Landing Page Basics - Part 3 - CTAs & Leads

Welcome to Legal Marketing 101. I'm Toby Rosen. We are back for episode three of our landing page basics series. And in this episode, we're going to be talking about CTAs or calls to actions, and best practices for conversion optimization and what conversion optimization means. And we're going to talk about how we actually collect leads, both the types of tech we use and the things we use to entice users to actually hand over their info. That's a task that's easier said than done these days. When it comes to landing pages, simplicity is really key. We've talked about testing and all of the things that come along with that and one of the things to really avoid with testing is is getting too complicated within your page. Visitors should be able to understand your offer and know what action to take within seconds of landing on your page. By decluttering your page and providing a really singular focus, you can create a much more seamless user experience and you'll guide more visitors towards your desired action. First, we're going to start by removing any unnecessary distractions on our landing pages. Keep your designs clean, uncluttered, and allow your message to really take center stage. You can highlight the key benefits of your offer and use as much as possible concise and compelling copy to convey your value proposition. Remember, your visitors have a limited attention span, so make every word count. A general rule in PaperClick is that we have about 9 seconds to get a user to stay on the page. It takes a little longer to get a conversion, but within that 9 or 10 second window, they're going to decide whether or not to bounce. A clear and consistent call to action is also really essential for driving conversions. Your CTA needs to be prominent, compelling, and aligned with the goal of your landing page. Whether it's download now or get started or contact us or free consult, you always have to make sure your CTA stands out visually and captures the attention of your visitors. Now consistency really is key when it comes to CTAs, and this is a problem that I see lawyers get into when it comes to testing, they'll use a bunch of different CTAs. You want to ensure that your CTA is being repeated throughout your landing page, reinforcing that desired action at a bunch of different points. You don't want to give them a bunch of different options or different variations of the option because it'll be harder for the user to remember what they're supposed to do. For example, you can place your CTA in the headline, the body text, and multiple times throughout the page and at the end of the page. and CTAs create a much more cohesive user experience, and like I said, help reinforce the desired action we're trying to elicit, conversions. Going backwards a little bit, to create a highly effective landing page though, it's really crucial to eliminate distractions that will divert your visitor's attention away from that CTA. Distractions can take a lot of forms, things like menu items that navigate away from the page, content that's just totally irrelevant to what we're trying to do, or even things like an overload of phone numbers, contact information, or social buttons. These distractions can and will confuse visitors and ultimately prevent them from taking the action we've designed. But fear not, there's a quick and effective way to solve this problem using isolated landing pages. We've talked about the technology to build these pages, like Lead Pages, Instapage, Unbounce, but these isolated landing pages are just standalone pages designed for specific marketing objectives. Usually, I use these for Google Ads for similar paid advertising campaigns, but they can be effective in a ton of different situations where we have to convert someone's attention into action quickly. For the sake of coherency here, I'll stick with the paid ads example, though. When running paid ads, it's critically important to provide a focused experience for your visitors. Like I said, you only really have 9 to 10 seconds to get somebody to stay on the page. By utilizing landing pages that are super specifically designed for your paid campaigns and the content in your paid campaigns, you can avoid cluttering the user's decision-making process with too many options. We call this, essentially, conversion optimization. These isolated landing pages are streamlined, targeted, and aligned with the specific messaging of your ads. They remove distractions and guide visitors towards completing a particular action. For example, if you're running a campaign to promote free consultations for your law firm, your isolated landing page would focus solely on that offer, minimizing other distractions and any alternative actions that normal users of the site might actually want to complete. Landing page builders like the ones we talked about in episode 2, Lead Pages, Instapage, and Unbounce, among others, provide the tools and templates to create these isolated pages pretty much effortlessly. With the drag and drop functionality we talked about, you can customize your landing pages to align with the campaign objectives and design preferences for your firm. This focused approach improves conversion rates by reducing the distractions on the page and providing a clear path for visitors to take action. By using these pages, you create a really seamless user experience. Visitors who click on your ad are directed to a page that is laser focused on the specific offer or message from your campaign. This targeted approach eliminates unnecessary information. And again, we're streamlining that path to conversion. This is good for us, but it's also really good for the client. However, it is essential to