How to Build a Landing Page
When we take on clients, we generally explain our services and what they involve in order for them to get a better idea of what they’re paying for, the time it takes for them to start seeing results, etc. Which is why we’re going to briefly explain how to create a landing page for the sake of transparency. Here is how we approach it:
- The first step that goes into making a landing page is understanding what your goals with this landing page are. This gives us an idea of what to create as well as what landing page metrics we should track.
- Secondly, we start creating everything that’s going to be displayed on that landing page: the copy, the images, considering what CTAs (calls-to-action) to use, any videos, etc. There are a lot of potential elements that can be included on a landing page; we’ll either create those or outsource the work.
- Once we have the design ready, we’ll show you what we have created for feedback. We’ll go back and forth with you until the design satisfies you completely. Moreover, we’ll make sure we have set up proper communication channels beforehand to make sure this step runs smoothly and takes as little time as possible.
- Next, we’ll set up tracking parameters to keep track of how your landing page is performing in the future.
- We’ll then finally publish the landing page and start advertising it through Google Ads, and whichever other PPC platform you would like to use.
- Finally, using the data that we’ve been tracking, we’ll make adjustments to the landing page to try and improve its performance.
That’s our process of building landing pages. If you’re interested in our services, you can reach out to us and see how we can build the landing page of your dreams.
If, however, you’re not interested in our services and would like to learn how to create a landing page for free, then there’s a number of the best landing page builders that also happen to offer a free version of their tool. Of course, these freemium tools come with many limitations, so don’t expect an amazing product.
Why Create a Landing Page?
One of the major concerns of our clients is trying not to let their costs accumulate so much, and trying to manage their expenses as much as possible; after all, Google Ads runs on money and with all of the costs involved, it’s easy to watch your expenses spiral out of control.
Which is why we’re often asked why a landing page is necessary. In fact, the most common question we’re asked is, “can’t we just send visitors to our homepage?”
It’s a good question to ask but it betrays the lack of knowledge regarding the uses and benefits of a landing page; remember that a landing page is a webpage that’s created as part of an advertising campaign. Therefore, it should be designed to get a visitor to perform whatever action we desire from them.
A homepage is inadequate for this purpose, for reasons which we’ll be looking at soon. A landing page, on the other hand, is specifically designed to get visitors to perform a certain action (whether that’s making a purchase, filling in a form, etc.). This is because they’re designed to remove distractions and get straight to the point.
There are other benefits to having a landing page; but we’ve already explained that in our dedicated post on the subject, which we suggest reading.
Can a Landing Page Be a Homepage?
We’ve briefly touched upon this in the previous section, but in our opinion, no, a landing page ought not to be a homepage. This is because a homepage is much too general for the purpose of being a landing page; in other words, there are too many distractions that detracts from a visitor to perform a desired action.
However, that’s only our opinion on the matter: we personally know marketers who disagree with us on this point, and tell us that a landing page can be any webpage where users happen to “land”—which technically includes even a homepage. While the logic is sound, we feel like this definition is too broad and would prefer a more specific definition.
How Much Does It Cost to Build a Landing Page?
This depends on a variety of factors, such as if you’re creating the landing page yourself or if you’re hiring a freelancer or an agency to do the work for you. Moreover, it also depends on the tools that you’re going to be using for building your landing page.
At the same time, you need to account for whether you’ll be using a template or not; while some of the best landing page templates are free, not all of them are. And if you want a particular look, you might have to pay for the template of your choice.
So, if you’ve decided on creating your own landing page, then it might not cost you more than $100–200—if you’re paying for the tools, templates, etc., of course. If you opt for a freelancer, then maybe the whole process would cost anywhere between $200–500, depending on the complexity of the page.
However, if you decide on contracting an agency, the there are more costs involved and you could be paying anywhere from €300–1000, or even more if you have a particularly complex concept in mind.
How Long Does It Take to Create a Landing Page? Key Factors to Consider
As we’ve already said before, there is a number of factors that influence how long it should take to create a landing page, all of which you should know so that you can gain a clearer idea of the process. You can find the factors below:
- Purpose: firstly, the kind of landing page and its purpose will make a lot of difference. There are lots of types of landing pages, each one with different requirements that need different amounts of work for it to be completed.
- Complexity: even if you’ve chosen a form of landing page that shouldn’t require much work, if you’ve decided to add more elements to it or make it even more complex than usual, it will take more time. This is obvious as something “simple” will take less time than something “complex.”
