Landing pages exist with the singular intent of driving visitors to take a specific action, which is completed by filling out a form. Landing pages are all about forms—literally. Their sole purpose is to obtain information from visitors through the form included on the page.

When done correctly, landing pages can help your nonprofit connect with people you might otherwise have missed.

Donate! Volunteer! Join our mailing list!

Your nonprofit can use landing pages to promote a variety of actions. Just not all at once. A landing page should prompt people to do one specific thing. And, your prompt needs to be compelling.

A poorly put together landing page won’t drive conversions. Overwhelming amounts of text, pages with 10,000 different things going on or multiple calls to action confuse and distract visitors from your intended purpose. You need to be as compelling and clear as possible in driving visitors to take action. Here are 4 lessons in landing page basics to help you do just that.

Don’t be a bore

You’ve made it past the first hurdle—a visitor is on your landing page. Now it’s up to you to keep a hold of their attention. Be interesting. Use a powerful photo. Play a short, compelling video. Highlight relevant examples of your impact.

World Vision does a fantastic job of showing supporters who and how they’re helping with beautiful photography and relevant tidbits of information.

Landing Page Basics World Vision

Foster a connection between your visitor and the action you want them to take. The more connected a visitor feels to your nonprofit, the more likely they are to act.

Content should be clear and concise

But, don’t go overboard in developing that connection. You want visitors to take action, not get lost in a sea of words. This isn’t the place to go into extensive detail on your mission, your impact and the role supporters play in everything you do. The more text on your landing page, the more momentum you lose.

This UNICEF landing page shows how effective using just a few words can be in getting your point across.

Landing Page Basics UNICEF

Focus on your goal. What action do you want visitors to take in this moment? Write about that. Be compelling, but be brief.

Forms need to be short and sweet

Chances are, you’re looking to get some personal information from visitors on your landing page. But here’s the deal, people don’t like giving away any more information than is absolutely necessary. People also don’t like spending a lot of time filling out online forms. The more questions you ask, the more likely your visitor is to bounce.

Feeding America includes only the basics in their donation form: How much are you giving? What’s your billing information? That’s it. Nothing else is needed to complete the action they’re asking visitors to take.

Landing Page Basics Feeding America

Only ask for information that is absolutely necessary to complete the action. If they’re signing up for a newsletter, do you really need more than a name and an email address? If you’re looking for donations, is it really necessary to ask for more than their name, donation amount and billing info? Probably not. Keep it simple and increase your conversion rates.

Add a little social proof

You’re asking visitors to act in a specific way, so it’s not a crazy idea to highlight the number or thoughts of people who have taken this same action. Social proof is a powerful tool.

Charity:water does an amazing job with social proof on this landing page. Not only do they tell you how many people have taken the pledge, they show their faces, which just adds to the impact this makes on a visitor.

Landing Page Basics CharityWater

If a visitor sees an impressive number of people signed up for your nonprofit’s newsletter, or reads a powerful quote from one of your volunteers they’ll be more inclined to take action.

Landing pages can be a powerful tool in driving action that benefits your nonprofit. Hopefully these tips help boost your landing page conversion rates.

Does your nonprofit use landing pages? Do you have any tips to add to our list? We’d love to hear from you in the comments.

Comments

  1. Great article Britt. Especially loved the part where you said don’t have multiple calls to action. I need to do a better job with that when I’m writing. Thanks for the tips!!

  2. Hi Britt,

    I’m convinced I should incorporate a landing page into my Web site. Could this be accomplished by simply making the home page maximally functional while minimally wordy?

    Thanks,

    Bill in Paso Robles

    • This is a good question Bill. It is possible to make your homepage function as a “landing page”, but it’s often difficult to do since your landing pages should have one clear call to action. Often, your homepage should function to push people in the right direction, instead of driving towards one specific conversion. And as we’ve seen, the more choices or calls to action you have on one page the less likely people are to convert. Take a look at http://conversionxl.com/does-offering-more-choices-actually-tank-conversions/ for more information on how additional choices can hurt conversions.

      We usually recommend creating landing pages targeted to the specific conversion you’re looking to drive. That said, it depends on what action you want users to take, how important this action is to your organization and how easy it is to adjust and create pages on your website.

      I hope that’s helpful. Let us know if you have any other questions.