Landing pages aren’t dead. Real estate homepages are. If you can’t get opt-ins with your homepage that means it’s time to change your offer.

Landing pages aren’t dead. Real Estate home pages are.

Thanks to apps, email, chat services and social media, readers are finding their content in other ways. And the traffic generated from these sources if often untrackable. Especially to your homepage.

Think about the way you are directing folks to your site. Most likely they’re find you through:

Google Search
Google Adwords or a Facebook Ad Campaign
Link Referral

Wherever you traffic comes from, you need to make sure you can guide viewers through an effective and simple course of action to take them from visitor to lead.

A traditional, out-of-date, or poorly designed homepage will not accomplish this for you.

Really, Yale? REALLY?

There’s also a little thing called “information overwhelm” that is in full effect here.

You remember in school when you’d open a text book to start reading and your eyes would just sort of glaze over right away?

That’s information overwhelm.

The same thing happens when a reader is confronted with a busy homepage and no clear path to take action.

If you can’t get opt ins with your homepage, it’s time to change your offer.

Really, homepages are basically just landing pages trying to get users to take one action NOW:

Big brands have already taken notice and have revamped their websites. Let’s check out what these companies are doing and why it’s working so well.

We’ve narrowed it down to 5 major components that your landing pages should have to get folks to take action.

Value Proposition

None of the other stuff is going to matter if you can’t keep visitors on the page long enough to take action. In order to get prospects to pick up what you’re putting down, you’ve got to deliver a strong value proposition.

This should satisfy the question of WHY someone should do business with you instead of one of your competitors.

And get this – 54% of companies do nothing to optimize their value propositions.

To win at this, make sure the benefits of working with you can be seen right away. You can achieve this through content — either with compelling headlines, subheads and text, or visual components like images and video.

Here is a great example from Easy Agent below:

We used a bold color combination and a strong headline and text to communicate our value proposition.

The bright colors help to grab the attention of viewers and the text clearly states what we have to offer and why it’s awesome.

Our goal here is it encourage visitors to dig deeper as they move from viewer, to lead and eventually to client.

But you’ve got to direct them through the funnel.

Let’s check out some other examples.

Trello uses captivating colors as well and then simply says exactly what they’re about. No bells and whistles, just a clean explanation of what users can expect from their service.

There are no second chances when it comes to leaving a first impression, so make sure your value proposition gives a great and honest one.

Dropbox skips the colors in exchange for negative space and puts most all the attention on their text.

And it works.

Not only is the page simple and easy to navigate, it lets visitors know what the tool does and how it can benefit them.

It’s no surprise that Hubspot is at the top of our list.

Their opening statement promises value and results to users right away – something their competitors may not be doing upfront.

Satisfies The Target Audience

In order for your value proposition to be successful, your page has to resonate with the intended audience. This is true for all of your content, but it starts here.

Audible knows exactly who they’re talking to. And this is communicated in the image of diverse people all sharing one thing in common: audiobooks.

They’re also taking advantage of the FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) trend by letting viewers know that folks just like them are already using the app and loving it.

This is what audiences will find when they navigate to Snapchat.

It may not look like much to you and I, but the mega-app’s intended audience has all the information they need to take action.

When you click on the icon in the upper corner or on the arrow icon toward the bottom of the page, viewers are prompted to download the app or find out more about it, but none of this is laid out directly.

The app can confidently rely on its visual imagery and viral popularity to reach and connect with users.

This is an awesome example of both a solid value proposition and how to satisfy a target audience. With a single image, headline and sentence, MINT conveys its potential to users and tells us how their service can make our lives easier and more productive.

Includes A Call To Action (CTA)

All of the pages we’ve gone over so far have included at least one Call-To-Action that is clearly visible and ridiculously easy to find. With sites like Netflix, you’ve got to sign up before you can get any of the benefits.

In this case, it’s probably binge-watching Mad Men and Stranger Things simultaneously.

via GIPHY

Netflix realizes that subscribing to anything is a commitment. So they let viewers know right away that they are free to cancel whenever, wherever.

As soon as viewers see that, they can immediately click the CTA button, worry free, to signup and start streaming right away.

Hulu sells itself a bit harder than Netflix, but its CTA is still the primary focus of the page and offers free, no hassle value instantly.

Mobility And Usability

This one is HUGE.

If folks can’t easily navigate your site, none of the other components will matter. You’ve got to make sure your site is optimized for mobile and across all number of devices. via Easy Agent

Plus, it’s gotta be user friendly.

This is the screen you’ll see when you land on Amazon’s mobile site.

Technically, you can browse Amazon’s website without having an account. And there’s plenty to see on this page.

Above the Sign In button, you’ll see this:

Sign In For The Best Experience

Below that, there’s the Deal of The Day surrounded by products and even more deals and savings. However, you’ve got to sign up in order to take advantage of the lowest prices and latest specials.

Amazon knows its value and is more than happy to let viewers in on what they have to offer, as well let them know that they’ve got to create an account to get the best possible deals.

Microsoft’s page is virtually perfect. This is mainly attributed to the layout. A well-designed page can help you begin to instantly build trust with your audience. Without trust, you’ve got little hope of landing a lead.

The mobility and usability of a site also establishes credibility as users navigate through the opt-in journey.

Ease Of Use

There’s no better example of this than your favorite social media sites. There’s no pop-ups or flashy elements. Theses pages exist solely to convert viewers into users.