- Feedback: the process of creating a landing page is one thing, but getting the design, layout, ad creatives, ad copy, and other elements approved is quite another. If there are many stakeholders involved in the process, it will necessarily take more time until all of them agree. Otherwise, if the client is particularly picky on what they would like, then this would also take more time.
- Content: if you ask different professionals “how long should a landing page be?“, they’ll each give you a different answer; that’s because a landing page should only be as long as necessary. We usually suggest keeping landing pages relatively short, except for certain special situations, such as in the case of complicated products which require a lot of explanation. And of course, the longer the landing page, the more time it will take to finish.
- Assets: finally, as we saw above, part of our landing page creation process is come up with images, videos, etc. Unless our clients already has most of this work done for us, then having to create all of these elements will require time; and the more elements required, the more time it takes.
This is more or less the short answer of how long it takes to create a landing page. If you want to (or dare to!) read the longer version, you can find that answered for you here below.
How Long Does It Take to Design a Landing Page?
Like we said above: the first step to creating a landing page is by understanding what you, as a client, hope to attain with the landing page. This is the planning phase, and it’s one of the most important aspects of designing a landing page because it provides us with your goals, which help us in imagining the perfect design for your landing page.
When understanding your goals, we can take note of what your most important KPIs (key performance indicators) are, which will help us understand how to best measure the performance of your landing page. This will be useful for when we would like to optimize your landing page in the future.
Other than understanding your goals, we will also need to consult with you regarding your target audience, your business values, any competitors you’re aware of, and even some details on the products and services you offer.
When we have gathered all of this data, we then start conducting market research to identify what your ideal landing page should look like based on competitors’ landing pages. This also helps us identify what terminology and language your target audience generally prefers by analyzing your competitors’ ad copy, and so on.
This is generally the longest phase of creating a landing page and it can take anywhere from a 3–4 days (if we manage to agree quickly with a client and spend the rest of the time doing extensive research), to 1–2 weeks if discussions end up being rather lengthy or if the client’s industry requires a lot of research.
After we’ve planned everything with our clients, it’s then time to begin creating the layout and design of the landing page. Depending on the client, we might simply create the layout by sketching it out on a piece of paper and get a rough idea that way. This is usually done when we have face-to-face meetings with clients and we can work on the ideal layout together.
However, not all of our clients are able to meet up face-to-face and we’ll have to provide them with a wireframe instead. This is a skeletal version of the landing page, giving only a rough idea of what elements should be where, etc.
The time it takes to finish this step is not always the same either: with some clients, we can be finished after a 1-hour meeting while clients that have more complex requirements or are harder to satisfy, it can take us a whole day or a day and a half to get the wireframe to their exact specifications.
How Long Does It Take to Write a Landing Page?
The next step in the creation process is actually writing the content that’s going to be displayed on the landing page. Other than written content, there’s also the matter of visual content and other elements as well. And since the content of a landing page is of the utmost importance, this is a crucial step that we usually don’t want to rush through.
In fact, this phase of the project usually takes a lot of time; not as much as the research and design processes, as those require a lot of research and back-and-forth exchanges with our clients, but still quite some time in order to get all of the elements as great as possible.
Remember that if the content of a landing page is substandard, then no one is going to bother converting on it! Therefore, you should always take your time in this process.
Naturally, the amount of time it takes us to create all of the necessary elements of a landing page will depend upon the complexity of the landing page; in other words, how many images a client would like, how long the landing page copy should be, if any videos need to be created, etc.
On average, this whole process will usually take a day, especially if a client’s requirements aren’t too great. However, with a highly complex landing page, it might even take us 3–4 days.
Now, allow us to break down the process of creating all the elements of a landing page in no particular order:
Writing
With all the research we would have conducted on other landing pages by competitors, and using the finished layout of the landing page, we can create a brief for a copywriter to craft the page’s writing. At this stage, we need to make sure the copywriter inserts the appropriate and relevant terminology, writes in a clear and easily understandable manner, and comes up with catchy CTAs and headlines.
Visuals
Depending on the complexity of your landing page, how much multimedia you’d like on it, and even the nature of your products and services, this step will take varying amounts of time. Naturally, the greater the number of visuals you’d like on your landing page and the more professional they are, the more this step would take.
However, we would highly recommend creating visuals that are as professional as can be, rather than just picking a random royalty-free image and runnign with that. After all, you’re trying to convince a visitor that your product or service is worth getting; how will you do that with an unprofessional-looking landing page?
If you have a relatively simple product or service, like shoes for example, then a couple of professional shots would be enough for your landing page. However, if your product or service has a higher degree of complexity, for example an exercise machine, then images, a video, and maybe even an infographic would definitely go a long way.
