a simple template and it allows you to create your ideal landing page that caters to your specific needs.

If you think that freedom of choice sounds great, the best part is yet to come. Once they implemented the drag-and-drop editor, the next step was to allow for landing page A/B testing.

leadpages split testing

In short, you can split test for almost anything using LeadPages. Whether it’s page titles, copy, images, opt-in forms or two completely different landing page templates – it’s absolutely doable. There’s a host of great split testing ideas and tips on the LeadPages website that can keep you occupied for a while.

LeadLinks

Introduced in 2014, LeadLinks is the addition to the landing page builder which takes your marketing efforts even further. Available with the Professional plan, Leadlinks allows your prospects to subscribe to lists or webinars. They no longer have to opt in or provide additional info – they can simply click on a LeadLink and voila! They are automatically added to a list or webinar you linked to.

leadlinks

In order to start using this service, you will need to set up integrations first. As discussed, LeadPages integrates with lots of major email service providers, so this is as simple as pie. You then copy the LeadLink and paste it into your email.

LeadBoxes

You probably don’t know them by this name, but you should be very familiar with LeadBoxes. They can be seen in every corner of the internet. These simple opt-in forms have captured millions of leads for thousands of users online. In essence, these are opt-in forms which function on their own or as a part of a LeadPage. The company themselves state that they increase opt-in rates by around 30%. If you love the idea but don’t exactly know how to put these boxes to use, the LeadPages blog is filled with great ideas from current users.

leadbox

 There are three types of LeadBoxes, each with their own advantages and best uses. The first is the Standard LeadBox. It will show up once a lead clicks an element on your page. This is the least sophisticated of the variations at your visitor needs to manually activate it.

The Popup Leadbox is exactly what its name says – it pops out at some point in time while the user is on the page. It can be set up to pop up after a certain time period, or after a user has visited the page a certain number of times. You may get the idea that popups no longer work in 2017, but this can’t be further from the truth.

The final type of LeadBoxes is the Exit LeadBox. Also known as exit intent popups, these page elements have proven to be very successful. Simply put, they show up once the user seems likely to leave the page (they quickly move their cursor to the window corner).

Note: Because of platform constraints, you cannot use timed and exit LeadBoxes on mobile platforms.

Bonus: LeadDigits

Email is the most common and surefire way of getting new leads and getting in touch with your clients. But what if there are other ways? LeadDigits is an innovative service where you can reach out to opt-in leads by text (SMS message). If you run a small business, this is an extremely handy feature. For example – you’re a shoe store owner and you can tell a walk-in customer to text a certain word to your number in order to get a discount. You can only get this specific feature with the Pro plan.

A great example of LeadDigits in use is one from Q101, a radio station based in Chicago. They offered their Facebook followers and listeners a chance to win free tickets if they texted a certain keyword.

q101 leaddigits in use

LeadPages Alternatives

With the evident success of landing pages and their efficiency in lead generation, it is no wonder that there are competitors out there going for LeadPages’ crown. Here are some of the best known alternatives and how they differ from LeadPages.

Instapage was launched at the same time as LeadPages, in 2012. It offers similar services, such as landing page creation, a range of templates with customizable elements, split testing and detailed analytics.

instapage

 At $68 per month for the basic Core license and $203 per month for the Team and Agency license, it is not the cheapest landing page builder out there. Furthermore, it has less advanced features than LeadPages.

Unbounce is a company launched in 2009 and currently serving more than 10,000 clients. Similar to Instapage, it caters to users with little technical knowledge who want great looking landing pages. 

unbounce

The basic Essential plan is $79 per month and top of the range Enterprise plan starts at $399. You only get 5,000 unique visitors monthly with the Essential plan so an upgrade is necessary if you plan on reaching a broader audience.

When it comes to LeadPages alternatives, it’s hard not to mention ClickFunnels. Although different in nature (ClickFunnels is all about building different marketing funnels), the two have common features. If you’re looking for a more general marketing service with a page builder, ClickFunnels is good to go, but LeadPages is more of a specialized landing page solution.

How Much does LeadPages cost?

Having seen the capabilities and examples of LeadPages in use, you must be wondering – how much is this going to set me back? Not a lot, actually. The Standard plan is $25 per month and allows for an unlimited number of pages and LeadBoxes. However, we would strongly advise going at least for the Professional plan at $48 per month, as you gain access to LeadLinks and LeadDigits, as well as A/B testing.

For those wanting to get the most out of their landing pages, the Advanced plan will cost you $199 per month. Among other things, you immediately get priority access to customer support via mail, chat and phone. What’s more, you get another 5 LeadPages subaccounts, which is especially important for larger businesses or agencies. It’s important to note that all the mentioned prices are valid for annual subscriptions.

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The Bottom Line

With so many marketing services available, it’s hard to shell out money for something you’re not even sure you will be able to use for your business. However, with its proven track record, easy to use interface and large user database, LeadPages is one of the best marketing tools currently available. Using the tips we’ve provided, we’re sure you will be able to use LeadPages to get more leads, more visits and more revenue.