Why You May Not Want To Outsource the Designing of Your Landing Page!

For many entrepreneurs, creating a landing page that converts visitors into sales is a monumental task.

That’s why you may want to outsource landing page design to a web designer who has the tools, resources and expertise needed to get your landing page project off the ground.

But is that the right decision for YOU?

Outsourcing can be a great way to save time, increase productivity and reduce costs. But outsourcing also comes with its fair share of pitfalls—and a lot of people overlook one of the biggest.

When you outsource the designing of your landing page, you’re giving away control of your message. You’ll be relying on an external party to make decisions on every aspect of the landing page design. This can lead to confusion and ultimately, wasted time.

But before you start panicking about designing your landing page DIY style, here are some reasons you might want to consider outsourcing:

1. You don’t have the time or inclination to do it yourself. Hey, I get it…you’re running a business and you’re swamped with client work
2. You don’t have the technical skills to design a landing page yourself
3. You’re a one person operation and just can’t take on any more tasks.
4. You hired a professional copywriter to write all the copy for the landing page
5. You have a VA (Virtual Assistant) to deal with the website designer if there’s a problem with the landing page
6. Budget is not an issue (you lucky duck)

If you fall into 3 or more of these reasons, especially #6, then stop reading and go and hire a website designer.

If you’re like me, you’re probably not a fan of outsourcing, but you may be thinking

• It’s time-consuming
• It’s going to be HARD
• You don’t have the right skills
• You’re not a designer
• What if you need help

Let’s talk about some of the problems with outsourcing and address some of the problems that might be going through your mind right now.

Did You Know That If You Outsource the Design of Your Landing Page, You May Lose Control Over Your Website

There’s a quote I like. It goes something like this: “If you don’t own the forest, you can’t control the trees.” In other words, if you let someone else design the landing page, you’re going to lose control. 

Website designers or developers may specialize in a certain platform (WordPress, Squarespace, Wix etc.) and if your main website is on something different, they may tell you to switch everything over to the technology they specialize in or you’ll have to find someone else. 

Although a website designer is a professional and should know what they are doing, you need to be intimately involved at every stage of the process. Don’t even think about hiring a website designer until you’ve identified the actual needs and goals of the landing page and have a clear idea of what you want it to accomplish and the website designer understands this completely.

You don’t need to know everything about the website designer or developer to build your landing page. But, you do need to be involved. This is especially true if you want to make changes to your landing page, because you may not want to pay the website designer to make every single little change you want down the road.  Basically, you don’t want your landing page to be held hostage. 

What if you have a landing page designed and after a few weeks, you need some work done and the website designer can’t get to your changes for a few weeks? 

Or worse.. what if they’ve disappeared?

That’s going to affect your business so do you look for another website designer?  You wouldn’t have to if you knew the basics of knowing how to make the changes yourself.

The Website Designer Doesn’t Have a Clear Vision for What You Want the Landing Page to Do

If your landing page isn’t working properly, you could be losing leads or sales every day without even knowing it. “Vision” is the ability to see something clearly in your mind’s eye. When you are creating a compelling vision for your landing page, what you are doing is you are giving your prospect a mental picture of what he will get if he chooses to buy from you. You must be very clear and specific about what this vision is. Ask yourself, “If this were true, what would be the most powerful message I could deliver to my prospect?” “What is the one thing I could say that would make this prospect sit up and take notice?” The answer to these questions should form the basis of your vision statement.

Your landing page should always be set up to deliver the best possible experience for your prospects. What you need to do is make sure that it is not only eye-catching, but that it is easy to read, simple to navigate, and provides all the information that they need. If it doesn’t, it can be a real turnoff for your potential customers. To create a good, quality landing page, you need to do two things. You need to make sure that it is designed to appeal to your visitors. You also need to make sure that it provides them with the information they need to take action and buy from you. When you design a landing page, make sure you focus on keeping it simple, easy to read, and relevant. You should also include the same message in all of your online marketing efforts.

The Landing Page Design Will Look Like Everyone Else’s

That’s sorta true. But it is not necessarily a bad thing. When you create a landing page, one of the biggest mistakes a designer (or copywriter) makes is to try to design a page that will be unique. Unique sometimes can be bad.

In this case, you don’t want your landing page to be a carbon copy of a generic template that’s found on hundreds of other sites.   What that means is your landing page should look different enough from all the other landing pages that it’s doing its job. It should stand out and catch someone’s attention.

It’s tempting to use a generic landing page template that we have found on thousands of other websites. But you don’t want to copy another website. You’re not trying to steal traffic. You’re creating something original. And that’s the beauty of landing pages. There is no one-size-fits-all solution for creating a great landing page.

Your landing page needs to stand out. And it should do that in a way that is appealing to the people who are visiting your site. So, you want to create something that’s unique. You don’t want a landing page that looks exactly like all the other landing pages.

