Introduction
Creating a quality landing page is crucial for startups and small businesses looking to drive conversions and capture leads online. Unlike a website's home page, landing pages have a singular focus on getting visitors to convert through a desired action, such as signing up for a newsletter or making a purchase.
Statistics show that targeted landing pages can increase conversion rates by over 400% compared to general home pages. Segmenting traffic allows you to optimize for key customer actions that grow your business.
However, building custom landing pages from scratch can be challenging without technical skills. Coding responsive page layouts and connecting all the required integrations is no easy feat.
Thankfully, dedicated landing page builders have revolutionized the process, allowing anyone to create high-converting landing pages by customizing pre-made templates. Services like Unicorn, Leadpages, and Instapage make landing page creation exponentially faster and easier compared to piecing together manually coded pages and assets.
This guide will cover the must-have features and capabilities to look for in identifying the best landing page software. We'll explore key functionality like drag and drop editors, mobile optimization, built-in A/B testing, form and software integrations, templates and themes, and more. Finally, we'll compare some of the top solutions on the market for startups and small businesses.
Key Features to Look for in Landing Page Builders
The most capable landing page builders on the market all tend to provide a robust set of features to enable easy customization and optimization. Here are some of the essential capabilities and functionality to look for:
Intuitive Drag and Drop Editor
A drag and drop visual editor allows landing pages to be put together by simply dragging, dropping, and arranging elements on the page. This intuitive approach means no coding skills whatsoever are required to build completely custom landing page designs. Top services like Unicorn, Leadpages, and Instapage all incorporate drag and drop flexibility into their page builders.
With drag and drop functionality, it's easy to visually place components like text blocks, images, buttons, and forms anywhere on the page and then tweak them on the fly. Page structure and design can be changed in real-time by simply rearranging elements with a few clicks. For those without coding expertise, the learning curve with a drag and drop editor is typically minimal.
However, it's worth noting drag and drop does have limitations in terms of flexibility compared to full code customization. But for most small business use cases, the combination of simplicity and customization drag and drop provides is ideal.
Fully Responsive Mobile-Friendly Pages
Today, over 50% of all website traffic comes from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. It's absolutely essential landing pages seamlessly adapt on smaller screens to avoid frustrating mobile visitors with a poor experience.
The best landing page software makes it effortless to build mobile-responsive pages that look great on any device. Capabilities like flexible templates and rearrangeable modular content blocks allow sites to automatically adjust layout and sizing for mobile visitors. Top platforms like Unicorn, GetResponse, and Wishpond ensure landing pages display perfectly regardless of whether a user is on desktop or mobile.
Any provider lacking strong mobile responsiveness should raise concerns. Without optimizing for mobile experiences, sites will likely suffer from increased bounce rates as visitors quickly leave pages that don't display well on their devices.
Built-in A/B Testing Tools
A/B testing allows users to set up multiple versions of a page, component, image, or any other element to see which option delivers the best performance and conversions. For example, different headlines, call-to-action button styles, lead magnet offers, or testimonials can be A/B tested to optimize a landing page.
Robust landing page software platforms like Unicorn, Leadpages, and Instapage make running A/B tests simple right from the visual editor without needing to integrate third-party tools or write code. However, it's worth noting basic built-in A/B testing capabilities may have limitations compared to advanced dedicated solutions like Optimizely that provide more powerful multivariate testing and personalization features.
Integrations to Connect Your Marketing Stack
To maximize effectiveness, landing pages should seamlessly integrate with your existing technology stack and workflows. Relevant connections may include email services, analytics platforms, payment processors, CRMs, webinar software, and more.
Top landing page builders like Unicorn, Wishpond, and ClickFunnels offer both Zapier and deep native integrations to easily connect landing pages with hundreds of popular marketing, sales, and analytics apps. Limited integration capabilities are a red flag when evaluating providers.
