A landing page is a separate page with exactly one goal: visitors from an ad, a newsletter or a post should take a specific action, such as sending an enquiry. A landing page that brings enquiries answers the visitor’s question immediately, shows a clear benefit, builds trust and makes the next step as easy as possible. In this post, we show you the structure, mandatory information and measurement in 7 steps.
Key takeaways
- A landing page pursues a single goal and has a single, clearly visible call to action.
- The headline and offer must match exactly the ad or link that visitors come from.
- Benefits, trust signals and a short form decide whether a visit turns into an enquiry.
- Fast loading times, legal notice, privacy information and accessibility also apply to landing pages.
- Measure first, then improve: track conversions in GA4 and test changes one at a time.
What is a landing page and what do you need it for?
A landing page is a destination page for a specific campaign or target group that leads visitors to exactly one action. Unlike the home page, it does not have to present the whole business. It picks up one topic, for example “website relaunch for trades businesses”, and leads directly to the enquiry, booking or download. Typical uses are Google Ads campaigns, social media ads, newsletters, trade fairs or promotions with a QR code.
| Feature | Home page | Landing page |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Overview of the entire offer | One specific action |
| Target group | All visitors | One target group or concern |
| Navigation | Full menu | Reduced, focused on the call to action |
| Content | Many topics in brief | One topic in depth |
| Measuring success | Many metrics | One main metric, such as enquiries |
Which elements does a landing page that brings enquiries need?
Successful landing pages combine a clear headline, a concrete benefit, trust signals and a single, clearly visible call to action. Each element has a job. If one is missing, visitors leave more often or put off the decision. These building blocks belong on every landing page:
- Headline: names the offer and the main benefit in one sentence.
- Subheading: explains who the offer is for and which problem it solves.
- Call to action: a button with specific text such as “Request a free consultation” instead of “Submit”.
- Benefits: three to five short points on what customers actually get.
- Trust signals: a contact person with a photo, experience and genuine customer reviews, if available.
- Process: what happens after the enquiry, for example a call back and an appointment.
- FAQ: answers typical objections such as duration, effort or requirements.
What is missing matters too: distracting menu items, several competing offers and long, unstructured text cost attention. Read more about the effect of individual elements in our post Conversion rate optimisation.
How do you create a landing page in 7 steps?
Goal and target group come first, followed by message, structure, form, technology and measurement. Anyone who chooses the design first and only then thinks about content often builds a beautiful page that does not sell. So proceed in this order:
- Define the goal: which one action should the visitor take, and how will you measure it?
- Clarify the target group and concern: what question does the visitor have when arriving on the page?
- Write the message: write the headline, benefit and call to action before the layout is created.
- Sketch the structure: the most important content and the first call to action belong in the immediately visible area.
- Keep the form short: ask only for the fields you really need for the first contact.
- Check the technology: test loading time, display on smartphones, mandatory information and accessibility.
- Set up measurement: track form submissions as a conversion in Google Analytics 4 and, where relevant, in Google Ads.
For landing pages built on WordPress, reusable block patterns work well: once built properly, new campaign pages can be created quickly and consistently. You will find the basics of building a complete website in our guide Create a Website.
How do the ad and the landing page fit together?
The ad and the landing page should make the same promise: the same terms, the same offer, the same call to action. Anyone who clicks on an ad for “online shop with WooCommerce” and lands on a general services overview first has to search and often leaves again. For search ads, Google explicitly evaluates the “landing page experience”. According to the Google Ads help pages, it is one of the three components of Quality Score, alongside expected click-through rate and ad relevance.
In its Google Ads help page on Quality Score, Google recommends, among other things, meeting the search intent, continuing the ad’s message on the page, making the page mobile-friendly and improving loading time. The exact search term does not have to appear word for word on the page. We explain how to align campaigns and pages in our Google Ads Guide.
How fast does a landing page need to load?
Google rates a page as good if it meets the Core Web Vitals thresholds for at least 75 percent of page views. With paid clicks in particular, every second of waiting is expensive, because visitors leave before they even see the offer. Google has published the thresholds for “good” on web.dev:
| Metric | Measures | Threshold “good” |
|---|---|---|
| Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) | Loading time of the largest visible element | up to 2.5 seconds |
| Interaction to Next Paint (INP) | Response to clicks and input | up to 200 milliseconds |
| Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS) | Content shifting while loading | up to 0.1 |
Typical slowdowns on landing pages are large images in the header, background videos, many tracking scripts and third-party fonts. Compressed images in WebP or AVIF format, a lean theme and caching usually help the most. You can check your page’s values free of charge with PageSpeed Insights.
