How to create a WordPress landing page

A landing page is a stand-alone page on your website that encourages visitors to take a single action. Landing pages strip away alllll the noise of a regular web page and focus on a single product, service, event, e-book, or white paper. 

In this case, the landing page is asking you to download a guide—exactly what you expected to find when you clicked on the ad.

Now, imagine you had clicked that ad and ended up on a page where you had to scroll and click through to find the promised guide. Frustrating, right? Most likely, you’d bounce off the page because you’re, ahem, you’re busy and don’t have time to search the entire site. 

Since landing pages are often the first experience a potential customer will have with your business, delivering what you promised in your ad is critical. Any friction will annoy users, and they most likely won’t return. (And we’re sure you don’t want that.)

So, those are landing pages. Build ‘em on a WordPress platform, and they become WordPress landing pages. 

While WordPress landing pages can and should be used strategically throughout your marketing campaigns, they are more typically associated with paid advertising. You’ll see a whole slew of places below where you might consider using landing pages in your marketing channels.

Why use a WordPress landing page?

As a general rule o’ thumb, if your website is built on WordPress, then you’ll want to build your landing pages on WordPress as well. It makes it easier for you to manage all your pages (regular web pages and landing pages) in one platform. It’s called convenience, baby.

Not to mention, sending visitors to a general page on your website could be more costly. According to the Unbounce Benchmark Conversion Report, pages with one CTA resulted in a 13.5% conversion rate compared to 10.5% for pages with five or more CTAs. 

A 3% conversion increase is a pretty darn good reason to use a landing page. On top of that convincing number, here are some other benefits to using WordPress landing pages:

Ease of use and customization

WordPress is known for its user-friendly interface, even for beginners. With a treasure trove of themes, page builders, and plugins at your disposal, you can tailor your landing page’s design and functionality to your specific needs and branding.

SEO-friendly

WordPress is inherently SEO-friendly. Heck, WordPress and SEO are practically synonymous. If you’re hungry for that coveted top spot on Google’s search results, additional SEO plugins are like adding turbo boosters to your website. They’ll supercharge your landing pages, making them irresistibly delicious to search engines. Yum. 

Mobile responsiveness

Lots of WordPress themes and page builders have your back when it comes to mobile responsiveness. These themes make sure your site looks and works well, no matter the size of the screen: no fuss, no frills, just practicality in action.

Integration

WordPress is a versatile platform and a natural fit with many other tools and services.

You can easily link your WordPress landing page up with your email marketing, analytics, CRM, and social media—creating a handy ecosystem for all your online needs. The world is your oyster.

What’s the difference between a WordPress landing page and a WordPress page?

Here’s the quick answer: a WordPress page acts as any ol’ website page, with many places to go and lotsa’ content and distractions. A WordPress landing page, however, has one job, and that’s to guide visitors to take one single action. It’s just like any other landing page but built with WordPress. 

The key elements of a high-converting WordPress landing page

Every click on an ad is a step in the right direction, they say (and by “they” we mean us.) Ad clicks show you’ve done a great job creating interest, but the most critical part comes after the click—whether its signups, downloads, or purchases you’re guiding folks to. 

So the pressure is on for a quick conversion. How do you face the fire? By creating landing pages with these key elements below to avoid the bounce and instead convert visitors into leads or customers.

Match your ad to your WordPress landing page

When it comes to your WordPress landing page, it’s all about maintaining a harmonious connection with your ad. That means keeping the message and design aligned. Consistency is the secret sauce that ties it all together.

Create a compelling hero image and headline 

Your headline and hero image are the real showstoppers of your WordPress landing page. They’re the first things folks see, so you have to keep it snappy, grab attention, and make sure it clearly conveys the value proposition or offer. 

Write clear and concise copy

Although landing pages are often short and sweet—like traditional squeeze pages that only include a headline and email capture form—some of ‘em include more supporting copy than others. These extra details might convince someone to download your white paper rather than bounce from the page. 

Remember that your landing page is there to do one job, so keep your copy clear, concise, and focused to avoid distracting your visitor from the message.

Bonus tip: if you need help writing compelling landing page copy, try using Smart Copy to help you put all the right words together using AI.

Include benefits and social proof

Without runnin’ the risk of turning your landing page into a sales page, include a few details of the benefits of your offer and provide a list of features if they add value to your page. 

Another thing that can boost up some trust with your page visitors is customer testimonials. While not always neceassry, they do provide a form of social proof that can build credibility. Real-life experiences from others are priceless— they can give new visitors to your page the push they need to take action.

Add a lead capture form

If your goal is lead generation, then you need a place for visitors to enter their info. 

Keep your lead capture form as short as possible to reduce friction but collect enough data for your needs. Some folks only ask for an email address, while others might ask for more information for future segmenting. 

For example, if you sell pet products, you may want to ask visitors what kind of pet they have (is it a cute kitten? Pet snake?) so you can send personalized email campaigns and retarget ads.

Bonus tip: There is, in fact, a psychological aspect to how many form fields to include to help improve/increase conversions.

Include a clear call to action 

The CTA button on your landing page continues your new lead’s journey. It’s an essential part of the whole conversion equation and requires just as much thought as your hero image and headline. Write the wrong thing as your CTA, and you could lose a lead, even if they’ve taken the time to fill out your form. 

Depending on the layout of your page, your CTA might be right after the headline. But, if your page includes a lead capture form, your CTA will go under the form.

Use action-oriented language on your CTA like “Get started,” “Download now,” or “Request a quote,” which tells visitors exactly what to do next or what will happen when they click the button. If your landing page extends beyond the fold (anything that requires scrolling on your page), add your CTA button a few times to encourage clicks and eliminate any extra effort for your visitor—like scrolling back to the top of the page or having to scroll all the way to the bottom. We’re all busy here.

