How to optimise your lead capture page.

From emails to social, your website is the foundation of all your marketing efforts. It’s the place you guide your audience towards and the final step of your lead generation strategy, which means that whichever landing page you use needs to be designed specifically to capture your visitors.

But how do you create an effective lead capture page? Here’s the lowdown on everything about lead captures, why you need a specific page, and what goes into an effective lead capture page design.

What is a lead capture?

A lead capture is the final stage of your lead generation strategy. It’s when prospects provide information like their name and email address, without having to commit to any purchases. There are multiple different lead capture tools that you can use, but the most common are specific lead capture landing pages and lead capture forms.

What is a lead capture page?

A lead capture page is a specially designed landing page that encourages potential prospects to give you their details. What makes it different from the rest of your website is that it will focus on one specific event, service or product, and will feature a call-to-action (CTA) button with a lead capture form.

These pages typically offer up something in exchange for your customers’ valuable information, from 10% discounts to free eBooks. This is important since visitors are unlikely to commit to a purchase after just one interaction, but by offering them something of value, you can increase the odds of them converting.

Why do lead capture pages matter to your business?

Many businesses tend to use their homepage as their landing page, but the problem with this is that it isn’t specific to your visitors’ interests and can overwhelm them with too much irrelevant content. And even if you use a pop-up form, there are plenty of links leading off the homepage that can distract visitors and disrupt their journey. This is where a lead capture page comes into the picture.

These specific stand-alone pages keep your visitors focused on one goal by removing all other links to your website. They then offer more detailed information about that one topic that interests your visitors while encouraging them to provide their details. And with 49.7% of marketers hailing web forms as their highest converting lead generation tool, this is a popular choice for businesses looking to capture leads.

Without these lead capture forms, you would have no way of collecting information about prospects and keeping a steady flow of leads entering your growth marketing funnel. You can then use their information to tailor all future contact and marketing, delivering a personalised experience that builds a relationship and eventually nurtures those leads into customers.

How to create an effective lead capture page design

Now we know why businesses need lead capture pages, let’s look at 6 best practices for lead capture forms and pages that will help maximise the ROI on all your other marketing efforts.

1. Create your content first

Your landing page needs to include a catchy headline, communicate your unique selling proposition, and get straight to the point. Try to condense your information into bite-sized chunks of information that are quick and easy to read, letting visitors know exactly what you’re offering so they can make an informed decision.

This content will decide the overall design of your landing page, impacting positioning, sizing, graphics and more. This means that by deciding on your copy before the design phase, your web designer can ensure there’s enough space for you to properly convey your message.

With this in mind, it’s worth considering a bespoke lead capture page design over free landing page templates. Using a preset design will restrict your content, forcing you to adapt your messaging to fit the available space. This can have a negative impact on your lead capture rates, leading to forms and pages that underperform.

By creating your content first and working with an agency that can tailor your design to your brand, you can create a landing page that clearly communicates the value you’re offering in exchange for your visitors’ information.

2. Position your lead capture forms

When designing a specific landing page, the position of your lead capture form is one of the most important decisions. In-page forms should ideally be placed above the fold in the section that customers can see without having to scroll down, letting them know exactly what your offer is and what action they need to take right from the start.

Need more space to explain the value of your offer in more detail? Use two forms, placing one above and one below the fold. This will streamline your visitors’ experience, placing the form at their fingertips and making it easier for them to fill out when they’re ready.

If you want to capture leads throughout other pages of your website instead, then you can use pop-up lead capture forms. These are great for grabbing your audience’s attention and can appear anywhere on the page, from corners and sides to banners and central promotions. Just be wary about the timing of your pop-up forms, as introducing them too soon can be more of a distraction than a welcome incentive.

Alternatively, behaviour-based triggers are a good choice, letting you pop up with an offer when users are about to leave your website or show engagement with specific pages. This enhances the user experience and can reduce bounce rate, providing added value that delivers leads.