Naturally, the more elements you fit in, the longer the whole thing will take.
Design Features
Since our basic landing page design is only a wireframe, not only do we lack any elements or writing, but we also lack colour. Therefore, when creating the landing page we have to start experimenting with what colours the page should be in, usually depending on a client’s preferences or based on the colours of his brand.
Not only that, but once the writing has been finished and we go about implementing it on the landing page, we also have to pay attention to the font that we’re using. The font will have to be one that not only looks professional but matches the overall design and feel of the landing page.
Finally, the finishing design touches would be things like icons that are more like cherries on top of the landing page cake.
Interactive Elements
Some landing pages work well with interactive features; for example, if you’re selling a chatbot or some kind of online software, having an interactive element that gives visitors an idea of how your product works could be a very valuable asset to have and could even convince a visitor to convert.
Not only that, but interactive elements add an element of fun to your landing page which could easily give your visitors a nice mood boost and a great experience on your landing page. And, as research has shown, customers who have had an excellent experience with a brand spend 140% more than clients who didn’t.
Giving them a fun element to play with might make the difference between a conversion and a bounce.
Bringing It All Together
Once we’ve created all of the elements, then it’s time to bring it all together and actually set up the landing page. At this point, it’s merely a matter of following the template we created earlier, that is, the wireframe. At the same time, we’ll pay attention that the landing page is consistent, visually appealing, not cluttered, etc.
Once we’ve created a mock-up of the landing page, we’ll send it out to the client for their approval. Oftentimes, the client would be immediately satisfied; however, in the case that certain tweaks are required, we’ll gladly change whatever is required by the client.
Then we can publish everything. Once it’s live, we’ll do some technical tests to make sure the landing page is responsive on all devices, accessible to all kinds of users (for instance, those with vision impairments), can be indexed by search engines (if the page is for SEO purposes), etc.
How Long Does It Take to Code a Landing Page?
Finally, not all clients want landing pages that are just the fruits of someone else’s labor; in other words, they don’t want a template but would prefer a personalized solution. After all, the best landing pages aren’t the ones that you can simply by off a landing page template vendor but are built from scratch.
Again, this step will depend on the complexity of the landing page, as the more elements you’d like inserted, the more code is required to build the page. Moreover, if you’d like interactive elements on your page, then this would require some coding with Javascript, which would increase the time required.
Furthermore, unless a landing page creator is used, setting the colors of a landing page is done through CSS, which can also take time in itself. Finally, all of this coding requires testing as you cannot simply write the code and expect to have great results immediately; certainly, some errors might crop up during the coding process.
Ultimately, using an experienced coder and web developer, coding an entire landing page from scratch might take anywhere from 4–8 hours. The complexity of the landing page, as usual, will also affect how long the developer works on the project.
Conclusion: How Long Does It Take to Make a Landing Page?
To conclude, we have to admit that this is a pretty tough question to given a concrete answer to, especially because there are so many variables involved in the process of creating a landing page. We’ve seen that it depends on the complexity of the page, the tools used in creating it, the level of experience of whoever’s making it, etc.
Moreover, there’s also the question that a looming deadline might actually force you to work faster. For instance, if you only have a day to work a landing page, then that landing page might take you just the one day. However, if you have an entire month to deliver that landing page, you would usually take your time on that landing page.
We’re not saying that it might take a whole month of work to do that single landing page; but if you’re in no particular rush to design and create that landing page, you’ll definitely take all the time you can in order to ensure that you’re delivering as perfect a product as possible.
And we’re not even accounting for the time it takes to optimize and test various versions of the same landing page. This, in itself, would usually take a couple of hours (maybe a whole day if we need to overhaul the design), but this isn’t a one-time process: landing page optimization is a constant process.
We don’t want to close off with a “it depends” answer but unfortunately, due to the nature of the subject at hand, we’re forced to.
FAQs
How long does it take to set up a landing page?
If you want to create a landing page from scratch, then you have to be prepared to put in the work. While you can get away with creating a simplified landing page (so, something with very few elements, like having only a single image and around 100–300 words of text or even less) in an hour or so, a more complex landing page will take way more time. If you want a landing page with all the bells and whistles, then you’re looking at a couple of days work or more.
Is it hard to create a landing page?
There is nothing particularly difficult about building a landing page, especially if you use a landing page builder that really simplifies the process. You will definitely need a lot of creativity in order to be able to make a beautiful landing page, and preferably some multimedia skills in order to create fantastic visual elements.