For example, integrating landing page forms with email marketing platforms like Mailchimp allows you to instantly capture new subscriber data. Analytics tools like Google Analytics can help track conversions driven by your landing pages. And payment systems like Stripe simplify adding ecommerce checkout to a landing page.
Conversion-Optimized Templates and Reusable Blocks
Professionally designed templates and modular content blocks allow landing pages to be assembled rapidly without needing to build everything from scratch.
Services like Unicorn, Leadpages, and Instapage offer extensive template libraries and reusable component collections covering many design styles and niches. Combined with easy drag and drop editing, beautiful landing pages tailored to your brand can be created in just minutes by customizing the pre-made templates.
However, insufficient templates or limited ability to modify their design are worth double-checking. Ideally, templates should be highly customizable but also provide proven conversion-optimized designs to start from. Unicorn in particular provides professionally designed templates specifically tailored for high-converting startup and SaaS landing pages out of the box.
Comparing Top Landing Page Creation Tools
Now let's examine how some of the most popular landing page builder solutions stack up across key factors like features, specializations, and pricing models.
Unicorn
Unicorn focuses squarely on enabling startups and SaaS companies with its intuitive drag and drop editor, library of conversion-optimized templates, and cost-effective pricing plans. Topped off with built-in hosting, a custom domain, and robust integrations, it makes landing page creation fast yet flexible.
Leadpages
Leadpages is highly easy to use thanks to pre-optimized templates proven to convert. However, it caters less directly to startups compared to competitors. Pricing starts relatively high given no free plan exists.
Instapage
Instapage is known for its flexible, modular page builder and advanced A/B testing capabilities. But its extensive functionality can come with a steeper learning curve. Pricing is also on the expensive side, though collaboration features help for larger teams.
GetResponse
GetResponse seamlessly combines landing pages and email marketing into one platform, though email is the primary focus. The tool is very easy to use but no free tier is offered.
Wishpond
Beyond basic landing page building, Wishpond offers a suite of marketing tools for popups, lead generation, and more. However, its broader focus goes beyond just landing page creation.
There are many other options on the market, but this covers some of the most widely used and capable landing page builders available today. Most provide free trials to test out before committing.
Key Criteria for Evaluating Landing Page Software
When researching the multitude of landing page builder options, keep these key evaluation criteria in mind:
Prioritize an Intuitive, User-Friendly Interface
Conducting hands-on tests to assess editor usability and simplicity should be a top priority. Avoid services that require coding skills. User-friendly platforms like Unicorn enable anyone to build custom landing pages through visual drag and drop.
Ensure Strong Design Options for Customization
Beyond nicely designed templates, you should be able to easily customize colors, fonts, layouts, and other styling through the editor. Services that limit design flexibility or heavily promote their own rigid branding should raise concerns.
Review Core Page Building Functionality
Take stock of how landing pages are optimized for visitors. Examine features like mobile responsiveness, loading speed, on-page SEO, security protocols, and built-in analytics. Strong offerings like Unicorn handle the page building fundamentals for you.
Verify Integrations to Unify Your Tech Stack
Assess what integrations are available to connect landing pages with the rest of your marketing, sales, and analytics tools. Closed ecosystems may limit flexibility. Open platforms like Unicorn offer more options to tailor your stack.
Match Pricing Plans to Your Business Stage
Compare pricing models relative to your current revenue and growth trajectory to avoid getting locked into expensive plans prematurely. Lean startup-focused options like Unicorn provide more budget-friendly packages.
Start Generating More Leads with Landing Pages
In summary, dedicated landing page builders make it easy for startups and small businesses to drive results without needing coding skills or expensive developers. Capabilities like intuitive drag and drop editors, mobile optimization, and built-in integrations provide immense value.
When researching providers, prioritize user-friendly interfaces, design customization, and core page building functionality. Overall, solutions like Unicorn allow you to start building high-converting landing pages in just minutes.
By leveraging a robust landing page platform, you can generate more quality leads and dramatically grow your startup. Learn how Unicorn's landing page builder works to get started creating targeted, conversion-optimized landing pages today.