consider the downsides of isolated landing pages as well. One of the big potential drawbacks is the reduced search engine optimization, or SEO benefits. Since we're not really integrating the page into the full network of the site, then as a result, we do need to look at how these pages fit into our site's navigation. Are they just specific to a pay-to-adds campaign, or could we also use them as a lead magnet for normal, everyday visitors? It really just depends on your objectives and your content, but all of the above is important to keep in mind when you're investing time and money in content and in new landing pages. We always want to squeeze all the value we can out of every marketing asset. And speaking of squeezing, it's time to actually talk about getting something out of these pages. We've got the visitors, we're testing, we're optimizing, but how do we capture value from these users? We're going to compare and contrast a few of the most common lead collection options that law firms employ. Phone calls, emails, contact forms, and contacts through social media. Phone calls can really still be one of the most direct and personal ways to collect leads, and this is still probably the most effective lead collection form that law firms use today. But there definitely are some drawbacks. By providing a phone number on your landing page, you give visitors the option to connect with your team directly. But keep in mind that some visitors might prefer other communication channels, and phone calls may not be suitable for all audiences or offers. If it's an ebook download, we don't need a call for that. On top of that, tracking for phone calls, while it has become better and better, it's still not really on the same level as what we can do with online leads. We do get massive gobs of data from call tracking providers, but there are a bunch of little issues as well, like number pools that can cause problems. I'm definitely not knocking using phone numbers on your landing pages, but the drawbacks are pretty evident. What I really recommend, and what's thankfully become incredibly common, is contact forms. Contact forms are pretty much the most versatile option for lead collection. By offering an email opt-in form or a contact form, or whatever version of it you like, you can collect leads and follow up with them automatically and really just get deep into nurturing your leads. The key here is to keep the form concise and request only the essential information. The shorter the form, the more likely visitors are to complete it. You can do the math there. Social media contacts have also become really relevant for lead generation, especially on platforms like Facebook and even on Instagram and TikTok for some firms. By integrating social media buttons or by providing links to your profiles, you offer visitors an alternative way to connect with your brand through a platform that they're probably already using to connect with their friends. This method works really well for audiences that are not just highly active on social media platforms and prefer engaging through those channels, but really for everyone these days. And you can extend this even further by using tools like chatfuel to connect your Facebook profile to your website as a chatbot. This is a whole other can of worms so I won't go there today but stuff like this is pretty cool. Now, why would anyone fill out the form on your landing page, you may be thinking. If they're card in hand and ready to buy legal services you could probably skip to the next section. If you focus on car accidents or practice in an area of the law where things are often emergencies, you may not need to do much convincing for your potential clients to reach out. But if you're in an area of the law where people do a bit of window shopping, entire kicking, you're going to need a lead magnet to attract some clients. Lead magnets are essentially valuable resources or incentives in some way offered in exchange for a visitor's contact information. They can really significantly enhance lead generation by providing an extra incentive for visitors to take when they engage with your brand. Lead magnets can take a bunch of different forms and we're gonna do some more episodes on that in the future. But some of the basic types are things like ebooks or white papers or short PDFs, checklists work well, quizzes are really interesting, and there's a bunch of software to do things like automated webinars where you record it once and have it play multiple times per day into the future. The key really is to offer something that aligns with their target audience's interests and their pain points particularly. For example, if you're targeting small business owners, an ebook or download on effective legal strategies for startups and avoiding lawsuits could be a really compelling lead magnet. If you're targeting people considering divorce, an ebook on divorce or a quiz on finances or a checklist for budgeting, these kind of materials can be really effective for your clients. When creating your lead magnets, Again, it's crucial to focus on providing super high quality and actionable content. Your lead magnet should offer tangible value to your audience, addressing their specific needs and providing solutions. The more valuable and relevant your lead magnet, the more likely it becomes that visitors will provide their contact information. And at the end of the day, that's really all we're doing with these landing pages. Look out for the fourth and final episode of our landing page basics series next week. going to be covering a little bit more and putting some of the pieces together. That's it for Legal Marketing 101. Check out rosenadvertising.com for more. Thanks.[Music] Seed garden