Which mandatory information also applies to landing pages?
Legally, a landing page is a normal web page: legal notice, privacy information and consent apply just as on the rest of the website. Because landing pages often do without a full menu, these links are easily forgotten. In the EU, pay particular attention to these points:
- Provider information: under Article 5 of the E-Commerce Directive, information such as your name, address and contact details must be easily, directly and permanently accessible – including from the landing page, for example in the footer.
- Contact form: under Article 13 GDPR, you must inform people about the purpose and legal basis of processing when collecting data, for example with a note and a link to the privacy policy directly at the form.
- Consent: tracking and marketing cookies generally require consent under Article 5(3) of the ePrivacy Directive before the scripts load.
- Accessibility: if you offer e-commerce services to consumers via the landing page, the European Accessibility Act may apply; microenterprises providing services are exempt under Article 4(5).
This information does not replace legal advice. Clarify individual cases with your legal adviser or data protection officer.
Should a landing page be findable on Google and in AI search?
Whether a landing page should be indexed depends on its purpose: campaign pages often not, permanent topic pages definitely. A page that only exists for a limited-time promotion or an A/B test can be kept out of the search index with “noindex” so that it does not compete with your service pages. Permanent landing pages for a topic or region, on the other hand, are valuable for SEO and for AI search such as Google’s AI Overviews.
The same rules apply to these pages as to any good content: clear questions as subheadings, direct answers, structured data and clear authorship. We show how this works in detail on our page AI & GEO and in our post Google AI Overviews. You can check free of charge whether your landing page is well prepared for AI search with our GEO Score Check: you get a score from 0 to 100 based on 27 checks and the 3 most important improvements.
How do you measure and improve your landing page?
First measure the main metric, usually submitted enquiries, and then change only one element per test. Without clean measurement, every optimisation remains guesswork. Set up form submissions as an event in Google Analytics 4 and mark it as a key event. With Google Ads, also import the conversion into your account so that the bidding strategy can learn.
Practical example: a service provider advertises an initial consultation with Google Ads but sends the clicks to its home page. Visitors have to find the right offer themselves. A dedicated landing page with the headline from the ad, three benefits, a contact person with a photo and a form with three fields leads them straight to the goal. Whether the new page works better is shown by comparing the conversion rate over a sufficiently long period. This example is typical and not attributed to a specific client.
Good test candidates are the headline, button text, number of form fields and the position of trust signals. You can also use our 25-point website checklist for landing pages.
Frequently asked questions
How long should a landing page be?
There is no fixed length. What matters is how much explanation your offer needs. For a simple download, a headline, a few benefits and a form are often enough. For a consultation or a larger project, visitors need more information, for example about the process, contact people and frequently asked questions. It is important that the call to action can be reached without long scrolling and is repeated in several places.
Do I need a separate landing page for every campaign?
Not for every ad, but a separate page pays off for every clearly distinct offer or target group. If you advertise one topic for tradespeople and one for online retailers, you should address both groups separately. That way, the headline, examples and benefits match the search query exactly. In its Ads help pages, Google explicitly recommends that the page meets the search intent and continues the ad’s message.
How many form fields should a landing page have?
As few as possible and as many as necessary. For the first contact, name, email address and a field for the request are often enough. Every additional required field is another hurdle. You can clarify further details such as budget, timeline or company size in the initial consultation. In addition, the data minimisation principle in Article 5 GDPR requires you to collect only the data that is actually necessary for the purpose.
Should a landing page have a navigation menu?
For pure campaign pages, a reduced menu often makes sense, because every additional link distracts from the goal. However, the page should not be completely without orientation: the logo, legal notice and privacy policy must remain accessible. Permanent landing pages that are also found via search usually keep the normal navigation. Visitors who are not yet ready to enquire can then find further information on your website.
Which system should I use to create a landing page?
The easiest way is to build landing pages in the system of your existing website, for example in WordPress with the block editor. This keeps design, tracking, legal notice and privacy information consistent, and you do not need an additional tool. The same applies to online shops with WooCommerce, Shopify or PrestaShop. It is important that the page loads quickly, works well on smartphones and that conversions can be measured reliably.
Want a landing page that brings enquiries?
We plan and build landing pages for your campaigns, from the message to technology and mandatory information through to measurement in GA4 and Google Ads. Working in digital marketing since 2003, we know what matters.
