In the B2B industry, it's quite common to drive lead generation efforts with a landing page campaign. If you've ever done a paid search campaign, you're driving viewers to a specific landing page and hoping they'll convert on your form. But, how can you really encourage them to take that desired action on your landing page? By paying attention to these four basic principles, you can create much more effective landing pages.

1. Present "Scannable" Content 

One of the most common mistakes is making pages that are too dense or have no apparent order or layout. Many social media web studies have shown that most people do very little actual reading until they've already fully qualified the source. Instead most people "scan" web pages for useful pieces of information that they can use to get an overall sense of the content being presented. The other danger of having a page that is too text heavy is that your "Call to Action" can be pushed too far down on the page.

2. Write Meaningful and Direct Headlines

Avoid writing headlines that do not show the value proposition of your product or service. These should not be vague and rather tell the user the main benefit directly. In the sample below, Elance is clearly stating that by using their services you can find online workers to help with your business efforts.

3. Have a Prominent Call-to-Action (CTA)

Another common problem is having either no call to action, or inversely too many choices for a user to easily decide on an action. Ideally there is a single call to action for landing pages, although in some cases it may be acceptable to have multiple (for instance when your target audiences are varied). In the social media marketing sample below, Skype has a single option to "see our new subscriptions" which is made even more prominent by use of an accent color (in this case, a bright green).

4. Include "Social Proof"

By simply citing other entities that use a particular product or service you can quickly build social proof. One way to do this is to include logos or names or existing customers. Another is to use comparative charts to show advantages you might have against competing products or services. Another example might be to include testimonials or cite memberships and social media marketing associations you belong to. For example, stating that you are a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner. In the example below hootsuite lists existing clients such as Facebook, TED, FOX, etc.

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