3. Choose relevant form fields

Long forms that require too much personal information will overwhelm your visitors, so keep your lead capture form to a minimum. The fields you do include will be guided by your specific campaign goals, which will help you identify what information you actually need from visitors for them to qualify as a lead.

In general, it’s considered best practice to include no more than five fields, with some forms asking for as little as an email. However, while quicker forms might give you more leads, the quality will likely be lower and it’ll be more challenging to nurture those leads into customers.

This means that if you want higher-quality leads, you need to balance the number of fields with the value of your offer. If you’re offering large discounts or insightful eBooks, then you can try using longer forms. While you might capture fewer leads, those who do take the time to fill them out will be more serious about engaging with your brand and therefore more likely to become future customers.

The bottom line is to only ask for information you’ll use, and the more details you ask for, the higher the value your offering should be in return. Want to know their birthday? People will ask why that’s necessary and might be put off, unless you offer up a free slice of cake or 10% off on the big day in return.

4. Inspire trust

With 68% of consumers somewhat or very concerned about their online privacy, trust signals play a huge role in developing an effective lead capture page. The best way to put prospects at ease is by placing your privacy policy somewhere that’s close to the form and easy to find, along with third-party security certifications and authority endorsements.

Another great feature that inspires trust is customer testimonials, especially since 70% of people trust the opinions of other consumers. Try adding a link to your Trustpilot profile or including reviews you’ve collected that relate to the specific service or product your page is promoting.

You can also inspire trust through your branding. If your web designs are full of discrepancies, your business will come across as less professional and therefore less trustworthy. But by keeping your brand consistent across every touchpoint, you can build familiarity and portray your business as reliable and safe.

5. Perfect your CTAs and buttons

With the power to entice users to submit an immediate response, your CTAs and buttons should never be underestimated. There should only ever be one CTA and one button on your lead capture page, and as this will be the final step in converting your visitors into leads, it needs to have an impact.

For the wording of your CTAs, steer clear of the generic ‘Submit’ as this offers no value to your visitors. Instead, make it obvious what benefit they will gain by submitting their details. This can be as simple as ‘Download’ and ‘Register’, or something a bit more relatable like ‘Get my exclusive discount’ and ‘Download your free guide’.

Notice that these CTAs use dynamic and actionable verbs, imply exclusivity, and speak directly to the user, enhancing their experience and making them feel valued. Whether you choose a direct or descriptive style of CTA will ultimately depend on your brand’s tone of voice.

Once you have your wording, the design of the button itself needs to stand out from the rest of the page. Contrasting colours are a great way of differentiating your CTA from the surrounding content, while size, position and white space work together to enhance legibility and clickability.

When creating your forms, remember that your CTA and buttons don’t need to be perfect the first time around. This is something that regularly needs a lot of A/B testing, with each refinement helping you move one step closer to the combination that works best for your audience.

6. Create a responsive design

Once you have your desktop version ready, you need to make sure your lead capture page is fully responsive across all devices. This is essential because not only will it be linked up to social accounts and e-shots that drive mobile traffic, but almost 60% of all web traffic now comes from mobile devices.

This means that if your page is going to capture those leads, it needs to respond correctly, look great, and be easy to use on everything from Apple and Android to tablets and smartphones. This is especially important for landing pages since forms are much more difficult to fill out while using a mobile.

Having a responsive lead capture form will avoid users needing to scroll or zoom to fill yours out. Instead, it will automatically readjust the size and orientation to suit the size of your visitor’s device so they can tap and type easily, or offer up an autofill option. If your lead capture page has a large hero image, this will also be removed to avoid overcrowding the page and pushing your form below the fold.

Use A/B testing to refine and optimise your forms

From headings and incentives to form fields and positions, A/B testing your lead capture pages and forms is the most reliable way of creating an effective lead capture website. Tracking these results will allow you to continue refining these pages and forms, improving performance for visible growth.

Want to nail your lead capture page?

Our Shrewsbury and London-based web design and marketing agency is ready to help you create something that actually works. Let’s make those leads count.

Or if you just want some more insights, take a look at how to reduce your bounce rate and why emails and landing pages make a great team.