Make your landing page mobile-friendly

Although this isn’t directly related to any on-page elements, ensure your landing page is fully responsive and looks and functions well on mobile devices. 

Many visitors may access your page from smartphones or tablets, and anything off-putting, like an unreadable headline, may cause them to bounce. In Q1 of 2023, 95.3% of the world accessed the internet via mobile phone, compared to 57.9% via personal laptop or desktop. So like it or not, everything you do should be mobile-friendly. 

How to create a landing page in WordPress

Now that you see the value in creating landing pages for your marketing campaigns, let’s get to the how of creating a high-converting landing page for your WordPress website. 

For the sake of this tutorial, we’ll assume you already have a WordPress website. 

You have several options to build your page. 

• Hire a programmer to build one from scratch. This option can get costly if you plan to build multiple pages, plus it takes time to find the right developer who understands the needs of your business. 
• Use the default WordPress block editor. You’ll need to learn some basic HTML code and a programmer to make significant design changes.
• WordPress landing page builder. A visual drag-and-drop builder is the easiest option that requires zero coding and will give you access to hundreds of customizable templates.  

Depending on scope and scale, all options have their value. But if we’re good mind-readers, we know which one you’re eyeing by now. 👀

Create a WordPress landing page with Unbounce’s landing page builder

Since we like to hit the easy button around here as much as possible, this tutorial will show you how to create a landing page in WordPress using the Unbounce templates and drag-and-drop page builder. We might be biased, but we do think it’s one of the best WordPress landing page plugins around.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to creating a WordPress landing page.

1. Install the WordPress plugin

First things first. Head on over to your WordPress site, login and navigate to your dashboard. 

On the left side of the page, find “plugins” and click on it. This will open up a drop-down menu and also take you to the plugins page.

Next, click on “add plugin.” In the search bar, type in “Unbounce Landing Pages,” and it will bring up the plugin to install. 

Once you’ve clicked “install” and then “activate,” you’ve successfully installed the plugin, and you’re ready to build your first WordPress landing page. Congrats.

2. Create an account with Unbounce

If you haven’t already, sign up for an Unbounce account. There’s a free trial period, so you can explore its features and decide if it meets your needs.

Next, log in to your Unbounce account and click on “Create New.”

3. Choose a page builder

Unbounce leaves the level of customizing and creativity up to you. Ain’t that sweet?
Select the Classic Builder if you prefer more control over your design with drag-and-drop features. Or select the AI-powered Smart Builder if you’d rather start with one of Unbounce’s high-converting, ready-to-use landing page templates.

4. Customize your landing page

From here, you can comb through over 100 WordPress landing page templates and pick one that matches your campaign goals, or you can answer a few questions about your page goals with Smart Builder, and our AI will suggest the best WordPress landing page template for you.

Change colors and fonts, swap out images, and update the heading and text to match your branding and campaign goals. 

If you’re struggling to fill in the text, turn on “enhanced copy,” Smart Copy will help you fill in the blanks based on a few brand descriptor prompts like target audience. (Clippy ain’t got nothing on this AI.)

5. Publish your WordPress landing page

It’s time to take your awesome new WordPress landing page live. Here are the quick-fire steps:

1. Click the “Publish” button in Unbounce.

2. Since you’ve already installed the WordPress plugin on your website, you need to add your landing page to WordPress to connect your domain to Unbounce. From your Unbounce dashboard, select “Domains” on the left side of your screen. Once you click that, you’ll be prompted to select “Connect a WordPress Domain.”

3. With the Unbounce WordPress plugin installed and connected, you can embed your Unbounce landing page into your WordPress site. Head back to your WordPress dashboard and click “Pages” on the left-side menu.

4. Then, click “Create a new page” or edit an existing one where you want to display your new landing page.

5. In the page editor, you should now see an “Unbounce” button or section. Click it.

6. Select the Unbounce landing page you want to embed from the list of your Unbounce pages. 

7. Customize the settings if necessary, and click “Insert.”

8. After embedding your Unbounce landing page into your new WordPress page, you can publish it on your website. Click “Publish” or “Update” to make it live.

6. Test your WordPress landing page

Always test your landing page—always test everything, for that matter—before sending traffic to it. The last thing you need is to spend money promoting it only to discover it’s full of glitches. 

Check form submissions, links, and mobile responsiveness. Be sure to test it on a few different browsers, and make sure it functions as expected within your WordPress site. 

7. Promote your new WordPress landing page

Now that your Unbounce landing page is embedded into your WordPress site and you’ve tested it to ensure everything works (phew), it’s time to start driving traffic to it. 

Although landing pages are typically used in PPC ad campaigns, nothing is stopping you from promoting them on your other channels, as well. Think email marketing, social media, retargeting campaigns, and more.

Here are a few ideas to get your WordPress landing page around:

• Email marketing: Leverage your email list by sending targeted email campaigns that direct subscribers to your landing page. Use your superior copywriting skills (or Smart Copy) to craft catchy copy and subject lines that entice people to click through to your page.
• Social media: Share your landing page on your social media profiles directly in a post that highlights the benefits of your offer. Include a clear CTA or add it to your bio with a link to the landing page. 
• Content marketing: If you have a blog or create other types of content, promote your landing page within your articles or blog posts when relevant. For example, if you’re offering an e-book, include a CTA to the landing page in related blog posts.
• Retargeting: Implement retargeting or remarketing campaigns to reach visitors who have previously interacted with your website but did not convert. Show them tailored ads that encourage them to return to your landing page.