Dedicated landing pages are as important a part of the online marketing toolkit in 2021 as ever before. However, just as with anything online, they adapt and evolve over time, usually for the better.

Landing pages and sales pages have been around for as long as the mainstream internet. Like anything else new, when the internet first came along, people spent a lot of time and effort thinking about making money from it. As a result, lengthy, content-packed landing pages quickly became the norm, and they do the job to this day.

However, there remains plenty of room for experimentation. Digital marketers are moving away from doing exactly the same things as everyone else, preferring instead to focus on the specifics of what they’re trying to sell. With great new technologies and enhanced communication tools, there are opportunities to do things differently while increasing the return on investment in the process.

1. Implement Personal Communication

Communication sits at the core of internet usability, but there has never been a better time to offer a personalized service to potential customers.

One of the drawbacks of typically lengthy landing pages, and a reason for them being as long as they are, is that they try to appeal to everyone. As a result, there are often thousands of words on a page simply to ensure the inclusion of the hundred words that matter to a specific reader.

You’ll undoubtedly have noticed a surge in chat facilities on websites of all sizes and across industries. Live chat has become an essential part of doing business for anyone seeking to make a sale, and they can be the perfect addition to your core content. In addition, online chat services can be fantastic for lead generation and, as developing technology, can easily represent a competitive advantage.

Crucially, these chat facilities do not need to take up too many resources. There is no need to assume that there is a human behind every chat facility – a well-designed chatbot can do a fantastic job of closing a sale by providing genuine, personal responses to customer queries.

2. Draw the Eye by Animating Important Info

On-page chat functionality is a relatively recent development, especially on smaller sites, but another 2021 landing page trend sees the internet coming full circle. Early personal websites sometimes felt like a race to cram in as many obnoxious sounds and animations as possible.

While that has not suddenly become fashionable in landing page design again, animations to attract attention are underrated.

People are conditioned to focus on the text, and anything that moves unexpectedly will increase their interest. When done well, the sky is the limit. For example, you could include an animated demonstration of products and services, scrolling text, or video content. Incorporate the most important message and give thought to where to position this kind of content, and it can become one of the best closing tools on any landing page.

3. Work on Gaining Real Social Proof

Landing pages of the past included testimonials, reviews, and much more to encourage people to take the plunge. However, most internet users have been around long enough to know not to trust testimonials hosted in the same place as the sales content.

93% of people take the time to read online reviews before purchasing a product, and there is no reason to believe that your wares are any different. With self-hosted reviews no longer sufficient, it is time to turn your attention to authentic recommendations from real people.

You may already have a social media content strategy, and encouraging happy customers to leave reviews should form part of it.

Try to keep things as natural as possible – incentivized reviews are as useless as self-hosted ones if they come to light. However, asking customers to let you know what they think about your products and services is no different from asking for a ‘like’ on a YouTube video.

Despite the name, social proof doesn’t only apply to social media. Depending on your business, Yelp, Trustpilot, and LinkedIn can all be great locations for endorsement.

If you can gain this genuine proof, you’ll have plenty of satisfied customers.

4. Qualify Leads on the Landing Page

There are many different ways to get people to your dedicated landing pages. You might have a mailing list, or you could be spending big on advertising. As you’ll undoubtedly have experienced in the past, not everyone that arrives on the landing page is necessarily a qualified buyer.

Someone using a cheap VPN might reside in a country you don’t serve, or you might need to optimize your ad copy further to weed out the timewasters.

In 2021, once you’ve got someone onto your page, you’ve achieved something, and there’s no need to stop there. You have a captive audience, at least for a few seconds, and may as well take the opportunity to qualify them further once they have arrived.

This could involve nothing more complex than a form – a landing page favorite. It could include the chatbot functionality referred to already or even involve creating exceptional, unique functionality. It could be an interactive demonstration of your product, a quiz, or a straight choice to take visitors to a page even more closely aligned to their requirements.

5. Remember That Trends Aren’t Everything

Landing pages are everywhere. There are millions of them on the internet, and thousands are added every day. While it pays to maintain awareness of what works and what doesn’t, that is no excuse to follow the herd.

Most businesses want as much traffic to their landing page as possible, and there are few better ways to increase exposure than going viral. It’s not something you can plan for or create, as the very nature is organic. However, nobody ever went viral by doing something in precisely the same way as someone else.

Don’t be afraid to try something new, and if it involves something that people will never have seen before, you have every chance to extend your reach.

Trends are not rules, and the definition of landing pages is flexible. Try not to let convention dictate what is right for your business and what is likely to appeal most to your customers.

Instead, keep an open mind, test constantly, and always keep an eye on performance. In doing so, you’ll have the data required to stay ahead of the game and, before long, you’ll find that it’s your website setting the trends.