The Landing Page Won’t Reflect your Personality or Specific Messaging

People are more likely to remember a landing page than a business card or direct mail piece. A well-designed landing page will help your brand and its message stand out in a sea of marketing clutter and competing messages. There are two main ways you can use a landing page to make your brand more memorable: by giving it a personality and by using a specific marketing message.

A landing page is an important tool in your marketing campaign. If you are going to have a landing page, you should think about the best way to use it. You can use it to tell your customers about the product you are offering or creating a waiting list for a new product or service that’s coming up.

You can give a personality to your landing page by making it a funny, entertaining, and creative page. It’s a good idea to put some interesting pictures and video on your landing page so it’s not boring to look at.  

The words you use also play a critical part of your landing page.  This is usually were a web designer requests that you (the business owner) provide the copy for the landing page.  Since you’re not a copywriter, you’ll write up the copy based on how YOU see the product and now how your website visitor sees the product.   Usually, a website designer will take your copy and just plunk it into the landing page design whether it’s written properly or not.  

Unless you’ve hired a copywriter or the website designer is providing this service, when writing the copy, put yourself in your ideal customers shoes.  How are they looking at the landing page, do they understand the message your putting across.  Are the images and words being used something they would understand and would it interest them? 

The Website Designer Won’t Understand What Makes Your Business Unique 

One of the biggest mistakes website designers make is trying to apply a “cookie cutter” look and feel to every website and landing page they create. Instead, website designers need to learn about the specific goal of your landing page and what makes your product AND business unique.

To put it another way, a dentist would never understand the unique needs of a furniture retailer, just as a furniture retailer wouldn’t comprehend the needs of a dentist.

Website designs, whether for a full website, one page website or a landing page are very important and they should be done professionally. That being said, I’ve seen DIY websites that were more beautiful and well written than ones from some website designers.

However, you must remember that a landing page is a tool and not a decoration. You should use it to tell a story in a way that the customer will understand.  Your landing page is a living, breathing thing. It has its own life and should be treated as such. A landing page reflects the personality and character of the person who created it. Don’t be afraid to take chances and to be creative. If you do, your landing page will come alive and it will work much better. Also, don’t copy other people’s ideas. Use your own original ideas. This will help your landing page stand out and be more effective. Don’t be afraid to experiment. If you try something new once, it may turn out to be a flop. However, if you keep trying different things, eventually you will hit on something that really works.

Marketing is all about experimenting to see what works and what doesn’t.  

Top 10 Tips for Your Landing Page

1. The landing page is the gateway to your customer’s conversion funnel. It needs to reflect your brand, mission and values.

2. The landing page also represents your business online and is your first impression with customers.

3. Creating a successful landing page can be time consuming and requires patience, skills and experience.  Yes you can outsource this, but you can also build one yourself with some easy to understand training and be 100% in control of the process.

4. Even if you have a website designer build the landing page for you, that doesn’t mean the page is guaranteed to be successful.  The landing page needs to be tested, analyzed and tweaked.  Rinse and repeat many times.

5. Landing pages are often used as a lead generator. They can capture leads directly from a website or inbound marketing.

6. If you outsource your landing page design, be sure you are getting what you pay for and that it’s in writing!

7. Test your landing pages before you launch a full campaign.

8. Landing pages are the first step of any marketing campaign, so get creative!

9.  If your website designer only works with a certain platform and insists that you move your entire online presence to his platform of choice, question his motives.  Ask why.

10.  Learning to build your own landing page by watching YouTube videos can work if you have the time and patience.  If you choose to DIY it, you’ll need to…

• learn the foundations
• know the reasons why things are done a certain way
• understand how to write about your product in a way that will attract customers instead of making them click the back button
• have a mailing list provider setup and be able to integrate a form on your landing page to send leads to that mailing list that automatically sends an email – automation is key!

There are plenty of good reasons to outsource, but “cheapness” is not one of them. Outsourcing the design of your landing page can cost you as much as 1,000 times more (in wasted time) than doing it in house! Don’t let this happen to you. Learn how to create a truly world-class landing page, and you’ll be amazed how much you learn about the whole process being able to make small tweaks every couple of weeks, analyze the data and repeat again.  And all this can be done when YOU want and not when a website designer has time to get to it.  Never mind the costs for making these updates.

Now, I’m not saying there is anything wrong with hiring the right website designer to create your landing page…heck I’ve been a website designer for over 20 years.  What I’m saying is that you don’t have to spend a ton of money to make a landing page when you can do it  yourself and save a butt-load of cash…important if you’re a solopreneur or a new’ish business.

All you need is to learn properly how to make your landing page and even if you outsource any future landing page creations down the road, you’ll know what’s involved and you’ll be more knowledgeable and know exactly what to ask of the website designer and you’ll be able to make your own updates…putting you 100% in control.

I hope this post has helped you realize that you have the power to design your landing page! You can build your own landing page using the knowledge from this brief and then test it.  Or if you choose to outsource, be sure you get what you pay for and that it’s in writing.

To help you get started, click here to learn how to create your own sketch so you can visualize a landing page for your website.